Newsletter Articles - A Different School for a Different Purpose

Kristy Adjei

Academic Dean

Trust and Obey

By: Kristy Adjei

Then in fellowship sweet

we will sit at His feet
Or we'll walk by His side in the way
What He says we will do,

where He sends we will go
Never fear, only trust and obey

This coming May, we will sing this classic hymn with fifty-three students to start every school day at North Star Classical Christian School. It will be the third year in a row that we will sing the hymn as a group. Last year, we sang with thirty-seven kids, and the year before, in 2021, we sang with seventeen kids.

Approximately four years ago, I had a very unique experience where I felt like God very clearly and directly caught my attention and told me to start a school. While I knew definitively this was what I was supposed to do, I did not respond with prompt obedience. Rather, I responded with all of the reasons why I was the wrong person for the job. Besides, who would be the teachers or the students? Where would we even meet? How would one even go about starting something like that?

After a while, when the prompting did not subside, I decided that I could just start by asking others to pray about it. Honestly, I felt a little embarrassed actually saying the words, “Will you pray about something for me? I think God wants me to start a school”. I did muster up the nerve to ask a few close friends. I think I was hoping that the idea would kind of fizzle out or just go away. It seemed overwhelming.

Over time, the idea did not go away, and in reality, it just intensified and was confirmed in unexpected ways. I just could not shake this prompting. At that point, it became a matter of obedience..

Although I was dragging my feet, God was patient with me. I felt like God was telling me, “Don’t worry about doing the whole huge thing. Just do the next thing.” He proceeded to give me some very specific “next things” to do. Through all of this, I did have one request back to Him, which was that I needed a ministry partner. I knew that God had provided Moses an Aaron. So, I prayed for an “Aaron,” and God provided Julie Dockery.

With the accountability of a ministry partner, we decided that if God was calling us to do this, we needed to be all-in. We devoted the next four months to getting the school off the ground. Our thinking was that if this idea really was of God, then within a year, He would confirm it and momentum would pick up. If it was just of our own doing, we prayed that God would put up roadblock after roadblock and just have it go nowhere. We frequently prayed that “unless the Lord builds the house, those that build it labor in vain.” We did NOT want to labor in vain. Then we got really busy just continuing to do all of the “next things”.

It has been a long series of “next things” for the past three years and there have been many ways God has been confirming the work. Confirmations fell into several main categories of needs: faculty, families, finances, and facilities.

Time and space limitations prevent a recounting of all the stories of God’s provision in these areas. Many of them should be considered miraculous. These provisions have been ways that God has seemed to have handed us the next piece of the North Star puzzle at just the right time. This has included some really weird-shaped “impossible” pieces! Because of this, I am convinced that North Star is God’s story. There have been too many things that have been beyond any of us, and bigger than us.

This past week at North Star, we got to share this story with students, faculty, and families on a special day called Ebenezer Day. This is a day set aside from all academic work to make sure that everyone in the North Star community knows the story, and has the opportunity to praise God from whom all blessings flow. We had a “3rd Birthday party” for the school, and students took part in activities to celebrate the North Star story as well as worship God for the way He is continuing to build this school, and how He somehow chose all of us to be a part of it.

At times, we stop and think, What if we had said “NO” to this work? This has not been easy, and it has not been comfortable. Had we said, “no”, we would have missed out on being part of an amazing God story. We would have missed out on the opportunity to have our faith grow in a very tangible way. We would have missed out on the opportunity to experientially know the truth of the song Trust and Obey - “While we do His good will, He abides with us still and with all who will trust and obey. Trust and obey, for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey”. We are glad that we gave God our “Yes”! What is YOUR “yes”?

Culture of Collaboration

By: Kristy Adjei

“One aspect of the joy of learning is addressing this concept of humility. As human beings, we are limited, frail and fallible. Frequently we attempt to cover this up, to hide what we truly are behind the smoke and mirrors of our expertise and accomplishments. True human growth, though, only occurs when we uncover our true nature and deal with it. As an individual confronts an area of lack, there is a transformation that can occur, whereby something about us becomes strengthened.” This is a quote from the June 16, 2020 issue of Educational Renaissance. Upon first reading, perhaps you thought that it was addressing the attitude which should be held by students. However, you are encouraged to read the quote a second time with the perspective of a teacher in mind. This quote highlights one of the goals we have at North Star Classical Christian School, which is to establish a culture of collaboration between teachers. In addition to teaching evaluations and classroom visits by an administrator, teachers at North Star are encouraged to visit colleagues and offer “warm” and “cool” feedback. The visit can be to a teacher in the same field of study as the visiting teacher, or, it can be in a totally different field of study. For, example, in recent weeks, a Latin teacher and a music teacher both visited math classes. Opening our classrooms up, allowing ourselves to be observed, and being receptive to warm and cool feedback, takes a lot of humility, but it helps us all grow in the intellectual virtues of humility and broad thinking.

Going a step further, throughout the year, faculty members at North Star have taken this practice of collaboration on the road and visited several mentoring classical Christian schools in the area that have opened their doors to us. Most recently, a team of five teachers and a board member attended an Auxilium in Maryland, visiting a well-established classical Christian school on the cusp of completing its 29th year of operation. These are all opportunities, for us, as teachers, to learn from others, grow in the art of teaching and leading our students well, and ask the question, “Is there a different way or better way to do this?”

Our hope is that all of these practices would establish a culture of collaboration at North Star. We, teachers, have a lot to learn, and much to offer one another as we all grow in our vocation. If this is established as the culture at North Star, this disposition will inevitably trickle down to the varying ranks of our students. Perhaps this may offer a guard from all of us thinking that we are ever above learning and growing more in our area or field of study.