☀️A Smarter Sun
Friday, March 8 - 2024 Week 10
Good afternoon, Marysville. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. What are YOU doing?
☀️Comeford College Changing Course(s)
Comeford College exists to raise the intellectual abilities of the Christian community in Marysville.
As an institution we are learning (in order) to love the Lord with all our mind. Jesus commanded it, and living for Him in this world requires us to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. That takes sacrifice. We ourselves are living sacrifices, and we should be smarter sacrifices.
In the fall of 2020 the college started with a scope and sequence aimed at a four-year, Bachelor of Arts degree. But, for now, that's not putting our best on the table. (And, in case you don’t already know, the Sun is written by me, Sean Higgins, who is also a founding board member of Comeford College. I care about this.)
So in addition to our Comeford College Community Choir (which continues to just ROCK on all levels—see some of their previous performances on youTube), we will be changing courses and offering three other classes in the fall of 2024.
Here’s the TL;DR descriptions:
Jealousable Lordship - This is the grammar level of the program, the foundation that makes the other classes make sense. The bottom line: the Word has made the world. It’s crucial to read the Word, know how to read the Word, and then desire the blessings of doing the Word. We plan to offer this every year.
OmniSteroids - This is sort of the dialectic, the walls of the house, how things fit together. It shows how the Bible has made the world, how the world got to be what it is, what the Bible is good for. There are three stages which we call Tenebras (meaning “darkness,” covering the time from Creation to the Incarnation), Lux (meaning “light,” from the New Testament to the Reformation), and Modius (meaning “basket,” from the so-called Enlightenment to today). We plan to offer one section every year on a rotating basis.
Pedagogy - This is sort of one type of rhetoric, or, one of the avenues to express and transfer the worldview that comes from the Book and the Great Books. This is a one year class, but offered on a regular basis.
Our Courses
Here are some longer descriptions for those still interested:
📚Jealousable Lordship
Jesus is Lord.
This is every Christian's confession, not only necessary and basic, but in it is a comprehensive worldview and motivation for every day’s work. Jesus is Lord of each member of His body, and He is Lord of creation and Lord of history and Lord of every king and empire and business and school, even if He is not acknowledged as such.
His Lordship gives us freedom and responsibility to learn and love all that He made and maintains. If He cares about it, we are allowed to care, and we should keep increasing our capacities to care. Because His interests are comprehensive, our interests must also increase (incrementally even though finitely) as we pursue Christlikeness.
As we live in light of His lordship, learning to observe everything He's commanded, we believe He blesses us. Those blessings include a promised inheritance, but they begin here and now with all that we receive by faith. Those blessings make us jealousable. Salvation has come to the Gentiles so as to make Israel jealous; our jealousable lives will be used by the Lord to bring about the next steps in fulfilling His covenant promises.
This class will exalt the truth of Jesus as Lord, affirm the grammatical-historical reading of and confidence in His Word, and press the implications of His lordship into our daily decisions and work for our families, churches, and city.
This class would be IDEAL for every Christian, especially for those who know that God has called them to live on earth for more than simply evangelism.
📚OmniSteroids
We love books, and especially the books that made Western Civilization great, at least as it used to be. Perhaps they can do it again.
We also love much of the Omnibus collection from Veritas Press, "a Great Books curriculum for grades 7–12 that teaches students the lessons from the past in order to live in the present." Students at Evangel Classical School work through the Ancient, Medieval, and Modern periods of history two times over the course of six years.
Still, that only allows for a survey of some of the best lit to shape human culture.
OmniSteroids is the next step, both in terms of deeper dives into some of the curricular cream, as well as more muscular discussions, arguments, and assignments.
This class will strengthen the student's grasp of individual books as well as strengthen the student's ability to reject so much relativism and sentimentalism and socialism and weaksauce-ism spewed out in our current media streams. They will gain confidence to read and write and build stuff much better for the rest of their lives no matter their vocation.
This class would be best for students who have finished the primary Omnibus coursework and are ready to work even harder to grasp the great books.
Even MORE it would also be IDEAL for adults who did NOT do this reading, who lament that they did not get this education, and who may even be parents trying to provide it for their kids (whether at home or through ECS or another classical school).
The actual book list would vary depending on the year and the teacher.
📚Pedagogy Prep
One of the most important vocations is that of a teacher. The Lord requires parents to teach their kids with diligence that the Lord is God, the Lord is one, and that we all must love the Lord with all our heart and soul and might and mind. The next generation must be raised in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Whether or not that education takes place at home or at a school, education from God's Word in the name of Jesus Christ is crucial.
God as the creator of all things who pronounced that what He made is good, and God the Son who took on flesh and then rose again after crucifixion, must NOT be taken for granted in any of our learning.
Our Christian community needs more explicitly Christian teachers, teachers who understand the skills necessary to develop lifelong learning as well as the content that best equips their students. Again, whether homeschooling or at a Christian school, a parent or an employee, effective pedagogy must be learned.
Many of us are trying to give an education we didn't receive. It's time to study more about what that education looks like and gain confidence to provide it.
This class will include a reading list as well as regular interaction with skilled teachers who will share their knowledge and provide sharpening feedback as everyone iterates toward excellent pedagogy.
We’re Serious
We expect students will need to work approximately two hours outside of class for every hour in class. Most of the work will be reading, with some writing, but especially the Pedagogy class will have other projects.
Learning requires sacrifices, and so we’re also planning some serious celebrations of progress. We will have a program to commence the year and seek the Lord’s blessing, and we will have another program at the end of the year, something like a jealousable barbecue, where will will recognize and give certificates to those who complete the courses. Our certificates won’t count as transferable credits (at this point), but they will be worth putting on a resume. More importantly, we will have increased in our abilities to discern what is good and acceptable and perfect before God.
To those who complete the full program (one year of Jealousable Lordship, all three OmniSteroids years/levels, and the year of Pedagogy Prep) and either are or may be hired to teach at ECS, we will count it on our pay scale as equivalent to a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Dates and costs will be decided soon. If you have questions (or comments), I’d be glad for you to email me.
☀️Around Town
The Marysville City Scene E-News is out for March, and it’s FULL. See it here.
☀️Coming Events
Coffee Klatch with Mayor Nehring - Monday, March 11, 5:30pm at the Civic Center. See more information here.
“Weird, Wonderful, and Worrisome Objects in Washington State’s Museums” - a talk by Harriet Baskas, Monday, March 18, 6:00pm at the Marysville Historical Society. See here for more info. I mean, who knows what counts as worrisome these days.
2024 Raggant Fiction Festival: Till We Have Fiction - Saturday, March 23, 9:00am. Tickets are on sale through Monday. Last week’s Sun said more about the value of the festival.
☀️Friday Fun
To thine own grammar be true.
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