FAQ about Christian Education
WHAT IS CHRISTIAN EDUCATION?
Ideally there should be a healthy triangular relationship between three role-players - the parents, the church and the school. While the parents are the pivotal role-players (Deut. 6:7-9), this triangular relationship sets up an accountability structure as follows:
1. The Church preaches Biblical doctrine and truth, which forms the theological foundation of the school and the family. They encourage and guide parents, from Scripture, to take up their Biblical responsibility to educate and raise their children in the fear of the LORD. At its heart Christianity is a teaching religion - Jesus Christ is referred to as "Teacher" (John 3:2), the Holy Spirit's ministry includes teaching (John 14:26) and the Great Commission includes "teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you" (Math. 28:20). Christianity and the Church have always supported education.
2. The parents are the primary role-players in the child's education, discipline and rearing in the fear of the LORD. They support their child going to Church, heeding the Word of the LORD as well as in receiving an education.
3. The school expounds on the Biblical Worldview, looking at all areas of life, including from mathematics, to the sciences, to the languages and the arts from a Biblical Christian perspective. This is to equip the Christian child to take dominion for Christ and His Kingdom. It really is an extension of the parent's mandate to "train up a child in the way he should go (according to his character, calling and God-given talents), and when he is old he will not depart from it" (Prov. 22:6) and the Church's mandate to "make disciples of all nations" (Math. 28:19).
All three key role-players re-enforce one another and eradicate the mixed-messages between the values of the Church and home been put against the secular humanist values of the public school. They mutually support godly discipline and therefore reduce delinquency and increase Christ-like character. Godly discipline allows for greater learning, hence greater academic achievements. All three are subject to the Word of God.
What about Christian teachers in the public schools?
Praying before a class with a humanistic curriculum is not a Christian education, neither is having a Christian staff with a secular humanistic curriculum a Christian education.
Isn't home schooling and Christian education retreating from the world?
What is unfair is sending an eight year old Christian child into the battlefield of ideas, as a missionary, to face an adult with 12 years of humanistic schooling and a four year degree from a humanistic university. This borders on cruelty and any expectations for the child not to become confused about what mommy and daddy taught him at home, or to make a difference for Christ is completely unrealistic. A better strategy is giving children a 12 year education in the Biblical Christian Worldview, equipping them with vision, Godly character, and a firm understanding and grasp of the Biblical Worldview before sending them out into a world with a humanistic view.
Will my child's Christian school diploma be recognized?
YES! However, the focus of education should never be to go to a university (controlled by the same liberal, humanistic forces). The focus should be to raise a child in the way he should go, that is as God has ordained, according to the calling upon his life.
But what about developing social skills?
Most children in smaller Christian schools are better socialized than public school children are. They are taught to relate across age-barriers, relating with older and younger children, and adults within the community. The public school child is forced into an unnatural set-up of having 35 children in one class, all of the same age (this is very unnatural - what working environment has 35 employees, all the same age in one small room?). This allows for negative peer pressure and a "pack" mentality to develop - the children against the teacher, against the authority figure, against authority in general.
Are children in Christian schools and homeschoolers getting a good education?
Many people have questions about the merits of home schooling and private Christian education but what can not be denied is that academically, children in these types of programs, consistently out-perform children in state schools. The gap has so widened in the USA that universities are now offering scholarships specifically for homeschoolers because they want to attract the better students.
|
