Ancient Paths Christian and Classical Academy's Inaugural Week
At Ancient Paths, we just completed our inaugural week. A sense of accomplishment from our staff is mixed with a feeling that we are truly beginning our work. Watching our parents walk into the building with their children on the first day of school, seeing them take pictures and say goodbye, brought into focus what all of our preparation has been leading up to. God has blessed us with 22 students to educate, equip and empower to be wise, eloquent, and virtuous young men and women. This requires faithful teaching and training on our part and God’s spirit to be at work in our school. Our mission can only be carried out through faith and by God’s grace alone.
In their first week, all of our students have learned our school rules. Those rules are “listen, obey, and be respectful.” They have also been taught that these rules were not simply made up by our staff, but that these rules come from God and are found in His word (Proverbs 10:17, Colossians 3:20, and 1 Peter 2:17.) Our students begin every morning with the Lord’s prayer. Most of our students are close to knowing this by heart and later this week we will begin learning the Apostle’s creed. We want our students to begin every morning reciting both of these while we are all assembled together.
Another tradition we are cultivating, is to begin every Monday morning singing hymns and psalms to God with our students. This time of morning prayer and singing is inspired by the liturgical hour called Matins, which is a traditional time of worship in the early hours. This tradition goes back to the early church in the third century. Yesterday, at our Monday Morning Matins, our students sang "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." They were introduced to this song in their music class first and then we all sang it together at our morning assembly. Next week’s song is Psalm 23. We plan to come back to the same songs every quarter so that our students become familiar with the hymns and psalms over the years.
This week and this coming year would not be possible, if not for your continued support of our school. Ancient Paths does not accept government funding of any kind and we are committed to bringing an affordable Christian and classical education to as many families in Columbus as possible. Your prayers and your financial support of the school are needed to ensure that this continues to happen. Please continue to pray with us, that God would bless our staff and our students this year.
Grace and peace in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Josh Lister - Headmaster
