Parkview Christian Academy

The Unseen Hand of God
Christian School Comment

My wife, Bonnie, our four children, and I had just moved into a new home in Elkhart, Indiana. My “to do” list was long, and I was busy serving the Lord as a Christian school superintendent. On my list of things to do was to nail shut the spring-loaded trapdoor to a laundry chute. The trapdoor was set in the floor of the bathroom near our children’s bedrooms.

God is the Creator, and we are mere creatures. He is the Potter, and we are the clay. We have been designed on purpose for a purpose, and ultimately that purpose is to glorify God in every area of our lives (1 Corinthians 10:31). One of the scriptural principles that helps me as a follower of Christ keep things in proper perspective is to realize that God owns everything and that I am His steward (1 Chronicles 29:10–13). As a steward of God’s possessions, I have been given the charge to hold His possessions in trust for Him. This trust that has been given to me by God includes all the manage for my Master, but I believe the principle goes much deeper than that. My  relationships in life are also a sacred trust.

I have been entrusted by God with the care of my family. I am a steward of the relationships I enjoy with Bonnie and with my four children. Each one belongs to God, and He, in His providence, has entrusted each one to my care. As the leader of my family, I do not take this responsibility lightly. Not only am I responsible for the safety and well-being of each of my children,but ultimately I am responsible to help each one learn to fear the Lord.

Bridges defines this filial fear as “the loving fear of a child toward his father” (27), a fear that includes reverence, awe, honor, adoration, obedience, respect, and amazement. Bridges writes that we should live in the realization of the constant presence of the Lord (176).

My wife and I believe that one of the best ways to fulfill our stewardship responsibility for each of our children is to take full advantage of every means available to us to help our children grow into fully prepared, soldout disciples of Jesus Christ. As disciples of Jesus Christ, they will fulfill the purpose for which they were created—to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. One of the means we have embraced is the Christian school.

One of the problems in our secular society today is that people worship the creation instead of the Creator. Our secular society has pushed God out of our schools. Listen to Bridges on this point: “All the most sophisticated scientific discoveries and inventions proliferating in our day are simply human beings thinking God’s thoughts after Him. So instead of worshiping at the altar of science as our society does, we should turn our minds to God and see Him as the Master Scientist who first programmed all these things into His universe” (130). And our fear of God has a direct impact on our parenting. “God holds us as parents responsible for teaching our children to obey Him” (171); Sunday school and the Christian school exist to “supplement our efforts” (171). Bridges chose a Christian high school for his son because he realizes that he is a steward entrusted with the care of his son—with the ultimate goal that his son would learn the joy of fearing God. Bonnie and I share this commitment.

At a time when our economy is in turmoil and we daily make decisions about how to spend the financial resources God has entrusted to our care, I understand the financial pressures many families are experiencing. As parents we must care for the physical, spiritual, and educational needs of our children. I encourage you to make Christian education as much of a priority as food, shelter, and clothing for your children. In the end, designer clothes, a big house, and eating out will pale in significance when compared with children who walk in truth (3 John 4). Christian education is one of the most effective means available to parents today to assist us with the stewardship responsibility God has entrusted to us.

So for the rest of the story: Bonnie raced downstairs; sure enough, Aubrey had fallen headfirst to the basement below. With tear-filled eyes, Bonnie discovered that the unseen hand of God had moved a basket of laundry directly beneath the chute. Bonnie found Aubrey with her head buried in the basket of clothes and her legs racing wildly above her head. As Bonnie picked her up in her arms, Aubrey smiled at her with an expression that seemed to communicate, “That was fun, Mommy. Let’s do it again!” And, by the way, that night the trapdoor to the laundry chute was nailed shut.

Enabling Christian Educators and Schools Worldwide
PO Box 65130 • Colorado Springs, CO 80962-5130 • 719-528-6906 • www.acsi.org
Brian S. Simmons, President, Association of Christian Schools International

The Joy of Fearing God (WaterBrook, 1997), Jerry Bridgesthings I Volume 41, Number 7, 2009/2010

Download PDF: School Discussion – February 2010 

Excellence and the University

Last Updated 1/14/2010 9:18:21 AM  Brian S. Simmons, President Association of Christian Schools International

A Colorado Springs Gazette.com article recently caught my attention. It was about Jane Hilberry, an English professor at Colorado College, who had been invited to speak to middle school children in the Springs. When leaders at the school discovered Hilberry’s Body Painting book, they rescinded her invitation. According to the article, the book “features nudity on its cover and verse about…same-sex attraction” (Rabey 2009). A University of Northern Colorado website states, “Crazy Jane…makes appearances throughout Hilberry’s work, seducing a bear, sleeping in a priest’s bed, and generally transgressing social norms. Ultimately, the poet celebrates unconventional choices—to love both men and women, not to have children, and to abandon the attempt to find God in church” (Colorado Poets Center). Hilberry responded to the rescindment of her invitation by saying that she feels “deeply, deeply, deeply that art has in some ways saved [her] life, and the sad thing is the Colorado Springs School is not giving its kids a chance to have that experience” (Rabey 2009). Now here is my question: Would you rather have Professor Hilberry teach your young child or your college-age child? I believe that the best answer is neither! You will recall from previous articles I have written that Bonnie and I are committed to “cradle to grave” Christian education for each of our four children. So you can imagine how intrigued I am by conversations I hear from time to time about the importance of Christian education. Some believe that Christian education is important during the primary years but think that secondary Christian education is less important, or vice versa. Others argue that Christian college education is what really matters but believe that K–12 Christian education isn’t really necessary. For the record, I believe that “cradle to grave” Christian education is one of the best means available to me as a father in the achievement of one of my primary goals in life—that each of my four children will grow up to be thoroughly prepared, full-throttle, sold-out followers of Jesus Christ! For the remainder of this article, however, I will focus my thoughts on Christian college education, because soon many newly graduated Christian high school students, along with their parents, will be making college decisions for the fall. Recently I witnessed a verbal assault on a mother who had the courage to publicly question the quality of the education her child and others would receive at a secular university. I believe that the degree to which an education aligns with truth is the degree to which it is excellent…or not. The sad fact is that one has to search diligently to find anything that even vaguely resembles an excellent, quality education at many of our “finest” secular colleges and universities today. Education that contradicts the foundational truth of the Word of God and scorns His Son, Jesus Christ—who is Truth personified—is miseducation. Dinesh D’Souza writes the following in his book What’s So Great About Christianity: Psychologist Nicholas Humphrey argued in a recent lecture1 that just as Amnesty International works to liberate political prisoners around the world, secular teachers and professors should work to free children from the damaging influence of their parents’ religious instruction…. Philosopher Richard Rorty argued that secular professors in the universities ought “to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own” [(Boffetti 2004)].… This is how many secular teachers treat the traditional beliefs of students. The strategy is not to argue with religious views or to prove them wrong. Rather it is to subject them to such scorn that they are pushed outside the bounds of acceptable debate. This strategy is effective because young people who go to good colleges are extremely eager to learn what it means to be an educated Harvard man or Stanford woman…. Children spend the majority of their waking hours in school. Parents invest a good portion of their life savings in college education to entrust their offspring to people who are supposed to educate them. Isn’t it wonderful that educators have figured out a way to make parents the instruments of their own undoing? Isn’t it brilliant that they have persuaded Christian moms and dads to finance the destruction of their own beliefs and values? Who said atheists weren’t clever? (2007, 35–37) For a real life example of this, you need look no further than this Gazette.com article I’ve cited. ACSI has as members 135 of the finest Christian colleges and universities in the world. As you consider colleges for the fall, I encourage you to visit www.acsi.org (select the Higher Education link under the Schools tab) and to consider a truly excellent Christian college education. Note 1. Nicholas Humphrey, “What Shall We Tell the Children?” (Amnesty lecture, Oxford, February 21, 1997), http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/humphrey/amnesty.html. References Boffetti, Jason. 2004. How Richard Rorty found religion. First Things (May). http://www. firstthings.com/article/2008/09/how-richard-rorty-found-religion–45. Quoted in D’Souza 2007, 35–36. Colorado Poets Center. Bibliography: Jane Hilberry. University of Northern Colorado. http://www.coloradopoetscenter.org/poets/hilberry_jane/index.html. D’Souza, Dinesh. 2007. What’s so great about Christianity. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing. Rabey, Steve. 2009. School snubs local poet over her ‘body’ of work. Gazette.com, December 4. http://www.gazette.com/entertainment/poet-90315-uninvited-hilberry.html.

ACSI Christian School Comment