Who We Are
Our Mission
Our mission at Grand Haven Christian School is to educate minds and shape hearts for service to God in His world.
Grand Haven Christian School was founded upon, and continues to operate from, the Reformed perspective of the historic Christian faith, emphasizing God’s providential care of His people and sovereign control of His creation.
Beliefs
As written in our strategic plan:
- God is our Creator, Redeemer, and Lord; sovereign over all things.
- The Bible is the infallible, authoritative word of God.
- God entrusts students to us. We are called to teach them to know and love God, and to guide them to develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
- Education that develops a Christian world and life view is essential in helping our children know God and serve others in every aspect of life.
Guiding Principles
- GHC will provide a nurturing Christian environment for all students.
- GHC will utilize best theory, knowledge, and practice in education by designing a God-centered curriculum that integrates faith and learning.
- GHC will hire staff members who are committed Christians and who understand and articulate their faith from a Reformed Christian perspective. Philosophically, the school is seen as one leg of the tripod of home, school, and church that help support our children to grow and mature in their faith.
Statement of Faith
The mission of West Michigan Christian Schools is based on God’s infallible Word, the Bible, as explicated by the Reformed tradition; all association members subscribe to this summary:
GOD
There is one infinite, holy, loving, personal God who speaks to us in Scripture and reveals himself to us in His acts of creation, salvation, and renewal, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As finite human beings created in God’s image, we declare that it is our purpose and privilege to worship, honor, serve, and obey Him.
CREATION
The world belongs to God, who created it and faithfully sustains it by His providence. Creation is the theater of God’s glory, displaying His power and majesty. God calls us to discover creation’s resources, to receive these gifts with thanksgiving and delight, and to use them wisely as stewards and caretakers who are responsible to God and to our neighbor.
SIN
Our ability to carry out our human calling to honor God, serve our neighbor, and care for the creation is marred by the corrosive effects of sin, which touches every part of life. When our first parents listened to Satan’s lie, questioned God’s Word, and rebelled against Him, they brought His judgment upon themselves, their posterity, and the creation. Brokenness, disease, hatred, arrogance, alienation, abuse of creation, and ultimately death are the inevitable fruits of sin in our world.
COVENANT
However, God has not rejected or abandoned His world but has turned to it in love. He gave the rainbow sign to Noah as a pledge of his promise to care for all creatures. He made a covenant with Abraham, promising to be a faithful God to him and his children, and through them to bless all nations. Through His servant Moses, God disclosed His law for the human community, promising rich blessing as the fruit of obedience. God always keeps His promises. We acknowledge with gratitude and joy that He is our God and the God of our children; that we are His people, and that this is His world.
REDEMPTION
As He promised, God in love sent Jesus Christ into the world to save it from sin and its consequences. The atoning death of the Son of God is the only payment for the debt of human sin, and Christ’s resurrection is the only liberation from the powers of evil and death. The victorious Lord sends the Holy Spirit to create faith, cleanse and renew hearts, and build a community of love and holiness. It is this community’s mission to proclaim and live this good news and to make disciples of nations.
KINGDOM OF GOD
Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and He reigns over all things for our good. To be a citizen of this kingdom is a privilege, a joy, and a responsibility. Led by His Spirit, we place our every thought, word, and deed in the service of Christ’s present and coming reign, and we live daily in the confident hope of His triumphant return.
COMMUNITY
Each of our West Michigan Christian Schools, as an enterprise of the entire community, enables and equips all of its children to serve the Lord, to love their fellow human beings, and to care for God’s creation. The WMCS community provides an environment of love and care within which students are nurtured. As an indispensable partner with the home and the church, each school leads children to live according to Biblical wisdom.
STAFF
Staff members of WMC Schools, are living in joyful fellowship with God, model the love of Christ to children. Empowered by the Holy Spirit and dedicated to the highest standards of excellence and professionalism, WMCS teachers view their work as a vocation. The calling of a WMCS teacher is to pass on the wisdom of the Christian tradition to students and to help them understand and apply the transforming power of the gospel to contemporary society and culture.
STUDENTS
Children are God’s image bearers, entrusted to parents and the Christian community as His gifts. WMC Schools encourage students to develop their gifts in response to God and in loving service to fellow human beings. Students are led to know God and to respond to Him in every dimension of the creation and in every aspect of their lives.
CURRICULUM
The WMC Schools PK-12 curriculum is developed and organized so that children may come to know God more deeply and richly and live for Him more faithfully. Since human experience in all its rich variety is a good gift from the Creator who remains involved in his world, our curriculum explores all dimensions of creation. God’s design for the creation and His will for human society and culture must be understood and obeyed. This is the way of godly wisdom. Students are taught to recognize the brokenness that sin brings to God’s carefully designed world and are challenged to bring the healing power of Jesus Christ to a fallen world.
Educational Philosophy
“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6
At GHC we offer an excellent Christ-centered education; propelled by our mission and executed by our teachers and staff. We focus on shaping our students’ hearts for a deeper understanding of who God is, what He has done for us, and where our purpose can be found in His world.
First and foremost, our students are taught that they are uniquely and wonderfully made as children of God; each blessed with different gifts and talents that they can share with each other.
We celebrate the gift of salvation and how to live a life of gratitude in response.
We utilize Teaching for Transformation as a tool to integrate faith into all subject areas and challenge students to own and connect their learning and their faith, and to see their role in God’s story.
Our students are given several opportunities to take action and serve in God’s world as well. From our very youngest in Preschool to our oldest in 8th grade, students learn to be God’s hands and feet as they serve in a variety of ways. We have long-standing relationships with organizations such as Kids’ Food Basket, Hand2Hand Ministries, International Aid, and Love in Action, as well as local senior care facilities. We train our students to see how they can serve in our community and strive to develop lifelong servant leaders in God’s world.