I believe in education!

Commencement Address
by Everett Piper President, Oklahoma Wesleyan University

In a recent address to the graduates of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, Dr. Piper began by saying, "I believe that the best education is one which is tested by time, confirmed by experience, validated by reason, and ultimately grounded in Scripture. "

Dr. Piper also made several other "I believe . . ." statements to his listening audience, and now, by extension, to his reading audience.

I believe that the academy is the gate keeper of our individual virtue and our national conscience.

I believe that all intellectual and moral training must be anchored in our Creator who endows us with the rights of life and liberty and that if we build education on any foundation but Him we will lose our conscience and shortly thereafter lose our freedom, our joy, and our ability to pursue happiness.

I believe that our future lies in the hearts and minds of today’s students and that all cultures are but one generation away from irrelevancy and extinction.

I believe that what is taught today in the classroom will be practiced tomorrow in our churches, our companies, our communities and our country at large.

I believe in absolutes and that if we don’t teach them, learn them, and cherish them that we will be cast about by every wave of human desire, political promise, and selfish ambition.

To read the rest of Dr. Piper's address and his challenge "to believe", please click here to visit the Oklahoma Wesleyan University website.

Oklahoma Wesleyan University, located in Bartlesville, OK, is a four-year Christian university of the liberal arts and sciences that is fully accredited by the North Central Association. OWU also obtained professional accreditation with the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), and the International Assembly of Collegiate Business Education (IACBE). It is a member of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities as well as the Council of Independent Colleges and Universities and the Association of Oklahoma Independent Colleges and Universities.

Teacher Resource - World Missions Curriculum

This resource came across my desk today via a Blog Alert and we thought it was worth sharing with our MACSA teachers! Please check it out and leave a comment with your thoughts! Thanks, Nancy R. DeHaan, MACSA Executive Director

Teaching With God's Heart for the World
By Ann Dunagan

This is the two-volume world missions curriculum (with over 500 pages) Ann wrote years ago to assist homeschooling families and Christian teachers (in both churches and Christian schools) to impart a fervent heart for world missions in children. The curriculum includes day-by-day teaching plans, missionary highlights, motivational mission stories, crafts, songs, prayer projects, and hundreds of ways to incorporate a passion for the lost into nearly every subject (including Bible Study, Family Devotions, Reading, Writing, Geography, History, Art, Science, and even highlights for Math).

The curriculum presents a "whirlwind tour" of God's enduring passion for missions - all-the-way through world history and all-across-the-globe. Using unit-studies, this curriculum is created to be used over a one-year school year, although it can be easily adapted to be used throughout two years. It can be used as a core curriculum guide (for elementary children), or as a supplement to another curriculum. It is written especially for elementary grade levels, but it can also be used for the whole family to study missions together.

Click here for a review on TWGHW by the Old Schoolhouse Magazine

As far as we know, this two-volume curriculum, Teaching With God's Heart for the World, is no longer in print, and there are only a few used copies available for purchase (see eBay or Amazon). Currently, Harvest Ministry is considering republishing this material so it can remain available. Until then, we have decided to offer this curriculum on-line in individual unit-studies (completely FREE of charge!!! as download pdf files) to print from your own home. We hope they will be a blessing to you, and to your children, and to the LORD!

Click here to review and/or download the files for this curriculum.

Reaching the Whatever Generation

It’s NOT TOO LATE to attend the MACSA Administrators’ Summit on Thursday, December 4 at Lancaster Bible College.
http://www.macsaonline.org/228919.ihtml

Please contact Marie Young at the MACSA office if you haven’t sent in your RSVP.
· Phone: 610-364-1801
· Fax: 610-364-1809
· Email: myoung@macsaonline.org

9:30 am - 2:30 pm (Note the change in time, especially the earlier start time)
Topic: Reaching the "Whatever" Generation
Speaker: Rev. Steve Cornell, Millersville Bible Church (Millersville, PA)

Cost: Complimentary for one person per school, $10 for each additional person

We Gather Together

Thanksgiving is tomorrow! Many of you will be traveling "over the river and through the woods" to be with family and friends - while others may be just headed "up the road apiece" as my grandmother says.

Prayers for safe travels and a blessed time of family and fellowship -and thanksgiving - during the Thanksgiving holiday! Amen (and pass the creamed onions!)

We Gather Together

Text: Nederlandtsch Gedencklanck; trans. by Theodore Baker
Music: 16th cent. Dutch melody; arr. by Edward Kremser (1838-1914)

Click here to listen an arrangment by pianist Michael Faircloth

used with permission of MDF Music

We gather together
to ask the Lord's blessing;
he chastens and hastens
his will to make known.
The wicked oppressing
now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to his name,
he forgets not his own.

Beside us to guide us,
our God with us joining,
ordaining, maintaining
his kingdom divine;
so from the beginning
the fight we were winning;
thou, Lord, wast at our side,
all glory be thine!

We all do extol thee,
thou leader triumphant,
and pray that thou still
our defender wilt be.
Let thy congregation
escape tribulation;
thy name be ever praised!
O Lord, make us free!

Now Thank We All Our God

Words: Mar­tin Rink­art, cir­ca 1636; trans­lat­ed from Ger­man to Eng­lish by Ca­ther­ine Wink­worth, 1856.
Music: Nun Dank­et, at­trib­ut­ed to Jo­hann Crü­ger, 1647; har­mo­ny by Fe­lix Men­dels­sohn, 1840



Click here to listen.



Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.


O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!


All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.

Sing to the Lord of Harvest

Words: John S. B. Mon­sell, 1866.
Music: St. Edith, Justin H. Knecht, 1799, and Ed­ward Hus­band, 1871
Alternate Tunes: Blairgowrie, John B. Dykes, 1872 or Lancashire, Hen­ry T. Smart, 1835

Click here to listen (Lancashire)

Sing to the Lord of harvest,
Sing songs of love and praise;
With joyful hearts and voices
Your alleluias raise.
By Him the rolling seasons
In fruitful order move;
Sing to the Lord of harvest,
A joyous song of love.

By Him the clouds drop fatness,
The deserts bloom and spring,
The hills leap up in gladness,
The valleys laugh and sing.
He filleth with His fullness
All things with large increase,
He crowns the year with goodness,
With plenty and with peace.

Bring to His sacred altar
The gifts His goodness gave,
The golden sheaves of harvest,
The souls He died to save.
Your hearts lay down before Him
When at His feet you fall,
And with your lives adore Him,
Who gave His life for all.

To God the gracious Father,
Who made us “very good,”
To Christ, who, when we wandered,
Restored us with His blood,
And to the Holy Spirit,
Who doth upon us pour
His blessèd dews and sunshine,
Be praise forevermore!

Come, Ye Thankful People, Come

Words: Henry Alford, 1844.
Music: George J. El­vey, St. George’s Wind­sor 1858

Click here to listen.

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is God’s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow grown.
First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take His harvest home;
From His field shall in that day all offenses purge away,
Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;
But the fruitful ears to store in His garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring Thy final harvest home;
Gather Thou Thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified, in Thy garner to abide;
Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.