Recovering the Riches: How the Treasures of the Past Equip Students for the Future

“A school is not a manufactory for making scholars. It is a place for training Christians.”—Martin Luther

A Heritage of Formation

Faith Lutheran Church founded Faith Lutheran School in 1971 with a simple conviction: Christian education belongs not to the state or marketplace but to the Church. That conviction is as countercultural now as it was then. What began as a small preschool ministry has steadily grown into a full Pre-K through 12th-grade school: a community dedicated to forming students in mind, body, and soul.

The school’s expansion over five decades mirrors the Church’s ongoing commitment to the education of her children. Beginning with a handful of preschoolers in 1971, Faith Lutheran added kindergarten in 1980, first grade in 1981, and completed its elementary program through grade 8 by 1985. In the late 1990s, Faith decided to make a pedagogical change and became a classical Lutheran school. This change required not only a different method of teaching but a more integrated and focused curriculum. Finally, in 2008, Faith Lutheran High School (FLHS) was established, graduating its first senior class in 2012. Along the way came new classrooms, gym renovations, choirs, handbells, foreign languages, field trips, and technology.

Yet amid all the change, the purpose has remained constant: to teach Christ and to form Christians. This purpose—so central to the Lutheran Reformation—is what now animates Faith Lutheran’s renewed embrace of classical Lutheran education. It is not a novelty or a trend but a recovery of the deep roots of Lutheran pedagogy itself.

Education as Formation, Not Information

Dr. Thomas Korcok, in his book Lutheran Education: From Wittenberg to the Future, reminds us that education in the Lutheran tradition has always been more than “schooling.” It is formation: a shaping of the whole person toward wisdom, virtue, and faith. Luther and Melanchthon did not seek merely to make learned people but wise and godly ones.

Luther understood education as a profoundly theological act. In his “Letter to the Mayors and Aldermen of All the Cities of Germany” (1524), he wrote that schools exist so that the Word of God might be handed on to the next generation—not as rote memory but as living faith. In other words, education is catechesis extended into every subject. Korcok describes this Lutheran vision as sapiential (from the Latin sapientia, meaning wisdom). It views knowledge not as fragmented data but as an ordered whole whose center is Christ. The goal is not utility but truth; not mere skill but virtue; not success but sanctification.

When Faith Lutheran School adopted the classical model in recent years, it was not departing from its heritage but deepening it. Classical education’s aim—to cultivate wisdom and virtue through the liberal arts—is precisely the aim of Lutheran education since Wittenberg. The two belong together.

From Wittenberg to Plano: A Continuity of Vision

In the early sixteenth century, Luther and Melanchthon reformed not only theology but also education. The Reformation birthed the Christian school movement, grounded in the belief that every baptized child should learn to read the Scriptures, reason faithfully, and live virtuously.

Melanchthon, known as the “Teacher of Germany,” structured Lutheran schools around the seven liberal arts—grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music—the same disciplines that had shaped Western civilization for centuries. These arts were seen as tools for thinking, not merely subjects to be mastered. They trained students to perceive order in God’s creation and to delight in its harmony.

At the same time, Scripture remained the “queen of the sciences.” Every field of study was illuminated by God’s Word, which alone reveals the true purpose of human life. As Korcok notes, Lutheran education sought to unite faith and reason, learning and devotion, discipline and delight. The goal was not the production of intellectual elites but the formation of faithful Christians who could serve in the three estates—home, church, and society—with wisdom and love.

Faith Lutheran School stands in this same stream. Our classrooms, though filled with modern tools and textbooks, remain animated by that Reformation vision: that all knowledge finds its unity in Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3), and that this knowledge is timeless, found in the very best writings throughout human history.

Recovering the Classical in Lutheran Education

The modern shift toward classical Lutheran education at Faith Lutheran School is, in many ways, a recovery rather than an innovation. For centuries, Lutheran schools were classically oriented by nature—teaching Latin, studying Scripture and the liberal arts, and training students to reason, speak, and write with clarity. It was only in the 20th century, as American education increasingly adopted a utilitarian, industrial model, that Lutheran schools began to drift toward pragmatic and progressive methods.

Faith Lutheran’s renewed classical approach reflects a conscious return to the sources—ad fontes, as the Reformers would say. It is a return to a pedagogy that unites faith with intellect, moral formation with academic rigor, and contemplation with action.

Classical education, as practiced at Faith, is not about nostalgia for the past but about reclaiming the enduring truths of Christian learning. It recognizes that wisdom begins in wonder—that the student who marvels at the created order is being prepared to worship the Creator.

In every subject—Latin, theology, history, mathematics, natural philosophy, and music—the student learns that truth is not invented but discovered. Knowledge has an order because creation itself has an order. The liberal arts are not arbitrary academic categories but time-tested disciplines that shape the mind to think clearly, the body to act with discipline, and the soul to delight in beauty.

The Liberal Arts as Instruments of Wisdom

The Trivium—grammar, logic, and rhetoric—trains students in the arts of language and reason. The Quadrivium—arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music—turns attention to the created order. These subjects reveal harmony, proportion, and the beauty of God’s design. Music, the final and crowning art, orders both the cosmos and the human heart.

For Lutherans, these arts are never-ending in themselves. They are instruments of wisdom—the means by which the human mind is conformed to the order of God’s creation and opened to the truth of His revelation. As Korcok emphasizes, “Lutheran education does not produce autonomous thinkers but faithful reasoners whose minds are captive to the Word of God.”

This is why the classical model is such a natural fit for a confessional Lutheran school. It provides the intellectual tools for understanding the world God made, while the Gospel provides the theological center that gives learning its ultimate purpose.

Formation, Discipline, and Delight

In classical Lutheran education, the formation of the whole person requires discipline—what Luther described as the “school of the cross.” Discipline is not harshness but the daily habit of ordering one’s loves toward what is highest and best. The structure of the curriculum, the practice of memorization, and even the posture of prayer are not empty formalities; they are acts of worship that train the heart to love the good.

This is what our forefathers in Wittenberg called ordo amoris: the ordering of love. Classical education cultivates this order through the habits of the liberal arts, the virtues of the Christian life, and the discipline of the body.

Worship as the Heartbeat of Formation

At Faith Lutheran School, this formation is inseparable from our daily life of worship. Each day begins—and is continually framed—by the historic liturgy of the Church. Our students pray, confess, sing, and hear the Scriptures in forms that have shaped Christian hearts for centuries. The liturgy, far from being mere routine, becomes the steady rhythm through which God’s truth is spoken into their lives.

Through the use of the historic lectionary, students learn to inhabit the Church’s time—to walk through the life of Christ year after year. The readings they hear in chapel echo into their classrooms, becoming touchstones for the rest of their learning. In this way, worship forms the imagination as much as instruction forms the mind.

Likewise, the hymns our students sing—beautiful Lutheran hymns richly rooted in Scripture and doctrine—become vessels of memory and anchors of faith. These hymns carry the theology of the Church not just into their ears but into their hearts. As students sing truths that Christians have sung for generations, they are reminded daily that they belong to something larger, older, and firmer than the shifting opinions of the world.

This shared life of worship grounds our students in truth each day and affirms God’s promises for their lives. It reinforces what the classroom teaches: that all wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord and all learning finds its source in Christ.

Faith Lutheran School: Standing in the Stream

Faith Lutheran School’s own history testifies to the enduring vitality of this tradition. What began as a modest preschool has, by God’s grace, become a fully integrated classical Lutheran academy—one that seeks to harmonize academic excellence, spiritual formation, and vocational preparation.

Through decades of faithful teaching, athletic discipline, musical training, and theological instruction, Faith Lutheran has remained steadfast in its purpose: to present every student complete in Christ (Col. 1:28).

Today, that purpose finds fresh expression in the classical model. The Great Books, the study of Latin, the pursuit of virtue—all these serve the same end the Reformers sought: to form wise, eloquent, and faithful Christians who can think deeply, live honorably, and serve joyfully in every vocation.

As the culture around us grows increasingly fragmented and utilitarian, this vision becomes all the more necessary. In a world that prizes utility over beauty and opinion over truth, classical Lutheran education stands as a quiet resistance—a reassertion that education is about who we become, not merely what we can do.

The Future Rooted in the Past

Faith Lutheran School’s story—from its founding in 1971 to its flourishing today—is part of a much larger story: the story of the Church’s commitment to form hearts and minds for Christ. The school’s embrace of classical Lutheran education is not a step backward but a step deeper into its own heritage.

In recovering the treasures of the past, Faith Lutheran is equipping students to meet the challenges of the future. By grounding education in the eternal things—truth, goodness, and beauty—and by ordering all learning under the lordship of Christ, Faith Lutheran School continues the great Wittenberg tradition of education as reformation. Here, students learn not only to think well but to love rightly; not only to reason clearly but to worship faithfully. They come to see that knowledge and faith are not rivals but companions on the journey to wisdom.

That is the enduring gift of classical Lutheran education: the formation of Christians who are wise, virtuous, and free—not free in the modern sense of self-expression but in the Gospel sense of freedom for service, love, and truth. Faith Lutheran School stands joyfully within this heritage, confident that the same Lord who began this good work in 1971 will bring it to completion in the generations to come.

“He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”—Philippians 1:6

Faith Lutheran School: Formed in Christ. Grounded in Wisdom. Shaped for Life and Eternity.