Spiritual Life

Our weekly elementary and secondary chapel times bring together students, faculty, and staff through engaging worship, biblical teaching, and genuine community. While most weeks are a more traditional structure for chapel, we strategically build in options-based groupings for chapel at times along with small group dialogue to really dig into the word together in relationship. Supported and equipped by faculty and staff, students play a key role in leading the worship and small groups times in particular. In elementary, this small group chapel is referred to as Barnabas groups, where 6th graders lead small groups of K-5 students and encourage younger Warriors to grow in their faith. Other important assemblies and key events are also built in throughout the year during this weekly chapel time, and although different than the normal chapel format, all come from a place of honor and worship to the Lord. With prayerful intentionality, we come before the Lord in both large and small settings at SCS to help point us to who God is and who he has called us to be in community.

In our classrooms across all disciplines and grade levels, students experience not only the content but the Creator. We prayerfully aim for a learning environment where God’s heart is talked about and modeled by our teachers, but it doesn’t end there. Our commitment isn’t just to represent the Lord with scriptures, prayers, and loving our students well. It’s about equipping them with a biblical worldview, or more accurately stated, immersing them in what it means to view oneself and the world through a lens that is aligned with the Bible. This is an act of worship and the reality we are building in across all our classes. This, of course, starts with training for the adults to live out our faith and instruct students in such a way that is intentional and courageous. There is regular training for all employees at all levels in biblical worldview.

Our K-12 Bible curriculum specifically anchors our students in biblical truths, worldview training, and apologetics, helping students develop a strong faith and the ability to think critically. We also provide opportunities for students to hear from Christian leaders and thinkers who inspire them to defend their faith and engage with the world through the lens of Scripture. These experiences in classes and trainings help students navigate cultural topics, wrestle with questions, and deepen their understanding of why they believe what they believe.

Exuding God’s heart and immersing students in a biblical worldview happen throughout our extracurricular activities, including sports, clubs, events, trips, and more. Wherever we are, whether on or off campus, we are committed to instilling and exemplifying the Lord. Some of the most difficult, powerful, and inspiring moments happen during athletics and activities. When students get to enjoy and progress in what they love outside of the classroom, it’s a special context for being like Christ with your friends, your fans, and even your competitors. It’s a real opportunity for students to worship, offering their gifts and talents to the Lord for his goodness.

In and around all of our chapels, groups, classrooms, trainings, athletics, activities, and other arenas in which Warriors are doing what they do, worship is perhaps most pronounced in relationship, the way we speak to and connect with one another. It’s one thing for biblical worldview and foundations of faith to show up in a gathering type of setting as directed by an Jesus-following adult. The real test of our school culture and of our mission is the extent to which the Lord is honored in what students talk about among themselves. What they say and do when they are on their own is a huge opportunity for worship with our words and choices. If we want to change the culture, we must change the conversation. We must treat one another with the love of Christ. In these offline and online settings, we get to see the depth to which we are truly following Christ, being fruitful for his mission, and authentically living out faith.

Ultimately, SCS is simply a partner with parents and with the church in fulfilling the Shema in Deuteronomy 6, saying, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates” (v. 4-9). The mission of our school in its truest form is really the mission of God’s kingdom, for the hearts of people to turn toward the Lord in surrender and in worship. At SCS, we have the blessing of being part of this ministry to and with parents as part of the larger church in embracing who God is and who we are. Our identity is in Christ.

May SCS be a place of invitation to the presence of God each day, setting the stage for more and more students to give their lives to the Lord and live a life of worship as they, “…impact their world for Christ.”