As You Consider Re-Enrollment, MCA Has Considered It's Commitment to Ministry

Midwestern Christian Academy has been blessed over the past few years.  God has been faithful to this ministry, which has been serving families at this same location since 1956.  Each year, as we begin to open the school to enrollment for the next school year, we ask God to give us direction and a sense of vision for this ministry.  

Prayerful consideration in the decision making process at MCA is something we consider essential to our ministry.  In so doing, we have seen God provide his guidance and we have seen him raise up people who have helped support the ministry in many ways.  He has answered prayer for us by providing for our needs in ways that we would not have been able to do in our own strength.  

We have made improvements in every area of the school's operation, including the academic program, its spiritual life, and the facilities.  We achieved accreditation in 2020 that shows MCA to be a school of excellence.  And we have been blessed by people, led by the Lord, to provide resources which have enabled us to upgrade our facilities, including renovating of the Pre-K and Vernon Lee Educational Building, and to completely renovate the gymnasium.  

One of the biggest blessings in a Christian school is a teaching staff that is called and committed to ministry.  They understand the discipleship function of Christ's church, and how to integrate that into their classroom culture and life.  The unique aspect of a Christian school is the faculty and staff commitment to Christ as their Lord and Savior, and their involvement in a local church.  Your child has a Bible lesson every day, and gathers with classmates each week for worship.  

It's always a struggle, every year, to come up with a workable budget that provides for the quality education we desire to provide, and to make it affordable to parents.  We carefully calculate our expenses, and we charge what we think it's going to cost for the school year.  There is a little bit of contingency planning, not a lot, and the tuition figure we come to represents the actual cost of a year's worth of education at MCA.  We are able to subsidize the total cost from the generosity of supporters, including Midwest Bible Church, the debt-free status of our facilities, and the sacrifices our teachers and staff make with their salaries.  

We have compared our tuition to that of other accredited, religious-based private schools in our area of the city, and we offer one of the lowest rates of tuition and fees among Chicago's private, Christian schools.  We hope you plan to be included in MCA's school family next fall.  

MCA is Entering Its 69th Year of Service

For the Lord God is a sun and shield; he bestows favor and honor.  No good thing does the Lord withhold from those who walk uprightly.  O Lord of hosts, happy is everyone who trusts in you.  Psalm 84:11-12, NRSV

Midwestern Christian Academy will turn 69 years old during 2025.  Over 90% of the currently existing Christian schools in the United States have been started since 1956, the year MCA came into existence.  The school has gone through several transitions and adjustments over the course of its service, including a period of time when there was a high school, and then, when it was no longer practical or feasible to operate high school classes, a junior kindergarten, which we now call Pre-School, was added.  

The Christian mission and purpose of MCA has always been the primary reason for its existence.  Born out of the vision of Midwest Bible Church, as a result of the Youth for Christ movement which had also prompted the establishment of Phantom Ranch Bible Camp in Wisconsin, the educational objectives at MCA include a complete study of the Bible, along with discipleship ministry opportunities for students, weekly worship together, and an educational philosophy based on the principles of the Christian gospel, integrated into each subject's objectives in a relevant and meaningful way.  

Looking back at some of the school's history, somewhere around 3,000 students have made their way through our halls and in our classrooms, and have received at least part of their educational experience here.  We are aware of former students and graduates who are serving as pastors, vocational ministers in local churches, and missionaries on the field, as well as those who have made their career in multiple other fields, including business, the technology field, education and health care.  Some are now civic leaders in their communities.  

Being Bestowed With God's Favor and Honor

At this particular point in our history, we acknowledge our blessings from God and are thankfulness for having received them.  Half of the independent, Evangelical Christian schools that have formed the modern Christian school movement in the United States that began about the time MCA was founded have closed their doors over the past two decades.  Many of those were schools in urban areas, like MCA, where there is a high density of population and where demographic shifts and the high cost of operation has led to school closures.  

Since the pandemic, which was definitely a challenge, we have been able to bring MCA to some new heights in the development of this Christian school.  

We achieved full accreditation in December of 2020.  While accreditation is not a term with which many parents may be familiar, achieving it is a recognition of the schools meeting or exceeding a set of standards that are based on its overall academic quality, its maintenance of facilities, its operational procedures and the quality and certification of its teaching staff.  

During the accreditation process, MCA was commended for the strength of its academic program, evidenced by a high level of student achievement across the board, and for the strength and effectiveness of its campus spiritual life.  Interviews with multiple members of the parent community, and with former students and alumni, indicated that the school's function as a discipleship ministry in support of the work of the local churches whose families have enrolled their students here was seen as a high priority.   

Our student achievement test scores are now showing evidence of some improvements made in the mathematics curriculum objectives implemented back in 2018.  Over 90% of our students earn test scores that rate them as "proficient" in their core subjects, with mathematics and English language arts skills being among the highest.  We have been able to increase academic support by adding Title I instruction and this year, are also adding an academic coach.  

We have improved our faculty salary scale which has enabled us to retain excellent teachers, an important key to our success as a school.  We have a low turnover rate, even among support staff, that contributes to the school's stability.  

We have seen some financial blessings enabling us to keep our tuition and fees at a low level, compared to other private, religious based schools in our area, and have been able to make major renovations and improvements to our facilities, including both the Vernon Lee Building and the gym.  We have added playground equipment, provide each student above the third grade level with a chrome book for classroom use and we were able to renovate the art room in 2022.  The increases we have made in tuition and fees are way below the inflation rate, and our tuition costs to parents remain among the lowest in the city of Chicago for a private, religious-based, fully accredited school.  

And What Does the Future Hold? 

We have maintained a stable enrollment for the past four years, and that has stabilized the school's finances as well.  Most of our classes are at or near capacity enrollment, and this year's eighth grade class, which is our smallest class, will be succeeded by seventh grade, which is twice its size.  We are blessed to share our assets with our parents, to keep tuition and fees as low as possible.  We have a debt-free facility, owned by the church, for which we pay no lease or rental fee.    

The Christian emphasis and spiritual life of the school will always be a top priority.  It is the reason for our existence as a ministry, and it is the key to our success as a Christian school, receiving blessings from God's faithfulness to us.  As the only Evangelical Christian school on Chicago's northwest side, we are working to help our students be prepared for the high school options they will have when they graduate.  

Each year, an eighth grade class graduates.  Ten of our students will leave us this year, and next year, we are anticipating that number will more than double.  Preparing them for the future is our priority.  Eight years in Christian school, in some cases as many as ten, has the potential to be a major presence in their lives, drawing them close to the Lord and helping them rely on his strength through their relationship to Christ.  Making sure they don't leave without having multiple opportunities to understand God's grace, and receive it through the sacrifice Christ made on the cross is primary to our mission and purpose.  

We want our students to understand that their relationship with Christ means they are spiritually gifted for service in the Kingdom of God, and those gifts will match the ministry needs of a local church.  

We also want them to be good citizens.  First of all, we want them to understand their responsibility and role as a member of Christ's church, to contribute to its ministry from their own resources which includes everything they've learned about God at MCA.  And second, we want them to understand their role as salt and light in a world that needs their influence and the benefit of their work.  That's a lot of ground to cover.  

So as we approach 2025, and everything that it will bring, we look forward to more years of service in the Christian school ministry.  We also look forward to your prayers, and your support as you send your children to our school to help support and undergird their faith.  We want to see God's favor and honor.  

Praying for the Peace and Comfort of Abundant Life Christian School

 Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and shield.  Our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name.  Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.  Psalm 33:20-22, NRSV

We are praying for comfort and peace today, for the students, families and school community of Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin.  It's the peace and comfort of the Lord upon which we rely when unexplainable tragedy invades our lives.  And while those who are in position to do so are seeking answers and trying to figure things out, peace and comfort will be ministers to the souls of those who are hurting and grieving right now.  

As school shootings have become epidemic in our culture, Christian schools cannot think that we are immune to such occurrences.  We have been fortunate in that we haven't seen very many, but one of the reasons for this is that we represent only 3% of the total enrollment of the school aged population in the United States.  And I also believe that what we offer to our students in the way of discipleship and spiritual ministry is one way that helps resolve many of the emotional and social problems experienced by students which can be triggers for such behavior.  

In fact, what we know and have learned from each of these tragedies, which now occur by the hundreds in schools across the country, is that they are mostly internal in nature.  That is, they are committed by a student in the school where they occur, not because there's been some kind of a security breach, but because circumstances enabled the elements of a shooting, which includes an emotionally disturbed or abused student or former student, and a lethal weapon, usually a gun, to come together inside the school.  

We take preventative action, in the form of safety drills and precautions, locked doors, camera surveillance, a heightened police presence.  But the real weapon against the emotional disturbances that cause 95% of school shootings is spiritual transformation.  If this does nothing else, it reminds us of the critical importance of the ministry that takes place inside a Christian school.  The world in which we live is fallen, the record of the fall is in Genesis 3.  Our best weapon against the evil that distorts minds and hearts is the word, and the exposure to it every day that helps students discern when they are sensing conviction of sin.  There is a path to redemption, and there are some people who have a very difficult time following it.  We're here every day to help our students do just that. 

This was something intended to disrupt the ministry of a Christian school, even to the point of robbing students, parents and staff of their security and replacing it with fear.  Christian schools not only provide an education for students, but they also provide discipleship, and they help lead students to the Lord, encourage them, strengthen them and help them realize and fulfill their calling in the will of God.  So there is an enemy prowling around, who's interest is to disrupt and destroy.  So pray that this school, as well as ours, will be strengthened, and will unite around their faith in Christ, as a result of this incident.  

And pray for the families of both the shooter and the victims.  

 

Why We Ask Our Parents to Pay a "Fund-Raising Fee"

The balance between tuition and fees, and a private school budget necessary to provide a high quality education in the kind of intellectually, spiritually and physically safe environment that our parents desire for their children is very delicate.  In the United States, the average cost of a year of education, per student is more than $18,000.  Of course, public schools are funded by taxpayer dollars.  In private education, especially Christian education, tuition is the primary means of financing school operations.  That means that every budget item is carefully considered for its necessity, before putting it in.  

MCA is able to keep tuition and fees at a relatively low rate, compared to other private, religious-based, fully accredited schools for several reasons.  One, as a ministry of Midwest Bible Church, our buildings are debt-free, and we do not pay any lease or rental fee for their use.  We pay our share of the utilities and maintenance.  This saves about $2,000 per year, per student on school expenses.  

In addition to this, MCA is blessed to have many donors who are very generous in their support of Christian school education, including Midwest Bible Church.  Over the past five years, contributions to the school have amounted to over $500,000, which includes all of the funding provided to renovate the school's facility in the summer of 2018.   Contributions from donors to the school adds up to more than $3,000 per student over the past five years, and that's a significant savings to the budget.

All of our staff members make a financial sacrifice to be here.  Our school has achieved full accreditation, which means that all of our instructional staff have a degree in the field, and have completed specific coursework related to the teaching profession.  It also means that our school meets, or exceeds a set of some 85 indicators of excellence in eight categories of our operation and instruction.  We are small, but our academic program is excellent and the sacrifice made by our teachers, believing that this is a ministry calling they are serving, not only makes it possible, but it is a major factor in our low tuition and fee rates.

In the past, to raise additional funds for special projects outside the school budget, MCA held a chocolate candy sale in the fall.  This sale, which required students and families to assist with selling candy and raising money, usually raised about $18,000, of which the school was able to keep about $6,000.  We have used these funds to purchase chrome books, P.E. equipment, music instruments and other items not covered by the tuition budget.  

After doing this for a number of years, parents made note of the fact that a lot of effort was required to sell candy at a higher price than it could be purchased in a store while only realizing a third of the actual profit.  Many families indicated that they often just bought the candy themselves, which was easier.  So we began looking at what other private, religious-based schools do to raise additional funds outside of the tuition budget.  

Most of the schools in our area have a "fund raising option," which means that, for a specific dollar amount, related to the amount of money that the school sets as a goal to raise for one school year, parents can opt out of having to sell items by simply paying the goal amount per-family.  Both of the Catholic schools in our immediate area do this.  St. Patrick's requires students to raise $750 per year, through their school fundraising program.  Typically, $500 is a standard amount asked of parents to raise for specific projects within the school.  

We initially decided to make this an option, rather than a requirement.  Many business and foundation donors look at the amount of money raised from parents within a school community to determine their own level of giving.  When this was an option, we raised only $1,400 from our school community.  Our neighbors in the Catholic and Lutheran schools told us that their results were similar, which is why they went to a specific amount per family, as a fee. 

Every student benefits from these gifts.  The projects to which we apply contributions have included the renovation and refurbishing of the art room, the renovation and remodeling of the gymnasium, the addition of the playground equipment and purchase of additional technology for students.  We have recently added the purchase of an additional 15 passenger vehicle, in order to be able to provide transportation for field trips.  Currently, renting a bus for a field trip runs $500 to $800, which has to be paid by parents.  

We had thought about simply adding these projects to our budget amount and including them in tuition.  However, since they are not long-term, and have a start and end date, we did not want to continue charging tuition in a budget that was flexible.  The fund raising fee makes the contribution immediately applicable to a specific project, and gives parents a tax deduction they can't take on tuition. 

When multi-child discounts are factored in, and our budget is calculated, the average cost per student for one year at MCA is $5,500, which is $1,000 less than the next lowest private school in our area of the city, and almost $4,000 less than Christian schools in the suburbs.  Each of our students receives almost $3,500 in benefits which come from money given by outside donors, the church's contributions and the staff's sacrifice of salary and benefits as they consider MCA a ministry calling.  All of that was taken into consideration when we decided what we would ask of our school community as a contribution to the school.  

We continue to pursue a policy of not taking any public funding with any strings attached to it.  Being privately funded is a guarantee of the school's independence and autonomy, which gives us complete freedom to provide a school where the educational philosophy is based on Biblical truth, where our instruction integrates a Christian worldview into each subject area.  As a result, we are grateful to each person whose contributions to the school are a recognition of our ministry.  

Because of the fundraising fee, we were able to complete the gym renovation project without borrowing any money or paying any interest.  The Gies Foundation contributed $150,000, Ozinga Concrete added a generous contribution and the church also paid for the tuck pointing and roof repair.  The balance of what was left, which covered the expenses of finishing the project, came from the balance provided by this fee.  Over $30,000 was contributed by outside donors to purchase and install the playground equipment, the balance will be covered by this fee.  We have received over $20,000 in outside contributions for the purchase of a second 15 passenger vehicle, and this fundraising fee will provide the rest of what we need.  We will not have to borrow one dime for any of it, thanks to those who have contributed, including the parents who are cheerfully giving to this fund.  

Thank you for your understanding.  

Pre-Kindergarten Offers Students Their First "School" Experience

Early childhood education in the United States is the result of an increased number of households of younger families with children in which both parents work.  It is something that has evolved, from providing basic day care and play time for children into some experimentation with the addition of basic learning objectives and instruction in social skills that students would normally learn at home.  The research that was done showed that children as young as three can benefit from an early learning experience.  

There have been some early education programs around for quite a while.  Head Start, which is primarily for children from lower income families, has been operating for over 60 years.  And while many public school systems have only recently added pre-school programs for four year olds, child development centers, early ed programs and "junior kindergarten" or pre-kindergarten programs operated by private, religious-based schools have a long history.  

MCA Operates a Pre-Kindergarten Program for Three and Four Year Olds

Pre-Kindergarten, which was once known as "junior kindergarten," is what we offer in early childhood education at MCA.  We are not a child development center, by definition.  Our program operates under full recognition of the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) as an academic extension of our school program.  Our curriculum incorporates basic learning objectives, primarily related to language development and early reading skills through some phonics objectives.  Students also learn to write letters and numbers, identify colors, count, and in the four year old class, do some basic reading.  

The structure of the class provides some practice in learning readiness.  Students get used to being around other students their age, they learn some basic socialization skills, they get used to being away from their parents for a few hours a day which helps prepare them for their school experience and they learn some social skills.  

The Pre-Kindergarten students also participate in the same "out classes" as the older students, including Physical Education, vocal music and art.  

There is research which indicates that being involved in pre-kindergarten education gives students an academic advantage all the way through their educational experience.  Early development of language arts skills leads students to a clearer understanding in all subject areas by improving their vocabulary, reading comprehension and communication skills well above the expected grade level performance.  At MCA, over 80% of our Pre-Kindergarten students are proficient at the Kindergarten level in reading and language arts skills before they enter Kindergarten. That advantage goes with them all through school.   

You Have Chosen a Quality Program For Your Child

MCA offers a high quality early learning program in pre-kindergarten 3 and 4.  And while our program is an academic boost, our primary goal is to provide a Christian atmosphere for students and families, where children are cared for and loved during the day.  Our staff is quite experienced, one of our teachers is now a grandmother, who has more than 20 years of experience in Pre-K instruction, and the other three are long-term parents of students here at MCA, so they are dedicated to helping provide the same kind of caring, safe, nurturing environment they have received for their own children.  

Our school operates on a philosophy of education that begins with the acknowledgement that the greatest commandment is to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind," and the second is like the first, to "Love you neighbor as you love yourself."  We desire for all of our students to see the love of God in their teachers.  We have succeeded if we accomplish that goal.

Our academic standards are high.  We have a low student to teacher ratio, with a qualified instructor and a teacher's aide in each classroom, limited to an enrollment of 15 students.  We use Abeka curriculum, which is one of the top providers of pre-kindergarten curriculum materials and which has a language arts program that is aligned with objectives from Pre-K4 through 12th grade.  We see a high level of success among our students in English/Language Arts using Abeka materials.  

MCA is an Illinois-Recognized private school meeting ISBE standards, and operates our Pre-K as an academic extension of Kindergarten for ages 3 and 4 as a religious-based school program.  As such, our staff is fully qualified under those standards.  We do not offer specialized programs or instruction in social skills such as might be found in a school labelled as a child development center.    

MCA is also fully accredited by the Commission of the Association of Christian Schools International, which is nationally recognized, and which offers dual accreditation through NCASC, MSACS and SACS-CASI, and Cognia.    

Midwestern Christian Academy Begins it's 68th Year of Service on August 26

In Christian school education in the United States, schools that have been operating for 68 years are not all that common.  In 1956, when MCA was founded, private, religious based schools not affiliated with the Catholic, Lutheran or Episcopalian churches numbered fewer than 300.  There is not a lot of information available about how many, or where, Evangelical Christian schools were located in the city of Chicago, but from what we know about our fellow schools in the city, only MCA has existed continuously since 1956.  Any of those that existed back then, or prior to that date, are now closed and gone.  

MCA was started as part of the Youth for Christ movement, founded by the pastor of Midwest Bible Church at the time, Torrey Johnson.  The church had established Phantom Ranch Bible Camp in Wisconsin as a ministry to children and youth two years earlier and establishing a Christian school in Chicago on the church campus was the second part of that ministry's growth.  Billy Graham's ministry also started as he worked with Youth for Christ, and he preached his first sermon on the radio from what is now our Pre-K building. 

The Ministry of a Christian School

From the scripture, we can discern five clear functions of a Christian church, a local body of Christ, made up of believers in him who have confessed their sin and their acknowledgement of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross, and have been transformed by the renewing of their mind, and sanctified by the cleansing of their souls with the blood of Christ into the Kingdom of God, his church.  Churches worship God, they make disciples of Jesus by educating their members in scriptural principle and practice, they reach out to the world with the message of the Christian gospel as a mission of evangelism, they provide ministry to their members and to others based on their spiritual needs, and they come together in fellowship.  

The primary ministry of a Christian school is Christian education, which meets the discipleship function of a church.  We also introduce students to the Christian gospel, which means that evangelism is also one of our functions.  

Over the 235 years since the Constitution was ratified, and the almost 200 years of existence of public schools, a series of court rulings based on the first amendment's establishment clause has created a public school system that does not provide any religious instruction.  Since the public schools are supported by public funds, the courts have determined that the establishment clause of the first amendment prohibits those schools from providing religious instruction.  The sectarian nature of American Christianity would make it impossible for a public school to properly and accurately teach all aspects of every religion practiced by all students.  So it takes a position known as "religious neutrality," by not providing any religious instruction to students. 

Christian schools were founded to come along side parents and help them provide the kind of Christian discipleship and education for their children that would help them grow and develop into mature believers in Christ.  It is difficult to counter the influence of the secular humanism that dominates public school curriculum in just a few hours of activities in the local church during the week.  So Christian schools have been providing instruction which not only includes Biblical studies and worship each week, but which integrates Biblical principles into all aspects of education where it is relevant.  

Generally, Christian schools also provide a solid, quality academic experience for students.  We don't have a lot of "bells and whistles," but our curriculum objectives focus on skills, leaving the social issues and social philosophy to parents.  We spend seven solid hours a day in mastering academic objectives and our students excel in the measurements used to determine the level of their progress.  Our most recent measurement of average yearly progress shows that 89% of our students are proficient in reading and English-language arts skills, and 87% are proficient in mathematics, which is considerably higher than the public education system achieves.  

There Are No Guarantees

Evangelical Christian churches have been struggling for the past four decades as membership and attendance have been in a steep decline.  Since the later years of the 20th century, more than 70% of the children and youth who have been raised in our churches, involved in our youth groups and attending our children's ministries will leave the church entirely by the time they graduate from college.  It has become very difficult for churches to provide the kind of discipleship ministry necessary to compete in the "marketplace of ideas," and keep the interest of those who may not be solidly committed before they graduate from high school.  

But among the children and youth who have attended a Christian school for at least five years of their grade school educational experience, that figure turns almost completely around.  More than 70% of those children will remain engaged in a church, and become active in its ministry, into adulthood.  Part of that is the time invested in studying the Bible, and engaging in fellowship with other Christians in the same school definitely has a strong impact on their faith.  At MCA, every student is involved in a study of the scripture every single day.  And they are taught critical thinking skills which help them find a way to apply what they read and are taught.  

When the time comes and a child or young adult experiences the conviction from the Holy Spirit of their own sinfulness, we hope that the time they have spent in Christian school will have a big influence over the decision they make at that point in their lives.  We also hope, through this study, that they realize God does have a purpose for their life, and that he will provide a way for them to fulfill that purpose.  Whether that is serving as a missionary in a foreign country where people may have never heard about Jesus, or as the pastor or a leader in a local church, or if it is to be the Christian who sets an example by their life in the office where they work, we want them to be ready for that experience as a result of having been taught here.  

There are few Christian schools located in the urban areas of the United States.  So even though we are a small school, we have an opportunity to have a big impact.  Pray for our students, as they come each day, that they will become aware of God's calling on their life and respond.  That is our mission and purpose, and what we hope to achieve each school year.  

Scripture Theme for the 2024-5 School Year: Matthew 22:36-40

 "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"  

He said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself..  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."  Matthew 22:36-40. 

When I first went to seminary, I wasn't sure exactly what to expect when it came to the course content and the requirements for a Master's degree in Christian education.  The course requirements included a hefty dose of theology courses, including a six-hour, full year course called Systematic Theology, a full year, eight hour course surveying the scope of the entire Bible, Old and New Testaments, a course on the Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ, and eight different electives covering individual books of the Bible.  

That sounded like an awful lot of heavy reading and serious study.  But it turned out to be the single best period of discipleship in the word of God in my entire life, prior to, and since that time.  

There were many of those "Ah Ha!" moments as things I'd heard taught in Sunday School and preached in church suddenly connected with something that explained them in detail, and opened my eyes to a clearer understanding of something about which I either didn't understand at all, or had questions that needed answers.  It became clear why one of the courses was called, "systematic," because the scriptures which God inspired 40 different authors to write lays out, in careful detail, the movement of God through a period of history during which he revealed to his human creation his perfect means for redemption from sin and restoration to the relationship for which he created humans in his own image in the first place.  

One of the keys to understanding the whole of scripture is understanding that because Jesus was God in the flesh, and, as Paul tells us in Colossians, "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him," the words of Jesus are the primary key to understanding and interpreting all of the rest of the Bible.  

"Jesus is the criterion by which all scripture must be interpreted," I can remember several of my professors emphasizing.  So that sets us up to understand the meaning of these words from Jesus, recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, and what they reveal to us that we can learn through the school year as a theme.  

1. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." 

Jesus says this is the greatest commandment, one of two on which he says "hang all of the law and the prophets."  What is meant by that, is that this is a life priority.  It is essential for us to be faithful believers and followers of Jesus, who has removed our sin and provided us with forgiveness, to make the adoration of the God who created us a priority in all of our life.  And if we have this priority straight, it means that we are committed to living in a way that worships God by giving him glory through the life we live.  If this commandment is followed, everything else follows.  And without getting this straight, it is not possible to be obedient to any of the others.  

2.  And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Translating the phrase "is like it" from the original Greek text gives some insight into what Jesus meant.  He is equating the two commandments, not elevating one above the other.  It is not possible to love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and not love another human being who is also created in his image.  The term "neighbor" has a fairly specific meaning, according to the way Jesus used it, and defined it.  It is not just having affection or appreciation for humanity as a whole, though that is part of what he intended.  It is also not just those who live in our immediate proximity.  It is all other human beings with whom we share community, those whose lives we interact with and touch, and who touch and interact with us at all times across the scope of our lives.  

A church is a "community" full of people who are, by definition, our neighbor.  So is our school, including the parents, students and school staff who work there.  For some of our students, it may be the other participants in the summer program in which they are engaged.  It is all of one's family members, and it also includes those who fit the smaller definition of "neighbor" by living in close proximity.  

The term "love your neighbor" is equal to "love the Lord your God," because these two concepts are linked by Jesus.  If one does not love his neighbor, then he cannot love God.  Likewise, if one does not love God, he cannot love his neighbor.  

Our school is also a community, one in which students spend more time than anywhere else except at home.  So everyone in it, by definition, is the neighbor of everyone else.  There are some neighbors with whom each student spends more time, namely their own classmates and teacher.  But the commandment applies to all, though it becomes more difficult to be obedient among those who wind up getting to know us best.  

The Essence of God's Nature is Found in His Creation 

God created the world and everything in it.  But out of all that God created, it was humanity alone that he created "in his image."  Since God is infinite, and does not have a physical body, what is meant by being created in his image has to do with who we are.  Jesus tells us this in the first part of this verse, when he says that we must love God with all our heart, soul, and mind.  Heart represents the physical body, sustained and nourished by the blood that the heart pumps through the arteries, veins and capillaries.  The soul is the essence of our being, our identity, that part of us which makes us human, has emotions and feelings, and senses the presence of God's indwelling spirit.  The mind represents our intellect, what we are able to know as we have this gift of being created in God's image, so that our body, soul and spirit are one being with the intellect to understand and the free will to make decisions regarding our own life.  

Every human being has the image of God in them.  And that is exactly why Jesus made these two commandments equal.  It is not always easy to see God's image in others, but there are times when it is not easy for others to see it in ourselves.  But yet, that's our responsibility and purpose as a human being, created by God in his image, to reflect the nature and character of God.  And we do that when we demonstrate love to our neighbor.  

It does not take much in the way of observation to see human beings, all around us, who do not love their neighbor as themselves.  But, in the community of a Christian school, shouldn't it make some kind of difference?  Our school is a place where we can teach this biblical principle and then be able to observe the difference it makes to each of our students, compared to being in a community where loving their neighbor is not a priority for anyone else.