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Effective Leadership

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Welcome to the July/August issue of Equip for Ministry. We believe this issue contains helpful articles, reviews, tips, and news items that will inform and encourage you in your local church’s ministry. I have asked Dick Aeschliman to develop the lead article which highlights some excellent thoughts of the late Dr. Donald J. MacNair in The Practices of a Healthy Church. Dick is CE&P’s Resource Coordinator and a trainer and consultant to local church leaders. He has been working with us in training elders and deacons for a number of years and is sensitive to the challenges and opportunities that God has set before those leaders.

The chapters selected from MacNair’s book demonstrate the tendency, especially among elders, of falling into one of two extremes: “lording over the people,” or being so laid back the church lacks direction, mobilization, and coordination. Finding the right balance for the leadership needed by a particular church at a particular time is not always easy. Our experience over the years is that effective leaders need the right attitude about their role but they also need training. This is consistent with Paul’s instruction in the book of Ephesians.

Having the right tools for training and knowing how to use them effectively requires much prayer and commitment. Regular check-ups of our leadership skills are a must if we are to be effective “under shepherds.” We need to be sound in the faith but we also need to understand people in order to come along side, encourage, and care for them. It is much easier to follow trusted, respected, and competent leaders. The best way to build that trust relationship between leaders and followers is for the followers to know that the church leaders genuinely care for them.

We hope that the summary of these chapters will challenge you to study MacNair’s book, and that those who do not hold a leadership position at this time will be challenged to pray for and encourage your church leaders. I have found that congregations who regularly uphold their leadership in prayer rarely come to cross-purposes with them. The mutual commitment of leaders and followers is necessary for the church to minister strategically and effectively.

The Equip Tip by CE&P Regional Trainer Susan Spradlin regarding an effective classroom learning environment will be particularly valuable for teachers of children. Susan’s experience as a teacher, trainer, and consultant comes through clearly in this helpful Tip.

“In Case You’re Asked” deals with a topic that we hope has not noticeably infiltrated the PCA. “Open theism,” present in some evangelical circles, is causing confusion and discussion. It was a “hot topic” at the annual Evangelical Theological Society meeting last fall. We need to be aware of what it is and how to respond if the opportunity presents itself.

The five books featured in the review section were carefully chosen, as usual, to encourage your reading in several different directions and levels. A Family of Faith will take you through some important topics as they relate to evangelicalism. The Connection Gap will encourage you to think more intentionally about relationships, an important topic for ministry in today’s fragmented culture. The Communion of Saints is also connected with the importance of believers in their interdependent relationships in the church. Finding the Will of God is a topic that has concerned Christians from the beginning. This book will be extremely helpful to those who take the time to read it. The Pocket Dictionary is a helpful resource tool for teachers and students.

We have also highlighted some of CE&P’s activities during the spring months. These are for your information as well as items for prayer. The ministry of Christian Education and Publications is totally dependent on the churches and individuals that God raises up to support this ministry, financially and with prayer. We are increasingly aware that “it is not by might nor by power but by my Spirit says the Lord of hosts,” (Zechariah 4:6). Equip for Ministry is one of our main resources for communicating with individuals and churches. If you would like an extra copy for a friend please let us know. You can also visit our website, (www.pcanet.org/cep) and link to our Bookstore, Video Library, and other helpful resources.

Praying the Psalms

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“Whoever prays the Psalms earnestly and regularly will soon stop those other light and personal little devotional prayers and say: Ah, there is not the juice, the strength, the passion, the fire which I find in the Psalms.” Martin Luther[i]

By Archie Parrish. God blessed my wife and me with three children. From the moment of their births we talked to them. Daily we did everything we could to get them to repeat what we said. At first only Jean and I could understand the sounds they made. Day after day, we continued talking to them, and after a while they began echoing our words back to us. Single words grew into short sentences. Because we continued to talk to our children they learned to talk to us.

In a similar fashion God teaches His children the language of prayer. The Holy Spirit prays for us and helps us learn to pray. The Holy Spirit inspired the whole Bible; and He uses all Scripture to help us pray. But He especially uses the book of Psalms. As we pray the Psalms, the Holy Spirit helps us commune with the Father, conform to the Son, and combat the devil.

Only men and women set free from sin through faith in Christ can successfully fight spiritual warfare. As sons and daughters in a conscious vital relationship with our Father and with His family in a local church, we can properly serve as soldiers in Christ’s army and gain victory in battles with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Leaders in spiritual warfare need not be brilliant; they cannot be self-confident. They are to be humble servants, who are courageous because they are confident in the Lord. They lead by example and are people of prayer who multiply after their kind. Soldiers in spiritual warfare are humble followers of Jesus who maintain their morale by a steady diet of psalms and basic Christian truth, especially Scripture. They boldly engage the enemy. Spiritual warriors know their enemies and believe God is sufficient to defeat them. Spiritual warriors believe kingdom-focused prayer is their super-weapon.

The Calvinist reformers were led by a militant aristocracy and financed by wealthy bourgeoisie. They put up long and frequently successful battles. Yet the leadership and finance could not have won the day had the individual Calvinists not possessed, to quote Cromwell, “a conscience of what they were doing.” In many cases, they won their battles or retrieved those they had lost, not through generalship nor through greater economic power, but because of superior morale. In building up and maintaining this morale, the battle hymns of the Psalter played a conspicuous part.[ii]

The psalms owed their importance in this connection primarily to Calvin himself. Usually when thinking of all his influence on the resistance movements, we tend to stress his teachings, his organization, and his personality. Yet at the grass-roots level these perhaps did not have all of the impact which we usually attribute to them. The thing that really “grabbed” the common man, the ordinary Calvinistic soldier, was something much more mundane: his catechetical training[iii] and the congregational singing of the psalms.

David said, “I give myself to prayer” (Psalm 109:4). Literally the original Hebrew reads, “I prayer”, i.e. “I am prayer.” The Holy Spirit desires to help us become prayer. Here is how He is helping me. I begin every day with the book of Psalms. I divided the book into thirty almost equal portions and I spend about thirty minutes prayerfully reading aloud one portion. I use the English Standard Version because it is an accurate translation and it is easy to read.

This daily discipline has been so rewarding that I am now trying to learn all 150 Psalms by heart. It was not unusual for devout Jews in the time of Jesus and His Apostles to know by heart the “whole of David,” i.e., the entire book of Psalms. It is probable that our Lord Jesus had all the Psalms memorized. They certainly were the very fabric of His life. In His most painful moments, as He faced death on the cross, He instinctively cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46). These are David’s words recorded in Psalm 22:1.

Jesus’ last words from the cross were, “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46). As soon as their children began to talk, devout Jewish mothers taught them to pray, “Into Your hand I commit my spirit” (Psalm 31:5). Each night before going to sleep the children prayed these words. To this childhood prayer, Jesus adds the personal address, “Father.” Concerning His atoning work on the cross, Jesus declared, “It is finished” (John 19:30), then He prayed to the Father as a little child turning in for the night.

Paul urged earlyChristiansto “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16). Praying the Psalms built the early Christians into an army of kingdom intercessors. New Testament writers quote more verses from the Psalms than any other Old Testament book.[iv] Praying the Psalter shaped the life of early Christianity into a militant kingdom focus.

Martin Luther relied on the Psalms to become a man of prayer. Said Luther:”When I feel that I have become cool and joyless in prayer because of other tasks or thoughts (for the flesh and the devil always impede and obstruct prayer), I take my little Psalter, hurry to my room, or, if it be the day and hour for it, to the church where a congregation is assembled and, as time permits, I say quietly to myself and word-for-word the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and, if I have time, some words of Christ or of Paul, or some psalms, just as a child might do.”[v]

The Secret that unlocks the Psalter is the fact that it is the prayer book of Jesus, the Messiah and Mediator. He is the Head; the Church is His Body. And Head and Body are one; so the Body should join in the prayers of the Head. With this perspective we can pray all the Psalms, even when the writer protests his innocence or invokes God’s judgment, or goes through infinite depths of suffering. Jesus Christ Himself is praying here and in the whole Psalter.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer observes:”This insight the New Testament and the Church have always recognized and declared. The Man Jesus Christ, to whom no affliction, no ill, no suffering is alien and who yet was the wholly innocent and righteous one, is praying in the Psalter through the mouth of His Church. The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ in the truest sense of the word. The Psalter is the vicarious prayer of Christ for His Church. This prayer belongs not to the individual member, but to the whole Body of Christ. In the Psalter we learn to pray on the basis of Christ’s prayer.”[vi]Ask the Father to show you the praying Christ in the Psalms and teach you how to use the Psalms in your prayer life.

A Significant Question

One question that often is asked concerning praying the Psalms is: How can I pray a Psalm when it does not express exactly what I feel in my heart at the moment? Anyone who is truly honest will admit the need to pray against our own heart in order to pray rightly. After all is said and done, it is not what we want to pray that is important, but that for which God wants us to pray. Jeremiah warns, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) If we only follow our hearts, we would probably only pray for “our daily bread,” God wants us to pray that His will be done, not our will. As you pray the Psalms, begin by praying, “Father, enable me to pray not from the poverty of my heart, but from the richness of Your word.”

Making the Psalms yours

Let me close this plea to pray the Psalms by sharing with you a few practical suggestions. Below is a thirty-day schedule for praying through the Psalms. Each section requires about fifteen minutes, depending on how much meditation I do.

Before reading pray: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law…. Give me understanding, that I may keep Your law and observe it with my whole heart” (Psalm 119:18, 34). “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts; and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23, 24).

  • While reading turn the words of the Psalms into prayer.

  • Read aloud, in a normal voice if possible but at least in a whisper. (This helps concentration and avoids distraction.)

  • Read on your knees, when possible.

  • Read daily-I usually do this when the Lord awakens me early in the morning.

  • Read frequently during the day–Carry the Psalter with you and refer to the day’s portion frequently.

Let us join Luther in the following prayer:”Our dear Lord, who has given to us and taught us to pray the Psalter and the Lord’s Prayer, grant us also the spirit of prayer and grace so that we pray with enthusiasm and earnest faith, properly and without ceasing, for we need to do this; he has asked us for it and therefore wants to have it from us. To him be praise, honor, and thanksgiving. Amen.”[vii]

[i] Foreword to the Neuburg edition of the Psalms, 1545.

[ii] W. Stanford Reid, The Battle Hymns of the Lord-Calvinist Psalmody of the Sixteenth Century, p. 36.

[iii] The use of question and answer instruction used in Catechisms was part of the Passover celebration. See Exodus 12:25-27: “When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.'”

[iv] Nestl

Prayerful Ministry

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Welcome to this issue of Equip for Ministry. We believe we have included materials that will interest you and benefit your Christian life and ministry. Our main theme is prayer. Could there be a more vital and essential need in our lives than prayer? The author of the lead article, Archie Parrish, a PCA teaching elder on staff with Mission to North America, has worked with us on numerous occasions. His emphasis on the relationship between prayer and renewal or revival hit the mark. He has helped many individuals and churches to become more involved in active praying. He is also partly responsible for the 50 Days of Prayer that you will read about in this issue.

His thoughts in “Praying the Psalms” are challenging and his suggestions for application are right on target. He naturally chose the Psalms as the format for prayer and his thirty days of prayer ideas and sequence will be workable and helpful to those who want to develop a more consistent and disciplined prayer life.

This issue contains some unusually valuable and helpful book reviews. You will not only want to read the reviews but you will be challenged to read the books. Teaching for a Change by Norman DeJong is a vitally important book for those involved in discipleship or Christian education. The Power of Team Leadership presents some of the most practically helpful ideas and applications on that topic. Each pastor and church leader will want to read it. Preaching in a Postmodern World will also challenge every preacher and teacher. The challenge to communicate clearly with today’s world cannot be overstated. For personal growth, reading through The Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin, would prove to be a valuable exercise. The Analysis of the Institutes will encourage you in that endeavor. The review of Os Guinness’s The Journey offers an unusual experience for the reader. It can help you in your personal life and witness. Finally the book Disciplines of a Godly Woman will be something that every Christian woman should read.

The “In Case You’re Asked” article is another attempt to look at the basic doctrines of the faith in light of today’s world. God’s special revelation in the Scriptures is our foundational point. There we start and there we end or we will run off track.

You will also appreciate reading the Equip Tip as it focus on the importance of relationships and the obstacles to developing good relationships. It is a timely topic for the postmodern world that is crying out for meaningful relationships.

The articles on CE&P activities including the conferences will keep you aware of some of the ministries that CE&P coordinates. They can also serve as a reminder to pray for us, that we might “Serve the Lord with gladness” and “Serve His purpose to this generation.”

You might have a friend that needs encouragement in his or her prayer life, or you might want to be sure your church leaders read the content contained in this issue. Pass your copy on them or help them acquire a copy of their own.

As we develop each issue of Equip for Ministry, our purpose is to include materials that will challenge you to think and edify you that process. In each issue we attempt to highlight some aspect of our ministry in order to keep you informed and aware of our need for prayer as we implement those ministries. We try to focus on a broad range of topics and issues, which is characteristic of Christian Education and Publications’ whole ministry. We do attempt to be as audience focused, as humanly possible, and it is interesting to see how the Holy Spirit leads us in each issue. The personal words of testimony and encouragement mean much to us.

Do I Know You?

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Most everybody talks about relational ministry. Yet relationships are so easy to miss because our agendas call for more important things.I’m embarrassed that I don’t know the names of some of the people in our little church. That creates an awkwardness that inhibits any attempt to go further. Think of the people in your congregation, your Sunday school class, people you see regularly, whose names you don’t know. It’s one reason why the church can seem so impersonal.

Consider the visitor-or is she a regular attendee you’ve simply never met? Do you introduce yourself? I never will forget the time I introduced myself to a woman at church. I asked if she was visiting and she informed me that she was a charter member. That sort of response can be a big inhibitor to saying, “Hi, my name is _____.” But if you don’t the visitor might leave saying, “I attended that church and no one spoke to me.” And knowing a person’s name is just the beginning.

A Session or Deacon’s meeting might start with a conversation about what’s happening in everyone’s life and a time of prayer for each other. It could take a half hour or more, and it could be the most important thing you do. It will help everyone come together for the business at hand. It could surface some significant information, and it will add a little more glue to the bond that solidifies each one’s commitment to the others.

A Sunday school class ought to be about more than increased understanding of a biblical text. To be effective it must rub that passage against our lives. One way to do that is to help people talk to each other about ways they think the Spirit might want them to respond. A class could break into groups of three to five for exercises that help them get to know each other better, know the Bible better, and listen to God apply the Word to their hearts. Variations on this theme work in almost any age group. For instance, take an egg timer to a children’s class and let everyone have one minute. While the sand falls each one in turn can talk about the most fun he ever had, his favorite toy or best friend, or describe his mother or father. As the teacher, don’t forget to take your turn, too.

Many of us live in metropolitan areas where most everybody is from some place else. Often relatives live a considerable distance away, and neighbors seldom know each other. Houses are empty during the day and closed up during the evening. Many times I’ve heard neighbors say, “People will be out when it’s warmer.” But summer comes and, “People will be out when it gets cooler.” The reality is people don’t come out much at all. Relationships in the neighborhood, at the office, or at school are important. But if they don’t extend beyond the confines of that environment they have limited value. And the same is true of relationships at church. Hopefully, the believer will have friendships with some that extend beyond the confines of a church program.These relationships are necessary for us to not simply survive, but thrive in this Christian pilgrimage.

The Cost of Love

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Sigmund Freud argued that each individual has a limited quantity of love. Consequently, the more a person loves someone else, the less love he has for himself.Rollo May took issue with that position. He observed that when a person falls in love he feels more valuable and treats himself with more care. He further suggested that this inner sense of worth comes whether or not the love is reciprocated. He agreed with those who say that we are able to love others to the extent that we are able to love ourselves.

For some time I have maintained that love is elicited. The more we are loved, the greater our potential for love. If such is the case Freud has given us a half-truth. We do have a limited capacity for love.And May has given us a half-truth. To love someone who loves us in return is scary (we are giving without any assurance that we will receive), but it is invigorating nonetheless. It renews us, giving us an even greater capacity for love. But to love someone who does not return our love can drain us.

Love is commanded in the Scripture. I’ve often been asked how that command squares with my position. Usually behind the question is the assumption that since love is commanded it must be controlled by the will.Not necessarily. I may be able to will to treat you in a loving way. But love is always greater than the sum of its parts. The difference between doing loving things for you and feeling love for you may be subtle but it is there. And at times that difference can register in a profound way. For instance, parents may determine to treat all their children alike, yet love one more than another. Teachers may consciously try to not allow favoritism even though they are attracted to some students and possibly even repelled by others. In each case I suggest that the individuals involved are able to see the difference between loving acts and love itself.

Some might maintain that we never express love to another person without meeting some need of our own. But if there is a love that approximates the love of Jesus, it must be possible to love someone who either cannot or will not acknowledge our love. And to love such a person is costly. Because our resource of love is not restored in the process.

Are we able to pay the price? We are if we are receiving love. The Christian experiences regularly the love of Jesus through friends, worship, instruction from His book, prayer and reflection on what He has told us and done for us, especially during the tough times.

Are we willing to pay the price? That is a question that must be answered within the context of specific relationships. Can I love the son who has broken my heart? Can I love the student who I can’t seem to reach? Can I love the church member who seems to have so little to give to me? Or the neighbor who irritates me?

We know God’s answer. He loved us while we were his enemies. And we know God’s desire. He tells us to love each other the way he loves us.Suppose that we belong to Jesus and we are willing to try to love someone we haven’t been able to love. If love is more than doing loving things, how do we go about it?

I suggest first, that we try to get to know the person. That knowledge might put our feelings in a different perspective. If we still have “problems” with the person try to think about why we consider those things to be problems. That also could give us a different perspective. Risk talking about our feelings with the person. That must be done with great care remembering that our objective is not alienation but to break through the barriers that keep us from loving. Ask for God’s wisdom as well as the ability to love that person.As we love we are renewing and enlarging the ability of others to love. And as representatives of Jesus Christ our love enables others to feel His love.

Not a Village, but a Church with a School

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By Robert Rogland. Can you think of a greater heartbreak for believing parents than to see their children grow up without a living faith in Christ? Too many godly fathers and mothers live with that heartbreak. Some have seen their children grow up more interested in the world than in Christ; others have seen a son or daughter actually reject Him. What can be done to ensure that our covenant children will grow up to trust and love and serve our Savior?

The Bible charges parents to bring up their children in the training and instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). But other Christians also have a measure of responsibility: When the Lord commanded his church to teach all nations, surely that included covenant children as well (Matt. 28:18-20). Our Directory of Worship, a part of the Book of Church Order, reminds us that “Believers’ children within the visible Church, and especially those dedicated to God in Baptism, are non-communing members under the care of the church” (DW, Chapter 57-1; emphasis added). When we witness the baptism of an infant, do we not vow to pray for that child? Do we not also vow to help him or her come to true faith, repentance, and obedience and to become a communing member of the church-in other words, to help the child grow up to be a believing, practicing follower of Christ?

Others may debate whether or not it takes a village to raise a child, but well-taught Christians should have no doubt that, under ordinary circumstances, it takes a church to raise a Christian child. The Christian school can be a powerful arm of the church as it works towards that end.

The Role of the Home

Much of the work of raising a child to be a Christian is informal. Parents instruct in conversation and show by example what a Christian believes and does (Deut. 6:7). Children learn to pray and worship first by participating in family devotions and praying with Mommy or Daddy at their bedside. They learn the importance of keeping God’s Law and the consequences of disobedience as they disobey and are disciplined. They learn God’s unconditional love for His children as they see their parents’ unconditional love for them. A boy or girl learns what it is to walk by faith when he or she sees Dad and Mom face crises with trust in God. Children learn what love for strangers is through hospitality extended in the home. Through such experiences, and the interpretation of them furnished by their parents, children learn most of what it is to be a Christian in faith, word, and deed.

The Role of the Church

The church also has a role in the upbringing of a covenant child. It is in the services of the church that children learn corporate worship, worship even more important than family worship as far as the Scriptures are concerned. The Lord’s Supper, with all the grace it conveys, is celebrated in the church, not the home. Pastors and Sunday school teachers provide formal instruction in Bible and doctrine. In the church, children encounter others who share their parents’ faith, an encouraging thing considering that not many of the neighbors are likely to share the family’s faith. What the Bible says about Christ dying for the world is more believable when the child sees that biblical faith is not confined to the family circle. In the church, children see that some Christians have one gift, some another, all to be used for the good of the Body. Indeed, it is only in the church that the concept of the Body of Christ finds meaning. The immediate Christian family is never called the Body of Christ.

The Role of the School

There comes a time in every child’s life when formal instruction becomes necessary. Children need to learn a lot of facts and skills. They need to build a Christian worldview, a framework for seeing everything in its relationship to biblical truth. Here Christian parents face three basic choices: home schooling, public schooling, or Christian schooling. I don’t intend to condemn either public schooling or home schooling in this article; we all know children from believing homes who have succeeded in growing in Christ and in Christian thinking under all three regimens. But I write as a teacher in a Christian school to tell others how the Christian school can be a partner with the home and the church in raising children for the Lord.

What are the particular benefits of sending your child to a Christian school? The greatest is surely this: teachers in the Christian school view the training of covenant children as their calling from God and have prepared themselves to exercise that high calling faithfully and effectively. The teacher is the single most important element in any school experience. More than textbooks and other learning materials, more than the physical facilities where the school is housed, more than schoolmates, the dedicated, competent Christian teacher exercises the most important influence on a child during school hours.

To be sure, no one will love your child and be dedicated to his or her success in school more than you. If love and dedication were the only considerations, I suppose everyone should homeschool. But some parents can’t homeschool, and others realize that they don’t know how to teach effectively in a formal way or (especially in the upper grades) don’t know the material their children need to learn. Plus, in homes with children of different ages, the parent simply may not be able to teach all of them well and do all the other things necessary to keep the home running. The competent Christian teacher has academic knowledge, professional expertise, and an interest in your child that will enable her or him to be your partner-and the church’s partner-in giving your son or daughter the knowledge, skills, and biblical worldview he or she needs.

A second benefit of Christian schooling is that your child will be part of a Christian community. There your child rubs shoulders with Christian peers, much as you rub shoulders with fellow Christians in the life of the church. Covenant children are members of the church, but they do not participate as equals with communing members on Sunday morning or Wednesday evening. But in the Christian school, children have the experience of participating as equals with other Christians-immature Christians like themselves, to be sure, but equals nonetheless. They will be offended and have to learn to forgive; they will offend and have to seek forgiveness for foolish and sinful words and acts. They will have opportunities for leadership. They will pull together in common projects for the sake of Christ and His kingdom. The Christian school is not a church, but it is a training ground for church life as well as for life in the world. And all this takes place under the supervision and guidance of adult Christians who spend six to eight hours a day devoted to your child’s growth and development in Christ.

A third benefit of the Christian school is that it is a prism refracting the phenomena of nature, the events of history, and all the other facts of life and the world through the medium of the Bible. The diverse interpretations of men and things given by the media and the public school are naturalistic and worldly. (While a Christian school environment provides an ideal setting for this, let us thank God for the many godly public school teachers who do not dish up the world this way to their pupils.) Christian parents must continually challenge and correct non-biblical ideas their children encounter. Some parents do this consistently and well. The church also, through its teaching ministry, must expose and correct worldly ideas that bombard its members, children as well as adults. The Christian school partners with the parents and the church in this task.

“All right, you make a good case for Christian schooling on paper,” the skeptical reader may reply, “but I know Christian schools that are virtually indistinguishable from public schools. The instruction is mediocre, the facilities are inadequate, and the kids are just as worldly as public school kids. Why should I send my child to a school like that?”

The answer to that question is, of course, you shouldn’t send your child to such a school. Parents need to be discerning as they look for a Christian school for their children. All Christian schools are not equal. To be sure, all or nearly all Christian schools will have a dress code, a weekly chapel service, and required Bible classes. Virtually all will feature instruction extolling a creationist approach to science. But there is much more to a Christian school than that! Christian parents should settle for nothing less than the following:

1. The school you choose must not be staffed with pious teachers who lack academic and professional competence, nor should it employ those who are merely competent, apart from godliness. The teachers must be models of what educated, godly disciples of Christ ought to be, and they must make both learning and godliness attractive to their pupils by word and by example.

2. The school must teach all subjects from a biblical perspective, consciously helping its pupils develop a mature Christian world and life view. That view must be comprehensive, embracing all of human life and experience. The great Dutch Reformed thinker Abraham Kuyper said it well: There is not a square inch of life or thought where Christ has not said, “This is mine!” I believe that “reformed thinkers” have worked out what a biblical world and life view entails more completely and consistently than Christians of other traditions, and I conclude that the ideal Christian school is reformed as well as evangelical. Yet it is not smug, obnoxious, or sectarian in upholding reformed convictions. If a Christian school can make the reformed view of God, men, and life attractive to non-reformed Christians, as well as to Presbyterians, it has struck the right balance.

3. The school must challenge its pupils to practice consistent biblical thinking and living both in and out of the classroom. Compartmentalization-thinking and behaving as a Christian in school and church, thinking and living like the world the rest of the time-is a great temptation for all of us, children included. A good Christian school challenges its students to think and live as Christians all the time, and tries to show them how.

If you already have this kind of Christian school in your community, well and good. If you do not, why not ask your Session to consider starting a church-based school? My experience and observations have reinforced the conviction that the Christian school functions best when it operates as a cooperative ministry of the church rather than under the auspices of an independent board. Few independent Christian schools are consistently reformed. Establishing and operating a school under the authority of the church should make it easier to maintain a reformed philosophy. If God leads you to pursue the seemingly daunting task of starting a Christian school, CE&P can put you in contact with PCA churches and schools that would be happy to share their experiences, observations, and ideas with you.

No Christian school is ideal. Christian teachers are sinners saved by grace, just like other Christians. They do not always carry out their commission with complete faithfulness. Maybe some of the teachers are not as well trained as they could be. Here is an opportunity for parents with particular expertise to volunteer to help. Maybe a particular teacher does not relate well to your child, or to other children. Here is an opportunity to talk with that teacher. Be an active parent! Meet with and get to know the teacher. Let him or her know your concerns. The Christian school is a partner with the home and the church. Partnership requires communication.

When you are tempted to be critical of your Christian school, remember that parents and churches are not perfect either. But our gracious God does for us above what we ask or think. God is faithful even if we are faithless (Rom. 2:2-3). How much more will he bless if we faithfully seek godly education for our covenant children!