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In 1998 the book Kingdom Education: God's Plan for Educating Future Generations was released. This book set forth a biblical philosophy of education for the total education of children and youth. A school administrator, Larry Taylor, embraced this philosophy in his heart but was determined to take this from theory to actual practice in his school. In July of 2000, Larry became the headmaster of PrestonwoodChristianAcademy.
Knowing that the leader of a school has the major responsibility to define the culture of the school, Larry began developing an intentional, comprehensive plan to drive the philosophy of Kingdom Education into the major influencers of the school’s culture. PrestonwoodChristianAcademy enlisted the services of Glen Schultz, author of Kingdom Education , to help with some of the implementation of this plan.
Over the next three years all major groups in the school and church received training in Kingdom Education and several modules were designed and implemented throughout the academy and church. A staff training module, parent training module and a student leadership module were some of the first parts of the plan to be implemented. There was also a concerted effort to bring the church and school staff together under one biblical philosophy of education.
The seed for a national institute was planted in Glen’s and Larry’s heart that would train school and church leaders on how to replicate the plan to develop a kingdom-focused culture that was becoming firmly entrenched at Prestonwood. In June of 2003, the first Building a Kingdom School Institute took place. The Institute is now entering its sixth year.
The Institute continues to grow and this year’s program has been expanded to include specific training in the areas of curriculum, athletics, college placement, admissions, developing worldview scholars, and parent training.
Since its inception, more than 500 Christian school leaders from 95 schools from 25 states have come together for 3 days of intense training and planning on how to build a kingdom-focused school. School leaders leave the Institute with not only a desire to see their schools become schools of influence for Christ but also with a preliminary plan that they can develop and follow when they return home.
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