Throughout the year our administrative team will be writing about the various aspects of our school’s mission statement. We will define, encourage, explain all the many nuances of Education at Heritage. God has blessed us this year with more families and children than we have ever had here at HCS. The campus school has 315 students and our Online School continues to explode with over 730 students. In just two years we have grown 4 times our former enrollment. Why, because of pressure in the public system, because of our continual effort to keep tuition at a reasonable amount? Yes, partially. But I believe it is primarily because we know who we are, we know what we are supposed to do and we have focused our attention on what we really value.

Values are the things we treasure; obviously treasures are the things we value.

Matthew 6:21
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

You values come out of your beliefs. If you believe that God has created every person in his image then you value the right of every person to have life. If you believe that law and order are a vital part of any society then you value the police and military. If you believe that Jesus is the central force behind all of creation then you value an education that keeps Jesus central to every aspect of that education.

When we talk about Christian Values in our school many people just think of good behavior. Yes, we value good behavior but this isn’t really what makes our values Christian. The world values good behavior but they lack the belief system behind it that produces those values. G.K. Chesterton said in his pivotal work Orthodoxy (1909), “The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.” Because the world’s values lack a central belief system they spin off and go in wrong directions.  The world values the life of women so they give women the right to choose abortion as an option. Their values lack the anchor of good beliefs and truth.

Behind our values are the cumulative beliefs of the Christian Worldview. It is from our love, submission and acceptance of Christ that we are able to construct our beliefs and from our beliefs come our values. So what do we believe here at Heritage Christian School that so fills our hearts with new values:

• We believe that God is the Maker of Heaven and Earth – therefore we value every opportunity to explore his glory, majesty, beauty and wisdom in everything we see, feel, hear, taste and touch. It is because we truly believe this we value science that tries to study this world, we value mathematics that tries to measure this world, we value physical education and “getting out there” that tries to experience this world.
• We believe that God has created Man in his image – therefore we value every life as sacred. We seek to bless our fellow man and think of him as our equal no matter what race, gender or economic distinction. We give our lives to making everything about others lives more meaningful through God.
• We believe that Man has fallen from his relationship to God but that Christ has made it possible for that relationship to be restored – therefore we value the redemptive potential in every person through the acceptance of the Gospel of Jesus. We value the wisdom, discernment and caution needed to navigate our way through the fallen-ness all around us and included in us. We seek to renew our minds from a fallen way of thinking and begin to turn our own lives from destructive patterns of sin and disease. It is because we believe this that we teach socials studies with a consciousness of this fallen-ness in our human relationships and our mission to reach this fallen world with the Gospel.
• We believe that God has established the family as the primary means to procreate and fill the earth – therefore we value marriage as the primary means for building that family between a man and a woman (it is to bad that we actually have to define that now a days) and bringing children into the world and raising them to adulthood. We value the parent as the primary educator of their children and see our role as serving them in this task.
• We believe that God has established the Church to be the primary place of accountability to the Christian – therefore we value the spiritual authority and wisdom that God has brought to those whom he has placed in leadership in our lives. We value the community, the fellowship, the support, the equipping and the discipline we receive through the local church. We value believers everywhere on the globe who are part of the universal church through Jesus Christ.

Most of the subjects we teach are also taught in the public system of education. What cannot be taught are the deep seated values that come from these beliefs. The school down the road teaches that 5 + 7 = 12. They just can’t tell you why it equals this. We attempt to teach every subject and experience at Heritage from these foundational Christian beliefs. If we are successful your children will embrace these values for the rest of their lives.

Have an incredible year.

Pastor Greg Bitgood

Superintendent, Heritage Christian Schools

gbitgood@onlineschool.ca