Foundations

Doctrinal Statement

1. We believe the Bible to be the only inspired, infallible, authoritative Word of God.
2. We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
3. We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
4. We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful man regeneration sovereignly applied by the Holy Spirit and evidenced by a living faith in Christ is absolutely essential.
5. We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
6. We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost: they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
7. We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Principles of Christian Education

In addition to the preceding doctrines, we adhere to the following principles of Christian education demanded by the Word of God:

1. God and Education: God is the one--of whom, through whom, and unto whom are all things (Romans 11:36).
2. God and Man: God is the one in whose image and after whose likeness man is made. Accordingly man's life must begin and end with being true to the image of God. Man--being created in the likeness of God--must think God's thoughts after Him; he must ever will to do God's will; and he must love God because God requires it.
3. Man and Creation: God has made man to have dominion over His creation, and therefore holds him responsible for it. He must love it, sustain it, and use it for the glory of God. The highest self-revelation of God in creation is man, who is made in His own image--an image in which all men share. From this it follows that God requires that man must love his fellow men with a love comparable to his love for himself.
4. A World in Sin: "With Adam's fall we sinned all." Because of sin, man (the pupil) by nature lives apart from God. For the image bearer of God to live apart from God is death-man is "dead in trespasses and sins". Through the fall of man, creation (the objects of school study) is "groaning" under the curse of sin. (Eph. 2:1, Rom. 8:22).
5. Believers in a Sinful World: Whosoever is in Christ is a "new creature". But the pollution of sin clings to him as he travels the road of sanctification throughout life. In principle the old things of sin and the self-centered life have passed away. In practice they have not. This creates a moral monstrosity. This creates the necessity of Christian training.
6. Children of Believers in a Sinful World: The fact that a child is born into a Christian home secures for him special privileges promised to believers and their seed (Acts 2:39). The children must therefore be regarded as entitled to all blessings that a benevolent Father has promised them. Implied among these blessings is an adequate knowledge of God secured from both the special and general revelation.
7. Education in a Sinful World: In view of sin all is in a state of disintegration. Education fundamentally is an integrating process, making for a God-centered life. In and through this integrating process the pupil is being properly adjusted to his fellow men, to his environment, and to the times in which his lot is cast. Christian education is therefore, redemptive in character, it is bringing into conscious subjection to God what has been redeemed in and through Christ. As a child of believing parents enjoy special blessings because his home is Christian, we cannot but educate him in a Christian school.
8. The Home and Education: God's Word places upon Christian parents the responsibility for the type of education described above. But because in most instances parents have neither the time nor the training to do this, Christian schools are virtually their only means of fulfilling this responsibility. The Christian school is thus an extension of the Christian home, and necessitates the closest cooperation between the school and the home for the Christian education of the child.

Foundations of Education
by Albert Greene, PhD

At Bellevue Christian School, our vision for Christian schooling encompasses a worldview that answers the great questions of life. We believe this worldview is foundational to any educational program and addresses the following questions: "who are we?", "where are we?", "what is wrong?", and "what is the remedy?". BCS students are learning to think through life by answering these questions from a biblical worldview’s perspective of Creation, Fall, and Redemption.

This biblical worldview informs us that God talks to us and calls us to Himself through His Creation. It also helps us understand the origin and the extent of sin in its doctrine of the Fall. Finally, it teaches us that redemption not only brings individuals into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, it extends throughout the whole of creation.

Scripture teaches us that another aspect of our redemption entails the renewal of our minds to the end that we might have the mind of Christ. To have the mind of Christ is to have an alternative consciousness, a way of seeing life and the world that is radically different from the perspective of the modern, secular world. We recognize that this commits us to far more than mere intellectual ascent to a bare philosophy. The transformation of our minds is expressed in a lifestyle that actively and sacrificially mirrors Jesus.

Bellevue Christian School's vision for Christian schooling acknowledges and embraces the following important commitments:

• Discipleship and Shalom
• Creation Reveals God
• No Neutrality
• Jesus is the Truth
• Foundation of Love
• Knowing is Doing
• Importance of Community
• Seeking First the Kingdom

Discipleship and Shalom

Our goal of Christian schooling is responsive discipleship, evidenced in eliciting students’ gifts, sharing our joys and sorrows, and seeking shalom. Each student’s individual giftedness is honored as a valuable contribution to the classroom and the Bellevue Christian School community. Shalom involves the outworking of Christ’s redemption in repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation in all of life.

Creation Reveals God

Creation is profoundly revelatory of God and provides the only curriculum any school offers. Formed and daily maintained by His powerful Word, creation is a channel through which God shows Himself to us and enables us to worship and commune with Him. The study of creation can become a way of connecting with God in the sense of knowing Him.

No Neutrality

Facts are not neutral, they are charged with the presence of God as channels through which God talks to us. As image bearers, we are both privileged and obligated to respond to Him with awe, love, praise, and service.

Jesus is the Truth

Truth is a Person, Jesus Christ. "I am the way, the truth, and the life..." John 14:16. There are not two kinds of truth: spiritual and ordinary or scientific. Ordinary things, such as mathematics, point beyond themselves to Him as the truth and as their Creator.

Since all areas of study point to God because He created and upholds them, truth is embodied solely in God.

Foundation of Love

Love is foundational to learning. God loves the world which He has spoken into being and which He upholds by His Word. He knows us in love, even in our sinful state. Our knowledge cannot be genuine unless it is rooted in love--love for God, for our neighbor, for ourselves and for the creation.

Knowing is Doing

The biblical concept of knowledge is totally different from the secular concept. It is active, not passive. We begin to understand creation by recognizing that God is talking to us in it and by responding to Him in connection with it. The fear or awe of God is the beginning of wisdom, Proverbs 1:7.

Importance of Community

The development of community is of primary importance at Bellevue Christian School. Community encompasses the relationships in the classroom, among the faculty, between the teachers and administration, and of parents to the school and to each other. Reflecting our relationship to God, Bellevue Christian School’s educational program is relational at its core. Community is basic to the Body of Christ and it is a responsibility of the Christian school to try to restore it.

Seeking First the Kingdom

Christians are to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, Matthew 6:33. We instruct students to seek His kingdom in the whole of their lives. Christ desires to be king of their study lives, their recreational lives, their family lives, all facets of their lives. When individuals do not strive to serve Christ in the whole of their lives, they are serving the kingdom of Satan. This conflict of the kingdoms is the primary quality of the present period of history for Christians.

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