Last night, the Calvary Chapel Christian School presented their Christmas program of lights, sounds, dance, and music. Dave Messenger did the writing, recording, and arranging; while Jennell Faulker directed the program. All the kids sang and performed fabulously. Pastor Scotty Brown provided the comic relief for the Holly Jolly Medley.
Here is the gist of the musical. A teenage girl is stuck on herself. Me. Myself. And I. All she can think about at Christmas time is an I-phone, an I-pad, etc. When shopping at the Grand Teton Mall in Idaho Falls, she listens to the Calvary Calvary Chapel Christian School sing the “Holly Jolly Medley”. Eventually in the mall, she discovers some magical mannequins and the mall janitor who is actually an angel. It is a 3-D experience, better than Avator, and yet hopefully not in how many look at Christmas in 3-D (Disbelief, Doubt, and Distrust) . The angel transports her back to Christmas Past and the manger scene. The girl comments, “This is worse than a Motel 6 with no continental breakfast.”
Then the angel transports her to Christmas Future and “Gift Giving Day” where everything is mechanical, legislative, predictable, and measured. But the whole, lifeless scene breaks out into a “Sing We All Noel Rap” (lyrics by Mackenzie Jones). The girl gets arrested for bringing Christmas into the scene. This is all good. The girl’s attitude changes through the help of the angel and the mannequins. And the musical climaxes with the power of Jesus, who was born to save. The program closes by all in the auditorium singing, “Come, Let Us Adore Him.”
Pastor Scotty Brown preached the heart beliefs of the school. They believe in the Creator God, not evolution! They believe in marriage between one man and one woman for life! They believe that children are not born “naturally good”; but that they can be redeemed through the love, power, and the shed blood of Jesus Christ! Pastor Scotty declared his agreement with the old song, “On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.” It is the desire of Calvary Chapel Christian School that all the children build their lives on the Lord Jesus Christ! And Him alone!
We thank God for the ultimate gift.
(Special thanks to Harbor Freight, Kmart, Home Depot, Johnson Brothers, Ace Hardware, Home Fabrics, and Mary Kay for props.)
Jesus in Idaho Falls 
* There is no contradiction between creation as the act of God and evolution, the process by which God diversifies biological creatures: those who live by the text may well die by the text.
* If human nature and the rest of creation, however corrupted by sin and death, is not ontologically good, then there is nothing to redeem.
* One cannot build one’s life on Jesus Christ “alone”. My relationship with Jesus is bound up with my relationship with my brothers, sisters, and parents in Christ as well as with the rest of humanity and all of creation: “He who says he loves God and hates his brother is a liar.”
* I have problems with macroevolution.
* If “naturally good” means to not recognize the undoing of mankind by the first Adam’s sin and then rejecting being born with a sinful nature, I disagree. We do need to be born again.
* If the creature is to be included with Christ as being the cornerstone, we have a major mess.
If “one cannot build one’s life on Jesus Christ ‘alone,'” then Paul had a real problem – “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ,” (1 Corinthians 3:11). It sounds to me like Pastor Scotty Brown and the staff at CCCS are trying to teach their students how to build on the same foundation as Paul’s. I praise the Lord for schools like that, and Canaan Christian Academy (where my daughter attends), that have managed to keep that focus (by the grace of God) in a pluralistic society.
But, of course, FHB, when Jesus appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus, Jesus identified himself with the members of the Church whom Saul was persecuting such that Jesus said that Saul was persecuting Jesus Himself. Therefore, St. Paul understood that to speak of “Christ alone” is not to exclude our relationships, as I said, with our brothers, sisters, and parents in Christ. Because we are “members of Christ,” we are also “members of one another”.