This is a busy week at Westminster Catawba Christian School.  We have been planning for our ACSI/AdvancED re-accreditation site visit for almost a year now, and the team has finally arrived.  As I write, there are team members meeting with various stakeholders as well as observing classrooms.  They are asking lots and lots of questions.  They are taking pages of notes.  They are digging into areas of strength and weakness.  And, they are doing all of this for OUR good – for the good of WCCS – and for the good of the Kingdom!  They desire that WCCS be all that we can be as a God-honoring Christian school.  I am so appreciative of this team and look forward to seeing how God will use their time here to grow our school.

I have thought a lot about what is next.  How will we respond to all that this team shares with us???  It might be tempting to highlight their commendations and downplay their recommendations.  It would likely be easy to take their report, put it in a nice binder, and add it to a bookshelf.  We might want to compare our results to some of our competitors hoping to have additional data for marketing strategies.  But, none of these will actually better our school.  For us to get better, we must have ears that hear coupled with a teachable spirit.  We must be willing to learn ourselves – just as we desire our students learn from our teachers.

The book of Proverbs speaks to this in many ways and I have included just a couple below:

** Proverbs 9:9 – Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.
** Proverbs 12:1 – Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.
** Proverbs 13:18 – Poverty and disgrace come to him who ignores instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is honored.

My prayer today is that, when the visiting team shares with us what they have learned and observed, we would really listen.  We need to be wise and teachable so that we will get better (paraphrase of 9:9).  We need to gladly accept and heed correction (12:1 and 13:18).  Would you join me in this prayer today – for ALL of us???  Pray that we would be open to the teaching that will come our way, that we would grow from it, and, in the end, become more like Jesus!