Dr. Kristi Kirk Welcomes Fall 2026 Students in Concordia’s Centennial Year

The Christ-centered theme "with God we shall do valiantly" is introduced to all of campus on the first day of class.

Welcome. Welcome back. Welcome for the very first time. Happy first week of school.

Because it's a centennial year and because I'm a historian, I've been thinking a lot about those early days 100 years ago. It was a small school with a modest budget and an enormous conviction: that Christian higher education could form the whole person - mind, heart, and hands - for a life of service. Our founders did not have much. They had faith, they had one another, and they had a stubborn belief that what they were planting would outlive them.

And they had one more thing in common with us today - they had the same motto, and the same piece of Scripture to reflect on as they gathered for their first day of class. Rev. Henry Studtmann preached at the opening chapel to a group much smaller than our group of students, faculty and staff now but with the same reading from Psalm 108 and a bold declaration of faith in Christ Jesus.

What does it mean to Live Valiantly?

It can sound like one more assignment. You're already supposed to ace your classes, make friends, figure out the parking situation, where your classes, how to manage your time, when to call home, how to get a job, how to get to those early morning practices, etc. And now the university hangs a banner that sounds like you're also supposed to be brave the whole time.

So let me take the pressure off with some nerdy grammar.

"Valiantly" is an adverb.

An adjective would describe you. "You are valiant." That would be a claim about your character. Some days you will feel valiant, brave and courageous and ready to take on the world. Other days you won't. Some days you won't behave very valiantly at all. So valiantly is not a word that describes you.

Valiantly is an adverb, and an adverb describes how something gets done.

Psalm 108 doesn't say "be valiant." It says: "With God we shall do valiantly."

Valiantly With God

Other translations say in God, or through God. In, with, and through God we will do valiantly.

When God is with us, we live bravely, courageously, fearlessly. Valiantly isn't about what you are required to do. It's what becomes possible because of who is with you. It's not an assignment at all. It's not a command. It's a promise.

Psalm 108 is actually a piecing together of two other psalms. Verses 1-5 come out of Psalm 57, a psalm of personal praise, where David can't help but praising God for who He is and for his steadfast love that stays with his people: "My heart is steadfast, O God! Awake, harp and lyre - I will awake the dawn!" He breaks out in praise to who God is and what he has done: "For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies."

But then you get a few verses in, and there's a plot twist. Verses 6-13 come from Psalm 60, which David wrote after a military defeat. David had been selected as king of God's people and thought he was doing what God wanted. Yet, he lost a battle. A big one. Verse 12 says: "Vain is the salvation of man" which is ancient Hebrew for we tried everything, and it did not work.

David could not have been feeling very valiant at that moment. Even so, he could confidently declare: in God, with God, through God, in my worst possible moment,

"With God we shall do valiantly."

How Can Students Live Valiantly

Living valiantly is not something we do on our own. It has to rest on someone who actually is valiant.

The hymn we sang on the first day of Fall 2026 in the first the first chapel boldly declares:

With might of ours can naught be done,
soon were our loss effected;
but for us fights the valiant One,
whom God himself elected.

For us fights the Valiant One. For us. You are not the one fighting. You are the one being fought for.

Like the Psalm, the hymn uses battlefield language: when the battle is over, the winner is the one still standing on the field. Look who's standing on it. Not sin. Not death. Jesus Christ holds the field. He won it at the cross, at the place where it most looked like he was losing but is actually the greatest victory ever - and He holds it forever. Jesus is the Valiant One, the Courageous One, the Brave One, the Fearless One, the One who conquered death.

For you.

Living valiantly looks like knowing that your own worth does not rest in what you do, grades you make, how you perform on the field or in the office. Valiant living is resting in the gifts of God, offered in Christ Jesus: forgiveness, salvation, peace.

These aren't things you have to strive for; they are things you receive by grace through faith, in the name of Jesus.

Valiant looks like fighting for human connectedness and belonging when so much of the world says you don't need that. I remind you to work hard for human connection - meet the new person, go sit down and talk with your professor or colleague, join the club, take the risk, ask for help when you need it.

The college experience is as much about the relationships you make and the chances you take as it is about the learning.

Valiant living in the classroom means struggling with the hard questions, not taking the easy path, knowing that all truth is God's truth and it's a privilege to get to learn. So go ask for help when you need it, take the extra class just for fun, avoid the shortcut to the easy grade, and rest easy when the grade isn't what you'd like it to be.

Valiant looks like staying. Staying in the hard class. Staying in the hard friendship. Staying in the hard season, when leaving would be easier and nobody would even blame you.

Here's what I know-when I tell you to live valiantly, you're going to fail at that. You're going to mess it up, fail the test, let a friend down, make a mistake. In a word, you're going to sin. And so am I. Because that's what it means to be human.

Scripture tells us that we have all sinned and fallen short of God's glory and that we are incapable of living valiantly on our own.

So when you mess up this semester, I hope you remember that Christ is the Valiant One. He's the one who bravely fought for you; it's his victory that brings us all good things: hope, peace, faithfulness, life, salvation, belonging. We get all of these things because Christ has done the fighting, He has won the war, He has lived valiantly.

A Get-To Privilege

One of the things my children would tell you is that one of my mantras is the phrase: you don't have to, you get to. You don't have to go to school today, you get to. You don't have to work hard on that paper, you get to. You don't have to put the phone down and come have a real conversation with your family, you get to. These things are privileges, when we do them in the name of Jesus.

My friends, as you see this call to live valiantly, know that living valiantly is not one more thing to put on your to-do list. It's not one more thing to strive for and stress about when you don't do it perfectly. It's not one more thing to criticize yourself about. It's not something you have to do; it's something you get to do. Living valiantly won't earn you favor with God - Jesus has already done that. Living valiantly won't get you into heaven - Jesus has already paved the way there. Living valiantly won't bring you all the good things in life - Jesus already offers those as a free gift of salvation.

But in living valiantly, we get to live in all of the blessings offered to us in the name of Jesus. We get to experience community and belonging, we get to use our gifts to serve others, we get to discover our vocations in ways that bring great joy to ourselves and our community. That's what living valiantly brings - not because we have to, but because we get to.

Happy 2026-27 school year. Happy hundredth year, Concordia.

Let's live valiantly, together.

Amen.
Dr. Kristi Kirk
President & CEO
Class of 1995