As a parent, there is one thing that occupies my thinking more than any other area of guidance, leadership, discipline, teaching or correction in the life of my children. That one thing is their spiritual destiny and growth. If our children were to become the masters of this world, great business men and women, powerful politicians, the innovators and inventors of the new technological age, the scientists, the doctors, the lawyers, the educators, etc., etc. and not have a vibrant Christian faith then we have utterly failed them in the most important thing of all, their eternal destiny.

For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?  -Matthew 16:26

It is a very sad commentary of our Christian condition when we do not prioritize the spiritual well-being of our own children! It is a carnal and worldly thing to use our God given resources on the "pleasures of this life" at the expense of our child’s spiritual health. Yet many Christian parents do just that when they prioritize their homes, cars, vacations and all the other "necessities" of the North American materialistic dream and turn to the public system to aid them in the responsibility of raising their children.

The education of children has never belonged to anybody but the parent. God gave the responsibility of training offspring to those who brought them into the world. (See Deut.6:7; Psalms 78:3-6; Prov. 22:6 and our online articles on Subcontracting to [Heritage Christian School]) The role any school takes in the training of your children is directly under your authority by placing them in that school. Your children spend the best part of their day with the mentors that you have chosen to give their formative lives to.

Six hours a day, five days a week, ten months a year your child is being influenced by the ideologies, beliefs, wisdom, knowledge, habits, corrections, instructions, evaluations of this other adult or adults. Unless you are personally home-schooling your child, it is inconceivable that you are spending that much concentrated instructional time with each of your children. Think about it, your child is under the direct supervision and instruction of the teacher at least 30 hours a week. Do you spend that much time focusing on educating your child every week?

If our Christian beliefs, world view, values and experience are important to us then we must be very deliberate in how we pass them on to our children. I would agree that the most influential people in the development of your child’s way of seeing his world are still the parents. Nevertheless, as your child grows up the influences of outsiders also grow in direct proportion. Just ask any parent of a teenager. I am still look for that bumper sticker that says "Hire a teenager while they still know everything." Their claims to knowledge at the teenage stage of life rarely give credit to the real source of their wisdom, the parents. I’ll never forget how dramatic an event it was for my elementary child when he found out that I took a different opinion from his teacher on something being taught in science. He was faced with, at his young age, the difficult task of deciding who he was going to believe. If this happens in a Christian School environment (and it is very appropriate that it should happen, no one sees everything exactly as you do and this is very much a necessary part of you child’s education) how much more will these day-to-day decisions happen with someone that doesn’t share your values and is legally prohibited from even considering them in the public system?

Here is what I can promise that you will get at [Heritage Christian School]. You will have educators who are committed to the spiritual development of your children as well as their academic development. Really, these are inseparable. Academics are spiritual because they focus on the creation and this cannot be separated from the Creator. (We will talk more about this in our next newsletter.) Your educators at Heritage are constantly being asked to see the spiritual issues that are confronting their students. There is an ongoing training and dialog around how to lead your children into the spiritual experience of the Christian life. Each of our teachers prays with the students, leads them in devotions, worships with them and ministers to them out of their own Christian experience.

When we consider hiring a new teacher on staff the first area we look at is their spiritual life. We are committed to bring only those who share a vibrant, evangelical belief and experience into the lives of your children. They must demonstrate a continual commitment to that lifestyle through church involvement, personal spiritual growth and an obvious expression of love for Christ. This is not at the expense of solid educational credentials. All of our teachers have Bachelor of Education degrees and some have multiple degrees, myself being the only exception as my certification is only in the area of Religious Studies. Every one of them could be teaching in the public system right now for considerably more money. In many respects their qualifications exceed those of their public peers as they have developed their teaching beyond the required learning outcomes of our provincial educational structure. (These outcomes are all met within HCS and are inspected more frequently than the schools in the public system). They have integrated their Christian philosophy and lifestyle into these learning outcomes, placing the world that we live in into its correct and proper context. It is God’s world.

Your teachers are also committed to Christian education for their own families. If it is good enough for the goose it is good enough for the gander. All of our permanent staff have committed to enrolling their children here at Heritage. Their children grow up with your children. They are part of this community. They are making the same sacrifices that you are to keep their children in an environment consistent with their beliefs and values. This is all on a wage that is in the lower end of the spectrum for professionals of their caliber. Again, this is another clear evidence that they are not here as "hirelings" but agents of the kingdom of God to bring the light of His kingdom and the knowledge of this world to your children. These educators are of the elite few who really care about what happens to your children in the truest and deepest sense. They have risen above the mundane and the greedy and are standing before our children as the princely knights they truly are. They are preparing our children to become world changers by modeling their own commitment, sacrifice and passion for God and His world. I consider it a great honour and privilege to place my children into the care and mentorship of such an noble group of people.