Looking Ahead In Christian Ed
ed ited b y M a rga r e t Ja cob sen , M*A. Associate professor of Christian Education, Biola Bible College
It’s Results That Count S ome time ago a friend of mine spent a year’s leave teaching in China. “Now I suppose you’ll go
Are you pushing Christian schools for your young people? Some churches have an annual Christian Education Sunday. Do you open your church doors to Gospel teams, choirs, public relation films? These are designed to help interest your young people in higher education in which Christ is pre-eminent. And Money Do you give? In a very real way every building, every professor’s sal ary, every diploma given can be thought of in terms of the consecrated gift of some earnest Christian. Tuition and board and room which is paid by the student in such a school covers less than one-half of what his educa tion actually costs. When you hear that a young per son has been refused admission to a Christian school because it is full or when you sickeningly realize that one of the young people in your church who was so promising is los ing in te re s t in spiritual things through the intellectual leadership of professors who scoff at the deity and power of Christ or when you wonder why the young people of your church do not enter Christian service or re turn to their home church to serve, put the responsibility for that where it belongs—at the door of the Chris tian public. N ext M onth Next month’s article will be the first of a series of articles concerned with music in Christian education written by Miss Janice Wignall of the Department of Sacred Music of B iola Bible College. Miss Wignall is especially well qualified as a music educator having received her B. M. at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N. Y., and her M. M. at the University of Southern California, majoring in music education at both institutions. She has served as music supervisor in elementary and high school grades, held numerous positions as church choir director and Sunday school teacher and is at present church or ganist at the Korean Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles. END.
more have come back from Christian schools to strengthen the life of the local church by prayer, giving and serving. Another nearby large church, very strong in its Bible emphasis, has had only one missionary go from its young people in almost 30 years. Why? There is no simple answer of course, but it is interesting to me that young people from that church are not attending Christian schools. One girl came to B iola several years ago and she is in Christian work now. Christian Conservation The Christian school conserves what the church has done. Year after year we evangelize and teach in our Sun day schools and Daily Vacation Bible Schools. We try to develop Christian leadership in our youth groups, then when a student graduates from high school he steps away to college in an indifferent or even anti-Christian at mosphere. He is now really learning to stand on his own two feet, he is establishing his circle of friends and his permanent sense of values; he is making final vocational decisions; he is crystallizing his philosophy of life and he is probably falling in love. Without Christ? or afar off, or with the daily light of the Scriptures and the claims of Christ upon him? Is he taking his place in a local church? Are his decisions of vocation and marriage truly Christian? Will he come back to his church home stronger in the things of the Lord ready to assume his place in the adult life of the church? Some few college students are spir itually mature enough to withstand an indifferent or hostile spiritual en vironment. Many cannot. To all the Word of God is profitable. Prayer, Promotion, Service What is your church doing in the cause of Christian higher education? Do you ever pray for B iola P We need your prayers, regular, public and pri vate, effectual fervent prayers. Other Christian schools need them too.
home and write a book,” someone said to her. “No,” observed another com panion, “ you’ve been here a year. To write a book your stay should be two weeks or 20 years.” After two weeks in Mexico I’ll write no book, but I cannot escape one overwhelming impression. Our evangelical missionaries are coming from our aggressive Christian institu tions of higher learning. At least 35 of the 50 missionaries whom I met were from B iola , Wheaton, Westmont, Moody and similar institutions. Some had gone on to seminary, some had not. One man, a graduate of an eastern church-related college, told me that he was the only missionary that had gone out from that school in 125 years. His parents were missionaries. Several others were the products of exceptionally strong and evangelical missionary-minded churches situated near university campuses. I’m sure that if there had been a careful sur vey I would have found a number whose missionary vision came through Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship and similar organizations. But the fact remains the largest number of the staff of Wycliffe trans lators from any one school comes from B iola ; Wheaton is next. And everywhere we went, in denomina tional as well as faith missions, we found friends, products!of the evan gelical schools serving Christ effec tively. Churches Too In one local church in the Los An geles area, of 29 missionaries all but four attended Bible institutes or Christian colleges. Three of these four went to the field after they were 30 One was the daughter of missionaries. This church has for years pushed both missions and Christian higher educa tion. The Lord has blessed this. Many have gone into Christian work, many
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