(by: Geoff Brown)

February 20, 1944.  Archibald Mathies is the on-board flight engineer and turret gunner aboard a B‑17G bomber flying a mission over Leipzig, Germany.  Flying low after delivering its payload, the bomber is strafed with enemy fire, killing the pilot and injuring the co-pilot and radio operator to the point that both are unconscious, likely to bleed out.  Worse yet, Mathies isn’t a pilot.

By all accounts, the mission had failed.  Over a radio he barely understood how to use, Mathies was told to bail, pulling the rip cord on both the mission and the lives of his fellow fighters.

Archie Mathies refused to abandon the mission.  He worked quickly to secure his mates and, as the explosive-laden B-17G’s nose dipped, setting a trajectory for a flaming wreck just outside enemy territory, Mathies pieced together what repairs he could, and took the pilot’s seat in a huge plane he had never learned to fly.

History records the end-result as a flaming, explosive mess.  Mathies died on impact.  But, his crew survived.  The mission was a success and today it is remembered as one of the moments in which the unparalleled bravery of selfless men turned the tide of the war.

As I typed that last paragraph, everything in me wanted to add “miraculously” to the word “survived”.  But, God’s Providence duly considered, doing so would misserve the dauntless courage of Archie Mathies.  Mathies understood the mission and he understood that there was nothing that held higher priority than that mission.

The mission of Northwest Christian School is to provide a Bible-based program of education that enables students to develop a Biblical worldview.  Like Mathies, if we’re going to be sincere in pursuit of that mission, it will involve a sense of courage that lies outside of us.  We will need to be single-minded in our focus so that there is no competing priority or purpose that would be allowed to supplant our goal of mission fulfillment even if, or when, our bomber is strafed by enemy fire.

As you are aware, there are two models for enrollment within Christian education:  Community and Covenant.  Community is the type of enrollment found within the majority of Christian schools:  any student can attend, regardless of their commitment to Christianity or their personal hold on a testimony laying hold to a pursuit of Christ.  Covenant enrollment is far different.  As a Covenant enrollment school, we require two things of our students and their families.  The first aspect of Covenant enrollment is a commitment to the Christian walk as made manifest in the testimony of at least one parent in the home.  In our older students, we also look for an authentic expression and evidence of a growing faith.  

The second is a meaningful commitment to the community of a Christian church. 

This year, Northwest Christian School is introducing a new app to help support our Missions Learning program within our secondary. It’s called MobileServe and it will enable our students to record and reflect on their grade-level-specific and whole-school Missions Learning efforts. Nothing new here. It’s simply a new form of tracking the efforts that we’ve always required of our students: Kids Kingdom, Feed My Starving Children, Kitchen on the Streets, The Sutton Project, etc.  

But, there is one aspect of MobileServe that is new and it is one about which I am particularly excited: supporting our students within their Covenental commitment to the local church. Beginning this year, initially within the high school but eventually throughout the secondary grades, MobileServe will allow our students to record and reflect on their participation in their chosen local church.  Beginning this year in the high school, and next year in the middle school, in addition to requiring that students record and reflect on their Missions Learning endeavors within local non-profit ministries and organizations, we are requiring that they do the same within their weekly investment in their local church.

Our school’s mission, its stated foundational purpose, is Biblical worldview. And, it must be simply and clearly stated: Biblical worldview will never be achieved in a student’s life if that student is not invested in the local church.  It is the fundamental underpinning of our school’s Covenant enrollment model.

Our students will soon receive instruction in terms of utilization of the MobileServe app on their school-issued iPads.  We would also encourage you to download it on their personal mobile phone.  As we do, we will begin articulating the specific requirements.

Here’s the bottom line.  The Northwest Christian School mission speaks almost exclusively to Biblical worldview.  And, I need to speak this plainly:  If we have any authentic intention to fulfill that mission, we need to approach it like Archie Mathias.  There can be no competing priorities.  There can be no Plan B.  This mission needs to envelope the whole of our vision.  And, again we need to recognize that we will never see Biblical worldview realized in the life of a student if they are not, legitimately and wholeheartedly, invested in the local church.  In the spirit of that brave flight engineer, there can be no price we will not be willing to pay.

Geoff Brown is the Superintendent of Northwest Christian School located in Phoenix, AZ. Northwest Christian School is one of the largest private Christian schools in the state of Arizona and the only ACSI Exemplary Accredited school in the state.

This post is sponsored by NCS Online. NCS Online is a fully online K-11th grade Christian school providing an online education that is rigorous, affordable, and rooted in Biblical worldview. To learn more about NCS Online, visit NCSonline.org.