Valley City Christian School held first meeting, March 7

Valley City Christian School had their first organizational meeting Tuesday. Of the three main organizing pastors, all from churches in Valley City, Pastor Les Koenig was the one who provided the kindling for this fire. Koenig started the meeting saying, “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.” Continuing with, “At this Christian school we are going to teach the truth from God’s Word. We aren’t going to convert people - that’s not our job. We’re going to teach kids to grow with Christ. If we can do that, we’re going to see incredible things in Valley City.”

Koenig’s opening words were followed by a prayer and lead into the history of how the Christian School idea came about.

Two years before Pastor Les Koenig became friends with the new pastor in town, Nick Scotten, of the Elim Evangelical Free Church. In getting to know Pastor Nick, Koenig asked him what his previous job was. Pastor Nick shared with him that he was a Christian school administration for many years. This was the green light for Koenig to move forward with the idea of Valley City having a Christian School option.

In 2022, the three organizing pastors - Les Koenig, Nick Scotten, and Terry Detwiler - began to iron out details.

Seven people will make up the committee (four plus the three organizing pastors). Five different churches will be represented with this school. Representatives have said this would be a Christian school and will not be affiliated with any one church.

Rather, it is to be a nondenominational school.

Pastor Scotten spoke next acknowledging that we (the audience) were all full of questions. “Who, what, when, where, why?” But, he said “The most important question is why? Why Christian Education?”

He went on to quote from Proverbs about the fear of the Lord being the beginning of knowledge. He shared, “Every single subject centers around God. A threefold cord is hard to break.” Scotten continued in saying that if messages received from home, school, and church are all in the same vein, then the child has much stability in their lives. Three seems to be a good number, as he went on to discuss the three main influences in school: classmates, curriculum, and teachers.

Ending his speech, he held up a sign, asking if we wanted an education for our children where God is nowhere. On the white sign in big, black, blocky letters was the word ‘Nowhere.’

He flipped it over, showing the same letters but with a space, and said, “Or would you like an education where God is now here?”

Pastor Detweiler shared, “We want our kids to know God with more than just a knowledge.”... “We want to challenge our kids to read, study, understand God’s Word and live that in our lives. Not just on a Wednesday or Sundays.”

He went on to say “Life as God gives us is a celebration. We want to be a school that strives for excellence in every way.”

Detwiler then turned over the mic to Jake Nadelin of Just Kidding Preschool and Childcare Center

who are partnering with Valley City Christian School.The soft-spoken Nadelin began to discuss some hard numbers.

“We want this to be very affordable and reasonable, but we also have to [pay attention] to the teacher,” meaning that the school can’t charge next to nothing in order to pay a teacher’s salary. Although in an interesting revelation, he said that the Christian school will expect some volunteer hours from families. “We have to be the church together,” he said.

Next up to speak was LaDeen Knutson, who is the retired director from Victory Christian School in Jamestown. She is one of the seven on the startup committee.

Mrs. Knutson is full of a fresh energy and passion for teaching. While she was at Victory Christian School or VCS, the school expanded from pre-kindergarten all the way up to 5th grade.

She says she has heard interesting things from people in the past, like ‘Christian school… hmmm. What do you do all day?’

In response, she said “We don’t just sit in a circle and sing Kum Ba Yah. We teach! … We teach the Christian perspective” and see God’s design in science, in language arts, in reading. “In every subject, meeting and exceeding every standard.”

In addition to all of the department of education standards, Christian schools have an additional subject: The Bible.

She laughs as she says, “Yes, we will still teach cursive,” and discussed their current pursuance of

a relationship with the Association of Christian Schools International.

She leaves the microphone after saying “Thank you, it’s exciting!” and her wonderful energy was catchingthe substantial crowd was laughing amid applause.

Pastor Les came back to the microphone and laughed as he said “We’ve already had a small miracle; we’ve had three pastors speak in less than 40 minutes!”

After the humor, we got back to details. Students will bring their own lunch, possibly with a restaurant catering in a hot lunch occasionally.

Pastor Les considers First Baptist Church to be their ‘launching pad,’ which is the backup location for the school if no other place is found by the fall of 2023, when classes begin.

Kids have to be signed up by May first, and there is enrollment paperwork to be filled out, along with a few other housekeeping tasks like obtaining an immunization record.

Pastor Les turned the microphone over to Mike Woodley, who is the current director at Victory Christian School in Jamestown. He was full of helpful information and knowledge about how things work outside of the public school arena.

Victory Christian grew quickly- from just a Pre-K program in 2008 to a Pre-K through 6th grade in 2022 and they plan to have a high school by 2025. They have 71 students enrolled.

“It’s been quite a ride!” Mr. Woodley said. 26% of kids at Victory Christian

do not claim a home church, said Mr. Woodley, so it is possible and even probable that some kids at the Valley City Christian School will not be from one of the collaborating churches.

But, as it came up later in the question and answer portion of the meeting, then what is the criteria for kids entering the school?

Pastor Les answered “We won’t turn any kids away who don’t have a church. We will make sure that the parents understand the statement of faith,” and like the rest of the kids at the school, they’ll be held to Christian standards. Mr. Woodley from Victory Christian jumped in here and added that the parents and the kids have to sign a statement of faith at the Jamestown school, and he also conducts one-on-one interviews with parents of prospective students.

The last speaker before the question-and-answer portion was Pastor JoAnn, associate pastor of Connect Church. She talked about the money, and that the school will have two teachers and an administrator. She also discussed scholarship funds as a great way for churches to put their kids through Christian school- since the VCCS is to be nondenominational.

The question as asked from the crowd: How is Valley City Christian School going to be different from St. Catherine School? And don’t we already have a Christian School in Valley?

Pastor Terry answered that, saying he has fielded this very question many times so far. It boiled down to the difference between Catholics and Protestants - for instance, Protestants

don’t do or teach the rosary. Catholics and Protestants are both Christians, but Catholics add extra to their school; things like the rosary.

“Valley City Christian School,” Pastor Terry said, “will teach the core Christian values.” In addition, of course, to all of the state-required subjects.

The administrative side of things always involves calm under fire and a willingness to instruct even under pressure- and all of the pastors displayed that at the question-and-answer segment as this question was volleyed: “How will you handle disabilities and other genders or sexualities? …Specifically, will you make kids with psoriasis or eczema hold up their hands and say “unclean, unclean!” like Levitical law states? That’s Biblical!”

Pastor Terry took the mic and calmly explained that after Jesus came, we are no longer held to Levitical law. We are under His Grace, and do not need to keep to the letter of the law set in Leviticus.

Reading from one of the handouts, the VCCS Statement of Faith includes “That God wonderfully foreordained and immutably created each person as either male or female in conformity with their biological sex. These two distinct yet complementary genders together reflect the image and nature of God,” citing Genesis 1:26-27.

Pastors Les and Nick also talked in turn, saying that they would teach what the Word of God says.

Kids tend to test the waters- and sometimes adults do the same thing. These pastors breezed through this show of opposition; what does that

indicate for their future of dealing with children in the Valley City Christian School? It’s brighter than ever, and brightening each day!

Another meeting, date and time to be determined, will occur when they have more details ironed out, which Mr. Jake says can be easily

spotted on Facebook. The VCCS does plan to create a website in the near future, but until then, contacting Pastor Nick will get your questions answered: 701840-1513.

Pastor Les said it best at the end: “How can you help? Pray.” And that’s all we can do.