Friday's Top Five: We Promise

College is serious business! You’re not just here as an individual to stick your nose in a book until it’s time to take a few tests and graduate. You’re here as part of a community of learners who will laugh together, cry together, study together, live together, work together and grow together. 

You are all unique, but you all have a common goal, and that goal is to be adults who are as independent as possible. 

It’s ironic isn’t it that to be independent you must first learn to rely on people?

Over the course of your life, you will rely on your parents, siblings, teachers, IEP professionals, social workers, case managers, bosses, coworkers, landlords, roommates, neighbors, bus drivers, doctors, etc… to help you in your independence.

And to rely on someone, you first need to trust them.

That’s where the Shepherds College Community Covenant comes in.

A Community Covenant is a promise that our students make to each other. It is a promise that together they will help each other develop qualities that reflect the character of Jesus Christ. They commit to demonstrating respect for God, authority, others, property and self.

We go over the covenant with both the parents and the students during orientation weekend, and then the Residential Life staff reinforces the covenant with the students throughout the year.

By embracing the covenant, the students acknowledge that, while they are all unique individuals, they are also created for community – the community of Shepherds College.

The covenant states that:

1.       You Belong Here – God created you on and for a purpose. You are accepted here. We covenant together to express our love for God through obedience to His Word, the practice of spiritual disciplines, and regular expressions of worship and Christian service. We also covenant together to value and respect each other.

2.       You Are Valued Here – We covenant together to express our love for others through acts of kindness, wholesome and uplifting speech, helping those in need, and lovingly sharing the Gospel.

3.       You Have Choices Here – We covenant together to be people of integrity and self-control, always telling the truth, and being honest in our actions. We will be pure in our thoughts and actions.

4.       You Have Responsibility Here – We covenant together to use the gifts God has given us in a wise and Godly manner.

5.       You Fit Here – We covenant to accept each other and embrace our differences in a way that would be pleasing to God.

As members of the Shepherds College community, we voluntarily obey all of the rules and guidelines designed to help us respect each other and live in obedience to God.

You can see how, by learning and living out the covenant, trust can grow throughout the community of students at Shepherds College.

So let’s all learn how to be appropriately independent… together.

Shepherds College - Guiding Your Transition to Appropriate Independence. Please visit us at www.shepherdscollege.edu.