"There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written."
During the end of the Lenten season and throughout these first weeks of Easter, I have been thinking a lot about why the Gospel writers included what they did regarding their testimony about Jesus Christ and their belief in Him as the Messiah.
The line above from the conclusion of John's Gospel leads me to believe that each of the four writers have supplied a cliff notes version of all that they saw and heard. They captured the most important, the most amazing and the most memorable events from His public ministry.
That which they included must have been the interactions and occurrences that they thought would best convince others that Jesus was and is the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, the Word made flesh. While I would love to know more about the entirety of Jesus‘s life and ministry, I trust that what has been included in Sacred Scripture stands as the most compelling aspects of His teaching, preaching, and healing.
Like most parts of my life, this reflection from my faith has intersected with my professional ministry. It has caused me to ruminate on what sets of data, anecdotal stories, experiences, and components of our schools are the most important. In other words, like the Gospel writers, and specifically John, we could collect, construct, and analyze many different types and forms of data. Similarly, we could tell volumes of stories about all of the different things that happen in our schools - can you imagine if the walls could talk?!
But, which matter most? What numbers can lead to and/or indicate our success or lack there of?
Which stories convey the identity and values of our communities?
Which experiences allow others to more fully understand what an education from one of our schools entails?
As catholic school leaders, we have the blessing, privilege, and responsibility to discern which numbers matter, which stories have value, and which experiences enable us to be the school communities we need to be. These are the data sets to pull into a dashboard, the stories that we need to tell and tell again, and the experiences we should prioritize and enhance for maximum impact.
As we near the end of this academic and fiscal year, I invite you to consider what you will use to tell the good news of our schools. Let us use the inspiration of the four Gospel writers to purposefully select, craft, and tell the most important parts of who we are.
To drive home this point, think about the Gospel stories recounting encounters with the resurrected Jesus. He obviously appeared to more than just Mary Magdalene, the apostles in the upper room, Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus, and Peter and the apostles on the sea shore. But, these are the encounters selected, the ones divinely inspired and chosen to make our hearts burn, so that we would run away from the empty tomb, to see and believe, to turn around and run back to our call, and to experience the transforming power of Jesus Christ.
Instead of filling books about our schools, write its gospel to ignite flames of faith, to inspire action, to instill confidence, to attract even more to our missions, and to convert hearts to Christ.
