Clear, beautiful voices rang out in the early morning classroom. Trinity students were chanting an ancient psalm together at Morning Prayer, something that happens every morning. I thought, as I always do, what a wonderful way to start the day together in the worship of the Lord. After the singing, a member of the faculty contributed a devotion, followed by the Lord’s Prayer. These first ten minutes of the school day are precious ones, and remembered as such. Often, years later, when Trinity alumni reminisce about the things they miss about school, Morning Prayer is high on the list. Morning Prayer is something that many alumni want students to fully appreciate while at Trinity. The psalms, prayers and devotions provide a wonderfully peaceful and grounded start to the day in which all are reminded of the sacred and timeless truth and love of Christ. As fellow Christians, and members of the community of learners, the students and faculty gather together each morning to worship the source of Truth, Goodness and Beauty. This is a key priority and a precious tradition of the school.
At Trinity Academy, worshiping together at Morning Prayer is only a part of our shared life of biblical Christian faith. Prayer before each class is another time in which students and faculty join together in community before God, often reciting the Lord’s Prayer or the Doxology, or singing a hymn. Our Christian faith is also woven throughout our curriculum in the way we approach Scripture; biblical texts are chosen and taught as a literary work of divine Truth.
Trinity faculty members are authentic Christians living out lives of faith. The fact that our faculty each have joyfully received the good news of the Gospel shows in their lives. Faculty members, as a condition of employment, unreservedly accept the Nicene Creed as expressing the rule of faith. When I look around our faculty rooms, I know that our faculty is bound together as “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20).
As part of our life of faith together, students are also educated and grounded in the history and teachings of their own Christian tradition. In the ninth grade, students can choose from either Catholic or Protestant doctrine courses. At Morning Prayer, faculty members present devotions from the perspective of their own Christian denomination, while being aware that not everyone in the room shares their particular tradition. It is from such a perspective that others’ denominations can be respected and valued within the overarching perspective of biblically orthodox faith.
Undoubtedly, our living Christian faith set within our own faith traditions is one of Trinity Academy’s richest assets. While grounded and strengthened in their own denominational tradition, students appreciate the depth of Christian friendship and the richness of thought to be found among Christian brothers and sisters of other denominations. Before they enter college and the wider world, students have learned to love their own denomination and yet to appreciate and respect the traditions of other Christians. They have learned how to defend their own particular doctrinal position while maintaining love of their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. They have learned that there is far more that binds Christians together than separates them. And, with such grounding, Trinity students are able to stand strong and unified in their faith amid an increasingly secular and divided world.