Agape Christi believes that athletics serve the following purposes in the lives of our students and our community:
Physical Well-being: Exercise and activity are important components of stewarding our bodies for the glory of God. As the apostle Paul says, “Physical training is of some value” (1 Timothy 4:8), and part of that value is providing lived parables of the spiritual life (1 Corinthians 9:24-27; 2 Timothy 2:5; 4:7). There are certain lessons that can best be learned through the rigor of athletic training.
Character Formation: Training and competition requires the development of virtues such as self-control, perseverance, discipline, courage, humility, patience, respect, and care. Through athletic training and competition, students must learn to govern their passions and steward them in ways that honor God and love their neighbors.
Teamwork and Respect: Playing on a team requires students to gladly submit their private ambitions to the good of the team and the wisdom of coaches. Teams create the opportunity to practice encouragement and rebuke, submission to godly authority, forgiveness, and bearing one another’s burdens, all while working together toward a common goal.
Competition: Rightly ordered, competition is a measure of excellence. Participating in athletics presses us to pursue excellence, whether we win or lose. Through competition, students learn to give thanks in all circumstances, to show grace and humility in victory and defeat, and to grow in maturity and wisdom as they face trials and challenges on the field and off.
Community: Athletic events provide the Agape Christi community opportunities for recreation, camaraderie, service, fellowship, and celebration. These events thicken the bonds of our Christian classical community and enable us to testify to the goodness and grace of God among us.
In our pursuit of athletic excellence, we will seek to uphold our Christian classical approach to education. In particular, we will do the following:
Male and Female: We will honor our biblical convictions regarding men and women. We affirm that from the beginning, God created us male and female, that the differences between men and women are good and glorious, and that these differences extend to every aspect of our lives. Therefore, we desire to cultivate biblical masculinity through our boys’ athletic program and biblical femininity through our girls’ athletic program.
Classical Methodology: We will intentionally seek to bring our classical methodology to bear in our athletic endeavors. Therefore we will seek to find ways to implement the trivium in the cultivation of athletic skills.
Rightly Ordered Loves: In all of our pursuits, we will measure our success not by immediately-measured achievements, but by the cultivation of godly habits and character that will bear fruit over a lifetime. This includes resisting our culture’s undue preoccupation with sports while vigorously and intentionally pursuing excellence. We therefore aim to keep athletics in its proper place, as one important element in our Christian, classical, holistic, challenging, joyful, and transformational education.