Religious Schools: Supporting the Church at School
When Christians baptize their children they are really making a promise to God that they will make every effort to raise their children in the Faith and support their children in their religious education. This is where the religious school comes into play.
School can be a very difficult experience for a child who is raised in a religious household. Before attending school the child is immersed in a household where everyone has the same basic beliefs. A child goes to church and attends Sunday School. Likely even the TV she watches and the stories she is read are based on her Christian faith. Then suddenly she is thrown into the melting pot of the Public School.
In public education children from all walks of life and all backgrounds are tossed together. As young as three or four years old these children are still very malleable and are easily influenced by those around them, both for good and bad. How is such a young child to cope with the often very different realities she meets within the public system?
At school many kids never learned good values. They don't honestly know better than to be cruel and hurt others. Other kids may be exposed to a wide range of violent programming or other non-age-appropriate material and will spend much of their time relating stories from these inappropriate backgrounds or enacting the behaviour they have seen on TV. There will also be kids from a variety of religious backgrounds, some of which may contradict what you have been teaching your children at home.
Another issue is that schools generally are very closed to religious discussion. Should your child choose to continue doing religious activities such as praying before meals or praising the Lord, she will likely be laughed at and the teachers in charge may even ask her to desist. Because, as they say, religion does not belong in the classroom, many take things overboard and deliberately stifle religious expression. Some even are atheistic and actively work against religious beliefs in order to "liberate" young minds.
Attending a religious based school can be a breath of fresh air. While you probably don't want to segregate your child from society, a religious school gives her a safe place to have freedom of religion. With teachers and staff who understand Christianity your child can have the support and guidance she needs to make good decisions in life. With other students coming from similar backgrounds and beliefs your child will be able to develop peer groups that are accepting of her for who she is and who won't ridicule her for expressing her faith.
The religious school is an excellent support to a Christian upbringing. In fact, it can be argued that it is the best way we can follow through with the vow we made to God when our children came into this world. Eventually our children are ready to face the turmoil of the mixed up world we live in, but when they are young and still growing in faith they can use all the help we can give them. Religious schools are an excellent solution to help build faithful, lifelong Christians.
