AUGUST 28, 2019
I rarely write as personally to you as I do today. Because I have given my working life to Biblical education, and because I have seen the benefits of Christian education in my own family, this is a topic about which I am most passionate. All three of my children graduated from Christian schools. Lord willing, all nine grandchildren will do the same.
Why? When there are “good” public schools providing high quality education—an education our tax dollars are already paying for—why should we place our children and grandchildren in Christian schools?
Public schools, especially in the South, we might argue, employ Christian teachers. Public schools may seem to offer, in some cases, bigger and better opportunities for students to be recognized for success in athletics or the arts. Some even argue that placing children in Christian schools deprives those children of the opportunity to evangelize public-school peers.
Like our FACS parents and grandparents, I have pondered all of the above, especially during those years when the family budget was particularly lean. The bottom line for me was always this: 1) I have a mandate from God regarding the training of my children and grandchildren, and 2) the best investments are those with eternal returns.
When I read the entire chapter of Deuteronomy 11, paying careful attention to verses 18 and 19, I cannot help but understand that Christian education is a command. The Lord sets before us blessings if we obey His commands and curses if we do not.
Our children and grandchildren spend the better part of their time each week in school. Jesus Christ is considered an outlaw in public schools; even Christian teachers have to sneak His word into the classroom. How can our children “fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds” and “tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads” in such settings? Do we honestly believe that we can teach our children one thing on the weekend at home and in church and “bind it on their foreheads” when they spend the rest of the week in a system that, at best, ignores God, and at worst, denigrates His word? Let’s not forget either that our children and grandchildren battle anti-Christian cultural influences at a level we could not have imagined before the advent of the internet, social media, and the Pandora’s Box offered in current television programming.
God tells us to teach His commands continually to our children, “talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”
The above is a mandate requiring 24-7-365 obedience; it’s also an investment.
More than 30 years ago, a Christian school principal in Oregon, Leon Stansfield, published a small booklet I have referred back to many times. One of the little 1980s-style illustrations in the booklet describes the concept of time as two dots followed by a long line with an arrow, an eternal line if you will. The first dot represents the moment in time a child is born and the second dot the little bit of time (a few hours or a hundred years) a person spends on this Earth; this second dot is described as “the time of choice and preparation for entry into real, eternal life.” The line, of course, represents all of eternity.
The point is that we can invest in a home in a neighborhood that is within the boundaries of what the world sees as a good public school; such an investment earns dividends only in the second dot. Investment in a good Christian education earns returns not only in that second dot but also throughout the eternal line that follows.
What about the perception of better extra-curricular opportunities in other schools? Our staff has received, over the years, letters, emails, and phone calls from many parents who made decisions to place children where they thought opportunities were superior only to find that the negative social influences in those settings far outweighed the expected benefits. We also hear from parents who have transferred for athletic or fine arts opportunities that never materialized because the students’ talents, which shone brightly at FACS, got lost in larger systems.
All of this is to say to you, as parents and grandparents, thank you for placing your trust in FACS. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to come alongside you as you follow God’s commands and as you make a lasting investment.
Our prayer is that your children and grandchildren will leave here with a solid Christian worldview that will enable them to evangelize their college peers, coworkers, neighbors and friends, marry godly spouses, and carry out the Lord’s commands with their own children in their own stable families. That is a good definition of success.
That is why I chose Biblical education as a career, and why I chose Christian schools as a parent, and as a grandparent.
God Bless You and Yours,
Wendell Meadows, Head of School