By Allen Cagle
“What if education wasn’t first and foremost about what we know, but about what we love?”
Let’s play a word association game... when you hear the word education, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Maybe it’s knowledge, information, tests, college or maybe even tuition! While all of these may be considerations, what if education was less about information and more about formation? Education, properly understood from a Christian vantage point should be understood as a subset of discipleship. I believe the measure of a good education isn’t merely performing well on a test. Education is about formation.
It’s possible to get so caught up in ACT’s, SAT’s, essays, and college prep that we forget why we started PEP in the first place. While we certainly want to excel in academics, I believe it is possible to gain the world (of knowledge) and lose your soul in the process. I truly believe our goal is more about formation than information. Simply learning is not the sine qua non. The goal is to see how information fits into the world God has created and have our hearts shaped into the likeness of Christ as we understand the world God has created for his image bearers to manage. What does this have to do with the disciplines we study? Math works because God created an orderly world. Science exists to showcase his awesome glory. Studying the nature of man in Comp and Lit and Worldview classes becomes meaningful as we understand God’s story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation. The Bible warns that there are some who are learners, but do not learn what matters most, God’s truth (see Rom 1:22; 2 Tim 3:7).
I’ve jokingly referred to the PEP curriculum at times as the Uncommon Core. I simply mean to say that we intentionally do something uncommon - we desire to infuse the fear of God (true wisdom) into everything we teach. CS Lewis, an educator himself, said, “Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil” (“Abolition of Man”). We pray that we are not creating clever devils at PEP; we pray that we are joining with you to disciple your students so that they are equipped to speak truth in love in a world that needs to know the hope of Christ.
Allen Cagle has served as the Senior Pastor at Sunrise Community Church in Atlantic Beach, FL since 2013. He has a BA in Biblical Studies from the University of Mobile and an M.Div. from The Masters Seminary (Los Angeles, CA). He received his Doctorate of Ministry in Applied Theology from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Allen served in associate pastor positions in Los Angeles, CA and Mobile, AL before moving to Jacksonville in January 2013 to serve at Sunrise Community Church. He began teaching at PEP in 2013 and loves sharing his passion for God’s Word and a biblical worldview with teens. Allen and his wife Mindy have three children — Kate, Jacob, and Karis.
