Our Foundation
Christianity is the foundation for all that we do at Excelsior. All programs are governed by a distinctly Christian worldview with a deep desire to honor God and edify the students and families who attend. The words of the Apostle Paul in Colossians 3:17 provide the basis for everything Excelsior attempts to do:
“… whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
The Pulse of Our Group
The Bible is Our Foundation
All we are is all we can be. What we believe is who we are. Our families are passionate about Jesus Christ and sharing the good news of Jesus with all the world. We believe the Bible is the authority of our lives and the living, breathing Word of God. Sharper than a two-edged sword, completely true and relevant for this day and age. More than ever it is needed today. It is the foundation of our classical curriculum and the most important piece that ties it all together. As it is so important in our lives, we make it the first and foremost thing that we study at our cottage school.
Award-winning Christian Studies Curriculum
In grammar school, the children will read all the most important Bible stories (appropriate for their age level), in the original New King James Version through the beautifully pictured Golden Children’s Bible. During recitations they will memorize the 66 books of the Bible in order.
From 6th-12th grades they will be encouraged to go through a reading plan of the Bible and over the course of those years, bit by bit, they will graduate with having read the entire Bible, our goal being Biblical literacy. Over the course of 13 years they will have memorized hundreds of Bible verses that they will carry with them their whole lives.
In upper school years, starting in 7th grade, they will begin learning greek, progressing deeper in study each year so they can read and discuss the Bible in its original language. Their senior year they will dive deep into Christian theology, culminating with Christian metaphysics and Apologetics (the defense of the faith) reading C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity and more.
Morning Assembly and Worship
The first twenty minutes of each day we begin together with “Morning Assembly” where we say the Pledge of Allegiance, celebrate birthdays, learn a manners lesson and pray and sing a hymn together. The hymns we sing are so beautiful from our rich Christian heritage. Hymns such as those written by Charles Wesley (Christ the Lord is Risen Today), Martin Luther (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God), and Isaac Watts (I Sing the Mighty Power of God, Joy to the World) just to name a few. We learn about these great men and women and then sing the hymn together.
We pray collectively, sometimes with memorized prayers and other times we take volunteers to pray spontaneously. The prayers of the little children are so precious to God.
Amor Patriae
(Amor Patriae: Literally translated: The Love of the Fatherland: aka Patriotism)
As we are all Christian homeschooling families, we tend to be conservative in nature. We view the Western Civilization to be the foundation of our nation and worthy of study and appreciation. We love our country and our Constitution. We appreciate and honor great men of the past, including our founding fathers, flawed though they all are, and we study them and learn from them. All truth is God’s truth. We follow the sunbeams back to the sun.
“Saving Western Civilization One Student at a Time.”
-Memoria Press
“God Bless America, land that I love, stand beside her, and guide her, through the night with the Light from Above.”
From song “God Bless America” by Irving Berlin
The Statement of Faith
We believe in the sixty-books canonical books of Scripture of the Old and New Testament as being verbally and completely inerrant in the original writings. We call this the Bible and it is the supreme and final authority in what we must do to be saved.
We believe in one God, eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We believe that God created the heavens and the earth in seven days out of nothing, and lovingly prepared them as a home for us in which to worship and enjoy Him. He created humans in his image. God will one day end this world and create a new heaven and a new earth. Because God is our Creator we worship Him alone and enjoy his creation gladly.
We believe that Jesus Christ was begotten of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary and is true God and true man. As promised, the Holy Spirit was sent by the Father to all believers in Christ to comfort, give power to the believers, convict the world of sin, glorify Jesus, and transform the lives of believers into the likeness of Christ.
We believe that man was created in the image of God; that he sinned and thereby incurred not only physical death but also spiritual death which is separation from God; and that all human beings are born separated from God with a sinful nature.
We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures as a representative and substitutionary sacrifice, and that all who personally place their faith in Him are redeemed and justified on the basis of His shed blood. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Acts 4:12
We believe in the resurrection of the crucified body of our Lord, His ascension into heaven, and His present life for us as High Priest and Advocate.
We believe in the ‘Blessed Hope;’ the personal and imminent return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
We believe that if you “confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9 All saved persons receive the Holy Spirit and become inheritors of the “kingdom of God.” John 3:3
We believe in the bodily resurrection of the just and of the unjust; of which the saved will go to everlasting blessedness in the presence of our Lord, and lost will be in everlasting conscious punishment, eternally separated from God, along with Satan and the other fallen angels.
We believe that the Church is a spiritual belonging of people made up of all believers in Christ; that in its local manifestation it is an autonomous assembly of believers; and that its ordinances (things every believer should do – but there is not salvation in these things in and of themselves) are: baptism and the Lord’s Supper (communion).
We believe that human life begins at conception and that as we are created in God’s image, an unborn baby also is an image-bearer of God. We believe that God formed us in our mother’s womb, knitting us together (Psalm 139:13) and with intent and design created babies born as girls to grow to become women, all their lives long, and babies born as boys to grow to become men, for all their lives long. He created marriage solely for one man and one woman, and created sex only for married couples. Because God created human life, two biological genders, and marriage, we value preserving and protecting the sanctity of life, the gender at birth, and godly marriage.