University-style education was developed as a means of acquiring a high-quality education that helps disciple Christian young people while strengthening the home, a goal which, in the context of conventional school and home school models, has become increasingly elusive in recent years. We hope to accomplish this by providing an academically sound education in a structure that integrates the home and the school in the common enterprise of making disciples; thus, a quality education, centered around the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, also becomes quality family time devoted to learning more about the Creator and His creation.

The university-style model, then, consists of three main components: l) a biblical foundation with an emphasis on discipleship; 2) a general structure which seeks a high level of integration between home and school in the educational endeavor; and 3) a striving for academic excellence.

The key to both the basic theory and operating procedures and the ultimate success of the whole university-style concept is the centrality of a biblically sound Christian faith. It is because we acknowledge the final authority of the Scriptures that we recognize that God has given parents the final authority in and responsibility for the education of their children. It is also through the Scriptures that we recognize why God has given them this authority: to produce disciples who will worship Him in spirit and truth (Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6:4).

Because God has given this responsibility to the parents, the school exists to assist, and not supplant, the parents in the work of training and educating their children. Thus the Word gives us parameters defining the way parents and an institution such as a school should relate to each other. The Word also gives us an absolutely reliable common ground that will allow a large number of families, representing diverse backgrounds and perspectives, to work successfully in a common venture. Indeed, as a group of Christians working together to advance the cause of Christ, the university-style model is an arm of the Church, and so functions according to the model of unity in diversity given us in 1 Corinthians 12. A biblically sound Christian faith, then, provides the only final basis for the high level of integration and cooperation that we seek.

It is this desire and attempt to achieve a high level of integration between the home and the school that makes a university model education unique. This desire is a natural result of acknowledging the value and function the Scriptures give to both the Christian home and the larger body of Christ.

The significance and function of the parents is founded upon their unique responsibility to bring up their children "in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4). The significance and function of the school, on the other hand, arises from one of the divinely established roles of the Church: the Lord has given both gifts, including the gift of teaching, and specialized training and expertise to certain members of His body for the purpose of building up the whole body (Ephesians 4:7-16; cf. Exodus 35:30-36:1).

The university-style model recognizes the value of gifted members in the larger body of Christ by seeking to provide parents, through organized course structure and classroom instruction, the resource of trained and gifted teachers.

 

 

copyright 2004, Heritage Academy