Why a Lutheran High School in McHenry County?

Lutheran high schools are alternatives to public education. They are not started out of opposition to public education, but they represent an effort to satisfy human needs in many unique ways. Lutheran high schools attempt to create optimum opportunities for exposure and application of the Scriptures to pupils' needs through dedicated Christian teaching, worship services, and an atmosphere of Christian fellowship, service, and witness.

No Lutheran high school can ever claim its students will automatically be better Christians than teenagers who do not attend a Lutheran high school. The power to lead a Christian life is a free gift of the Holy Spirit through sanctification. Like faith, this free gift is poured out through the means of grace, namely, God's Word and His sacraments.

When a high school graduate emerges as a mature, dedicated Christian equipped to live the abundant life in Christ, all credit belongs to God, our Creator; to Jesus, our Redeemer; and to the Holy Spirit, our Real Teacher in the home, school, and church.

History

Lutheran schools have been vital in the ministry of congregations throughout the history of Lutheranism in America, particularly in congregations affiliated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Pioneer congregations established schools to assist parents in the nurture and education of their children.

Since those early days Lutheran schools have kept pace with the changing needs of congregations and society. Lutheran schools have been viewed as effective agencies in rural communities, in metropolitan areas, in changing neighborhoods, and in developing communities. Where once Lutheran schools included almost exclusively only the elementary grades, recent decades have witnessed a phenomenal growth of high schools and preschools.

In recent decades Lutheran congregations have felt the impact of a changing society. New needs and expectations arose. Beginning In 1985 the LCMS School Department determined to identify the issues and challenges confronting Lutheran congregations with schools in the next decade and century. Lutheran Schools--2lst Century (LS-21) is the name given to the effort of church and school leaders to help congregations and schools plan their ministries for the future. Lutheran schools are known and respected by members of their communities who know the doors of the school and congregation are open for all members of the community.

The Era for Evangelism

It's no secret that church-related schools are widely recognized as vibrant congregational agencies. They help congregations accomplish the six functions of the church (nurture, stewardship, fellowship, service, worship, and evangelism). Historically, Lutheran schools were considered an integral part of the congregation. Then in more recent decades, many began to consider the school as an entity separate from the congregation. But today that trend has reversed itself and Lutheran schools are once again valued for the congregational ministries that occur through them.

The decade of the 1990s began the era of evangelism opportunity for Lutheran schools. Congregations have included schools in their vital strategies for sharing Christ In their community. Congregations are starting schools, not only for nurture, but also for service to communities and for sharing Christ. New programs and evangelism processes have gained in popularity and are being used more energetically by congregations.

In addition to the elementary and secondary schools that remain the heart of Lutheran education, two relatively new agencies are providing great opportunities for sharing Christ by congregations:

1. Early childhood centers have grown at the rate of approximately 10 percent per year, doubling in number every 10 years. Early childhood centers (preschools and kindergartens) enroll a high percentage of nonmember children. There are more early childhood centers not affiliated with elementary schools than there are elementary schools. Approximately 85 percent of the children in early childhood centers come from nonmember homes. Children from unchurched homes account for 19 percent of the enrollment in a typical early childhood center.



2. Care programs are in great demand today. They either provide care of young children all day long or supervision and programs for school-age children before and after school. These programs answer a great need in a society in which both parents frequently are employed outside the home.

Although established for service, child-care centers provide opportunities for nurture and evangelism.

Lutheran Schools are Christian Schools

One unique aspect of Lutheran education is that it includes the Christian faith and the Christian way of life in the educational process. Lutheran schools are based on a firm belief that for God to be at the center of one's life, He must also be made a vital part of the learning process.

Lutherans confess that Jesus Christ is their Savior from sin and the Lord of their lives. Since Jesus Christ is the beginning, center, and end for the confessing Christian, a school's Christian distinctiveness is validated by the confession of those who serve there that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord.

Lutheran schools are places where the Gospel is taught and disciples are made. They are distinctively Christian because disciples - fishers of men, women, and children - serve there. Lutheran schools are laboratories where teachers and students and their parents learn to know Christ's love and to love one another.

Christian education is also described as Christian nurture. Implying more than the teaching and learning of information, nurture has to do with nourishing and sustaining. The goals of nurture are growth and maturity and helping people become all they are capable of becoming. Christian nurture is a distinctive teaching/learning process that focuses on faith development and on growing and maturing as a child of God.

Children in Lutheran classrooms are viewed as "people of possibility." God gave each student a unique set of talents, skills, and abilities, with a unique purpose in life. A quality Christian education helps children discover God's gifts and talents, appreciate them, and develop them to their fullest.

Committed Christian teachers who are open and sensitive to the qualities, concerns, and needs of each individual student foster a warm, secure learning environment where students can practice the life skills in which God would have them grow. The distinctiveness of an education in such a setting can be most easily observed in the day-by-day activities in the classroom. Here is where mission and purpose, belief and practice, educational creed and philosophy come together so that the school's goals for children can be achieved.

Christian distinctiveness is apparent in Lutheran classrooms in the following ways:

1. Jesus is the center of all teaching, learning, and living.


2. Teachers view all students as redeemed children of God.


3. Students are urged daily to view themselves, their classmates, and their teachers with respect, esteem and dignity.


4. Teachers help students know and understand themselves, their needs, their talents, and their purpose as disciples of Christ within their community, their church, and their society as a whole.


5. Lutheran classrooms are communities in which children learn to care for and help one another learn, grow, and apply what they believe. Appropriate classroom behavior, based on self-discipline, is the goal of the caring community. Christian love and forgiveness in Jesus Christ is operative in all relationships.


6. Because children grow and mature in different ways, lessons are designed to allow for individual differences and growth patterns. Measurement of performance is based on individual progress and growth as well as on comparison to classmates.


7. The curriculum is designed to include not only academic subjects, but all aspects of a comprehensive education. Learning and living Christian values and lifestyles is an important aspect of daily Christian nurture.


8. Because fathers and mothers are viewed as the child's primary teachers, classroom teachers involve them as partners in the teaching/learning process. This involves more than simply reporting to parents the child's performance and progress.

Lutheran Schools Provide a Bible-Based Education

That God's Word is taught and lived in the classroom is a vital and distinctive characteristic of Lutheran schools.

Throughout their history, Lutheran schools have identified themselves as Christ-centered and Bible-based. God's Word provides the purpose, content, and direction for education in Lutheran schools. As teachers study and learn the Bible, they grow in faith, understanding, and in their "aptness" to teach. An active, vibrant faith can be evidenced as teachers teach Bible stories, give English tests, coach volleyball teams, and in all other tasks they undertake. Helping children to know God and love and trust Him is a daily pursuit in Lutheran classrooms as teachers help students learn the Bible and apply it to their lives.

Because educational programs are based on God's Word, Lutheran schools help students develop the characteristics necessary for success as a citizen and as a Christian in adult life. God's Word provides power for salvation and power for Christian living. The Christian classroom is a workplace where the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies his children, providing the context for faith development. for loving one another, and for learning the skills necessary for leading a productive, God-pleasing life.

Lutheran Schools Provide a Quality Christian Education.

Since their inception, Lutheran schools have excelled at providing a comprehensive, well-rounded Christian education. Lutheran elementary and high school students receive a quality education in all the academic subjects. Typically, students achieve higher test score levels than most students in our nation's schools.

Educators in Lutheran schools are expected to meet a higher standard than either lay people or educators in public schools "since an overseer is entrusted with God's work, he must be blameless ... one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it" (Titus 1:7-9).

Test scores are not the only measure of a student's success. To grow and develop as well-rounded adults, students must acquire other habits and qualities for successful living. The Christ-centered approach to learning helps students develop a much better awareness and appreciation of God's daily loving presence. The approach also encourages appreciation of beauty, the arts, and culture. It helps students cultivate habits of cleanliness and orderliness. And helps students focus on Christian joy and hope, which fosters fellowship and friendship, and conveys Christian goodwill toward all people.

Why a Lutheran High School?

Why a Lutheran high school? There are four good reasons: the youth, the parents, the church, and the community. Lutheran high schools are alternatives to public education. They are not started out of opposition to public education, but they represent an effort to satisfy human needs in unique ways.

One unique aspect of Lutheran education is that it includes the Christian faith and the Christian way of life in the educational process. Lutheran schools are based on a firm belief that for God to be at the center of one's life, He must also be made a vital part of the learning process.

The Youth:

The needs of people are physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual. As young people become adults they must be made aware of their needs and be able to explore them In depth. Life's problems and joys, life's challenges and purposes are met and experienced through human needs. They permeate and interrelate with our total selves.

Religion should not be separated from such growth. For young people to understand their needs in depth they need answers to such questions as: Who is God? How and why did the world and man come into existence? Who is man? What is his purpose? Are people innately good or evil?

This growing into responsible adulthood also requires skills for building relationships. One person's needs are often at cross purposes with the needs of another. The development of proper Christian relationships is aided by finding answers to: How do God's people act? How do I fulfill my needs in relationship to the needs and rights of others? What does God declare as right and wrong? What actions are ethical and moral? How does God want me to act when wronged by others? How does God react to my sin?

A significant aspect of the process of Christian maturity is the increased understanding that each person requires help with his personal needs and also has the responsibility to help others with theirs. To grasp this more fully, the youth also need answers to: Why should we help one another? How does human help spring from Jesus' love? How does the Holy Spirit work in and through the Christian? in what ways are we weak, and why? What is our source of power and commitment? What does it mean to live under the Gospel?

Lutheran education is certain about its purpose. it is to promote the Christian faith. It attempts to help young people find answers to their life's questions from the truths of Scripture and with the help of Christian peers and teachers. Through religious insight youth can explore life's needs and find a sense of ultimate purpose and divine dignity. From the Scriptures they will learn that, at the core of the Christian life-style, there is forgiveness, and that their hope for eternity is based on grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

The Parents:

Parents love their children and they should be concerned about these gifts of God. Parents also are concerned about the life-styles of their children. Education, peer groups, religion, and the home are some of the key factors which help mold life-styles. They are crucial components of moral and spiritual development.

A Lutheran high school allows parents to choose an educational program that will help them carry out their parental responsibilities. The right to choose a Lutheran school gives people the privilege of the free exercise of religion.

Through such schools the youth have access to educational programs in which parents are given opportunities for input and decision making. These schools are available to all since they have open enrollment policies and are viable options for Lutherans and children of all races, color. and ethnic origins. Lutheran schools do not discriminate on the basis of sex in educational programs, activities, and employment practices and policies.

The Church:

The mission and ministry of the church is to provide opportunities to worship God, to learn more about God and man, to witness for Christ, to develop communities of fellowship and to help serve one another. An official Lutheran church statement reads, "The most effective educational agencies available to the church for equipping God's people for ministry are the full time Lutheran elementary and secondary schools." Five days a week, and some times more, Lutheran high school classrooms and activity centers are part of the church.

Does attending a Lutheran high school really make a difference as far as the individual person and the church are concerned? Research has proven that people who have attended Lutheran schools report more frequent experiences with God in their personal lives; exhibit a more consistent belief In the divinity of Jesus; possess a greater clarity on the way of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone; display more Biblical knowledge; experience a fuller devotional life and engage in more witnessing; hold a more balanced conservative theology, not ultraconservative and not liberal; have a greater awareness of the presence of the Trinity in one's whole life; live a higher value to relationships with God and men; have a more reasonable respect for authority; show stronger tendencies to be forgiving and personally forthright with other people; display a greater avoidance of over-simplistic views of social issues as mere power struggles; show less of a tendency to be anxious about their faith; and are less swayed by their peers.

The research also presents clear evidence that the more years a person attends Lutheran schools the more significant is this difference. The research does not say that these same qualities can not be present in individuals who have not attended a Lutheran school, but it is less likely.

The Community:

There is overwhelming evidence that a large number of people from our nation's communities recognize the value of Lutheran schools. Educational diversity and choice are considered vital elements in America and must be preserved. This concept has been championed by Commissioners of Education and other national and local leaders in public education.

The general public continues to grow in their understanding that non-public schools contribute much to the common good. It is publicly acknowledged that these schools raise the quality of education, are examples of concern for children and parents and dedication toward the good of humanity, are committed to the religious values which so many homes embrace, are spearheading a birth in moral and spiritual values, are staffed by committed teachers who have genuine care and show personalized concern, and produce trustworthy and honorable Christian citizens.