Walking through South Christian High School in the main corridor if you look up, you will see several panels. Some are blank, others have students work on them. The panels are reserved for teachers to nominate work students do to be posted. The work has to reflect one aspect of the whole story of the Bible: God’s work of creation, the occurrence of the fall, Jesus’ work of redemption, and the work God invites us into today restoring the world. One panel contains many self-portraits and is in the creation section. As we start a new year, it is important to remember that each person in this community, student, teacher, parent, and grandparent was knit together in God’s image. The artist statement below the panel reads, “Portraits” — Oil on Canvas / 2019.

Portraits are about what we look like. A really good portrait says more about a person… it is a glimpse into the soul. The goal of this portrait assignment was to embrace who we are as children of God and to be introspective about how that plays out in daily life. We considered questions like: how am I beautiful, even in my brokenness? What does it mean to be an image-bearer? How can I embrace the “real” me? We thought about how our stories are still unfinished, but God is restoring all of them! Starting from a place of humility, we are better equipped to tear down barriers to relationships and build compassion for others while unifying our heads and hearts. In this, we are participating in God’s story.

The mission of South Christian High School is to equip students to live Christ-centered lives and serve God to their greatest potential. As we are launching this year, I am particularly excited to see how each unique student blesses us with his or her gifts from God.

—Jim Peterson, Head of School