TODAY
Portland Christian School is not a substitute for the Christian home or Christian parents or congregational activity, but is a supplement. It is not a correctional institution and will not keep students or parents from suffering the consequences of neglect, waste, or sin of earlier years or of current years. It is no magic solution to the problems of youth.
Portland Christian School is founded upon the fact that the "chief part of knowledge (and wisdom) is the fear of Jehovah". (Proverbs 1:7, Marginal.) It is dedicated to presenting every subject in the light of the reality of God and of the revelation of Himself to man in the Word of God, the Bible, and to the specific teaching of the Bible. The staff is composed of Christians who are dedicated to serving God and youth.
Portland Christian School was first accredited by the Kentucky Board of Education in 1931 and has maintained that status to the present. The Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), which is recognized by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, presently accredits the school.
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HISTORY
"On opening day the fifty students expected arrived plus fifteen more." This is how an account of the opening of Portland Christian School reads. From 1924 through 1963 there were four teachers in the school who were so closely associated with its beginning and subsequent development that their names and that of the school were almost synonymous. These four were Lura Bornwasser, Florence and Claude Neal, and Stanford Chambers.
The school opened in 1924 with grades one through nine and had an enrollment of eighty-one students before the year was out. A grade was added each year until the full twelve grades were offered in the 1927-28 school year, which ended with the graduation of the first senior class. There has been a graduating class each year since 1928.
There were eleven members of the first graduating class in 1928. The PCS class of 1985 with thirty-four members was the largest ever to graduate. At present, the total number of graduates is over one thousand.
From the second year of its operation until the 1957-1958 school year the enrollment of the school remained below two hundred. However, when Kentucky Bible College, which had been occupying the same grounds and buildings for five years, moved to Winchester, Kentucky, the new PCS building, erected in 1949, made it possible for the school to expand. The enrollment was between two hundred and two hundred forty from 1958 through 1969 when another expansion program made it possible to handle approximately three hundred students.
During the 1973-74 school year, the fiftieth year was celebrated with the overall theme being "What God Hath Wrought". In the fall of 1978, Portland Christian School opened the newly remodeled Montgomery Street campus. The facility, formerly the Emma Dolfinger School, is on the National Historic Register and houses students in grades K-6.
Since then several lots adjacent to the Portland Avenue campus have been purchased. This has increased the parking and recreational areas. During the 1998-1999 school year, in conjunction with the 75th anniversary of PCS, a capital improvement project to connect the one-story and two-story buildings on the Portland Avenue campus was planned. This project included additional office space and restroom facilities and was completed in the 1999-2000 school year.
Portland Christian School was started with a missionary emphasis and was operated as a tuition-free institution until 1986. That mission continues today with more than one-third of the cost of educating students coming from gifts given by churches and individuals interested in supporting Christian education. Not only has the Lord blessed the school through gifts, but also through the many talented staff, teachers, and administrators that have served in this ministry.
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OUR PHILOSOPHY
We believe education concerns the whole nature of man--body, mind and spirit. To educate and train this mind and this body to the neglect of the spiritual nature is the sad weakness of public education. It is in man's spiritual nature that he is most like or unlike God Who created him to be in His image. The greatest tool in the hands of man for the education of his spirit is the Bible. Because of several restraining factors, the Bible, for the most part, is ruled out of public education. In 1924, the members of the Portland Avenue Church of Christ decided that, whatever might be the cost to themselves, they would open a school in which their children could have the benefit of daily Bible teaching together with the state curriculum for the public schools. The church secured dedicated teachers who carried forward the school regardless of whether or not they received much pay for their services. The school began as a work of faith and a labor of love supported by free-will offerings.
Under a free government the school has enjoyed the freedom of teaching the Bible as the Word of the living God free from denominational bias. We have the privilege of presenting science, history, literature, and other secular subjects from the Christian rather than the evolutionary viewpoint, which pushes the God of the Bible out of the picture. This type of school gives opportunity to stress conduct and the formation of character after the pattern of Bible instruction.
The teachers are selected for scholastic ability, but even more so for their dedication to this philosophy of education whereby they may best serve man and God.
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OUR STATEMENT OF FAITH
1. We believe the Bible to be the inspired, and only infallible, authoritative, inerrant Word of God. (II Timothy 3:15, II Peter 1:21).
2. We believe there is one God, eternally existent in three persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (Genesis 1:1, Matthew 28:19, John 10:30).
3. We believe in the deity of Christ (John 10:33); His virgin birth (Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23, Luke 1:35); His sinless life (Hebrews 4:15, Hebrews 7:26); His miracles (John 2:11); His vicarious and atoning death (I Corinthians 15:3, Ephesians 1:7, Hebrews 2:9); His resurrection (John 11:25, I Corinthians 15:4), His ascension to the right hand of the Father (Mark 16:19), His personal return in power and glory (Acts 1:11, Revelation 19:11).
4. We believe that all people sin and can be saved only by God's grace through faith in Christ crucified and raised from the dead (Romans 3:23, Ephesians 2:8-9, I Corinthians 15:1-5), that such are justified freely through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus (Romans 3:24, Ephesians 1:7), that unless one is born again, of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3-7), that repentance is an essential part of true faith (Mark 1:15, Luke 13:3-5, Acts 20:21), that immersion in water is God's intended outward way of demonstrating one's inward faith and repentance and the union with Christ that results (Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 2:38, Romans 6:1-4).
5. We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost, they that are saved unto the resurrection of life, and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
6.
We believe in the spiritual unity of
believers in our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 8:9, I Corinthians 12:12-13, Galatians 3:26-28).
7. We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life (Romans 8:13-14,
I Corinthians 3:16, I Corinthians 6:19-20, Ephesians 4:30, Ephesians 5:18).
8. We believe that Christians' top priorities are the Great Commandment and the Great Commission: that we should seek for ourselves and our students that we love the Lord with all our being, and love our neighbor as ourselves, and seek to make disciples of the Lord Jesus in all the world (Matthew 22:36-40, Matthew 28:18-20).
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