Christian Education

The Church’s Cause

John Scholtz, MD, serves as the senior pastor of Harvest Christian Church in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Dr. Scholtz has been strategically involved with Harvest Christian School since its inception. He also serves on the international steering team for Church of the Nations, an international network of churches.

Note: This article is a condensed version of a speech that Dr. Scholtz presented at Leadership Academy 2008. To view the speech in its entirety, visit www.acsi.org, and type “Scholtz” in the search box.

I carry a deep passion in my heart for Christian education, but it was not always so. I attended a traditional, denominational, all-boy boarding school for the last five years of my schooling. Other than having to go to chapel every morning, go to church twice on Sundays, sing in the choir, and help the priest with communion, I saw no purpose for Christian schooling. Because I loved the Lord Jesus, I was grateful for these components of the boarding school, but we had religious education classes in the same way any other school of that era had them.

If, as the church or as Christians, we are going to get passionate about building Christian schools, supporting Christian schools, and getting our people to send their children to Christian schools, we have to get our theology of “why we do it” right.

The Gospel of the Kingdom

I believe that the church at large has failed to get involved in Christian schooling because it has failed to understand the cause for which it exists and because it has failed to see the relevance of Christian education. I don’t mean schooling that is Christian in name only, or a school that employs teachers who profess to be Christians and then teach the same old secular curricula in the same way everyone else does.

I’m talking about the church first finding its redemptive purpose in Christ when it comes to getting children born-again into the kingdom of God and then establishing those children in a biblical worldview so that they grow up as leaders and mind molders of the next generation, as world changers who live for a cause that is bigger than they are.

We in the church have to realize that if we are going to get passionate about Christian schooling, we have to understand the cause for which we are contending. Christian education must be there for the sake of the King and His kingdom, or else our cause is not sufficient to make the necessary sacrifices.

The best way to understand the cause is to go right back to the beginning. Then we may understand fully why Jesus said, Seek first his kingdom and told us to pray, Your kingdom come … on earth as it is in heaven and then said, Go and make disciples of all nations. Making disciples is the cause of Christian education.

Being born-again is therefore critical to the inheritance, but I believe it is only the beginning of a process. If living in the fullness of the promises of God ended with rebirth, then we would expect that all God’s children would automatically be living in a life of abundance. That is clearly not the case; we have to understand that we are dealing here with a process and not a completed work. Although the work of salvation is completed, the Great Commission of Christ to His church remains:“And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ ” (Matthew 28:18–19, NKJV).

When we follow—through the entire Scriptures—the promises of God to bless all nations through Abraham (Genesis 12:3), taking those promises right down to us, we see that making disciples of the nations is the key to receiving those promises. When the church realizes that the most effective way of doing this is through biblically based Christian education, it will have found the cause for the need for Christian schools. When it understands the cause, it will develop the passion for this type of education.

Clearly the gospel of the kingdom was to have an impact on all of life, and the task of reaching the whole world with it is linked to the end of the age:

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14, NIV).

Jesus never called it a gospel of salvation; He always talked of the gospel of the kingdom. He never intended for people to get born-again and then wait for eternity to receive the promises of God to the nations. That idea was never even in Hebrew thinking. This gospel of the kingdom was to be a life-changing phenomenon.

The cause for Christian education is linked to changing how people think, how they view the world; and a Christian worldview happens through a discipleship process. There is no better way of changing how people think and discipling them than through Christian education.

Changing the Worldview of Children

The church cannot ignore what is being taught to children and the key role of educators. The potential for true biblical discipleship by those who are founded in biblical truths can never be overestimated. If the church is going to fulfill its mandate to make disciples of the nations, it must realize that its greatest role will be in the area of the mind and particularly of the minds of children.

I believe it is possible to have a born-again heart and an unregenerate mind. The heart is the throne of God, but the mind that is unregenerate is the seat of Satan. Most people live under the influence and control of the lie. Their minds have never been renewed, a process that the Bible mandates:

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2, NIV).

The battle is for the minds of men, and that battle begins in childhood. The battlefield is the mind, and that is the seat of your worldview. The Scripture gives a powerful description of this critical battle: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3–5, NASB; italics mine). Satan has deceived humans through their minds!

Changing the Worldview of a Nation

How do we change the worldview of a nation?

By proclaiming the gospel (its people need to get born-again). The Scripture explains the beginning point of how people’s worldview can change:

Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He  s the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else. But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:1–6, NLT)

By renewing the mind. The Bible describes what happens as people engage in the renewing of their minds:

We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5, The Message).

Destroying the myths of present warped worldviews must be a priority! Satan’s lies are alive and operating, even in the church. Within the life of the church, there are often unbiblical views of the world that are passed down from generation to generation. However, when children receive biblical truth, that cycle is broken. There is a wonderful opportunity for the church to arise in this generation and to break that cycle.

By discipling the nations. If the church does not take responsibility for discipling the next generation, they will be discipled by the world! What did Jesus envisage that the church would do when He said, “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19, NIV)? Again, I believe that the answer to that question is the key to redefining the role of what the church should be doing for the next generation. This seems so logical, but why did most of the modern-day church lose the plot?

The Historical End of the Church’s Role in Society

In the last few centuries, but going back even further in the philosophy of man, the notion crept into society that the world was divided into the physical and spiritual domains and that the two were supposed to be lived out separately. This resulted in what has been called dualism, or the sacredsecular divide.

The church began to preach a gospel of salvation, declaring that all that was important was to receive salvation and therein lay the hope of an eternity in a mansion in the sky. In every sense, this approach made room for people to be manipulated into obedience and lack. It justified much of what happened at the hands of the missionary movement to Africa in the 1800s and beyond. It was a convenient theology for colonialism and the oppression that occurred in Africa as a result.

It may have been a useful theology for some, but it was not and is not the gospel of the kingdom! It  resulted in a split between the sacred and secular worlds across the globe, a split that resulted in the church withdrawing to a large extent from the daily issues of life and concentrating on the mystical aspects only. Society and government took responsibility for what the church had been mandated to do, and the resultant split in responsibilities was as follows:

The dilemma is that we pray for His kingdom to come on earth but then find ourselves having to live out a mystical gospel. The gospel of the kingdom is a gospel affecting every area of life for good. When we can answer the question, What will a discipled nation look like when the task is complete? we will have some idea of where the church needs to be going with Christian education.

One of the only examples we have of a discipled nation is found in the history of Israel. Israel, when encamped at the edge of the Jordan River after fleeing Egypt, was the biggest refugee camp in the history of the world. There were almost 3 million people with no hope outside of a promise from God that He would bless them. Israel’s people had been slaves for generations without any knowledge of the workings of a normal society. The following were unknown aspects of life to the Israelites in the wilderness: schools, industry, government, agriculture, economy, religious system, land ownership, welfare, army, work ethic, health care system, social system.

To this nation, the largest refugee camp in the history of the world, God said, “I am going to make you a great nation.” The question is, How was God going to do that? What was the principle? Moses was given the commandments of God, and since Moses would not enter the Promised Land, all that Israel had as it crossed the Jordan was the Word of God and His command to obey it: For I command you this day to love the Lord your God and to keep his commands, decrees, and regulations by walking in his ways. If you do this, you will live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you and the land you are about to enter and occupy (Deuteronomy 30:16, NLT).

The process of making disciples was established, and it began by making disciples of the children: Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up (Deuteronomy 11:19, NLT). So be very careful to follow everything Moses wrote in the Book of Instruction. Do not deviate from it, turning either to the right or to the left (Joshua 23:6, NLT).

Some 300 years later, the queen of Sheba visited this nation—a nation of slaves whose history was one of total inadequacy. Not only had they come out of the wilderness, where they needed miracles to survive, but these miracles had ceased the moment they crossed the Jordan. What had changed? All they had were God’s principles, which they had been discipled in. The results were miraculous. Observe the reaction of the queen:

When the queen of Sheba realized how very wise Solomon was, and when she saw the palace he had built, she was overwhelmed. She was also amazed at the food on his tables, the organization of his officials and their splendid clothing, the cup-bearers, and the burnt offerings Solomon made at the Temple of the Lord. She exclaimed to the king, “Everything I heard in my country about your achievements and wisdom is true! I didn’t believe what was said until I arrived here and saw it with my own eyes. In fact, I had not heard the half of it! Your wisdom and prosperity are far beyond what I was told.” (1 Kings 10:4–7, NLT)

Clearly, here was a nation that had been discipled and had changed for the better. Today, Christians want to live in miracles. The wilderness is a place where you need miracles to survive. Those who want to live only by miracles must return to the wilderness. God, however, wants us to live in His principles. The Land of Milk and Honey is a land of principles. The church’s role is to teach those principles. Through discipleship and the application of God’s Word to communities, the nations will be blessed. This is a process, a process of applying the Word of God to every aspect of life.

The blessing of the nations lies in making disciples who will apply the truth of God’s Word in every sphere of society. The Word of God is there to disciple us in every domain of life if we will allow it to do so. It must be the foundation of all that we teach and for all whom we disciple. It begins with the children, and that is where the cause of the church should lie. The wonderful opportunity that exists in Christian education is to be able to disciple the next generation so that they may see their work from a biblical perspective.

For too long, Christians who have not been in full-time pastoral work have felt their work to be somehow less spiritual and to be not truly in service to God. Yet into all of the following nine domains the Scriptures speak clearly, and God calls us to make disciples in every one of them: government, family, communication, economics and business, health and welfare, arts, church, education, science and technology.

The Role of the Church

It is the job of the equipping ministries in the church to teach and clarify for the Body of Christ what they are supposed to be doing. The church is to teach and disciple businesspeople and bankers in the full counsel of God as it relates to their calling, not in how to start businesses and banks. It is not the church’s job to run the government and write the constitutions. It is to teach those who are called of God into those vocations how to carry out those tasks according to the Word of God and then equip the called to do so.

We clearly understand that the bulk of the world’s population is under 25 years of age and that most of those are still school age. As the church, we have to target children at every level and take advantage of every opportunity to accomplish the goals of teaching  discipling, and equipping them.

The fundamental flaw that keeps the church from ministering effectively to the children of its community is the lack of understanding that children should be at the heart of making disciples of nations. They are the key to the future. Change the mind-set of the next generation and you will
change the world in which they live. Make disciples of the children and you will be making disciples of “all nations.” The church in general has failed to see that children are this key, and it therefore has no cause. If we can reignite the cause, we will reengage the church.

This process can begin in the Christian school. But the church will have to redefine its role in discipling the next generation. It must understand that the role is much greater than getting children saved and telling them some Bible stories. They must be raised in the full counsel of God as revealed in Scripture so that we can raise victorious Christians in every domain of life.

If the church sees through a kingdom mind-set that the establishing of schools is not just an optional duty of Christians but an opportunity to raise a new generation of people who have a biblical worldview and who will change the world, then we’ve rediscovered the cause and the passion for reaching children. We have then become a kingdom people whose mandate is for the blessing of the nations.

When the church understands its mandate to change the world through the discipleship of the next generation, reaching children through biblically based education will become a priority. The mind-set of the whole church must be changed in this regard. The challenge is for pastors and church leaders to rise to the occasion and make children a priority in the agenda of the local church.

If we get it right, the nations will be blessed, just as God promised, and the kingdom of God will go forth. The kingdom of God is the ultimate cause. Jesus was prepared to die for it, and so am I. If I’m willing to die for it, then I must be willing to live for it and make the necessary sacrifices. It’s a cause worth living for!

The Church's Cause 12.3