At John Knox Christian School we used ReFrame as a professional development tool for our staff and teachers. Whether working in the business office, the special education department, or the classroom, all participants affirmed that they benefitted from the time we committed to this series.
As teachers in the process of considering the effectiveness of our Bible curriculum, we needed an accessible resource that would inspire us to elevate the quality of how well we understand and convey the overarching stories of Scripture. ReFrame did not disappoint; it motivated a desire to teach the biblical stories so well that, as with the disciples walking beside Jesus on the Emmaus road, the truths of Scripture cause our students’ hearts to burn within them. ReFrame content continues to provide momentum for the ongoing task of remapping our Bible curriculum.
The series also provided tools to address the sobering recognition that within the context of a Christian school, we risk becoming comfortably irrelevant to society. Are we teaching our students to retreat from or to engage in culture? Does our telling of the biblical story hold up or collapse within the context of the modern stories shaping contemporary North American culture? Are the truths of Scripture inspiring our students to participate in God’s priority of restoring broken facets of his creation? Are we teaching Bible stories or are we teaching our kids to live biblically?
ReFrame articulates well how Israel’s narrative foreshadows Jesus’s narrative, and how knowing these connections helps us find our location in the timeline of God’s story. In considering the shaping of a personal identity, ReFrame contrasts shifting modern options with God’s rock-solid invitation to receive a secure identity in Christ.
Our staff members are grateful for broader glimpses of how Jesus is at work in the world. The people featured in each episode live in many different vocational and cultural contexts. ReFrame captured the stories of individual people creatively supporting God’s ongoing priorities of reclamation. Glimpses of God at work in far-flung places inspired a collective sense of joy and celebration, and because God’s priorities are simultaneously expansive and mysteriously personal, all staff members were affirmed in their vocations as being meaningfully connected to Christ’s priority of redeeming all of creation.
Story by Wendy Perttula
