Reflections on Baccalaureate tagged: , , ,

Reflections on Baccalaureate

Posted by in News & Culture

graduation_hats_offMy youngest child graduated from high school last Friday.  It has been a week of celebrations.  Baccalaureate was a week ago Sunday.  Tuesday night was the Drama Awards Banquet.  Friday night was the actual Commencement ceremony.  Saturday night was another banquet: our church celebrated  all the graduating seniors in the Youth Group.  Yesterday morning, the graduates were presented to the congregation and the sermon was aimed directly at the students.

Kimberly’s graduation was very different from mine.  Partly because much has changed in the 31 years since I graduated from high school.  Partly because I went to a tiny rural school in the middle of the Oklahoma wheat fields.  We weren’t in a town.  The school was our community.  My children have grown up in Tulsa attending school in a huge suburban district.

One of the differences is that my Commencement ceremony was after school was over: the grades were all tallied and the School Board knew exactly who had graduated and what their g.p.a.’s were.  My daughter walked across the stage, received an empty diploma cover, and has to go back to class for another two weeks.

Another difference is the Baccalaureate service. Mine was held in the high school gym the Sunday before Commencement and everybody was expected to attend.  Attendance wasn’t mandatory, but it was expected.

I think about 40 of the 42 graduating seniors attended along with their families.  As did most of the faculty, all of the administration and the entire School Board.  The district planned the Baccalaureate service; it was a decades-old tradition.

My daughter’s Baccalaureate was planned by the school’s Students for Christ organization.  School boards aren’t supposed to plan a religious service, someone somewhere might get offended and sue, but neither can they deny a student-led organization from offering one.  So the students planned the service, recruited a speaker, and made arrangements for a praise band to lead music.

The kids did a pretty good job.

First they had to rent the auditorium.  I would have thought any recognized student organization would have free access to the school auditorium.  Apparently not;  they had to find a sponsoring church willing to pay the bill to rent the hall.

Then they had to find a speaker.  That was a little easier; one of the students is the son of a pastor and he simply asked Dad.

Another church was asked to pay the printing costs for the programs.  Donations were solicited to give the praise band an honorarium.

One faculty member was present.  No one from administration showed up.  The School Board stayed home.  Nearly all of the students present were involved in the Students for Christ organization.

On the one hand, I’m proud: I’ve attended programs put on by adults that were not as well planned and executed.  Still, I’m saddened.  We’ve lost something in our pursuit of cultural tolerance and diversity.

What about your community? Does your school district have a Baccalaureate service?