New Church Education

Our Mission

The Bryn Athyn Church School seeks to provide children with an education with a spiritual foundation, based on the teachings of the New Church, to prepare them to become confident, caring, and useful citizens of this world, and of the Lord’s heavenly kingdom.

School and Home, Working Together

Maggie and Erika Stine croppedThe New Church teaches that education begins in the home, where the foundations are laid by the parents. The greatest single influence in the life of a child is affection for his or her parents, and it is through this first-formed affection that the Lord instills those spiritual delights called “remains.” When a child’s social and academic needs grow beyond what a home typically provides, formal education in a school setting provides for a child’s further development. The school then works in cooperation with the home, building upon what has already been established in the home. Thus it is essential that together the home and school reflect and implement the life and faith of the New Church.

New Church education rests on the premise that a person is a spiritual being, endowed by our Creator with the ability to acquire knowledges and to order them in such a way that truths may be seen. When the delight that a child finds in learning is directed to the Word of God, the child can be introduced into a progressively interior perception of the Lord as a Divine Human. This is the reason the school and the home must support each other, for the truth that is not received with affection does not remain, and the quality of the affection by which the truth is received is profoundly influenced by the home.

The purpose of New Church schools in supporting the home, therefore, seeks to:JasonL

  • Establish in the mind of the child a true idea of God.
  • Protect that sphere of innocence which is the Lord’s own with people.
  • Cultivate in the children an affection for spiritual truth.
  • Serve as a means whereby the child’s mind may be opened to the perception and acknowledgement of spiritual truths, and hence a means whereby he or she may be led to the good of life.
  • Look to the establishment of a spiritual conscience in the understanding.
  • Equip the child for a life of useful participation in society.

See also our Religion Curriculum Overview

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