When I heard that an individual wanted to ‘shake up’ a handful of kids from the Christian school I work at, I have to say I started to feel rather like a mother hen.
Was this individual one connected to a local group of Satanists?
No … this individual was/is connected (and has held positions of leadership) at a local Christian church … a good group of believers.
After months of fuming about this, and asking myself (and God) what causes someone, who professes to follow God, to desire to mess with kids … any kids. I keep coming back to one word … ignorance.
I know ignorance is the key, because when I think back to my own misconceptions of what Christian schooling was all about, it is far from what I now know it to be.
Here is what I know to NOT be true about Christian Education Schools
(although I can only speak for the schools that I know well) :
– it is not a glorified ‘Sunday School’
– it is not a school full of Christians
– it is not a place parents put their kids to protect them from the ‘real world’
– it is not a place where Creationism is forced down the student’s throats, and Evolutionism ignored and scoffed at. I have always been thrilled with the grade 9 science teacher who, when introducing a chapter on evolutionism said, “I will not tell you what to believe, but I will give you the tools to discover for yourselves how our world began.” Hum, equal time for differing points of view …
– it is not ‘easy’ education.
– it is not always, for all children, in every circumstance.
– it is not perfect.
Here is what I know to BE true about Christian Education Schools:
– all students who attend, have someone in their lives who loves God, and who wants their kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews, to learn all academic subjects appreciating how intricately God created everything, and how His truths seep through everything from literature, to sciences, to automotive, to art, to history.
– there are probably not many more students, who are Christians, in a Christian school, than in a public school.
– the students who I have seen graduate from our Christian High School, do not have a big adjustment to the academic expectations of post secondary universities … Christian and public.
– Christian educators need to be licensed.
– Christian schools need to be evaluated (in this province, by the Ministry of Education).
– each day starts with teachers, Educational Assistants, and other students praying for the day ahead, in a time set aside for devotions.
I have often heard people refer to different public schools as ‘like’ a Christian school, because many of the staff and students are followers of Christ, but it is not the population that makes it a Christian school. To be a Christian School is to have built everything … from curriculum, to mission statement, to service, to daily schedule, to hiring of staff … on the foundation that all that we have comes from God, and it is our knowledge of that which gives us purpose in all that we do.
And so, that Christ-follower who wanted to ‘shake up’ the kids who attend a Christian School …
“One day
children were brought to Jesus
in the hope that he would lay hands on them and pray over them.
The disciples shooed them off.
But Jesus intervened:
“Let the children alone, don’t prevent them from coming to me.
God’s kingdom is made up of people like these.””
Matthew 19:13-15
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