image source: Huffington Post
Advanced Placement (AP) classes are intense high school courses (usually for college credit) that require three hour exams at the end of the school year. These exams loom over students through an entire year of preparation, and as the time draws nearer, many of our youth at the LOFT are feeling the pressure. As an added wrinkle, the teachers of the classes are not allowed to administer the exams, so many schools seek outside proctors to assist. For the next two weeks, I will be serving as one of these proctors at Plant High School (less than a mile from our church).
Now, I want to make something clear that may surprise you: I’m not doing this to support our church’s youth. Sure, I’ll be able to throw them a few supportive words or give them a spare pencil or provide a little candy during the break between sections, but over all, there’s not a lot I’ll be able to do to help them out. Any support I can give them is just a byproduct from my main reason for doing this: to support our neighborhood high school.
Lately, I’ve been reflecting on a church back in North Carolina that had a super-loud band and parking overflow problems, and they were just generally horrible neighbors. When residents around them complained, the pastor responded poorly, and there was a media frenzy that hurt the church’s reputation (and thus Jesus’s reputation as well). Though the church eventually apologized and found ways to control their volume, I continue to think of them as a cautionary tale. Given our church’s noise levels and parking overflow, I can see the danger of Bayshore becoming that sort of church, but through events like Saturday evening’s Block Party, we can do a lot to compensate and be good neighbors. Proctoring exams for Plant may be a small thing, but it’s another way to support our neighborhood. If you’d like to help me help Plant, here is the link for proctor registration: https://www.sdhc.k12.fl.us/approctor/ProctorRegister.asp.
And if you’re a Plant student taking AP Chem, Calc, Physics B, Psych, English Lit, or US History, I’ll see you soon!
Grace and Peace,
Tom