Can You Trust God for Your Child’s Christian School Education?

 I will never forget this conversation. It took place just prior to a senior high graduation ceremony on one of those nearly perfect early June evenings several years ago. A father of a soon to be graduate approached me with a little scrap of paper in hand. Upon the paper he had scribbled a large sum of money. He inquired if I knew what the number on the paper represented? I had no idea, but I just knew by his expression that he had been thinking about this for quite some time and was pleased to let me in on the secret. 

I guess I should mention that this father was about to witness the graduation of his fourth child from Forest Lake….and having said that you can probably guess what the number on the paper represented; twenty some odd years of affording private Christian school tuition. Of course in this case it was twenty some odd years of Forest Lake Christian School tuition payments. 

Although it was a fun, memorable and nostalgic conversation, what really stuck with me was his final comment; “every dollar spent was worth it!” I must tell you that in twenty nine years of Christian day school education I have received comments just like this many times over. Don’t get me wrong, the financial sacrifices families make to afford Christian day school education are very real. Family vacations over the years are simple, the cars and shoes have lots of miles on them, and some things around the house never seem to get fixed, but every dollar spent… IS worth it!

Dr. Roy Lowrie speaks eloqently on this issue: ”Let this be clear: Parents can trust God to finance His will for the lives of their children. Such trust in this area of tuition money is a remarkable growth experience for parents and for their children alike. The children need to know that it is God who is supplying the money for them to attend the school. This will encourage them to trust God for money in their subsequent years, a great lesson for a Christian to learn. Rarely does God provide the tuition money through some large gift to the family. Usually He provides by allowing the father, and many times the mother, to have jobs to earn the money. In God we live and move and have our being so the salary earned is because of His goodness. Most tuition money is accounted for by the priorities established by the Christian school family. They could easily spend that money on something else, but they put the Christian school toward the top in their system of values and spend less money on other things. Their tithes and offerings are followed by their tuition in order of importance.”  A longtime Christian educator, Ezra Wolgemuth, often said, “Christian school education doesn’t cost….it pays.”

 If you were to ask this father I spoke about a moment ago if he still feels that every dollar spent on Christian education for his children was worth it after observing the character of his children since they have left this place, I believe he would affirm another wholehearted, yes! Many of today’s young people have a difficult time seeing any moral dimension to their actions. The news is filled with one horrific example after another of a culture that has lost its moral compass. There are a number of reasons why this is true, but none more prominent than a failed system of public education that eschews teaching children the traditional moral values of American society and culture. That failed approach, called “decision making” or “values clarification” was introduced some thirty years ago in our public schools. It tells children to decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong. It replaced “character education” which was historically part of American public schools and of course is still the center-piece of Christian schools today. It tells children that right and wrong are absolute standards determined by the one and only true God. These standards are only found in His Word. Character education didn’t ask children to reinvent the moral wheel; instead it encourages children to know God’s standards and practice them.

It is the height of naivete, of course, to blame every cultural malaydise on the nation’s public schools. But it is equally naive to assume that twelve years of non-Christian education is going to produce a generation of spiritual giants! The Word of God placed at the center of the school’s curriculum makes all the difference in the world in the student “product” of that school. I believe that the Theologian and Philosopher Martin Luther said it best, “I am much afraid that schools will prove to be great gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the holy scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advice no one to place his child where the scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not increasingly occupied with the word of God must become corrupt.”

Although I believe the question at hand is worth the consideration particularly in light of the economy, I believe the real question is how can we even consider not trusting God for such an important endeavor? How big is your God? Are you looking out of a window of fear or faith as you consider where to enroll your children next year? We must trust the Lord with our resources; it is from Him that all blessings flow anyway. Billy Graham was fond of saying that we can determine the priorites of our faith by examining our check book.