{"id":12805,"date":"2018-03-16T17:24:03","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T21:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=12805"},"modified":"2018-03-16T17:24:03","modified_gmt":"2018-03-16T21:24:03","slug":"christian-school-chooses-prayer-instead-protest-national-school-walk-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2018\/03\/christian-school-chooses-prayer-instead-protest-national-school-walk-day","title":{"rendered":"Christian School Chooses Prayer Instead of Protest on National School Walk Out Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"pexels-photo-257037<\/a>Thousands of students walked out of school this week for 17 minutes. Each minute was meant to represent one of the students killed in the tragic school shooting in Parkland, Florida. The protest was meant to demand stricter gun laws, but one Virginia school did not want to bring politics into a time meant to recognize the 17 lives that were ended too soon. So, they organized a small memorial and dedicated those 17 minutes to prayer instead of protest.<\/p>\n

Greenbrier Christian Academy is located in Chesapeake, Virginia. The students at Greenbrier wanted to recognize the 17 people who were killed in Florida, but they did not want a time of reflection and grief to be tangled up with politics. \u201cWe just wanted to give our students a way to honor the victims and be a part of the national discussion,\u201d said Danielle Gullickson, the school\u2019s community director.\u00a0 \u201cThey don\u2019t want to be used for a political agenda but to do something to honor the people who were involved and suffered from this tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school built a small memorial using 17 chairs. Each chair had a photograph, a name, a white carnation and a white ribbon. When students left class during the time of reflection, they gathered together at different parts of the campus to pray.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that prayer is an amazing tool; I think that prayer is part of the heart, and I think that there’s a time to mourn and to take time out of your day to respect the families,” said Greenbrier senior Jessica Ferebee. “But I also believe that faith without works is dead… there also needs to be something done to put the prayers into action.”<\/p>\n

For Ferebee, the simple memorial the school constructed was very powerful. “Seeing those students was devastating; I saw their personalities, their smiles in the pictures, and it made it so much more real than 17 names on a piece of paper.”<\/p>\n

Greenbrier was not the only school to alter the \u201cWalk Out\u201d campaign. A number of schools encouraged students to \u201cWalk Up Not Out.\u201d Rather than leaving school for 17 minutes, students at Arbor Preparatory High School in Michigan were told to tape positive or encouraging notes on each other\u2019s lockers. Similarly, a teacher at Arcadia Middle School in Virginia suggested that students \u201cwalk up to the kid who sits alone and ask him to join your group\u201d or \u201cwalk up to the kid who never has a voluntary partner and offer to be hers.\u201d Students in Jacksonville, Florida, meanwhile, wrote cards to 17 people they felt were not \u201cusually noticed or appreciated.\u201d<\/p>\n

These smaller, internal movements are not as noticeable as thousands of students leaving school buildings, but they have the potential to prevent tragedy before it ever begins. As Ryan Petty, who lost his son in the Parkland shooting said, \u201cIf you really want to stop the next school shooter walk up not out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thousands of students walked out of school this week for 17 minutes. Each minute was meant to represent one of the students killed in the tragic school shooting in Parkland, Florida. The protest was meant to demand stricter gun laws, but one Virginia school did not want to bring politics into a time meant to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":616,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,4],"tags":[2223,2349],"class_list":["post-12805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","category-faith","tag-prayer","tag-school-shooting"],"yoast_head":"\nChristian School Chooses Prayer Instead of Protest on National School Walk Out Day<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"While students all over the country walked out of school, a Virginia Christian school turned to prayer instead of politics.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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