To the Jim Elliot Community—
This last spring was perhaps the most difficult time our community has faced. We all were left reeling with the changes at hand, including the resignation of the school board president, the firing/non-renewal of four teachers, and the voluntary departure of four more. Much of our frustration, sadness, confusion, and protest was put aside in order to celebrate the graduating class and welcome the new administrator. However, doing so has left many of us, including the authors of this letter, Adam Beach, Carolyn Callis, and Jim Sawyer, without the opportunity for a proper good-bye to the community that we have loved and served for so long. For many reasons, we intentionally withheld public comment or explanation so as not to damage those teachers and families who remain. Now that a new 2014-2015 school year has begun, the intent of this open letter is to say good bye, offer a few parting remarks, and to challenge and bless the Jim Elliot community.
First and foremost, we want to express our deep gratitude for the 37 years that we have collectively invested in Jim Elliot. We celebrate along with you the selection of JES as one of America’s “Top 50 Christian Schools.” We each can say that some of the most cherished memories of our lives will always be our time with JES students. Former JES administrator, Nancy Keeth, used to say that “everyone—students, teachers, and families alike—has the opportunity to thrive at JES”! While we were never a perfect school, we were always a family who learned together, cried together (including the loss of four students and a teacher who died in our midst), laughed together, celebrated together, and essentially lived life together in a very real way. We are so grateful for our many years of thriving in the JES community.
We also are grateful for leadership over the years who have believed in us and given us unique opportunities to teach and to innovate. Their leadership provided a cove of security and encouragement from which we were able to grow, create, and take risks that would have been improbable in other contexts. We have grown personally and professionally under their care. Thank you.
Finally, we have cherished the faculty and staff of JES. Over the years, the school has employed a tremendous team of people from whom we have learned more than we can express. We have been a family in many respects. While the friendship and support that we have with one another extends through this time of change, we will deeply miss serving alongside them on a daily basis.
Certainly we will miss the people that make up the JES community most of all. However, there are elements of the historical identity and mission of JES to which we must also say farewell. We fear that these central elements of identity and mission are deeply threatened currently, if not already betrayed, by the ongoing decisions and direction of the governing board. These are the unique qualities that have shaped and distinguished our school through the last 23 years:
- A missional school community that empowers teachers to create curriculum, classrooms, and relationships which challenge students to look for the fingerprints of God throughout the world, embracing and following Christ who precedes us there and who invites us to join Him. A school community that prepares kids to live out the Gospel by moving in love towards others in the real world, rather than a community that merely seeks to protect kids through a spirit of fear, self-righteousness and moral superiority. (John 17)
- Classrooms where students and teachers alike embrace the spirit of intellectual challenge and spiritual rigor. Classrooms that embody the idea that “All Truth is God’s Truth,” regardless of where that truth may be found (including textbooks that are falsely called “secular”). Teachers and students boldly engaging ideas, art, history, science, literature, culture, etc., in order to find God’s truth, beauty, and goodness in the wonders of His creation. Refusing to limit God’s revelation and embracing a learning environment that values asking better questions rather than regurgitating memorized answers. Empowering teachers who, in partnership with parents, see education as more than delivering information. (Romans 1; Psalm 19)
- Grace for teachers to meet and authentically walk with students where they are in their faith (or doubt) and not expect students to have the perfect “answers.” Hope that students will encounter Jesus for themselves, not just as an extension of their parents’ or their teachers’ faith, even though such hope requires the real risk that students may not individuate their faith now or in the ways we expect. Affirming the reality that God loves all of us where we are and invites us into a loving, personal relationship where we are transformed increasingly into his likeness. (Phil 2)
- A truly diverse and broadly evangelical community that represents the rich and varied body of Christ. A theology and Christian practice that makes room for one another and draws us all closer to Christ, rather than puts exclusionary boxes around one another based on theology, semantics, practice, maturity, or background. We are left deeply troubled and confused by the dismissal of teachers and the alienation of families based upon alarmingly narrow theological judgements that attack the historical diversity of our community. The historic JES was always a “big tent” approach to Christian Education, embracing the historical and theological diversity of what it means to be an Evangelical while still holding in creative tension various approaches to God and faith including (but not limited to) Reformed, Charismatic/Pentecostal, Lutheran, Orthodox, Catholic, and Anabaptist traditions, nurturing the opportunity for diversity and dialogue on many levels! (1 Corinthians 12 and Colossians 3)
- Christian formation that is innovative and holistic in nature— engaging the mind, will, and heart. Understanding that faith is a lived journey that we are on together. Modeling a life lived engaging and teaching the Bible, not as a handbook of disembodied “correct” answers, but as the holy, inspired, relevant, challenging written words that point us to the Living Word and author of our faith, Jesus. We must insist that Biblical literacy for its own sake is an empty pursuit if and when it causes us to miss or replace Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life. Practicing holistic discipleship in classrooms that study Holy Scripture in the context of the breath and richness of Christian tradition and outside of the classroom through honest conversations and innovative experiences. (John 5)
- Responsibility to one another—faculty, administration, parents, and board. Believing that we are on the same team and finding unity with one other even in difficult situations. Transparency in decision making and respect in our interactions with one another at all levels. Choosing love over fear, relationship over condemnation, and honest communication over guarded statements and half-truths. (Ephesians 4; 1 Corinthians 13)
We have treasured these qualities that have made Jim Elliot home for us professionally and personally. However, we believe that the judgementalism, divisions, agendas, and mistrust that have marked these last few years represent a real threat to the continuing viability of JES. We encourage all of the stakeholders of the historic JES—colleagues, alumni, past and present families, students, and leaders and finally the current governing school board—to initiate and sustain honest, transparent, and serious conversation about our beloved school. We ask each of you to join us in raising difficult questions and listening to one another carefully. The names of Jim and Elizabeth Elliot represent a Christian witness of radical love, bold engagement with unchurched cultures, and fearless risk-taking for the cause of the Gospel. We fear that the current path away from the distinctive qualities of JES may lead to a brand of Christian Education that forms students in a spirit fear and moral superiority and keeps them from engaging a world desperately in need of Christ’s love. If JES takes this path, it will betray our namesake and deeply threaten our historic mission and identity.
Even as we personally are unable to remain a daily part of the Jim Elliot School community, our prayers and love remain with you. We hope that collectively the JES community will insist upon a reckoning and reorientation aimed at remembering and restoring the Christ-centered mission and identity of JES. Thank you for the opportunity to serve you for so many years.
It’s with sorrow and hope we part ways,
Adam Beach
Carolyn Callis
Jim Sawyer
