Statement of Purpose

We are committed to the exaltation of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and to the study of the Scriptures as the inspired, perfect Word of God and the blueprint for human development. We will teach unequivocally that the Bible in its entirety (all 66 books of the Old and New Testaments) is the inspired Word of God, inerrant in its original manuscripts, and the infallible and sufficient authority for faith and Christian living.
Jesus Christ is the reason for our existence as a school. It is because we have been justified by his atoning death and resurrection and that we have been adopted as believers into God’s family that we can bear the title Christian. Here Christian teachers instruct Christian students in the developing and equipping of the Christian mind. Each day presents a new opportunity to honor Christ in the classroom and on the athletic field. The Bible, as the inerrant and perfect Word of God, is the foundation of our instruction. Each year students are given the opportunity for a careful, demanding study of this greatest of all books, and a biblical perspective pervades the entire curriculum. We strive to develop biblical based leadership in each student that will inspire him or her to become a dynamic, influential force in the world without becoming of the world.

We are committed to modeling Jesus Christ through our lives to our students.
"And I show you a still more excellent way...If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, it profits me nothing." -Paul, I Corinthians 12:31, 13:2 This more excellent way means that teaching must be characterized by demonstrating Christ’s love to our students by showing them honor and respect. Times of rebuke and reproof may come, but they come in the context of the respect the teacher has demonstrated. Teachers and coaches have the unique responsibility and privilege of modeling the fruit of the Spirit, demonstrating love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, leadership and self-discipline. To provide an excellent Christian education and shape leaders of the future, we commit ourselves to this example. Education without moral character is a dangerous thing.

We are committed to a partnership with Christian parents in the education and development of their children, and to serve as a complement to the role of the local church.
Partnership with Christian parents in our students’ education begins with the assumption that we admit professing Christian students from homes where the parents support the goals and the content of a Christian education. Partnership is built upon communication and support; the teacher must communicate with the parents and the parents and teachers need to be mutually supportive. We expect students to be regularly attending and actively involved in a local church; we seek to supplement, not supplant the local church. Weekly chapel and daily Bible classes are above and beyond the students’ involvement in worship and fellowship each Sunday.

We are committed to preparing students to take their place as servants within the Christian community while providing leadership in both the Christian and Secular community.
This preparation includes missions classes and trips to increase students’ vision of a world in need of the gospel and Christ like leadership. Our service assignment is designed to drive home the point we are all called upon to serve the body of Christ and to follow Christ’s example. Who “emptied himself, taking the form of bond-servant” (Phillipians 2:6) We believe that the best mission tool is Christ like leadership through service to others.

We are committed to excellence in artistic, athletic, and social programs, which seek to honor God.
G.K. Chesterton wrote, “ Art is the signature of man.” True art as practiced by man is a reflection of the creative genius of our God. We seek to provide training to discern art, music, and drama which has integrity, and encourage the practice and appreciation of art according to that standard. Art is not a frill in Christian education. We have an obligation not to submit to our surrounding culture but to develop standards by which to judge it.

Athletic programs provide the opportunity to practice teamwork and leadership. Students honor God through physical effort and accomplishment as well as through attitudes expressed toward other teammates and opponents. Coaches have unique opportunities to become spiritual examples for their athletes. Athletes should prepare for contest with diligence and compete with courage and heart, avoiding like the plague misconduct, which taints the name and example of Christ.

Social programs are an essential part of the curriculum. It is through social interaction that we develop the personal skills necessary to competently and compassionately express our faith in a reassuring way. Social programs enable a holistic approach to life skill development in the educational process. Wholesome, enjoyable activities are worked into the daily schedule as well as being planned and arranged for after-school hours. Students are trained to assume responsibility for much of this planning, under appropriate adult supervision. To meet social leadership goals, students must develop positive social skills that enable them to eloquently and compassionately express their feelings as well as their knowledge. It is impossible for our students to successfully go into the world for Christ unless they have developed their social skills. We believe it essential to develop these social skills within the body of Christ and then carry them into the secular world. We need to take God seriously, but not take ourselves as seriously. The social dimension provides the outlet for this necessary balance.

We are committed to a curriculum of excellence through the teaching and learning of absolute truth.
We have the obligation and the opportunity to point our student to the highest examples of truth possible - - the Bible, the most excellent of books, and Jesus Christ, the most excellent of persons. We believe truth to be absolute as demonstrated by righteousness, the knowledge of good and evil, the Ten Commandments, and God’s eternal precepts. There is no need to separate truth into sacred and secular departments, but claim all truth is a gift from God, regardless of subject, and therefore worth of being learned. Teachers are not fettered by the restrictions of political correctness or state mandates of what can and cannot be included in the curriculum. Our truth and values are not relative and subject to shifts of educational fad or fashion, but are based upon God’s transcendent glory. In pursuing this excellence we restore integrity to our subjects. We cannot settle for mediocrity; teachers must push themselves and their students toward excellence based on truth.

We are committed to the aim of education as a discipline leading to discernment
The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things – the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit. – Samuel Johnson

Our education is a discipline. It involves a variety of methods traditional and contemporary and is designed to be rigorous. Each course has its own body of content to be learned, but the knowledge gained thereby is not an end in itself. It is rather a means to the end of developing the ability to analyze, to evaluate, and to discern. As the student progresses through school, training is to be geared toward developing an educated mind, attributes of which include freedom, calmness, moderation, and wisdom. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”; the religious education of the student is essential to the development of wisdom. Thus by the end of their secondary education, students should be able to learn a body of knowledge and be able to think, speak, and write with discernment about any subject matter. Thought exercised upon knowledge is the end of intellectual training and the culmination of developing and equipping the Christian mind.

Graduates must move into their vocation or the arena of higher education with leadership skills and the ability to express themselves in a way that is unwavering in principle but not offensive or obstructive to the effort of ultimately leading others to Christ through personal modeling of his perfect example.

We believe that every Christian child has been blessed with at least one unique gift. The Christian leadership academy will search diligently to discover the unique gifts of each student and develop those gifts in an otherwise structured curriculum in a manner pleasing to God. Since most students tend to enjoy those things they do well we believe that discovering and then developing the child’s God given gifts will put the joy, excitement and fun in our Christian Leadership Educational process.

Special Thank you to Whittier Christian High School for advising and helping us write and prepare this document.