The primary responsibility for educating children rests with their parents. Parents are called to care about an array of things for their children: their physical wellbeing, their emotional development, their growing awareness of the world in which they live, and their socialization.
Above all these important things lies their spiritual development. One of the most sacred responsibilities of parents is to nurture their children’s spirits—to help them not only to achieve success in this world, but to prepare for eternal life in heaven, or as one New Church teaching puts it, to care for their children’s “prosperity in time, and their happiness to eternity” (True Christianity 305).
New Church education aligns with this spiritual dimension of parenting. Parents who respond to the promptings of the Creator to care about this dimension will do many things in their own family setting, from Bible lessons, to asking blessings before meals, to discussing what the Lord God would want them to do, to saying prayers before bed, to holding family worship.
Most parents turn to their church for help. New Church education is the church’s response to the parental question, “What do you have for my children?” Parents are invited to explore what the General Church offers families by means of this website. They are also invited to find a New Church congregation near them via www.newchurch.org/locations.