“What we say should always be true, and our words should be lovingly motivated and delivered,” said Jimmy Allen, pastor of the Thomasville Church of God in Christ. “I must always say what I mean. Mean what I say, but I don’t have to say it mean.”
Allen spoke Aug. 7 to the Thomasville City Schools District’s employee “institute” at the Thomasville Civic Center.
“…Words do have power,” he said. “…One of my biggest challenges as a communicator and a pastor is to be able to effectively convey the message that I feel that God has placed in my heart.
“We have a commonality. Your sanctuary is the school.” The challenge is for the teachers to make their lesson plan relevant to the students,” Allen said. “That they (the students) will be motivated to embrace the knowledge.
“…I don’t care how many degrees that you have. If a student does not leave your classroom more informed, more impactful, more motivated, to want to come back to class the next day, you have failed.
“…It takes God to give you the ability and the creativity to tap into these broken homes of children, that is coming from disfunction,” he said. “Some of them don’t know if they are going to make it from one day to the next.
“The challenge before you is to ask God to give you the wisdom to be impactful. How am I impactful? When I say something at the right time that may not be in my lesson plan.
“I have parishioners that are going to that school,” Allen said. “…You (the administration and faculty) are supposed to be the light that the children can see. …If you impact them in a positive way, you can’t get enough learning in them. They will be hungry.”
The lives of student need to be enriched,” he said. “They still need the experience you have from life. They still need to know how to navigate themselves through pitfalls that they are going to face. It doesn’t matter what you have up here (the head). What matters most is what you have in here (the heart).”
Allen told the educator who might get frustrated with students to “get happy - because that is job security. Problems are opportunities. If I don’t have problems, there is no need for the school. Students go to school to learn.
“If your classroom is full of problems, start rejoicing,” he said. “…You’ve got opportunities. …It’s an opportunity to impact somebody’s life and make it better.”