Friends who used to play and study together, and moms and dads who used to work closely with colleagues, and families that used to worship as members of a congregation are now distributed to their various homes. Perhaps, more than ever, the question of community comes to the fore.

Definitionally, of course, a community is a group of people who have common rights and privileges, or common interests, who live under the same laws and regulations (see Webster’s 1828 Dictionary). Functionally, however, I consider community to be the sense that people have when they are joined together in common purpose with people who love and support them.

The families of Whitefield Academy are such a community. The essence of being a Whitefieldian is not found in a cold commercial transaction between parent and institution, rather it is discovered wrapped in the warm covenantal joining together of hearts and minds with a common purpose, “…to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him…”

Distributed as we are, this is a time for maintaining the fellowship of the saints of God. Our children continue to learn together, continue to grow in virtue together, and continue to be “knit together in love” (Col. 2:2). It is adorable to see the joy I see in the faces of our students peering into their cameras every school day as we join together as a school community via Zoom to read a Psalm and to pray. I have been blessed to hear of classes and families linked through video conferencing, not only for classes but for fellowship and fun. These moments of connectedness are vital for us as expressions of the common privilege we have of being Whitefieldians, of being yoked together in this wonderful joint enterprise of classical Christian education.

One Whitefield mother of two recognized the importance of community in a recent note:

Thank you for everything you and all the staff and teachers are doing to make this Whitefield at Home time successful and meaningful. We couldn’t be happier to be part of this community anytime, but never more happy about it than in this time. 

Whether it’s attending chapel live every morning with 100 other families, creating virtual happy hours with the other second grade moms, or trading library books between porches, Whitefield’s sense of community continues through the small acts of its many members. Continue on in this hard work of maintaining community; we surely have and surely will continue to see fruit.