Foundations of Education
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.