Lutheran Education: Getting Down to the Basics (Part 8 of 8)
If you visit a Lutheran school on an ordinary morning, one of the first things you will notice is the sound. Children singing. Not a recording, not a praise band, but children’s voices learning the actual songs of the church, verse by verse, until they know them by heart. There is a reason for that, and it is a fitting place to end this series.
Music, the gift second only to the Word
Luther loved music with his whole heart, and he gave it an astonishingly high place. He called it a gift of God second only to theology itself, and said it “drives away the devil and makes people cheerful” (Preface to Georg Rhau, Symphoniae Iucundae, 1538). He was not talking about entertainment. He meant that music carries the Word of God into the heart in a way little else can. A truth you have only read, you may forget. A truth you have sung a hundred times, you carry for life.
That is why the Lutheran church has been called “the singing church,” and why a Lutheran school teaches hymns the way it teaches reading: seriously, patiently, as something worth mastering. “Oh, sing to the Lord a new song! Sing to the Lord, all the earth” (Psalm 96:1). “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly… teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Colossians 3:16). “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19). The church’s song is not decoration around the faith. It is one of the ways the faith gets inside us and stays.
A child who spends his years in a Lutheran school may learn sixty or seventy hymns by heart. Long after the math facts and spelling lists have faded, those hymns will still be there, ready for the hospital room, the graveside, the hard night, the day of joy. It is one of the quietest and most lasting gifts the school gives.
What the whole series has been about
This is the eighth and last piece, so let us bring it together. We began with God’s charge to raise children knowing Him. We saw that what makes a school Lutheran is the Gospel at its center, the free forgiveness of sins. We learned that a child’s true identity is given at the font in Baptism, not earned in the classroom. We found that the catechism is a prayer book for life, not a test to pass. We discovered that the ancient church already knew children must be formed this way, and that our own founders crossed an ocean to keep it. We saw that all of it prepares a child not to escape ordinary life but to serve God and neighbor right in the middle of it. And now we end where the church so often ends: singing.
That is a Lutheran education, down to the basics. Not a private school with an attached chapel. A community gathered around the Word and the Sacraments, handing children the one treasure that outlasts everything else.
Come and see
If you have children, or grandchildren, or simply care about the children in your life, come and see what this looks like at St. John. Visit a chapel service. Sit in a classroom. Talk with a teacher. Ask the hard questions; we do not shy away from them. You do not have to have it all figured out, and you do not have to already be Lutheran. You only have to be willing to bring a child to the One who said, “Let the little children come to Me.”
Enrollment is open right now. We would love to walk you through it. And if cost is a concern, you should know that Wisconsin’s Parental Choice Program opens its next application window on August 1, which, for many families, covers tuition entirely. We are glad to help you understand whether your family qualifies.
To visit, ask questions, or begin enrollment, contact the St. John school office or speak with Pastor Gillespie. The treasure those immigrant families crossed an ocean to protect is still here, and there is a place in it for your child.
Enroll at St. John Lutheran School →
This concludes “Lutheran Education: Getting Down to the Basics.” Thank you for reading. We hope to see you soon at St. John.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.