Dear Fellowship Families,

Today is Field Day for the elementary division and it’s such a blessing to see our school community come together for another memory-making experience.  The young ones are so excited and hopeful.  We’re “this” close to the end of this school year and there’s much for which to be grateful.  The fact that we’ve been in person and together all year is one of those blessings.  

In this week’s Friday Reflection, I want to introduce a word or term that may be new to some as it relates to children and their development.  It is important to be cognizant of the fact that the senses play a major role in the process of “imprinting.”  This idea conveys that an event or experience has an indelible influence on a person’s mind, and, in our context, on our children’s minds.  

God designed our senses to take in and make sense of the world around us.  To enjoy the pleasures He designed for us in the proper ways and at the proper times.  As the adults in our children’s lives, it’s our responsibility to ensure that whatever is imprinting our children’s minds is age appropriate and aligns with God’s character.  

I imagine Proverbs 22:6 is a verse you know well and cling to as you walk along your parenting journey: “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” As much as we might try, we can’t control the outcomes of our children’s lives.  What we can control is how we train them: according to God’s ways and paying attention to their individual bents.   In your efforts to train your children up in the way they should go, you’ve enrolled them in a covenant Christian school and likely have an active church life and prayer life at home. You surround your children with peers and adult mentors who hold the same Christian values. You are intentionally seeking to imprint God’s attributes and ways on your children’s hearts and minds and praying that they will not depart from the path He’s laid out for them. 

Even as we fervently try to protect our children’s hearts, we live in a world that seeks to distract us and our children from the path of righteousness. We are broken people living in a broken world and our children are at risk of being exposed to experiences that may not align with God’s character.  So, what happens when a child hears, sees or experiences something that he/she lacks the proper context or maturity to be able to process in a healthy and biblical way? It is our job as parents to engage in an honest conversation to help provide age-appropriate understanding, rooted in God’s Word. 

Parents, please be encouraged. You are doing a great work! The imprints you are making now will be what produces the spiritual fruit you see later. I sincerely thank you for trusting Fellowship with the opportunity to partner with you in this endeavor to train children in the way they should go. We soberly accept this responsibility, and it is at the core of everything we do, from prayerfully evaluating new hires, to choosing curriculum, to coordinating experiences, to facilitating age-appropriate conversations that hopefully imprint your children with God’s Truth. We are honored to support you as you raise the next generation of Christ followers. 

Striving to steward well, 

Dr. Kathryn M. Teston 

Head of School