I've been on both sides of the Christian school debate, having raised my kids both in Christian and public schools. My sons are now adults, and while their outcome is certainly not indicative of my final word on the topic, our collective experiences--the good, the bad and the ugly--most definitely have shaped my opinion. I'm not too sure that I've ever seen a balanced debate about the virtues or lack thereof, of Christian school education. Most Christians favor it unswervingly, while secularists are not only offended by the sometimes haughty attitudes of the "Christian academia elite" crowd, but often consider the entire institution a threat to society--something that the Christian schoolers feel at least as strongly about pertaining to the public school system. Unfortunately, most of the arguments come down to some moot point, like whether we believe that our children were created by a loving God, or that they were the result of some coincidental cosmic explosion (seriously, can we ever get beyond such meaningless debate?).
My concern, however, is not the matter of debating creation vs. evolution science. I am much more concerned about whether or not separating our children from the world makes good sense missionally. In most attractional church communities, it would seem that the nature of their inherent Christian ed. programs would ill-prepare a child to encounter the moral challenges he or she would face in the public school system. The us-against-them mindset perpetrated by many of the popular Sunday School curriculum are not conducive to fostering a sense of compassion and Christ-likeness in our children toward their not-yet-believing peers in the public schools, or Christian schools for that matter. Neither do most of us have a significant enough grip on missional theology or ministry to be able to properly mobilize our children for the mission that awaits them in the public school system--and that is tragic. I suppose this is an area that missional educators should be taking a closer look at.
Now I know that I have already eluded to enough in the last paragraph to ignite more-than-a-few flame throwers out there. For some, the notion that we 'cast our children to the lions' is tantamount to child abuse. But before you strike a flint to the gas nozzle, let us try to take an objective look at this.
First of all, if the Church in the post-modern era is going to become decidedly missional, it seems pretty obvious to me that our children are going to have to become missional to a greater degree than we adults are, for they are the Church of future generations. So these questions remain:
- Is it time for Christian education to become at least, if not more focused on orthopraxy than orthodoxy?
- Should our Sunday School curriculum spend as much time as it does on inward behavior, or should it be paying more attention to fostering God's transmittable attributes such as compassion, unconditional love, mercy, grace and charity in our children?
- Should we be teaching our children to look down on nonbelievers or should we be teaching them to build friendships with them and to treat them like Jesus would treat them?
- If the answers to these questions points to the fact that it might be time for a change in the way we are teaching our children, then do we simply do away with Christian school and send them all to public school, or do we put a grade limit on Christian school like say, 6th grade, once they are prepared for the challenge?
- Is separating our children from the world right or is it wrong?
- Does it depend on the child?
- Do we fear the devil more than we trust in the power of God to be with our children?
- Is there, like Adam asked on his blog, a way for Christian schools to be missional?
- And of course there is the issue of whether or not teachers who are Jesus-followers should teach in Christian schools or should they see the public school system as the mission field that it obviously is and find employment there? What are some ways that the rest of the church could get behind those teachers who feel sent to the public school arena and give them the support and encouragement they need?
- Can we fairly point the finger at public school systems with all their inherent problems when the Church has largely abandoned them, removing its influence from them altogether?
Anyone up for a spirited discussion on this?
11 comments:
Excellent post. I am English but now in Australia married to an Aussie. My wife's parents attended a Baptist church 25 years ago that was in the process of setting up a Christian school which is still in operation.
My wife's parents decided that they would send all 4 of their daughters to the local high school. My father-in-law had a sense then that it was more valuable them to be a part of the mainstream.
The church put pressure on them to utilise the school and to help in raising funds. After a time my in-laws left that church and took the family to another church.
The Christian school system is well established in Australia. I found your comments very valuable and stimulating.
I have 3 young boys and am an ordained Baptist pastor. I will be sending my boys to the local high school when the time comes.
I agree that we should concentrate less on teaching children Bible stories in church and more about discipleship. My sons are 8, 6 and 8 months. The two older ones already know how to pray in a manner that is suitable for their age and not simply "silly sing-song graces" before meals.
Thanks for the work on this post.
Its interesting that when Jesus prayed what many now call the Lord's prayer near the end of John (17), He didnt ask that His disciples be taken from the world, but rather for protection from the adversary. Also in true missional lingo, Jesus came into the world rather than staying up above and out of it. Even Paul, didnt suggest we leave the world, but rather that we be careful and prayerful about not conforming to its patterns. Each of those lend a pretty good argument for me to keep kids in the world.
My latest rant, too, is that we need to stop separating secular and sacred, church from life, one building from another, and even one style of church (missional) from another (attractional). Of course its hard to read David Bohm (Wholeness and the Implicit Order) and still purposely look for divisions anywhere. Well actually its also just plain hard to read David Bohm, but that's another story.
Anyway, I think we should be teaching kids that God loves them more than can imagine and forgives them for everything they imagine and asks us to do the same. We should also point to Jesus as the model for that, because as soon as I point to myself, that whole theory falls rapidly apart.
Finally, I would prefer to ask, not How do Schools and churches become missional, but rather how do we become missional as people and groups of people in the ways that we can... also not making it an all or nothing proposition, but rather atrying to integrate a missional heart and resulant behavior into the lives of us fellow Stumblers.
p.s. do we fear the devil more than we trust the power of God: maybe we enjoy blaming the devil more than actually living the call to live as God intended.
'nother great one Webb... and the St Valentine's day thing... great post, but you're gonna wreak havoc on the card industry if you keep that kind of thing up on one of its sacred holidays :)
p.s.s. my word verification string looks oddly like a hebrew word today... I think its actually the word for bullshit... kind of spooky that Google would identify my post even before I signed in
Where we live we are not too impressed with the Christian school, so we have refrained from putting our kids there.
We started our kids out as home-schoolers, just to establish a base for them (up to grade two), and then sent them off to public school.
After making many moves in a short period of time we then listened to our kids and began home-schooling them again.
If being 'missional' is what life is all about, then I suppose my kids have had more of an opportunity to be 'missional' being home-schooled than they have had otherwise. We have the flexibility to involve them down at the food-bank and at the homeless shelter, as well as participating in Missions trips to other countries (my fourteen year old boys were in El Salvador over the Christmas season).
Les, thanks for stopping by. It sounds like your in-laws were already thinking missionally a long time ago--cool. I believe that it is important to help our children develop compassion toward everyone, and the kind of stereotyping of nonbelievers that goes on in Christian schools, at least in my area, is deplorable and is extremely counterproductive evangelistically. It's responsible to show our children what's wrong with immoral behavior, but when we do it at the expense of making our children judgmental rather than loving toward their peers, is that not grossly immoral in itself?
Mike, great points as always. I must say though that I am grateful for being able to send my kids to Christian school for the years they attended. When they finally went to public school, they were way ahead academically, their solid moral grounding kept them from falling into the bad stuff, yet their strong self-discipline and compassion exhibited in sticking up for the underdog, gained them much respect among their peers and does so to this day.
That's why I am torn. I am very glad that we made the switch to public school, yet I am not all-too-confident that they would have made it through as unscathed had they not had the foundation they got in Christian school, as fundamentalist-leaning as it was. Like I said in the post, it's not all cut and dried to me, yet I do think there must come a time when we show our kids that we believe in them, trust them and are willing to trust God to use them missionally in the public schools.
Colin, good to hear from you! I agree with you that homeschooling, if we are missionally motivated, as is obvious that you are, can be a much better alternative to most Christian school options. Sounds like you're doing an awesome job with integrating them into the missional paradigm.
We are pretty luck where we live. The public school system isn't too bad, really. I'm sure their are places where I would have a hard time sending kids there no matter how old they were. Yet, I look at the choices most of us have for Christian education, and it can have some pretty negative repercussions on our kids as well.
I can understand why a parent would want to avoid letting the public school system "indoctrinate" their children, which may lead them to consider a Christian School. For us, we home schooled.
Still, my observation of kids that spent their life in Christian Schools is that they too are "indoctrinated" in a life that doesn't look very missional at all. Very consumer and individualistic in focus. This may just be a reflection of those able to afford the private school and not the school itself, but then again....
Here in New Jersey, the issue runs deeper for me than trying to "protect" my kids from evolutionary theory. New Jersey schools are often quite bad. Crime, violence, drugs, sex...these are things the kids will encounter, but I'm afraid people aren't taking into account the power of peer pressure. Further, the public school my daughter attended paid little or no attention to her academic situation. We pleaded with them to help us help her, but she fell further and further behind. She is now in a private, Christian school repeating the third grade and doing GREAT!!!! Kids here in the public schools INVARIABLY get involved in dangerous and even criminal activities, and I do not feel obligated by any "salt and light" argument to abdicate my parental responsibility towards my children. Even if they don't get involved, they will suffer by being around these influences.
I'm not sure whether a church running a Christian school is missional, incarnational or what. It may be more "correct" for a group of Christians to set up a school apart from any church affiliation. I don't know, but I thank God for the Christian schools my children attend.
Tirade ended.
Rick, my experiences mirror your observations of Christian school. The choices we had when my kids were of age were not only not missional, they found a reason to demonize every church they didn't agree with as well. There was a lot of rebellion and faith-renouncing of kids coming out of those schools as well, and it comes as no surprise.
Adam, I am certainly sympathetic to your concerns, and like I said, because there sometimes seems to be no alternative but to keep our kids out of bad public schools, there is no clear-cut answer to the problem. Certainly, I wouldn't have my kids in a school as bad as the one near you, and I'm not so sure that I would have my kids in a public school at all during their elementary years.
But, I still maintain that we must take the parental responsibility to impart missionality to our children and I don't see how we can do that without giving them the opportunity to relate to kids outside of the faith. My boys were pretty well prepared and knew what they were up against when I had to pull them from Christian school. Scholastically, they were well ahead of their public school peers, as well as morally. They made many friends and didn't fall into any of the debauchery which many kids got into.
Was I lucky? Perhaps. But, my boys give me the credit for teaching them about responsibility, self-discipline and compassion--and those things have gotten them a long ways.
When it comes to situations where the public school system is that bad, it makes me want for some kind of voucher system and alternative schools that would be missionally oriented and not geared solely for Christians. But, to fill our kids with the kind of religious garbage, the legalism and popchristian junk prevalent in most Christian schools is not much better choice than the public school in my opinion. I think I would follow in Colin and Rick's shoes and home school them first. I didn't have that choice.
One thing seems certain; Christian schools need the same kind of overhaul that attractional churches need. They're founded in that same mentality, so I fail to see how they escape the scrutiny from those of us who believe that the emergent missional paradigm is the answer for the Church's problems.
There's a church near here that is extremely missional and they were large enough and had enough money to start a Christian school.
After much debate they decided they would spend the money and resources on investing into the local public school system, not to bully around, but to be missional.
Now they have parents volunteering, working, building relationships, and praying for the school system, the teachers, and the students. They have a respected say in the community and are seen not as antagonists, but partners in working together to educate their children.
They provide positive influence and insight that not only help their kids, but all the kids in the district.
It doesn't always work that way, but isn't it worth a try?
David, THAT is what I'm talking about! What a great example of what can be done if we put our heads together. That is missional thinking at its finest. Thanks for sharing.
From the Original Post: I'm not too sure that I've ever seen a balanced debate about the virtues or lack thereof, of Christian school education. Most Christians favor it unswervingly,...
That last bit is the only part I take issue with. Do "most" Christians favor private, Christian schooling over public schooling? My guess is that the statistics wouldn't support that claim. (I imagine the proportion of Christian students in Christian schools vs. public schools would be far less than 50%.)
My wife and I both attended private, Christian schools all the way through high school graduation (and beyond)... but my wife is now the principal at one of the public elementary schools in our town. We have at least two public school teachers in our small church. Sure, there are Christian schools in our town (at least 4... more if you're willing to drive 20 minutes). But there are lots and lots of Christian kids in the public schools... and lots and lots of Christian adults working and volunteering in them. While there are segments of the church that strongly support Christian schools, I'm not sure it's a majority.
Rick, perhaps you're right. I'm not sure. I know that there are a lot of Christians who would send their kids to CS if they could afford it. If taken into the mix, they would represent a lot of families.
Kudos to your wife. That's the kind of stories I like to hear. Now if only the Christians who send their kids to public school all had the missional vision...That would be inspiring.
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