Mondays with Mike: A Reflection on the “Longer View”
PCA Families and Students,
Christy and I just returned from West Point, where we gathered with our classmates for our 35th reunion.
One of my biggest takeaways—and something for which I found myself thanking the Lord—is that reunions give us a longer view.
Walking familiar places and reconnecting with people I had not seen in many years reminded me how much God used those four years in our lives. At the time, we certainly could not see all that He was doing. Looking back now, we can see much more clearly how He used friendships, teachers and coaches, challenges, responsibilities, failures, opportunities, and a call to excellence to shape us and prepare us for things He would call us to do years later.
And God did not do that work in isolation.
He used people.
Classmates. Teachers. Coaches. Leaders. Friends. People ahead of us who showed us the way, people alongside us who shared the journey, and eventually people coming behind us whom we were expected to lead and serve.
There is something powerful about those years in our lives—and about the people God places around us in them.
I have been thinking about that a great deal on my travels back to PCA.
It was hard for me to miss Homecoming. There was a real cost in being away because I love these moments in the life of our school. Yet even from afar, seeing the pictures and hearing the stories from Friday and Saturday gave me great joy: families spending time together, students serving and leading, our teams competing, the Trueman Way 5K, Dig Pink / Spike Blue, and so many parents, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends investing themselves in this community.
I celebrate that with you because those moments matter.
The Lord does important work in these years.
PCA is obviously very different from West Point. But one similarity I treasure is the deliberate commitment to formation.
We want our students to pursue excellence, learn deeply, and think well. And we want to help cultivate young men and women who know and love Christ, know truth, serve others, persevere through difficulty, exercise good judgment, use their gifts faithfully, and increasingly understand who God is calling them to become.
And they are doing that together.
A teacher sees something in a student that the student does not yet see. A coach challenges someone not to quit. A classmate walks alongside a friend through something difficult. An older student shows a younger one what leadership can look like. A younger student gives someone older the opportunity to learn what it means to serve.
Some of those moments will be remembered for decades. Many may seem quite ordinary at the time.
But God can use all of them.
Parents, these are your children, entrusted first to you by the Lord, and we are grateful for the privilege of coming alongside you during these important years.
And students, these are your years. You may not yet understand all that God is doing through them. I certainly did not when I was your age.
Paul writes:
“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
Philippians 1:6 (ESV)
Hear Mike read this reflection HERE, or click above.
My prayer is that years from now, when our graduates look back on PCA, they will recognize not only how God formed them here, but who He formed them with.
I pray they remember teachers and coaches who built into them. Classmates who walked alongside them. Older students who showed them something about what was ahead and younger students they learned to lead and serve. I pray they remember moments of belonging and leadership, challenge and discovery, worship and friendship—some extraordinary and many wonderfully ordinary—that the Lord used as part of His work in their lives.
I already see that playing out in graduates who have left PCA, and I see glimpses of it in our students today.
That is one reason that, in the weeks ahead, I want us to listen more closely to them. I want you to hear students and teachers speak honestly about learning, challenge, faith, perseverance, struggle, belonging, and growth—not as finished products, but as people in the middle of what God is doing.
Thirty-five years from now, we will have a much longer view.
Today, our calling is to be faithful with the years, the opportunities, and the people God has entrusted to us.
I am grateful to be part of that important work with you—and very glad to be back with the PCA community.
See you on campus soon,
Mike Runey
Head of School
Portsmouth Christian Academy
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