Raising Up Courageous Leaders For Such a Time As This

Thursday, September 11th -Patriot Day and a Day of Remembrance of the victims of 9/11 -was a day of particular heaviness this year - the afternoon prior Charlie Kirk, a well-known and loved Christian and conservative figure, had been assassinated and only a week or two before that, school children were shot during worship at the Annunciation Church in Minneapolis.

Again, we’re faced with the question - what do we do with this? How do we wrestle with the evil we see and experience on a daily basis and hold that God is good.

Mrs. Rebekah Hagstrom, our Founder and Headmaster, spoke with upper school students on Patriot Day (September 11th) about reminding ourselves of the battle between good and evil that has existed since the fall of humankind. Good will win out because God is good. In times like this, we must encourage each other to bring our fear, worry, and anger to God, knowing that while in this world, evil exists and therefore, rather than blaming God, we need to turn to God for our response.

From the very beginning, humans chose to disobey God, and sin entered the world. That free-will to obey or disobey is precisely how evil operates in the world today. 

The recent events have reminded us that we are to be a light in the midst of dark times - a commitment to double down on raising up courageous leaders. To look to Biblical Truth for answers instead of the world.

Recently, Mrs. Hagstrom spoke to the upper school students in light of the tragedy around us.

 

“Remember that you are the light. We talk about you being courageous leaders, there’s a reason we use the word courageous in our body of values. We didn’t just say strong leaders or leaders. So many schools say we’re developing leaders. We add the word courageous. Why do we add that? Because we saw the world that we’re living in and we know that it takes courage to be a Christian leader in this culture because there’s a lot of opposition.

Charlie Kirk was willing to stand on his convictions in front of large crowds of people when he knew there was opposition everywhere. And really, that’s no different than what we’re called to as well. We’re called to be strong minded, courageous leaders in the face of opposition. And that’s one of the reasons why we’re giving you this opportunity to be educated with Christian worldview integrated into everything. We want you to have the tools and the strength to be able to stand up to the evil in this world. 

There’s a verse in Hebrews that is about Jesus, but it can define all of us. It says something to the effect of, “and if he shrinks back, I will be very disappointed in him.” God doesn’t want us to shrink back. He wants us to have confidence. He wants us to be mighty, mighty warriors for him. That’s really the word that we have to be. 

And that’s the other reason that we use the word impact. We want our students to have an impact. Charlie Kirk had an impact. I am going to argue that he may actually have more of an impact in his death even than in his life because unfortunately people don’t always appreciate what a person does while we’re still on this earth. And then when they are taken from us so suddenly and so viciously everybody pauses and starts looking at what they’re saying.

I think that one of the things we can do as a school is recognize all of the amazing work that he did but really, let him be an inspiration to you. Let that be an inspiration for you all to do everything you can to stand for biblical truth in our culture. Because ultimately that’s the answer to all the evil that we see. Biblical truth is the answer to the evil that we see in this world. 

I want to encourage each one of you to be a part of that solution. Take your faith seriously. Love the Lord. Read your bibles. Pray together. Do everything we can to really abide in God so that we can be the ones to be the courageous leaders to fight back against the evil we see in this country and in the world. 

Having said that, I know we have a Turning Point chapter here in this school. I understand that Charlie was supposed to come to MN and our students had plans to go see him. And so that’s hard. That’s really hard. And it hits you a little more in the gut when you feel like you have a kind of connection to someone. 

And so, I pray that all the students who are involved will continue, and in fact, with even more prayer and shining your light brighter. I encourage more students in the upper school to get involved because obviously Charlie’s legacy is amazing and we want to be part of his legacy because it was all about Christ and faith. He would want us to be focused on that.”