Thank you to all the families who came out last Friday and played with us for Trivia & Board Night. Special thanks to Ben Stam for being our Quiz Master and congratulations to Team Educated Guess for their win. For those that were not able to stay till the reveal, we were *shocked* to discover that Mrs. Mouw “assigned too much homework” in Chapel Hall during this round of Immersive Clue: Trinitas Edition. We hope to see you all in the spring for the Gym Night edition of Game Night!
Thank You! — Game Night and Winners
November 17th, 2023Artist of the Quarter — Van Gogh
November 10th, 2023Our artist of the quarter is Vincent Van Gogh. Our students learned about several different Van Gogh paintings on Monday, including the only one he ever sold. To learn more about it and his career, you can listen to this lecture by Russ Ramsey, a pastor, author, and art-appreciator (start at 31:30 to hear about the statistics of Van Gogh’s life).
Composer Spotlight — Mozart
November 10th, 2023Our Composer Focus for November is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. You can listen to the Best of Mozart together in the car or at the dinner table, while doing chores or relaxing by a fire, or as you get ready for school or bed.
Trivia & Board Game Night
November 10th, 2023Did Mr. Wagner hog the microwave in Chapel Hall? Did Mr. Marth try to move a rook diagonally in the Media Center? Or perhaps, Ms. Mehari actually let the students have fun in the coffee klatch? Join us TONIGHT to find out during Trivia & Board Game Night. Doors open at 5:30 and families are invited to bring along a picnic dinner and some of their favorite board games for an evening of gaming. Team Trivia will start at 6:15 and then several areas will be available for playing favorite board games as well as some student led events such as Fishbowl, Robo-Rally, Cat in the Corner, World Cup, and more!
CCE Corner – Taking God’s Word to Heart
November 2nd, 2023
Mrs. Tellinghuisen returns to the CCE Corner to share about last week’s chapel guests, her seminary program, and the importance of hiding God’s word in our hearts.
There’s a delicate balance to be found between the task of learning and the joy of learning. These two things are not mutually exclusive, but they don’t always overlap. Sometimes the learning process is hard and doesn’t leave us feeling joyful. We may, even in moments of frustration and impatience, have a sense of satisfaction that we are growing in knowledge (hopefully wisdom too). But we might not call that joy.
This is food for thought in a classical school that has high standards and lofty expectations. We ask a lot of our students. (Case in point, how many middle schoolers do you know who study Greek?) Each day at Trinitas is full, for our curriculum is full. And each day, a certain amount of work needs to happen. Facts must be taught. Concepts must be applied. Assessments must be given. There are learning tasks that must happen in a classroom. Of course, how that happens makes all the difference. The goal of teaching is transformation, but we all know that knowledge alone can’t transform hearts.
The challenge for a Christian classical school is even greater. We have Bible classes. We have Bible memorization assignments that, yes, are graded work. But even if we know that memorization is important and good for our kids (good for adults too), we may wonder—Is this assignment being presented as a joy as well as a task? Is it being received as a joy and not just a task?
Trinitas Book Club: Nourishing Narratives
October 27th, 2023
Please join us for a book discussion of Nourishing Narratives: The Power of Story to Shape Our Faith on Wednesday, November 1 at 7:30 p.m. Author, Jennifer Holberg, will be joining us!
Sharing the Stories of Scripture
October 13th, 2023Parents are invited to a special chapel on Wednesday, October 25. Our guest speakers will be Jeff and Karen Barker, who taught at Northwestern College in Orange City, IA, for over 30 years. Jeff is a playwright and served as the theater department chair as well as director for the school’s Drama Ministries Ensemble. Karen is an actor and, in addition to teaching, served the college as dean of arts and humanities. They are currently leading a Doctor of Ministry cohort at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, and one of their students just happens to be our Latin teacher!
The Barkers are masterful storytellers who love to share Bible stories through different forms of enactment. We look forward to their visit! They will be conducting a workshop for the 7/8 class that morning as well.
Altus – Happening Now
September 29th, 2023Trinitas 7/8 students are in the wild! The group left yesterday for a backpacking trip with Altus Adventures. Mr. Marth and Trinitas alumna Maria Poortenga are helping to lead the trip. This annual event is always a wonderful time and place for goal-setting, bonding, worship, and backcountry skill building.
Donuts with Dads Recap
September 29th, 2023Thank you to all the dads and VIPs who joined us on Wednesday for donuts, beverages, and morning prayer. It is good to start the day with full bellies and even better to begin with satiated souls. It was a blessing to be able to spend time with all the dads and other important people who continue to bless our students and our school. You are a blessing to our students and to Trinitas.
CCE Corner – Persistent Prayer, part II
September 28th, 2023As mentioned in part I, the classical Christian tradition teaches us that friendship with God is humankind’s highest good and that cultivating this friendship requires a life of prayer. How then should we pray? Together and alone. Through the words of others and in our own. We have a God who created and sustains the universe and yet also hears each of our prayers. How blessed are we when in our solitude and without concern for the form of our words we offer our adoration and thanks, make our confessions, plead our requests, and express our emotions. We find our model for this intimate individual and spontaneous form of prayer in scripture. The Psalmists poured out their hearts to God. And we know from his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane that our Lord poured out his. But private prayers are not the only soil in which friendship with God grows.
In his book Prayer, George Buttrick draws attention to the act of praying together, saying that it “should be stressed in a generation which easily neglects and discredits public worship. For a man to argue, ‘I do not go to church: I pray alone,’ is no wiser than if he should say, ‘I have no use for symphonies: I believe only in solo music’” (35).* To this I would add that praying through the words of others might also need to be stressed in a generation which admires the “authentic” and disparages the rote.