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On the brink of World War II, C.S. Lewis dealt with a seemingly logical question: “In the face of deadly evil, aren’t we fools to be spending our times undertaking the study of philosophy and classical literature?” His reply was in the book Weight of Glory – “To be ignorant and simple now . . . would be to throw down our weapons and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen.”* Evangelical Christians in the mainline have been so preoccupied with reacting to every encroachment against the faith once delivered to the saints, they’ve failed to build for the future and now whole generations have been left spiritually unarmed.

Bucking the trend, Jesse Remington High School in the small rural town of Candia, NH since 1992 has worked rebuild Christian World Views in the youth of their church and community. It was spawned through the ministry of an evangelical UCC church with a long history of innovation. Finding their children dangerously unequipped to confront the temptations of High School despite strong backgrounds in the church, they chose to address the problem by creating their own High School complete with its own distinctive curriculum.

Where many Christian schools simply emulate the traditional educational models by default or lack of vision, Jesse Remington moved ahead with a unique curriculum devised by their Headmaster, Jeff Philbrick. Fresh from a unique master’s program at the University of New Hampshire specializing in “Alternative Education”, they hit the ground running with a unique curriculum. The Jesse Remington curriculum is classic in the sense that each morning is filled with traditional elements of a classical education we used to call reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. The afternoons though are spent in Project Based Learning where the fundamentals are put to work in lifelike projects which, this year, include robotics, pond ecology and deck building.

In today’s rapidly changing economy that makes good sense because the youth are trained to work in the new labor force that’s replacing yesteryear’s workers. In tomorrow’s labor force, short term projects, teams, and critical thinking are the order of the day. Workers who can combine strong basic skills with the ability to deploy them in a variety of settings will more likely succeed. That philosophy is put to work, for instance, when it comes to building a barn or outbuilding in the traditional New England “post and beam” method. That venture involves math and business savvy as costs are estimated and funds expended, presentation skills as the project is presented to the customer, and the teamwork and physical skills needed to get the job done by turning a plan on paper into a finished building. Proceeds from such projects fund the “extras” at the school such as their Spring trip to Montreal or Washington, DC, so the students get to taste the benefits of their labors rather quickly and benefit from that “carrot effect”.

As distinctive as this is, the real benefits are found in the Christian nurture provided. Originally the school was founded to help the youth of the church and community leave High School as Christians instead of cannon fodder for college doubts and temptations. That’s thanks to the school’s conscious appropriation of their Congregationalist history. The school is named after Revolutionary War era minister of Candia, Jesse Remington and the students see themselves as living epistles written in part thanks to Remington’s legacy.

Read the history of New England and you’ll find the phrase “covenant” again and again and also understand how the teachers, students and parents understand their relationship. The Pilgrims on the Mayflower swore to a covenant before coming ashore. Every New England town after them did the same. The “original” Webster’s dictionary of 1828 defines “covenant” as a solemn agreement between two parties who agree to work together to accomplish a task or transact business. In the wilds of New England dating back to the 1600′s, though “covenant” meant survival, a do or die partnership where failure was not acceptable. So when the parents, teachers, and students of Jesse Remington High School “covenant” together, it’s more than a cutesy contract of mutual niceness. No, it’s still a pledge of historic proportions that, do or die, students, parents, and teachers will work together to make sure that the time spent at Jesse Remington produces entrepreneurial minded graduates not more aimless youth with relatively meaningless high school “diplomas”.

As the school faces the future, it seeks to expand the projects offered to students while continuing to find its identity as a Christian school. However the Lord leads regarding the projects it can offer, Jesse Remington has raised the bar for mainline churches every where by their example. Instead of just functioning as reactionaries it’s time to start functioning as visionaries and impart a Christian World View to the coming generations through new institutions that meet today’s demands while forming hearts according to the Word of God.

*The author thanks Chuck Colson for this anecdote.

Top image by the author, deck building image courtesy Jesse Remington High School.

Contact Information:

Jeff Philbrick is the headmaster at Jesse Remington High School 19 Stevens Lane, P.O. Box 62 Candia, NH 03034 Tel. 603-483-5664

Website: http://www.jesseremington.org