LEAven Blog

     When August rolls around, things start to heat up both figuratively and literally.  August is when Lutheran School teachers are at school doing what they always do; they get things together in preparation for another year of teaching and learning.  There is always a great sense of anticipation and everyone feels just a little hurried and, sometimes, harried.  It’s the time when the faculty, administration, and staff are in constant motion toward the goal of starting another nine months of teaching, learning, parent conferences, testing, grading, rehearsing, coaching, and doing all the thousand things that make up a school year.  This is the time that we reconnect with each other.  Students, after the summer vacation, reconnect with their classmates; teachers reconnect with parents and fellow faculty; parents reconnect or meet with new faculty members, and so forth.  Amid the start-up chaos, there is one connection on which everyone needs to focus – the connection that we have to Jesus.

     This year’s National Lutheran Schools Week (NLSW) theme is, “Connections.”  The theme is based on John 15:1-5, where Jesus says He is the “true vine” and that we are His branches.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.  Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches.  Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (Emphasis mine).

     Jesus uses powerful metaphors to describe His relationship (connection) to us, and our connection to Him.  This metaphorical language is something that children, especially younger children, will need help to understand.  Here we have an opportunity to remember our connection we have to Jesus in our baptism.  In our baptism, we became His “branches,” grafted to Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Because of our connection to Jesus, we will “bear much fruit” as we “abide in Him” and He abides in us.

     With all the hustle and bustle that comes with the opening of school, you may not have had the time to think much about this year’s NLSW (Jan. 23 – 27, 2024).  I encourage you to go to the NLSW web site and look at the free, downloadable resources at, https://www.lcms.org/lutheranschoolsweek.  You will find everything you need to promote the 2023-2024 NLSW and to make the “Connections” theme a weekly part of your school year. 

     Over the last eight years, I have been privileged to write the NLSW hymns.  The last three years I’ve written a hymn for younger children and one for older children/adults.  Under the NLSW hymn resources you will find a lead sheet, full music score, and the printed text of the hymns that includes the Bible references for each stanza.  Please use these hymns as teaching tools during your music and religion instruction and in school chapel services in age-appropriate ways.  Send copies of these hymns home with your students so that parents can use them at home with their children.  Use them in Sunday worship (perhaps as a communion hymn) so that when NLSW arrives, people of all ages can sing them with both their hearts and minds.

     May God richly bless you and your students in this school year as help them to connect to our Lord Jesus.

I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also;

I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. 1 Corinthians 14:15