Christ Our King Christian School A Great Place to Grow ... In Knowledge and Grace

Why Should I Consider a Christian School?

A Christian School is a special place. It exists to provide a quality education in an environment that shines with the care and love of Jesus. It seeks to serve children and families so that they may grow in faith and Christian life, even as they grow intellectually, emotionally, socially, physically, and creatively.

A Christian School does more than teaching the facts of faith. It touches the heart, the values and the lives of our children. Christian parents and grandparents want to share the good news about Jesus with their children and grandchildren, and they often want the school that their little ones attend to help teach and reinforce every day what their children are learning at home and at church.

A Christian School challenges its students to meet and exceed the standards of the provincial curriculum for public schooling. It also works toward teaching the "whole" child, spiritually and academically. Our children, especially at a young age, need to grow both ways.

A Christian School helps a child learn to live his or her Christian faith every day. It is unrealistic to expect a child to regard religion as important to daily life if it is excluded from school life. When faith is included in school life, it communicates the message that God's Word, and faith, and prayer are important. A child is better prepared for life in this world when he or she knows God's plan of salvation in Christ and sees himself or herself as a redeemed child of God.

Is There a Difference Between a Christian School and a "Lutheran" School?

A Lutheran School is a Christian School in the truest sense. To appreciate the great blessing of a "Lutheran" school, we need to explore the great blessing of Lutheran Theology.

Good theology must begin with a firm foundation -- the Bible. The Lutheran Church is a Bible church. Our motto has been and continues to be Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone. By the grace of God the Lutheran Church has remained a Bible Church. We are to search the Scriptures. We are to teach what they say. Everything we need to believe and do as Christians is told us in the Scriptures.

The Reformation of the 1500's inaugurated by God through Martin Luther aimed to restore the church. By the 16th century the truth of the Gospel and salvation had been all but lost in a sea of error and false teaching. The Reformation was needed to restore the Bible to its proper position and to bring back the truth about salvation by grace through faith. Martin Luther set the Church on a course of following Scripture alone as the sole source for doctrine and practice and returned the Church to the pure teaching of God's Word.

The second part of a firm foundation is Sola Gratia, grace alone. The grace of God in Jesus Christ is at the heart of our Christian faith. For Lutherans the Bible is chiefly the letter of a loving Father to his dear children. In it we find the eternal promise of God that our sins have all been paid for by Jesus' suffering and death on the cross of Calvary. This is the heart and core of the Gospel, the Good News of Salvation.

What does this Good News of the Gospel do? The Gospel brings the power of God to believe. It plants faith and makes it grow. It is also the power that enables a Christian to do what is pleasing to God and live a Christian life. Only the Good News of the Gospel can move a Christian to do the right things for the right reason: to joyfully serve God out of love and thankfulness to God. That's why the third part of a firm foundation is Sola Fide, faith alone. With Scripture we say (Romans 3:28), "We maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law."

This has a profound effect on how a Lutheran School teaches and motivates children. The Gospel works what Scripture calls "justification." God counts lost and guilty sinners righteous in his sight because of Christ's atoning work. A Chrstian is a saint in God's sight by grace through faith in Christ. This is how we must view the children we teach.

The Gospel also works "sanctification." This is the new life a person lives when he believes in Christ. In this new life, the Holy Spirit leads the believer to obey the law for Christ's sake. Now God's law becomes a guide in leading our new life in Christ. In this Christian life, our works are our joyous response to the grace of God.

Because Lutherans have the right understanding of the relationship between Law and Gospel, the Gospel receives greater emphasis. It is the Gospel that produces right behaviour, not the Law. At best, the law can only light a fire under people. The Gospel lights a fire in them. The threats of the law cannot give God-pleasing motivation for Christian living. It is only when the heart is changed and the fire of the Spirit is lit in us that we are moved and empowered to do without constraint what is pleasing to God with a glad and cheerful heart. A person who has a real understanding of the love of God in Christ is astonished at its fire and power. The moment he believes in this love, he cannot but love God and from gratitude for his salvation do joyfully and willingly what is the Lord's will, and do it for his glory.

Thus, the burden of the law is lifted. As faith grows, a Christian finds himself doing more and more by grace what the Law demands but cannot produce. Christian obedience flows naturally out of grace, the assurance of forgiveness through Christ. The Lutheran Christian looks to the Gospel and, knowing that he is a forgiven sinner, Christ works in him, bringing about good works. Good works are then a natural response to the gracious love of God. Luther explains it this way:

Oh, it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith! It is impossible for it not to be doing good works incessantly. It does not ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question is asked, it has already done them, and is constantly doing them. Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times. This knowledge of and confidence in God's grace makes men glad and bold and happy in dealing with God and with all creatures. And this is the work which the Holy Spirit performs in faith. Because of it, without compulsion, a person is ready and glad to do good to everyone, to suffer everything, out of love and praise to God who has shown him this grace.