Just a few weeks ago, I sat around a bonfire with tears in my eyes. Thirteen of our secondary students stood around the pastor, committing their lives to Jesus and asking for baptism. One week later, more than 20 of our elementary students stood for a similar commitment.
This is not unusual if you work in an Adventist school. Seventh-day Adventist education is evangelism. Throughout the school day, students are exposed to Bible classes, daily worship, a faith-filled curriculum, and teachers passionate about their salvation. And these Christ-centered experiences are not just momentary processes. Students in a Seventh-day Adventist day school have approximately 40 hours of exposure a week to the things of God, and students in a boarding school have close to 100 hours a week of direct exposure. It should be no surprise that young people from faithful Adventist families who participate in Adventist churches with wholesome youth activities and attend a good Adventist school have a greater probability of staying in the church.
A colleague in another union once told me she had spoken on this topic for one of the schools in her territory. She presented the statistics on this topic in a powerful way. She had all the students in the school stand with her on a stage in front of their parents, but all to one side of the stage. They were in the “lost” area of the stage. She had the parents imagine they only provided Christian education in the home and told them how many students would statistically stay in the church in that scenario. She then had that many students move from the “lost” area of the stage to the “saved” area of the stage. What would the statistics say for students who received a Christian education at home, church, and in youth groups? She had the commensurate number of students move to the “saved” area. She then repeated the question but included Adventist education in the mix. In agreement with the statistics, only a small number of students stayed in the “lost” section of the stage.
At this point, one of the children in the “lost” section began to cry. “I don’t want to be lost!” My colleague bent down, getting on the child’s level, and said to her, “Don’t worry. Our Jesus promised to leave all the rest to come look for the one lost lamb.”
My dear reader, Seventh-day Adventist education is a powerful tool in the hands of our Savior. The statistics are clear. Because of the constant exposure to Jesus, there is a greater probability of students in our schools accepting Him and staying in the church when compared to their counterparts. But even then, we need our Savior to be our Shepherd and look for those who are lost. He will work on the hearts that have turned away, often using what they learned in our schools to call them back to Him. What a magnificent Savior we have! And what a powerful tool He has given us in our education system.
