Filling the need for Christ-centered education

Parents have a responsibility to train their children in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6), to bring them up in the "training and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4).  No thoughtful Christian parents can fail to see that God has placed final responsibility for their children's training in their hands.  The modern notion that it is the state's responsibility to educate children is not biblical.

Children of school age spend 77 percent of their time in the home, 21 percent in school, and 2 percent in church.  Their peak hours of mental alertness for disciplined study are spent in school and church.  Fully one-third of their waking hours are spent in school.

The Christian school complements the church and the home in the job of "taking captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ," "in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (2 Corinthians 10:5; Colossians 2:3).

In the environment of the Christian school, students are taught from a biblical perspective in all areas.  They develop a Christian world-and-life view of their own and become true, committed disciples of Christ.  We believe that God is honored and Christian training enhanced when "Christ is in all three"--the home, the school, and the church.

Martin Luther said, "I am afraid that the universities and schools will prove to be the gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the hearts of youth.  I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount."

It is clear today that we are engaged in warfare with Satan for the control of the minds and spirits of young people from Christian homes.  More and more Christian parents are recognizing that the public schools neither serve them nor accommodate them.  Gone are the days in most public schools when children from Christian homes are not on the defensive, where their faith and the faith of their parents is respected.  With the clear shift toward secular humanism and ungodly peer pressure in the public schools, God has raised up the Christian school for the training of Christian youth.  God's children should know God and be trained under His Word so that they develop a mindset of loyalty and service to Christ.

Grace Christian Academy believes that since God created and sustains everything through His Son Jesus Christ, the world and life are God-centered and should glorify Him. Man, however, because he is a sinner by nature and choice, cannot glorify God or know Him. He can glorify God only by being recreated in God's image through the new birth and by committing his life to Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.

The total process of education, therefore, seeks to restore the student to the position of true knowledge, true righteousness, and true holiness in Christ. Grace Christian Academy seeks to accomplish this by developing and relating the whole person to God spiritually, mentally, socially, and physically. By providing an atmosphere where young people can experience regeneration and spiritual growth, they can grow in their understanding of God's will.

Such an education stems from the fundamental principle stated in Colossians 1:16-17: "For by him were all things created,... all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist." Education, therefore, must be God-centered, not man-centered, and must present all truth as originating in God. Even though knowledge is often factually the same for both the Christian and the non-Christian, no subject can be taught in the totality of its truth if the Creator is ignored or denied.

We believe that there is a clear mandate in the Word of God for taking a stand for God and against unbelief in the realm of education as well as in other areas of one's life and profession.