ESTABLISHMENT OF HEADWATERS
Headwaters Academy is a ministry of South River Baptist Church established in 2020 to enrich the education of children to love God with all their mind and to encourage a joyful pursuit of His truth. It provides prekindergarten and grade school children with a highly traditional, classically based curriculum stressing the development of moral character, basic skills, logical analysis, and the establishment of a biblical worldview.
MISSION FOR HEADWATERS
Headwaters Academy provides a Christian worldview and Christ-centered education leading to a personal belief in God’s Word, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, a passion for intellectual understanding guided by divine wisdom, an appreciation for strong family, and a love for our Nation.
PHILOSOPHY FOR HEADWATERS
Children in Headwaters Educational Enrichment Ministry are provided the best possible instruction to know God, His truth, and navigate life as He designed it. We believe that all truth is God’s truth. The supreme revelation of that truth is found in Jesus Christ. God’s revelation is essential to proper reasoning. Thus, Headwaters Educational Enrichment uses biblical revelation to aid our understanding of other categories of thought and academic disciplines. Our faith seeks understanding of the world that God has created and the truth that we find therein.
We seek to train the heart and the mind drawing from modern man’s intellectual and spiritual inheritance found in the Judeo-Christian faith and Greco-Roman culture. We believe that heritage is clearly seen in the American experiment of self-government under law. Headwaters Educational Enrichment will develop within children the intellectual and personal habits and skills upon which responsible, independent, and productive lives are built.
STATEMENT OF BELIEFS
All Scripture is self‐attesting and being Truth, requires our unreserved submission in all areas of life. The infallible Word of God, the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, is a complete and unified witness to God’s redemptive acts, culminating in the incarnation of the Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible, uniquely and fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the supreme and final authority on all matters on which it speaks. On this sure foundation, we affirm these additional essentials of our faith:
•We believe in one God, the sovereign Creator and Sustainer of all things, infinitely perfect and eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To Him be all honor, glory, and praise forever!
•Jesus Christ, the living Word, became flesh through His miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit and His virgin birth. He who is true God became true man united in one person forever. He died on the cross a sacrifice for our sins, according to the Scriptures. On the third day, He arose bodily from the dead and ascended into heaven, where, at the right hand of the Majesty on High, He now is our High Priest and Mediator.
•The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, has come to glorify Christ and to apply the saving work of Christ to our hearts. He convicts us of sin and draws us to the Savior. Indwelling our hearts, He gives us new life, empowers us, and imparts gifts to us for service. He instructs and guides us into all truth and seals us for the day of redemption.
•Being estranged from God and condemned by our sinfulness, our salvation is wholly dependent upon the work of God’s grace. God credits His righteousness to those who put their faith in Christ alone for their salvation, and thereby justifies them in His sight.
•We believe that (a) salvation is by grace, a free gift of God apart from works, (b) salvation involves repentance, a change of mind in respect to God and thus turning from one’s own way to God’s way, (c) salvation is through personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in Christ alone, (d) all who receive Jesus Christ are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and become the children of God, and true salvation will be manifested by a changed life.
•The true Church is composed of all persons who through saving faith in Jesus Christ and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit are united together in the body of Christ. The Church finds her visible, yet imperfect, expression in local congregations where the Word of God is preached in its purity and the sacraments are administered in their integrity; where scriptural discipline is practiced, and where loving fellowship is maintained. For her perfecting, she awaits the return of her Lord.
•Jesus Christ will come again to the earth— personally, visibly, and bodily—to judge the living and the dead and to consummate history and the eternal plan of God. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20).
•The Lord Jesus Christ commands all believers to proclaim the Gospel throughout the world and to make disciples of all nations. Obedience to the Great Commission requires total commitment to “Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.” He calls us to a life of self‐denying love and service. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).
STATEMENT ON MARRIAGE, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY
We believe that God wonderfully and immutably creates each person as male or female. These two distinct, complementary genders together reflect the image and nature of God (Genesis 1:26-27). Rejection of one’s biological sex is a rejection of the image of God within that person.
We believe that the term “marriage” has only one meaning: the uniting of one man and one woman in a single, exclusive union, as delineated in Scripture (Gn 2:18-25). We believe that God intends sexual intimacy to occur only between a man and a woman who are married to each other (1Co 6:18; 7:2-5; He 13:4). We believe that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman.
We believe that any form of sexual immorality (including adultery, fornication, homosexual behavior, incest, bestiality, and use of pornography) is sinful and offensive to God (Mt 15:18-20; 1Co 6:9-10).
We believe that God offers redemption and restoration to all who confess and forsake their sin, seeking His mercy and forgiveness through Jesus Christ (Ac 3:19-21; Ro 10:9-10; 1Co 6:9-11).
We believe that every person must be afforded compassion, love, kindness, respect, and dignity (Mk 12:28-31; Lk 6:31). Hateful and harassing behavior or attitudes directed toward any individual are to be repudiated and are not in accord with Scripture.