Before getting organized, make sure you're clear on what being organized means and how being organized can help you more effectively carry out your mission. 

Take steps to help your students connect what they study and what the Bible teaches. Get started today.

Help your students connect what they study and what the Bible teaches. Ask open-ended questions.

We're looking forward to celebrating Christ's birth, having Caitlin back from college, being together as a family, and eating Christmas pudding! Next week, Kim's students will be giving presentations. I'll be learning about a new standardized test that CAJ might give. What are you doing next week?

Please keep praying:

1. Praise God that we continue to have good health.
2. Ask God for good family time with Caitlin.
3. Ask God to draw Japanese non-Christians to Himself through the Christmas-related events CAJ parents are doing.
4. Ask God to provide staff for next year. CAJ needs teachers (band, home ec, elementary) and a technology coordinator.

We're grateful for your prayers, gifts, and friendship.

It’s 8:20 on a Thursday morning, 10 minutes before class begins. Four 10th graders (an Indian, a Japanese, a Korean, and an American) are talking loudly. So loudly that I’m getting distracted from writing my lesson outline on the board. They are discussing (in Japanese) how to say “9:45 a.m.” (in Spanish). There must be a Spanish test today....
 
I love seeing these diverse students working together. It reminds me that God calls us to have right relationships with Him, others, ourselves, and creation.

Such “right” relationships, of course, don’t always happen. For example, my students sometimes fragment into groups based on language (English, Japanese, or Korean). To encourage my students to value and to have “right” relationships, I had them read Cry, the Beloved Country and focus on God’s peace (shalom). Here’s what they learned:

1. “From now on, I will be quick to forgive....”
2. “In Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country there are characters from all walks of life—rich, poor, important, and unknown. However, they each do what is in their power to help restore the brokenness around them, and this is a powerful message for us today.”
3. “Each person’s actions lay a brick in the bridge we’re trying to build, the bridge we call shalom.”
4. “God is the ultimate source of shalom and without Him, nothing can be restored.... Jesus was crucified…to restore shalom, and He is the first Restorer. After He ascended to heaven, who was going to carry on His mission to restore shalom?…Christians.”

Please pray with me that my students will apply what they learned about peace (shalom) to their relationships.

I tried it. To see the results of my taste test, click here.

Thankfully, my work at Christian Academy in Japan has been going much better than bean-flavored Pepsi tastes. I designed an online school improvement survey that students, parents, and staff took. And I've been preparing for 3 teacher workshops for Nov. 3. The workshops deal with helping students connect what they study and what the Bible teaches and with using assessment results to modify instruction. 

Please pray that as a result of participating in these workshops teachers will be able to more effectively help students learn.

We're grateful for your prayers, financial support, & friendship.

Michael
P.S. Don't forget to see the results of the Pepsi taste test.

How faithfully and effectively do you use your God-given strengths?

Thanks for praying about last week's 10th grade leadership camp! Students learned about leadership, cooked outdoors, enjoyed hiking near Mt. Fuji, and stayed safe from the typhoon! 

Leaders who are focused on their mission do 5 things. To what extent do you do these 5 things?

Praise God that several Japanese women were baptized last Saturday. One shared, "From now on I want to learn more about Jesus' teachings, and worship Him, and follow Him."

Praise God that Kim's students are responding to the questions Kim asks. Here's how 1 student responded to a short-answer test question, "What is the Cultural Mandate?": "The Cultural Mandate says, 'Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it.' We are to develop the social world (schools, governments, families, law, etc.) and use what we can from God’s creation to create culture and civilization."

Praise God that Hitachinaka, a church started by our mission, will go independent on Monday, October 12. 

Ask God to help the 10th graders grow as leaders. During their upcoming leadership unit that Michael helped design, the 10th graders will focus on 4 key questions: How can you be an effective servant leader? What do you learn about God through studying His creation? What is wrong with the world? How can you make a difference?

Reflection is powerful. Reflection helps students to understand concepts, plan projects, and apply a Biblical perspective. Reflection helps teachers to develop curriculum, engage students in learning, and apply what they learned during a Biblical perspective workshop.
 
If you worked at a Christian school, how would you provoke reflection? You could give suggestions. Suggestions provoke reflection, provided they fit the situation and the person is willing to receive them. I appreciate suggestions I receive, but I must admit that sometimes the suggestions don’t fit my situation and sometimes I’m not prepared to receive them. How about you?
 
Instead of giving suggestions, what can you do to provoke reflection? Ask questions. Why ask questions? Because questions are more likely to fit the situation. Because students and teachers are more willing to respond to questions than to suggestions. And because responding to questions involves reflection.
 
What questions do we ask CAJ students and staff? In English 10, Kim asks: Who am I? Who is my neighbor? What’s wrong with the world? What’s the significance of words?
 
When we train CAJ staff, we ask: How can you help students to think effectively? How can you help students to read better? How can you help your students to understand creation-fall-redemption-restoration?
 
When I coach CAJ staff, I ask: What does being organized look like? What helps you pay attention to your goals? What do you want to accomplish in the next month? What excites/frustrates you about your strengths?
 
Provoke reflection. Ask 1 person a good question. Today.


Thanks for praying:

1. Praise God that M, a CAJ graduate and Kim’s former student, was baptized on August 23.
2. Praise God that new staff and students have made a good transition to Japan/CAJ.
3. Ask God to help us ask questions that help CAJ students learn and CAJ staff be productive.
4. Ask God to give us the health and energy we need to serve effectively at CAJ.

Christian Academy in Japan is off to a good start this school–thanks for praying.
Kim's 54 English 10 students grappled with how an author's perspective impacts what she writes. Michael helped teachers identify the technology they need to help kids learn. We celebrated the completion of the first week of school by going out to eat.

Caitlin's had a safe flight to Toronto—thanks for praying.
Due to a typhoon on Monday, Caitlin's flight was cancelled. So, she flew on Tuesday. Since then, Caitlin's been getting ready to serve as a resident assistant. She starts classes next Wednesday, is majoring in social work, and brought back some very cool erasers to show her friends. We had good family time with her this summer, already miss her, and are looking forward to seeing her at Christmas.

Please keep praying:

• Praise God for a good start to school at Christian Academy in Japan.
• Praise God that Caitlin had a safe flight to Toronto.
• Ask God that we'd be healthy and have the energy we need to serve.

We enjoyed being together as a family, eating watermelon popsicles, going to the beach, reading a lot of books, and preparing for this school year.

What are we doing this school year?
We’re supporting the spread the Gospel by serving at Christian Academy in Japan, a K-12 school for missionary kids. Kim teaches English 10, serves as English Dept. chair, and trains teachers to help students read more effectively. Michael coordinates school improvement, trains teachers to help students connect what they study and what the Bible teaches, and coaches CAJ staff & missionaries.

How can you pray for us?

1. Praise God for smooth staff transition for CAJ's new staff members.
2. Ask God for a good first day of classes at CAJ. Classes begin on Wed., August 26.
3. Praise God for good family time with Caitlin.
4. Ask God for a safe trip/smooth transition back to college for Caitlin. Caitlin flies to Toronto on Mon., August 31.

Watch kids perform "Jesus Loves Me" on Pentecost Sunday at a church in Tokyo, Japan. Our mission started this church.

On your 4-minute trip to Japan, you'll meet Kazu and hear his testimony, attend mini CAJ teacher workshop led by Michael, and get the flavor of Japanese culture from seeing the kinds of ads posted on trains  and in train stations. To take your 4-minute trip to Japan, just click the 3 links. Enjoy your trip!

Thanks for praying!

• Praise God that Kim's work on her English 10 curriculum went well. She was able to further emphasize creation-fall-redemption, particularly in her introductory unit.
• Ask God to help new CAJ staff and students make a smooth transition to Japan/CAJ. New staff orientation begins Monday, August 17. Classes begin Wednesday, August 26.

We're grateful for you prayers, gifts, and friendship.

Here are the 5 new tutorials:

1. Explore the Biblical perspective teacher training standards
2. To learn more about developing student objectives, explore these 7 questions
3. To learn more about using assessment, explore these 12 questions
4. To learn more about using questions, explore these 11 questions
5. How can you pursue a growing relationship with God?

To see additional tutorials, click here.

What have you been doing this summer? We we've been staying cool by eating ice cream and sampling green, shiso-flavored  Pepsi (slideshow). Kim's been working on lesson plans for English 10, and Michael posted an online tutorial for CAJ teachers on making effective Biblical perspective assignments.

Thanks for praying!

1. Ask God to help Kim effectively revise her English 10 curriculum. She's working to further emphasize creation-fall-redemption.
2. Ask God to help members of a house church network to apply their July 25 training on sharing the Gospel. (Michael helped plan the training.)
3. Ask God to help new CAJ staff and students make a smooth transition to Japan/CAJ.

Help your students connect God's world, God's Word, and their lives.

If you want to get your goals done, pay attention to them.

Keep in mind that organizational change is both uncomfortable and doable.

Leaders empower others. A key way leaders empower others is by asking questions.

We live in Higashi Kurume, and we serve at Christian Academy in Japan (see the “A” on the map).


View Larger Map

Here’s a description of the June 27 gathering for house church members that Steve Weemes led. Steve is one of the missionaries that Michael helps through coaching/consulting. Michael helped Steve plan the gathering.

Imagine that you’re serving a house church. It’s challenging work. To do that work, you need ETA:

• Encouragement
• Training
• Accountability to apply your training

It’s June 27, and you’ve traveled 2 hours to attend an ETA gathering. You’re hot and tired. You’re sitting in a circle with 9 other Christians involved in house churches. And you’re glad you came because you’ll get to talk with others about evangelizing the lost. Read More...

Do you want to help your students connect what they study and what the Bible teaches? To value those connections? And to get feedback you can use to modify instruction? If so, give your students a Biblical perspective assessment.

Reflecting on 4 questions can help you figure out how much time you should invest in each of your goals.

On Father's Day, Cailtin and Anneke gave Michael 2 pet beetles named Mike and Bob.

• Tuesday, Michael made a 1-minute video entitled "To Close the Gap, Do 4 Things."
• Wednesday, we prepared our milk cartons for recycling.
• And on Saturday, Kim is playing in the 2nd round of the national volleyball tournament for neighborhood teams. There are 9 players on each side.

Please keep praying:

• Praise God that Kim's summer school students got better at writing persuasive essays. Thanks for praying!
• Praise God that Michael was able to help a missionary develop a workshop for a network of house church leaders. The missionary is doing the workshop on Saturday.
• Ask God to help new CAJ staff to make a smooth transition to Japan/CAJ.

To close the gap between the words of your mission statement and the reality of your current situation, do 4 things: focus on your mission, empower others, work smart, and pursue excellence.

Three new tutorials have been posted on Close the Gap Now:

1. Lead by asking questions: Want to more effectively lead by asking questions? Then take this self-assessment that covers beliefs about leadership, inquiry skills, and how you use questions. After taking the self-assessment, you’ll design action steps.
2. Empower others to strategically pursue God's calling: Your coaching client wants to clarify and strategically pursue God’s calling. That’s great! How can you empower your client to do this? By asking these 10 questions.
3. Energize, focus, and unleash Christian school staff: As an administrator at an international Christian school, you know that staff play a vital role in carrying out the mission. Because your care about your staff, want to be good a steward of the staff God has provided, and want your school to carry out its God-given mission, you ask yourself, “How can we energize, focus, and unleash staff both personally and professionally?” 

To explore these and other tutorials, click here.

Use assessment to help your students value and get proficient at connecting what they study and what the Bible teaches.

Kim is playing in a volleyball tournament, and I plan do to some reading and maybe some yardwork. Not sure what Caitlin and Anneke are planning to do.

If you were in Tokyo this Saturday, you might hear some English words that have different meanings...

• Sweat: A sports drink that I like and that some people think tastes like sweat.
• Member change: A substitution in an athletic event.
• Paper driver: A person with a driver's license who doesn't drive.
• Service: A free gift a store owner gives to promote customer loyalty, for example, a rice dumpling.

Thanks for praying for us:

• Praise God for providing full staff for next school year.
• Praise God for a good finish to the school year, including a fun graduation ceremony on June 5 and effective school improvement meetings on June 8.
• Praise God for good family time with Caitlin.
• Ask God to help Kim as she teaches 9 second language students how to write effectively. She will be teaching June 15-26.
• Ask God to help Michael as he leads a mission meeting on Monday and does coaching/consulting Tuesday-Saturday.

We're grateful for your prayers, gifts, and friendship.

If you want your organization to more effectively carry out its God-given mission, increase your investment in your staff.

Make sure you schedule time for your key priorities before you schedule time for other things.

Michael, what are you feeling encouraged about?
I’m encouraged that staff members at Christian Academy in Japan are reporting that my coaching helps. A school principal told me that my coaching helped her clarify her thinking, test her ideas, and get the confidence she needed to try new things.
 
And I’m encouraged that teachers are continuing to apply the Biblical perspective training I provided in the fall. They are identifying Biblical principles they want their students to learn, documenting those principles in the curriculum, and helping students learn them.
 
Kim, what are you encouraged about?
My English 10 students wrote essays on who they are spiritually, culturally, and personally. I was encouraged by the results:

• “Being a student at Christian Academy in Japan has transformed me spiritually. Although my family is not Christian, being in a Christian environment has led me to become a Christian.”
•  “I thank God for His allowing me to live overseas; I see it as a blessing. I think it was His plan all along to reduce the shyness in me by thrusting me out into the unknown so many times.”
• “As a human, I am a reflection of God and therefore have value (Gen. 1.27, Matt. 10.31). As a Christian, I am a child of God (Eph. 5.1). These truths are liberating because they mean that I do not need to focus on obtaining value and love—I already have them.”

Michael, what can we pray about?

1. Ask God to help us finish the school year well. Classes end on June 5, and meetings end on June 12.
2. Ask God for good family time. Caitlin is back from college, and we’ll be together until August 31. 

We're doing well:

• Caitlin is home from college.
• Kim's English 10 students (including Anneke) are enjoying Shakespeare.
• No school on Monday & Tuesday (national holidays).

How can you pray?

• Praise God that Kim's students wrote effective essays on who they are spiritually.
• Ask God to provide teachers for next year (secondary science & math, elementary ESL).

Thanks for being involved in God's work in Japan.

It's important to pursue your God-given calling. Reflecting can help. Here are 7 questions you can reflect on.

Make sure you ask God for help, define mission achievement, measure mission achievement, and take action.

What did Kim's students learn during the poetry unit?

• “God values poetry….the Bible is full of poetry...that uses a lot of parallelism.”—Korean student
• “Poetry is an important part of many cultures.”—Japanese student
• “Poetry can evoke unwanted and possibly harmful emotions.”—American student

How are participants in Michael's 2/27 workshop applying what they learned?

• “I am starting to reevaluate the things I am doing to see if they fit with my God-given mission.”
• “Today made me think about how to relate my day-to-day activities with God’s calling.”

Thanks for praying!

• Praise God that Mari will be baptized at a mission post on April 5.
• Praise God that the March 2-3 accreditation visit went well. The visiting team was pleased with CAJ's progress.
• Praise God for providing teachers for next year (Bible, learning resource center). Ask God to provide teachers for next year (secondary science and math; elementary classroom and ESL).

Here's lesson model that uses best practice to point students to God.

As I look out at my class, I see a roomful of kids whom I hope will understand how the Bible connects with every area of life, including the literature they read and the deep human questions the authors talk about. On my last test, I saw this happening.
 
Here are sample student answers to the final question on my English 10 short story test: What else did you learn this unit that you did not have a chance to show on the test?

• “Both Christianity and existentialism believe that people have the desire to find meaning. In Christianity, we find the true meaning in God and find joy, but in existentialism, people find their own meaning and find joy in that process. I thought it was sad that not all the people have hope and that not all people can feel true joy.”
• “I learned from Leo Tolstoy’s ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need?’ that if we are selfish and greedy, it might seem like you’re ‘living the life’ at the moment, but in the end you’ll lose everything (the important things) you have.”
• “I learned a lot about decision-making and finding my place here. We all get left out and feel like an outsider, but I know that I still belong to God.”
• “I learned that just like ‘The Guest’ we all have to make decisions between two things. I learned that I have to pray to God before choosing the decision by myself because without God’s power, we are all weak and cannot make a decision we won’t regret.”

Thanks for praying:

• Praise God that Kim’s English 10 students continue to connect what they study and what the Bible teaches.
• Praise God that we’ve been healthy all through cold/flu season.
• Ask God to help the 24 participants in Michael’s 2/27 workshop use their learning to serve well.
• Ask God for a full staff for next year. CAJ needs teachers (secondary Bible, science, and learning resource center).

Ours went well:

• Mon-Tues: School vacation! We spent time with our mission.
• Wed: Michael worked at CAJ on curriculum and with a mission on strategic planning.
• Thurs: Kim's students studied Hebrew poetry.
• Fri: We had rainy weather.

We're grateful for your prayer support:

• Praise God that Michael's Feb. 18 work with a mission on strategic planning went well.
• Ask God to use Michael's 2/27 productivity workshop at CAJ to help the 27 participants to serve more effectively.
• Ask God to provide teachers CAJ needs for next year (science, learning resource center).

Thanks for being involved in God's work in Japan!

Want to increase your effectiveness? Do right things, then do things right.

Here's what's going well for us:

• Kim is excited that a student wrote, "Christians know that we will face death at some point, but we should be honored to live such a life God has given us. Life has worth because we are made in the image of God."
• Michael developed 3 sets of questions CAJ teachers can use to deepen their understanding of Christian education (course, subject, and creation-fall-redemption-restoration).

Please keep praying:

• Praise God that we've been healthy all through cold/flu season. Please keep praying.
• Ask God to provide the teachers CAJ needs for next school year (science, learning resource center).
• Praise God that CAJ teachers are applying the 18 hours of Biblical perspective training Michael provided. As a result, CAJ students are better connecting what they study and what the Bible teaches. 

We're grateful for you prayers, financial support, and friendship.

Here's what a student wrote about Kim's English 10 class:

"One class that helps me think like a Christian is English class. We have a lot of group assignments. When we give out ideas people around me give opinions from a Christian prospective. Just from that, I learn something about Christianity. Also, we always pray in English since it's my first period in school."

Thanks for praying!

• Though it's cold/flu season, we've been healthy. Please keep praying.
• Kim's English 10 students did well in grammar.
• Michael’s strategic planning work for CAJ and 2 missions is going well.

To help your students better connect what they study and what the Bible teaches, DEAL with student learning needs:

• Define the student learning needs.
• Explore the how you can respond to the student learning needs.
• Act.
• Look at the results.

Kim, how did you see God working in 2008?
Japanese were baptized, including 7 adults at Kurume Bible Fellowship and Mrs. Tanzawa (Kim’s former English conversation class student). Our mission post at Higashi Kawaguchi continued moving toward independence (scheduled for this spring). And CAJ students continued applying a biblical perspective. Thanks for praying.
 
Michael, what did you and Kim do in 2008?
I provided biblical perspective training for teachers at CAJ, coached over 20 CAJ staff and other missionaries, helped 2 missions with strategic planning, facilitated a network of cell church planters, and published articles in Christian School Teacher and Japan Harvest.
 
Kim helped her English 10 students connect the literature they studied and what the Bible teaches, further developed her curriculum, served as English Department chair, and led a CAJ teacher workshop on reading strategies.
 
What has God been teaching you?
Kim: To trust Him with my kids’ lives—especially Caitlin’s, as she has gone off to college. Caitlin’s just as much in God’s hands when she is far away from me in Canada as she was when she was near me in Japan.
 
Michael: To be patient—at times I want God to work faster, and I’m learning that God’s timing is perfect.