This is how the recent issue of Adventist Review entitles an article on Adventist Education system. As I opened the new issue on line this article “jumped” at me as many other things this week. This whole week was an interesting one in regards to the opening of the Elementary School. Tomorrow, Sunday May 27th all parents, who are planning and considering sending their children to a Grade 1-6 Elementary School accredited by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, are invited to a meeting at 6 pm at the North Church (800 Fleet Street). On one of my visits with families interested in the Bible Studies a single mother of four asked me if the church school is a possibility. She has attended our church twice but did not feel we were offering necessary ministry to her children, two of whom are school age right now. I did not even mention the tuition cost when she said “I would be able to afford only $200 per child.” WOW! That’s exactly what we are planning to set as a tuition for this first year.
As I opened the Adventist review early Wednesday morning I read that Adventist churches world wide consider our Educational System the best evangelistic tool we have. Better than medical care, better than ADRA, better than NET broadcasts. Best – because it introduces Jesus to the kids at an early age together with the 3R of ‘readin, ‘ritin, and ‘rithmetics. We talk about evangelism as a top priority – let make it to be so, lets start with our children.
The article I referred to talked about a small Yale Church in Virginia that houses a school to 20 students, “almost all of whom are not Adventists. As they enrolled, they joined the largest evangelistic event in Adventist history. This evangelistic series spans the globe, operates in every time zone, for six to eight hours a day, five to six days a week (not counting extracurricular activities), for 9 to 10 months each year. Hundreds of thousands of students and their families are influenced on a daily basis. Does it work? Well, last year 30,422 students in Adventist schools were baptized around the world. If we were talking about churches, that would be two new churches of 50 members every weekday of the year. And those figures don’t count the schools’ influence on the families of those students.
The Church School system is truly a megaevangelistic event. Here in London we have an excellent opportunity to take it seriously and move forward in faith with a church school, a small seed, a one classroom-one teacher effort that will grow every year into a city-wide Christian School reaching out to children of all ethnic groups, all socio-economic levels and leading them to be successful in life and to know Jesus as Savior. Everywhere in the world, even in the most impoverished countries, Adventist Elementary Schools are making a difference, being the upward move for millions of people. Let’s put our children a priority here in London, Ontario, Canada too.
