Christian education – an investment in the future

By Nancy Huckaby
The Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, TX)
Published Sunday, November 2, 2008

Christian parents understand well the responsibility they have to not only love their children, but to educate them in an environment that embraces Christ’s fundamental truths.

Many find the answer in home schooling, but for countless others, Christian schools provide the perfect answer. Christian education facilities – both elementary, secondary and higher learning – can help parents make sure their children receive a quality education, taught by dedicated and knowledgeable teachers.

Christian education is not without its critics. Some say it insulates children from the real world, or shelters them from many of the negative influences they’ll have to face in the future. On its Web site, cornerstonekingman.ca, Cornerstone Christian Academy in Kingman, Alberta, Canada, offers this view:

"The Christian school works somewhat like a greenhouse which is designed to provide optimum conditions for growth while a plant is young. Young children are protected and carefully nurtured to help them mature properly. When the time comes for them to be 'transplanted’ into a more hostile environment, they are more likely to endure difficulties and continue to thrive because they have been trained well and have developed a discerning heart."

Christian educators want to help students recognize the hostility and injustice in today’s world while giving them the tools – critical thinking skills, a core value system and a strong foundation of faith – to apply Christ’s truth to solving those problems.

Administrators know that the academic standards at a Christian school must be strong if parents are asked to make what, for many, is a significant sacrifice for the cost of attending a private school. College bound students face their own brand of challenges and for many (and their parents) knowing that the college or university they select is based on Christian principles is paramount.

Gary Ledbetter, communications director for the Southern Baptist of Texas Convention in Grapevine, offered this advice on the CollegeView Web site:

"A final benefit of Christian higher education is perhaps the most significant. The quality of a Christian college experience is higher than any other. Christian educators have an additional motivation to do their work with excellence – the call of Christ on their lives to do just that (I Cor. 10:31). Quality may also be enhanced by the emphasis on subjects and teaching deemed by God to be the first importance. A biblical focus will inform the manner, content, and even the scope of an educational experience, and Christian schools may be less influenced by cultural (or educational) fads."


Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. – Proverbs 22.6