“What
does it mean to be an Episcopal school?” We hear this question
often. At St. Andrew's, we live out our Episcopal identity in five
ways.
We
love.
We believe that God calls us to love. And because we view each of
our students as a child of God, we care about them not merely as
students who need to pass their courses and get on with life, but as
complex human beings whose minds, bodies and spirits need to be
nurtured and supported because they are God’s hope for a future
generation. The love we practice as an Episcopal school is not a
sappy, sentimental, or superficial love, but a love that reveals
itself in sacrifice, patience, truth-telling and, to quote St. Paul,
a willingness to build one another up and to bear one another's
burdens. It is a love that both sets expectations and practices
forgiveness, each in equal measure. In a phrase, we care deeply for
each other. As an Episcopal school, we place love at the center of
our life together.
We
worship.
Each week we come together for chapel. The purpose of chapel is not
to make Episcopalians out of everyone; rather, our conviction is that
our young people (and our old people!) will grow spiritually if we
balance the hectic pace of school life with a weekly rhythm that
includes pause, prayer, and reflection on those things and those
relationships that matter most in life. Chapel is about making time
each week to thank God for what we have, to hold up in prayer each
other's needs and concerns, to sing in joy and celebration for the
blessings of this life, and to share stories of meaning and purpose.
Perhaps most importantly and most counter-culturally, chapel
is where we regularly remember to be mindful of the presence of
something larger than ourselves.
We
welcome.
Just as love of neighbor is one cornerstone of Episcopal identity,
hospitality to the stranger is another. We strive to be a welcoming
place. Whereas some other religious schools want everyone to believe
more or less the same thing, Episcopal schools are intentionally
diverse. We do not insist that our way to God is the only way. Far
from feeling threatened by those from other faiths, we welcome their
perspectives and know that we are better for their presence. We
invite all who attend and work in our school both to seek clarity
about their own deepest beliefs and to honor their convictions,
whatever they may be, more fully and faithfully in their own lives.
Having said that, our desire to be welcoming and inclusive does not
mean that we abandon or shy away from our Episcopal identity. We
believe that authentic interfaith conversation is most fruitful when
each of us is clear about, and true to, who we are. Our Anglican
tradition is a beautiful and rich one that we are eager and committed
to share. But in sharing it we strive mightily to be as graceful and
inclusive as we can to make room for all in our community.
We
serve.
Service is at the heart of the Christian life and is another
hallmark of Episcopal identity. We serve not out of some altruistic
attitude of noblesse
oblige,
but from a deeper place: we serve out of a conviction that we find
our true identity as God's people precisely when we abandon our
self-centered agendas to encounter and serve the other. In serving
the other we learn that both the server and the served are
transformed in unexpected and wonderful ways. Indeed, we learn that
in serving the other we more often than not meet God. This is why
service-learning is at the center of our curriculum. Through
service, our students discover not only that they can change the
world, but that their service and those they serve change them for
the better as well.
We
question.
We cherish the life of the mind. We do not see faith and reason as
opposed to one another. Ours is a faith that seeks understanding.
We are eager to question and to explore the most fundamental
questions in life. As an independent Episcopal school, we enjoy the
freedom and exercise the responsibility to engage our students in
talking openly about God and the good life. We welcome seekers,
doubters, and even skeptics into the fray; not so that we can
proselytize them, but because we trust that if we build our community
on open, honest, inquisitive, careful and respectful questioning, the
truth will emerge and all of us will be enlightened as a result. Our
aim is not to shelter our students from a sometimes hostile and
skeptical world by indoctrinating them with a blind faith, but to
equip their minds with the skill and their hearts with the desire to
find meaning, to claim their own spiritual identities, and to
articulate their convictions with a balance of clarity, generosity,
and humility.
We
love. We worship. We welcome. We serve. We question.
These five
habits of heart and mind are at the core of who we are as an
Episcopal school.