Guiding Principles

(Continued)

We believe in equipping students to actively engage their world and influence their culture. Cambridge is not a “safe haven” from this world. We are a training ground for kingdom service. The work is hard, the curriculum rigorous, the spiritual expectations high— for a purpose. Cambridge seeks to develop students who have a passion for Jesus, sharp minds, a clear calling, a generational commitment, and a kingdom imperative in all they seek to do with the rest of their lives. Cambridge is about intensive discipleship, strategic influence, traditional education, and intellectual preparation.

Intensive Discipleship
Too often, no substantive difference exists between the behavior of “Christian” teenagers and non-Christian teenagers. Moreover, many Christian teenagers who regularly attend churches before college fail to continue regular worship in church once they leave home. Cambridge addresses this by discipling students both spiritually and academically to become active disciples of Jesus who are capable of influencing their culture.

Strategic Influence
The education of many of the godly leaders and great Christian apologists of the past was based on a curriculum that was traditional and classical, grounded in a commitment to classical languages, logic and rhetoric. Today’s schools have strayed from these standards. Few students are encouraged to press toward the goal of something larger than themselves. Little thought is given to answering God’s call upon their unique gifts and personality. Cambridge seeks to enable and encourage teenagers to focus their abilities and passions on the world’s deepest needs in a manner that furthers God’s kingdom.

Traditional Education
Schools will not produce godly leaders, such as John Adams, or Christian apologists, such as C.S. Lewis, unless they provide the same type of education that prepared these minds. The generation educated between 1870 and 1920 was the last group whose exposure to classical rigors in school allowed them as adults to be both men of action and men of letters. Cambridge, through the classical traditions and rigors of a college prep curriculum, seeks to train future leaders of their generation.

Intellectual Preparation
Commitment to Christ-centered intellectual preparation within the church is inconsistent. Many often do not make the connection between education and evangelism. The gospel has lost its influence within society largely because Christians have been unwilling to develop both mind and spirit to the degree necessary for influence. Cambridge seeks to prepare Christian teenagers so that they are capable of being admitted to centers of cultural influence while resisting the negative aspects of their teaching and lifestyle.

Cambridge is about changing lives to make a strategic difference. There is no time in a person’s life that is more important in terms of heart formation than the teenage years. Cambridge is dedicated to being a prototype of strategic kingdom discipleship among young adults. It is more than a school. It seeks to be the training ground for young disciples of Jesus who have dedicated themselves to making a difference in their generation, for the sake of the gospel, and in gratitude for the cross of Christ.