(by Geoff Brown)

When Destine, my youngest daughter, was in first grade, she had Mrs. Noland as a teacher.  Thank God.  Noland saved my parenting bacon on more than one occasion.  (It was shortly after Noland’s year with me as a parent that she retired.  To this day, in spite of whatever you might hear Mrs. Noland say to the contrary when she subs on campus, I maintain that the two events are wholly unrelated and the timing is completely coincidental.)

On one particular occasion, we were sitting at the dinner table, when little Destine pops up and says with a sense of urgency, “Dad, he’s coming back!” I recall sitting there dumbfounded, racking my brain for who “he” might be, where it was that “he” went, and what this could all mean.  I came up completely blank.  It must have shown on my face because Destine continued, “Dad, are you listening to me?  He’s gonna be here soon and we need to get ready.”

“Destine,” I said, attempting not to betray my ignorance, “what do you mean?  Who is coming back?”

Destine was incredulous that her dad didn’t get it.  “Jesus, Dad, Jesus!  There’s going to be a trumpet!  And, bunches of angels will be singing!  And, the clouds roll back and there’s Jesus, calling us home.”

It was then that it occurred to me that, by the time I got around to my third child, I may have neglected to mention some of the more critical concepts in scripture.  Like, for instance, the second coming of Christ. That will be, after all, kind of a really big deal.  Hindsight being what it is and whatnot, I probably should have mentioned it to her.

Now, should the story end there, all would be well enough.  Noland saved the day.  Again.  But, the story doesn’t end there.

Destine’s older sister is named Emma and, at this time, she was in seventh grade.  As fate would have it, that was the year she learned to play the trumpet.

Emma’s a very clever girl.  This past month, she became Dr. Emma Melton, having graduated from Liberty University College of Medicine.  Perhaps, however, too clever.  Because, during this dinner conversation, we should have noticed that her eyes began to sparkle as she hatched a plan in her too clever noggin.  That same night, around midnight, Emma snuck out of bed, grabbed her trumpet, and headed out the hallway.  There, she blew that trumpet so loudly that it was several days before my heart resumed beating with a regular rhythm.  And, yes, Destine came running from her room, convinced that this was the night that the Great Prophet Noland had foretold.

There are probably many different points that can be drawn from this story and all but one would be pretty unflattering to the Brown family.  So, the one point that I will bring forward is this:  As parents, we need help.  It’s a really big job.  And, one that we don’t want to blow.  There’s a lot of stuff that we have to remember to tell our children.  For example, if the Creator of the Universe plans to come back, we should mention that point specifically to each of the children.

I recently had two toilets installed in our home and, given that these are the only two toilets in our home, I recognized that this was a job that I didn’t want to mess up…kind of needed to make sure it was done correctly the very first time.  I had no problem calling a guy that knew more about toilets than I do.  So, why am I so hesitant to admit, when the stakes are so much higher than making sure it all flushes down and not on to my bathroom floor, that I could use help with my kids?  I am thankful for folks like Mrs. Noland who serves alongside me to support my family and yours.

Today, we are launching our annual Crusaders Charge into Summer Reading campaign.  Each year, we choose a book or passage of scripture and work through it, all summer long, as a community.  This summer our book is “Raising Kids for True Greatness” by Dr. Tim Kimmel.  For me, it is a personal favorite and a book that I have come back to time and time again over the years.  I am looking forward to processing this book together as a Crusader community via two channels.  The first is the school’s “Kingdom Culture Conversations” podcast.  In this forum, we will be discussing parenting perspectives and principles with members of the faculty and staff as well as the team from the ministry which spawned the book, Gracebased.  On our second podcast, Off the Page, Chris Gardiner and I are going to take a weekly deep dive into each subsequent chapter with an eye on drawing out usable applications.

Again, this parenting journey is not easy and there are a host of surprises around each corner.  And, so many questions.  For example, how long should you ground a seventh grader if they blow a trumpet in the hallway at midnight?

Geoff Brown is the Superintendent of Northwest Christian School located in Phoenix, AZ. Northwest Christian School is one of the largest private Christian schools in the state of Arizona and the only ACSI Exemplary Accredited school in the state.

This post is sponsored by NCS Online. NCS Online is a fully online K-11th grade Christian school providing an online education that is rigorous, affordable, and rooted in Biblical worldview. To learn more about NCS Online, visit NCSonline.org.