Connections Quarterly Winter 2018 - World Religions | Page 17

Serving Christians
in Independent Schools
By John A. Murray
Imago Dei Leadership Forum, St. Louis, MO
W
hen I was recently asked by CSEE
Executive Director Bob Mattingly to
share the ways independent schools
(religious and secular) can grow in their un-
derstanding and acceptance of conservative
Christian parents present in their communi-
ties, I was both excited and nervous.
Roughly half of this parent demographic de-
fined themselves as “born again” Christians
and the other half as “evangelical” Christians.
To help distinguish between these two
groups, “born again” Christians” have made a
personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is
still important in their life today and… believe
that when they die they will go to Heaven be-
cause they have confessed their sins and ac-
cepted Jesus Christ as their savior.”
Excited to share my experiences both as an
independent school educator (8 years) and
Head (17 years), as well as a parent (20 years), I
nevertheless realized the formidable task. One
thing that helped in framing my thoughts was
to review The Barna Group’s recent study on
Christian parents and their views of education.
In addition to the above two tenets, evan-
gelical Christians also believe in a “personal
responsibility to share their religious beliefs
about Christ with non-Christians; that Satan
exists; that eternal salvation is possible only
through grace, not works; [and] that Jesus
Christ lived a sinless life on earth; asserting
that the Bible is accurate in all that it teaches;
and describing God as the all-knowing, all-
powerful, perfect deity who created the uni-
verse and still rules it today.”
Knowing Your Christian
Parent Constituency
In 2017, The Barna Group did a study of parents
enrolled in member schools of the Association
of Christian Schools International (ACSI), as
well as prospective parents of those schools.
Continues on page 16
CSEE Connections

Winter 2018
Page 15