Today, we had more than 50 parents and prospective students in our rotunda as visiting students were paired up with someone from the class they were visiting. It was a wonderful sight to see. Most of these inquiring families will also be our guests at this evening's Spring Carnival. We hope you can all make it to that event to meet some of them..
We are living in interesting times, and I'd like to remind all of us why the formative years in your students' lives are so important.
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| Museum of The Bible, Washington, DC |
This past week, I
was at a Biblical Worldview Conference at the Museum
of the Bible in Washington, DC. Scores of other K-12 Christian school
administrators were there from across the country. CCS and these
other schools consider teaching from a Biblical perspective
(worldview) a crucial part of our mission. In all subjects and
circumstances, God's Word is “a lamp to our feet and
a light to our path.”(Ps119:105)
Only in that light can we see the answers to the questions of life
that give a meaningful context for all subjects.
Simply put, our
worldview is the lens through which we interpret the past, present, and future of the world in which we live.
II
Timothy 3:13-17
warns believers that the
time
will come when social “norms” and public opinion will go from bad
to worse, and manipulating deceivers will lead many down false
and dangerous
paths. Friends,
we are living in such a time. The
same passage,
however,
encourages
us to train up believers from childhood in the TRUTH of God’s
Word and
the
way to wisdom and salvation
in Christ Jesus. The short passage concludes by reminding us that "all scripture is breathed
out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
and for training in righteousness, that the
man of God may be complete, equipped for every good
work.”
At
CCS, the
home and school are
a team working from the same playbook and game-plan. The
many Evangelical churches in our school family
sometimes summarized our shared Biblical worldview in
three words: “Creation...Fall… and
Redemption.
That outline covers origins, including
God’s original relationship
with his creation;
man’s
willful breaking of that
relationship and
the resulting
“brokenness”
of the
world, and
then through Christ, a
restored relationship (and
eventually a “new heaven and earth”). We also pay heed to what Jesus called the two greatest commandments: Love God (vertical relationship) and love your neighbor as yourself (horizontal relationships) .(Matthew 22:36-40)
Luke 6:40 further
reminds
us that teachers should be worthy of being "looked up to" because in the end their students will become
like them.
In
other words, regardless of the subject, worldviews are “caught” more than “taught,” and education should never be a game of
“blind-man’s-bluff” for
students and “keep-away”
for
parents.
When
I was a kid, the nation’s largest bus-line commercials ended with a
jingle: “Go Greyhound, and leave the driving to us.” Sadly, when it comes to what some schools are teaching kids these days, more
and more school boards and government
officials are
telling parents,
“Stay home, and leave
the worldview
to us.” In fact, just yesterday, President Biden told a national gathering of top teachers that the students they lead "are not someone else's, they're OUR children.... they’re like yours when they’re in the classroom.”
It
is
one thing for government schools to feign neutrality on religion; it’s another thing for
them to oppose traditional views of the Church and to zealously (religiously?) advance contrary views to our children on topics like: identity,
life,
purpose,
gender, sex, marriage, family, right and wrong, law enforcement, etc. I have friends and family who have tried to stem the tide of these contrary agendas in their local districts, and I do not doubt that their presence can be used by God if those adults can remain untainted, but when we consider the new social agenda being infused into the curriculum for children, how much tainted water in a well renders it risky to drink?
We often speak of school days as the "formative years." of life, and it is true. Students are like clay in the potter's hands. Jeremiah 18:2-4 paints a beautiful picture of how God transforms "formative years" into a useful life. The K-12 years represent about 15,000 hours on a potter's wheel. Who's doing the forming? What is the intended outcome? Imagine a partnership between the home and school that purposefully integrates learning with life, science with conscience, facts with faith, theory with wonder, and wonder with belief. Our nation is very divided on some very basic "facts of life." Never have so many been diametrically opposed to keeping God in his rightful place as Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend. In times like these, we are pleased to see more
and more parents choosing to partner
with
schools like CCS that
share their
values
and
teach
from a Biblical
worldview.
As a parent, it can often be a financial sacrifice to send children to a private school, but it is certainly becoming more and more a sacrifice worth making and even imperative. For our family, God has continued year to year to provide, even when we could not see how!
ReplyDeleteNick,
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the time to read this post and to share this comment. These words are not meant to offend any of our good friends and fellow teachers in schools whose agenda is beyond their control. I know of many who are hoping that allowance for differing views on what the law calls "deeply held religious beliefs" will return once again to the public square. At the moment, the opposite is happening.
I also understand the spirit in which the President said, "They are our kids when their in our classroom." The latin term for this notion is "in loco parentis" (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/in%20loco%20parentis) it means "in the place of the parent." That sentiment underscores the need for parents and teachers to share the same worldview because "in loco parentis" does not mean "usurp parental intent."