The Foyer, 2019-2020, 03

    The first two posts of The Foyer introduced you to our school. The next three break down our mission statement illustrated by Carrie Detwiler. 

    We can trim our mission to three words: Jesus, habits, and academics.” The foundation of everything we do at Harvest is glorifying God. The cornerstone is training up our children to delight in the Lord Jesus Christ. God gives His followers moments to share His Love and Truth throughout the day. You and your child pray about a problem, thank God for a meal, listen to praise music in the car, read a Bible story, celebrate answered prayer, and go to church. 

    We come alongside your child during the school week. We make time for prayer and Bible readings and memory verses. Christian schools do this but our distinctive is Charlotte Mason’s twentieth principle.

We teach children that all truths are God’s truths, and that secular subjects are just divine as religious ones. Children don’t go back and forth between two worlds when they focus on God and then their school subjects; there is unity among both because both are of God and, whatever children study or do God is always with them.

    Just as the wind spreads seeds across a field, the Holy Spirit blows sacred ideas through all subjects. We follow Paul’s lead in sharing knowledge of God through His creation and His word. We study God's creative nature by immersing ourselves in nature. "The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy" (Psalm 65:8). We thrill a child with the idea that our Father made it all. Harvesters get steady doses of Vitamin W to nourish WONDER.

    Charlotte Mason sorted knowledge into three broad fields: God, mankind, and the universe. The heart ponders the parable of the seed as the nose sniffs sage leaves and the mouth samples cherry tomatoes from our garden. The story “A Lesson of Faith” flashes into the mind as a caterpillar crawls across a little hand. The eye delights in the golden flash of a koi in our pond and the tattoo of a yellow-bellied sapsucker engages the ear. The child wonders about the One who made all these things. On the surface, the parable seems to be the only subject about God. However, the faith lesson is from a literature book (the knowledge of mankind) and nature study is science (the knowledge of the universe). The connections are there for the students to make.

    Another distinctive is that the Bible is our curriculum instead of textbooks and devotions. Children are born craving God and the Bible satisfies that hunger. Students read specific books in the Old and New Testaments and retell what they learned in their own words. They discuss what a passage means and what God is saying. Pastors and a biblical counselor join our discussions once a week. Moreover, developing the habit of reading to know and narrating what they know makes them more engaged listeners of sermons and podcasts. We want our students to know God by knowing His creation and His word and telling what they know.