Reconstructionist Educational Reform in Florida: Financial But Not Doctrinal Independence

Nicene Covenant Church was founded in March, 1985. From the beginning the church was founded to provide a framework for Christian reconstruction. The church’s primary means of advancing the dominion of Christ is through the pre-school. Churches using day-care is not a new idea, but this day care has developed a new and unique system. This system is being used as a financial engine to drive Christian reconstruction. This innovative plan makes the reconstructionist church independent of the need to pander to lukewarm church members for support. This system justly makes the beneficiary of the pre-school pay for the spread of sound healing doctrine to his own family and the community at large.

Keep-the-Church-Poor Churchmen will be shocked to learn that the pastor of the church is not paid for pastoring nor are any church officers paid salaries. The churchmen’s shock may cement into anger when they learn the church cannot own or control any property. The church’s exclusive domain is doctrine. The church is charged with doctrinal oversight of the school officials who must be ordained missionaries of the church. The day-care/schools (presently six in southwest Florida) are privately owned and leased to the schools. Their business operations are independent of church control. The schools cannot receive tithe money from the church, but must operate at a profit or die. The missionaries are dependent on the sale of their educational services to parents as their only source of income. If missionaries beg or receive gifts, they are subject to immediate dismissal.

It is the opinion of Nicene Covenant that almost all church fights grow out of property and power struggles between churchmen using doctrine as a front to hide their real motives. Their solution to church fights is simple—keep the church poor if you want to keep it whole, or shall we say, “holy”?

Give the Pastor Double Pay!

The pastor or missionary manager of the schools is not kept poor, but instead well paid. Compensation packages average over $50,000 per couple per year. For those who found and own their own schools, a much higher income is possible. All this is possible without selling magazines, seeds, candles, raffles, or fundraising of any kind.

Such fundraising programs are strictly forbidden at Grace Community Schools, the name used by Nicene Covenant Church for its educational institutions. R. J. Rushdoony has pointed out the better understanding of 1 Tim. 5:17 is “Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor [double pay].” Grace Community Schools are established to reach the Bible’s standard of paying the worthy elder instead of the unworthy church.

All Tithes and Offerings for Reconstructionists

This new system does not use tithe money to build buildings (the church meets in a school on Sundays), nor does tithe money pay salaries. What does the tithe and offerings finance? Well, so far, Nicene Covenant Church has financed volumes and also a commentary of Romans and Galatians due out this fall. All funds are used to finance projects that cannot support themselves as Grace Community’s system does. This method maximizes the efficient use of the Lord’s money. Angry sinners can’t choke the work by cutting off funds and the work proceeds without endless bickering over church government and church property.

A New and Different Denominational Umbrella

Such a radical departure from the modern church requires also a different approach to denomination organization. Nicene Covenant has founded the Nicene Covenant Fellowship of Churches and Schools. Like its parent, the fellowship can never own property. The fellowship provides a legal and doctrinal umbrella for the schools and churches, but in the words of one of their church pastors, “Our elders can sleep soundly at night knowing the holy hierarchy can’t pick their pockets.” It also is the belief of these educational pioneers that denominations go into heresy led most often by their lust for power and greed for property.

A New and Different Accreditation for Schools

This new concept flies also in the face of two popular errors of our day. The first error is that schools are made better by excluding children of non-church families from attending.

Grace Community uses the Bible’s standard instead. Any child is admitted from any family without discrimination. The child is taught the Bible’s gospel instead of popular superstition. The child is taught that his prayer for salvation is heard when the Lord gives him supernatural power to keep the Commandments better and better. If the child, after a reasonable trial, cannot respond to the gospel but continues to violate the law-word, he is asked to leave. No exceptions are made; pastor’s children and missionary children must obey the rules or out they go. As one parent wide-eyed remarked, “You people take the Bible more seriously than you do your church.” The second error of our day is that Christian education should begin at five or six but not younger. This popular heresy has allowed huge national humanist corporations to gobble up millions of our nation’s children in anti-God warehouses called day cares. One national chain recently was building 100 new buildings per month using junk bonds to finance their grab for the hearts and minds of the next generation. Both of these errors make necessary a new accrediting legal umbrella to shield Christian reconstructionist schools from hostile church or humanist accreditation. A new organization is going through the steps at this writing and is scheduled for approval next year.

Free Help for Reconstructionists

The church has adopted a program to teach any interested and qualified person our system free of charge as a service to the dominion of Christ. We have a three-year apprenticeship program in which we provide a very adequate compensation package that allows opportunity, in the words of Rev. McIntyre to “steal all of our trade secrets while earning a salary.” So far many have taken advantage of this generous offer. Ex-employees have founded similar schools in several states nationwide. Most recently a new school has opened in New Hampshire under Rev. Paul Edgar, and several apprentices are presently in training—two from California, one from Illinois, one from Oregon to start in the fall, and presently an international candidate from Wales.

At Last: A Teaching Degree with Economic Value!

The church has also made available a program for recent high school graduates to take their college training on an external degree program and work full-time in the schools at a salary, ending in four years with an elementary education degree. The hands-on experience is of practical economic value, a solid business education worth infinitely more than the theoretical nonsense that passes for business education in today’s colleges.

So far seven teachers have completed their degrees and have begun master’s degree work while continuing their career. Five more are pursuing degrees at this time. Although these are not state-accredited degrees, the graduates will be fully able to found businesses that can support them handsomely for the rest of their lives. This program makes them financially able to stand against the Arminian compromise that eats at the heart of today’s church. We invite any interested career aspirants to write to us for information concerning this valuable program.

New Publications

The system under which Grace Community Schools operates has been reduced to an operational manual that will become available for sale in the spring of 1997. There is also a 175-page book describing the McIntyre family’s spiritual pilgrimage to found Grace Community Schools, which will be published late this fall or early spring.

Fellowship for Reconstructionists

Recently Grace Community Schools help to found and organize the Reconstruction Society of Florida in the hopes of extending fellowship and support to other men of like faith in Florida. Tapes of the first meeting are available through Chalcedon. The one tape of particular interest is by Dr. Ellsworth McIntyre, “Financial Engine of Christian Reconstruction.”

Robust Evangelism

The school provides about 1000 seats in six locations throughout southwest Florida. Most of the seats are used for day care, although the upper elementary grades are rapidly being filled by satisfied customers who have experienced first- hand what Christian education can do for their children. Because day care has a high turnover of working parents, sometimes 20% to 30% more than the 1000 capacity are reached with a purer gospel than possible in ordinary schools. All of the above are important necessary steps on the road of Christian reconstruction, but the most important is the opportunity to present the Bible’s gospel stripped of decay and error caused by hundreds of years of battles with Arminianism. Grace Community Schools boast that they are able to teach “Wisdom” to their students. The Bible declares plainly that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. At Grace Community Schools, children as young as two years old are introduced to the fear of the Lord in this manner. The children are told that the Lord can give them a new heart. This new heart will cause them to want to obey the Bible’s Commandments. This new heart they are told can only be given by the Lord’s choice and the Lord’s choice can only be known by an increase in ability to obey the Commandments better and better. In other words, assurance of salvation is founded on the bedrock of Scripture that the love of God is the keeping of the Commandments and finding those Commandments are not grievous, but instead a delight (1 Jn. 5:1,2). Some unmarried parents have been amazed to find their children growing strangely obedient, responsible and polite. It is not unusual for our missionaries to marry several couples per year. The testimony of a little child in the hands of the Holy Spirit is an extraordinarily powerful tool for Christian reconstruction.

To sum up, we invite interested reconstructionists to investigate this new plan as a career choice. Attending Arminian services or studying in corrupt institutions of higher education cannot rebuild our society or provide a career for our children. Churches built on this sand of error cannot provide opportunity to teach sound doctrine. It is possible, however, to build new churches using the Nicene model as seed corn. This new approach makes the Christian teacher and/or pastor a private business owner. This economic freedom brings liberty to teach the truth and lay up an inheritance for the family of a good man: “A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children” (Pr. 13:22).