3B: Our Mission and History

Welcome to the 3B: The Brochure Breakdown Blog series. In this recurring blog series, we consider all 9 topics in the newly released Eastern Christian School Brochure. We consider how each topic helps us tell our story.

The Mission and History page of the EC Brochure.
Download the digital copy or request a paper copy.

1892 is Old!

The first sentence in the EC Brochure is about the longevity of this school: “We’re Old School. In fact, we’re New Jersey’s oldest Christian school.”

We were founded in 1892. That’s old. It’s amazing how long we have been in existence. The world in 1892 was so different from our world today. Sometimes people wonder how you can tell if your school is “Old.” Well, I’ve developed a “Foxworthian” list of potential signs that are indicators of your school being old:

• If your school was founded in America, but your board minutes weren’t written in English for 20 years, you might be… old school.  (Dutch, by the way).
• If your school is older than 6 US states, you might be…  old school. (Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Alaska, and Hawaii)
• If, when your school began, they still called cars “Horseless Carriages,” you might be… old school.
• If indoor plumbing sounds like an amazing luxury, you might be… old school.
• If your school was invented the same year that typewriters were, you might be… old school.
• If you don’t mind attempting to re-invent the lightbulb because they were just invented a few years ago, you might be… old school.
• If you predate human flight by almost a decade, you might be… old school.
• If electing Grover Cleveland to a second term non-consecutively sounds like a good idea, you might be… old school (that one’s for the history buffs).

1892 and 2015.

Try to imagine life in 1892. Or even more fun, try to imagine what folks from Eastern Christian in 1892 might think about us today! It’s probably fair to say that they would think we live on a different planet. If they were able to observe modern cars, planes, electricity, plumbing, computers, phones, the internet, space travel, advances in medicine, what would they think? Or what about our international student program: we educate Christian students from the other side of the planet!

So much has changed at Eastern Christian over time. From buildings, town locations, community demographics and diversity, and even the language that we speak! But our God’s mission to our school hasn’t changed. That’s the point of tying in our history and mission together. We join our brothers and sisters in this community from 1892 onward in this same mission.

“By providing an excellent academic curriculum, offering a variety of extra-curricular activities, and assembling a caring, culturally diverse community, we, with support of parents and local churches, empower students from Christian families to develop their gifts within the context of a Reformed Christian worldview so that they can act as Christ’s transforming agents in a global society.”

EC Old ≠ Stagnant

The other key messaging point here is that while our community has this amazing history, we are not resting on our laurels. We don’t want readers to confuse “old” for “stagnant.” Eastern Christian’s Culture of Innovation is well known. We are a school that seeks to glorify God through an excellent, forward-thinking, student preparing education. That is evident as you continue reading through the rest of the story.

Up next in the 3B series: Authentic Faith Integration

Previously in the 3B series:
The Brochure Breakdown Blog Series Introduction