Our staff core value, “cultivate a sense of belonging for everyone” really comes from what wanting to live into our name – Guelph Community Christian School.
We don’t just want to be a school that has community in its name but we want to embody the word – to be an authentic community – where everyone one belongs and everyone is invited to contribute.
Our theme for the 2022-2023 school year during which we determined this core value was “We in Christ, One Body, Many Parts.” This theme was right from Romans 12, “In Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
That year was my first at GCCS and also for my two children, Abigail and Noah who started in Grade 3 and Grade 5 respectively. We, along with my wife, Sara, received not only a warm welcome but experienced a genuine enfolding and continued hospitality throughout that year and really since then as well. We felt a sense of belonging – that others wanted to know us and also that they invited us to know them.
Later that school year we created and hired for a Director of Community Engagement position (Ellie Burgess), to further deepen our efforts in building a strong community in which – not only does everyone belong – but everyone is invited to contribute their gifts in ways that bless the community.
The following school year we started a Belonging Committee – which had a clear mandate, “to develop and grow a sense of Community Belonging at GCCS.” Its mandate defined that more specifically by stating, “At GCCS, Community Belonging means striving to love and respect all people in a world of diversity and difference. We do this through honouring the image of God in everyone through our words, actions, policies and procedures; reflecting Christ in all we do within the Christian learning community at GCCS.”
Since then, our community has grown not just in the number of families but also in the rich diversity of families who come from a variety of backgrounds and who also took different paths to arrive in our community. Yet regardless of these differences, we continue to endeavour to be “one body, many parts.” We work for unity not uniformity and we continually seek ways to honour and celebrate the beautiful diversity God has created within us and all around us.
Speaking of community-building opportunities to celebrate both our unity and diversity, please join us next Saturday, November 29 for our Around the World Dinner and Auction. Please RSVP here to join us. I hope to see you there!