March 4, 2010
This year, Heartland Christian Academy is celebrating its 30th anniversary of ministering to the children of the Bemidji area with Christ-centered education and training for a godly life. To the best of my knowledge, for all those years, our school’s theme has been “bearing fruit that remains.” It is on the school sign as you enter our property. It is on our stationery and business cards. For the next several weeks, join me on Heartland Focus as we explore what that “fruit that remains” might look like in the lives of our precious children.
We are familiar with the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” I suspect that these were in the minds of the school’s founders as they considered what character qualities such a school might produce. The hallways and classrooms would serve as places set aside for the planting, germination, growth and demonstration in young lives of what it means to be a child of God. These would be God-created qualities in young hearts open to the moving of the Spirit of God through the faithful teaching and examples of teachers, staff, principal, and even board members.
Parents choose Heartland primarily because they affirm this God-given mission of producing first, even before any academic skills and progress, true qualities of Christlikeness. They rightfully expect that every subject taught will pass through the prism of God’s Word and the witness of teachers committed to Christ first, even before their calling as educators.
What does this spiritual fruit look like in a student, as it is being developed? The love will show itself as a sacrificial, no-strings-attached desire to see good and blessing happen for others. Teachers often are the recipients of such love and caring, but a breakthrough happens when children learn to love peers that are not like themselves, and may even be considered “unlovable” by a cruel world.
The joy also goes beyond the world’s definition: this fruit is all the more remarkable in a child when they have no outward reason or circumstances to have that glow of joy on their faces. I have seen the fruit of God-given joy in a child facing trials even an adult would shrink from.
The peace and patience come when things do not go as planned, or as quickly as a student would hope. Even a very active child can learn to demonstrate these fruit when they daily see the same patience and peace in the attitudes of their teachers.
Kindness, goodness, faithfulness and gentleness will come when the children are treated with these same qualities by the adults they look up to. Christian schools have not always been known for their kindness and gentleness. Heartland is committed to those qualities.
Finally, the fruit of self-control remains on the list of qualities that godly children learn to demonstrate in a Christian school setting. When the biblical values of right and wrong are clear, children know what is expected of them, and self-control when those values are challenged, even in the future, becomes possible.
Our program today was sponsored by the Tea N’ Gift Shoppe of Bemidji, who invite you to slow down and enjoy a cup of tea.