What Makes New Church Education Special?
At Carmel New Church School, we provide a loving, peaceful environment where students can grow to become productive and caring people, both in this life and the next.
Our goal is to help prepare students to be useful citizens of this world and to instill in them the values and habits needed by members of the Lord’s heavenly kingdom. To do this, the teachings of the New Church are integrated through both direct and indirect instruction. Students attend daily worship services and study religion in the classroom. Love to the Lord and toward the neighbour are the highest values taught, together with following the Ten Commandments and a life of useful service to others.
We believe that a happy and productive life begins by developing an affirmative outlook towards God and through charitable conduct with one another. We model and teach how to live a life of charity and morality and provide students with many opportunities to practice these teachings within our school community.
The spiritual nature of children is developed by learning age-appropriate scripture stories from the Old and New Testaments and by early efforts to live by the Ten Commandments, the Two Great Commandments, and the Golden Rule.
New Church Curriculum
New Church curriculum and school environments are developed according to the stages through which all children progress:
- Primary students thrive on movement, sensory experiences, singing, simple tales, and lots of praise and affection.
- Junior students demonstrate more ability to imagine and enjoy stories and reading as they begin to see deeper levels of meaning in characters and events.
- Intermediate students like learning about the natural world and as their social horizon broadens they become interested in legends, history, heroes, and more complex literature.
These stages are part of an orderly progression in which the natural mind is opened and filled with knowledge. With New Church Education, this becomes the foundation for higher thinking and more spiritual awareness.
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A Brief History of CNCS
The introduction of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg in the Kitchener area (at that time named Berlin) began with Christian Enslin in 1833. Gradually, followers of Swedenborg’s Writings grew in numbers throughout the surrounding communities and the first Church of the New Jerusalem was built in 1870. By September 1891, the first General Church and school in Canada was begun in a house rented by Rev. Frederick Waelchli. A new building went up eight months later with the name “The Carmel Church of the New Jerusalem.”
In 1960, the congregation purchased the present day property from society member, John Evens, for the purpose of building a church community where families would be within close proximity to the church and school. This proved to be a worthwhile endeavor with many families building homes as lots were made available.
In 2002, forty years after the dedication of the Carmel Church building, a large new addition for the school was completed and dedicated to serve the uses of New Church education. Then in 2007, another addition was completed which now houses the Carmel New Church Secondary School.