If a Christian School is to be redemptive, then it does not have the luxury of sending children elsewhere to get their act together. As a parent of vulnerable, impressionable children, this truth frightens me. Because parents entrust their children with those who serve in a Christian School, wisdom and dependence on God’s transformative love is critical for all involved. A wise application of standards does not send the troubled child away, but it may place additional boundaries on the child and his parents. Mandatory attendance in a recovery program and periodic drug testing are reasonable expectations of a child who has struggled with substance abuse. Regular pastoral or professional Christian counseling may be necessary for another family. In other words, we do not eliminate standards and thus ignore real problems. In humble submission to God’s direction, we lovingly enact standards believing that God’s mercy is far reaching; his grace is sufficient and his love is redemptive.

Spiritual standards are imperative for teachers, administrators and parent leaders. Ongoing discipleship, consistent fellowship and group prayer are paramount if a Christian School is to remain genuinely Christian. The leadership must habitually seek God for direction, protection, and life-changing intervention for both individuals and the school as a whole. Only then is a school prepared to reach out to the family where none profess faith in Christ.

When the school does embrace the unbelieving family, it must cling tightly to the primary mission of every believer, “to make disciples.” A school should never court the unbeliever to obtain financial security, academic gains or prestige in the community. When a school is committed to reaching the lost, it must be equally committed to maintaining spiritually mature leadership who understand the magnitude of their task. Such leaders know they live in utter dependence on God.

The call to create a genuinely Christian School will demand approaches that are expensive, time-consuming, challenging and sometimes frightening. And yet, we believe it is imperative that the Christian community attempt to tackle God-sized tasks. In this manner, we distinguish ourselves from those who have no hope. As we courageously confront our fears, our pride and our failures, we shine as beacons through whom God can transform and challenge the values of our culture.

Is it right to have admissions standards of any kind? Many schools have academic requirements such as a minimum grade point average or test score. Others have conduct standards, screening out the ill-behaved. Still others require that at least one parent profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Standards are good and necessary when applied correctly. The issue of behavioral or spiritual standards is addressed in the next post.

If a school is to encourage a child to maximize his God-given strengths, then the school must address the needs of the academically gifted. While we do not believe a school should screen out the academically challenged, we do believe it is entirely appropriate to provide additional academic rigor for those who demonstrate exceptional competencies. Enriched curriculum should not be limited to an accelerated version of standard curriculum. Rather, an enriched curriculum should broaden the learning experience. In practical terms, the gifted tenth grade writer may learn how to write for publication and make actual article submissions (broaden) versus taking a twelfth grade English class (accelerate). The school may facilitate partnerships that would allow the gifted science student to intern in a research laboratory.

The same approach also applies to those gifted in non-academic areas. Growth opportunities should not be limited to those who first meet some academic standard. Just as the one who demonstrates academic competency will stretch and develop his gift, the apt musician or artisan should have permission to hone his skills. A broadened curriculum may include for the musician, training in music therapy; for the artisan, an apprenticeship with a skilled professional.

As students amass skills with a broader view, they cultivate a deeper understanding of the world they live in. They are prepared to make meaningful contributions to individuals and society as a whole. When this training is combined with a solid Biblical understanding of truth, they enter the adult world equipped to expand Christ’s kingdom.

Many schools answer the call to excellence by screening out low performers through admissions standards. In one school’s annual report, parents were assured SAT test scores would improve since the school would be instituting tougher admissions standards. This same school bragged that once again their students tested in the top 10% of the nation’s population. The logical conclusion here is that 90% of the student population is not good enough for this school and is therefore excluded. The adoption of tougher standards suggests that this school believed that still more should be excluded.

Certainly, we want to challenge academically gifted students to stretch and develop their gifts. Ordinary students, with the support of excellent teachers and persistent parents, can perform well under the right conditions. But must those students be shamed for their inferiority in comparison to the gifted? Often these students are skilled athletes, artists or altruists. Must we persist in holding non-academic quests hostage to a child’s ability to achieve a certain test score? Even worse, must the child with learning disabilities be banned from life outside the academic arena because she is expected to spend every waking hour trying to “catch up”?

Because we tend to have the mindset that every child must prepare for college, we pile an extraordinary amount of stress on those whom God has gifted in other areas. The reality of the current labor market is that most children will need to go on to college. The good news is that most can. A Christian School should strive to open doors of higher education for those so inclined.

However, some children may thrive in a non-traditional setting. Computer programmers, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, chefs, artisans and animal trainers are examples of promising careers that don’t necessarily require college degrees. These careers do, however, require specialized training; training that is unavailable in the one-size fits all college prep environment that dominates both private and public schools. When a child encounters multiple opportunities, the odds increase for a child to add value to the world. The child begins to comprehend his God-ordained purpose, which is the first step to building an interdependent community.

As a child develops her gifts, she sees how these gifts can strengthen the weak, meet a physical need or solve a societal ill. An individual who is valued is motivated. For this reason, classroom teachers often rely on competition to motivate. The winner feels valued and is therefore motivated to win again. While it’s true that the workplace is fiercely competitive, highly prized is the employee who elevates others through his contribution rather than elevating himself by obliterating the competition. More importantly, our model is Christ, who gave himself freely and generously, for all.

Unfortunately, many Christian schools are producing children who are gifted but handicapped. These children often reach academic heights well beyond their peers. Because many come from privileged homes (due to the constraints of high tuition), they have opportunities to dabble in the arts and enrichment programs. But they live in isolation from the less privileged; those who cannot meet the academic or financial requirements of the school. As a result, they are unskilled in interacting with the less fortunate or the intellectually challenged.

A misconception exists that these children are the future church and community leaders; that their superior academic preparation will equip them to solve the world’s great problems. Yet, these future leaders have no idea how to engage the culture. Their elitist values have led to cultural isolation. Those who should be the cultural architects are relegating themselves to the sidelines. Intellectual superiority alone will not meet the needs of humanity, for one must understand the source of the pain in order to render a proper diagnosis. The academically gifted must learn to condescend to the “least of these,” just as Christ did for us. To do so does not stunt a child’s development as some fear; it hones her ability to impact the world. She discovers a reason for scholarly pursuit. Surely God’s plan for the brilliant eclipses even the most lucrative rewards of a promising career.

The admissions requirements for many Christian schools are enough to make one’s blood boil. One school states, “Students who seek admission directly following suspension, expulsion, or behavior problems from another school will not be accepted until they prove themselves elsewhere.” This school proudly protects its stalwart families from the scourge of teenage troublemakers. Those who are failures must seek redemption “elsewhere.”

Genuine conversion, life transformation, grace and forgiveness – these are nice topics for discussion in a theology class, but we can’t risk our children’s futures on theory, or so say some. Why have so many in the Christian community come to believe that influences other than Christianity transform? Since when did Christ require prerequisites?

Most parents fear the influence of the ill-disciplined, the academically mediocre, the socially challenged, the spiritual skeptics or the unchurched. For some, these were the very influences that repelled them from public schools. Such ungodly influences might ruin their children. I must confess I share those fears. A child is so vulnerable. Not all have the unwavering faith of David in the face of a giant.

Yet I cannot dismiss Christ’s strong words to the Pharisees. “Whitewashed tombs” they were called, clean on the outside, but dead on this inside. Clearly, hypocrisy should be feared above misguided behavior. My children are also vulnerable to becoming judgmental, exclusive and proud. So I will choose not to shield them from the ugly and frightening. When my child encounters one who is disobedient or apathetic, will he mimic the behavior or extend hope? When he discovers that not all readily follow Christ, will he be shaken or driven by compassion to embrace those in need of restoration? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I know there is little chance of a genuine Christian response without genuine Christian discipleship.

My exposure to Bellevue Christian was bittersweet. The principal invited me to discuss ways the school might meet the needs of my entire family, including my daughter’s more substantial needs. Clearly, he was committed to providing access to Christian education for all who would seek it.

Yet resources were limited. Enrolling my son in the NILD program would double the tuition, bringing the annual cost to a staggering $20,000. My daughter would require additional resources, at a cost to be determined. Also, the waiting list for the NILD program was long and current students had priority. It seemed our only option was to enter school hoping a program slot would open before the rigor of the regular classroom devoured him; not a choice I could make in good conscience.

It saddened me to learn that Bellevue Christian had received numerous referrals from other local Christian schools, as a place for struggling students .  I could only conclude that the other schools didn’t want to offer these services and Bellevue Christian provided an easy out to dealing with parent inquiries.

For years, I stewed, whined and grieved over the state of Christian education. From that pit of utter despair and unrelenting outrage, I began to dream. Along with my husband, I started listing what I wanted from a Christian education. As we mulled over our ideas, we began to question whether Christian schools were generally meeting the mark for anyone, even the students they targeted.

The next year my husband took an extended sabbatical and we hopped into a motor home to tour the country and focus on first grade for the second time. We interacted with history and geography as I homeschooled across the country. We made some progress, albeit at an agonizingly slow pace wrought with u-turns and do-overs. In the end, we landed in the Seattle area, this time hoping to receive special education support through the public schools.

After a year of parent-teacher conferences, more testing, principal conferences, IEP meetings, debates, disputes and demands, we succeeded in increasing Jane’s access to special education services. Despite a handful of caring special education teachers along the way, the indifference toward my daughter’s development revealed a disturbing reality in the public school machine. My daughter was disposable. They would do what was necessary to stay in compliance, avoid lawsuits and appease the parents, but nothing more. She wasn’t the one they existed to serve; only the one they were mandated to serve. She just didn’t matter.

Once again, I turned to Christian educators. I called school after school, explaining my desperate situation. The answers were ever so polite.

“We’re not really equipped to meet your daughter’s needs.”

“Our school is focused on high achievement. This environment might prove too stressful for her.”

“If only we had the resources, we would love to help. But it just wouldn’t be fair to the other kids.”

No matter how they couched their responses, the message was loud and clear. She’s too much work, requires too many resources and poses too great a threat to our reputation. We don’t want your daughter.

To two people serving in Christian ministry, the rejection shattered our already broken hearts. For years, I praised Christian education before friends and colleagues, touting the effectiveness of Christian schools versus their public school counterparts. I couldn’t shake the ugly truth that confronted me. They cheated.

Fast forward a few years; I found myself facing similar struggles, this time with my son. For him, the struggles were not as severe, which oddly enough created a new set of issues. He didn’t qualify for special “pull-out” programs and yet he couldn’t meet the daily expectations.

During that time, the more affluent public school systems began systematically increasing academic rigor, resulting in a ruthless school climate. As emphasis on standardized test results increased, educators began to teach to the top tier students. Parents, fearful their children would be unable to meet the demands, began to hold their children back for a year before entering kindergarten. These children, some as many as eighteen months older than their peers who adhered to state age guidelines, became the top tier on whom the teachers focused. Academic demands increased, resulting in curriculum choices inappropriate for the age group a grade supposedly served. My son was expected to learn and utilize a sixth grade spelling list in fourth grade, though he was not reading at a sixth grade level. The lists were provided in cursive, though cursive was not included in the curriculum, eliminated due to “lack of necessity”. The demands intensified, three to five paragraph essays, without sufficient work in handwriting and grammatical conventions; essays and intricate word problems in math, without any emphasis on acquiring basic math facts; onerous reading assignments without phonics instruction or any type of introductory readers.

Because the assignments were not developmentally appropriate, they took an inordinate amount of time to complete, creating another problem. I didn’t have time to teach him the skills he should be learning at that grade level. I felt backed into a corner. On the one hand, I could toss the teacher’s assignments, which violated the principles of teacher respect and classroom responsibility I had always tried to teach my children. On the other hand, I could continue to trudge through the assignments with my son, knowing he would never truly grasp the required concepts without first mastering the critical building blocks. Often I tried to find some middle ground by negotiating Joe’s assignments with a teacher, but too many times my efforts resulted in the teacher shaming Joe for “making poor choices.”

Finally, I left my job to address his educational struggles, a journey that led to my homeschooling him through a portion of elementary school. This decision, though necessary, created a significant financial hardship on our family, and was ultimately unsustainable.

I remained hopeful that a Christian school was still an option, since his needs were not as severe as Jane’s. However, far too many Christian schools had adopted the same philosophy as our neighborhood schools, pushing elementary-aged children to perform sometimes three years beyond their school grade. Those who would discuss placement with me seemed to have a general misunderstanding of learning disabilities. A few suggested they could cure a brain dysfunction through behavioral modification alone. While I believed healthy diet, consistent discipline and prayer would certainly help my son succeed in school; I also knew that apart from supernatural physical healing, these approaches would not erase a cognitive disability. He needed help from someone who understood how to navigate his faulty neural pathways.

To be continued…

In desperation, we returned to the private Christian preschool/kindergarten where she had attended preschool the previous year. They had worked with Jane during her initial transition to the U.S., helping her undertake a new language. Maybe the caring hands of these wonderful Christian women will make all the difference, I thought. Her chances looked better here than in a public school classroom of 35 kindergartners. The half-day schedule allowed me to home-school the other half of the day. I was hopeful we could cover some lost ground by taking an all hands on deck approach to Jane’s education. A little progress was made, though the cost was exorbitant; the struggle excruciating.

Wary of progressing, but uncertain of the benefit of repeating kindergarten, we decided to move onto first grade. Not wanting to repeat the public school experience, we began to investigate Christian elementary schools. Some had waiting lists that pre-dated Jane’s adoption. Others, when learning of Jane’s struggles, subtly steered us away. Finally, the local Lutheran school welcomed us in. Our Lutheran School experience was short-lived, however. Though the teacher was kind and loving, it was clear that she had neither the bandwidth nor the expertise to deal with Jane’s learning challenges. Once again, we returned to homeschooling. Day after day, we walked through the fundamentals – phonics, math facts, and handwriting. Day after day, my frustration grew. I heard other homeschoolers go on about those wonderful aha moments when the light bulbs came on for their children. They beamed as they declared the sacrifice worthwhile.

For us, there were no aha moments, no light bulbs, no moments of confirmation. There was only repetition. Everyday felt like the first day of school. The painstaking gains on the previous day’s material seemed to evaporate overnight. My pediatrician told me my problem was nothing more than a language barrier. Once Jane grasped the English language, our problems would go away. I sought out other adoptive moms, only to sink deeper into despair as each gloated over her child’s rapid mastery of English. I felt hopeless and alone; a failure as a mother and a teacher.

To be continued..

Some have grown jaded through the years and sworn off the practice of making resolutions. “Why make myself feel guilty? I can’t change my circumstances anyway,” they say.

Others march forward. “This year will be different,” they decree. Yet statisticians claim only 15 percent of us keep our new year’s vows.

· Why are habits so difficult to change?

· Is it possible to have too many good priorities?

Imagine Joe, the new dairy manager. Right away he notices ice cream production is way down. He reads Ice Cream Monthly and he knows there’s no shortage of ice cream lovers. Joe rolls up his sleeves and gets to work. He increases milk orders by 20% and begins hiring new staff. There’s only one problem. Joe never discussed his ideas with the senior staff.

Three months earlier, the board of directors had voted to discontinue ice cream production. Although the product was popular, the company planned to position itself as the “healthy alternative” by producing soy products instead. The conversion would take place as soon as the last milk contract expired.

While such a scenario is preposterous to the average business person, similar scenes take place in churches. Business people get to work fixing problems which seem obvious without taking the time to understand why the problem exists or what are the ultimate goals of the church. Rather than helping ministerial staff, they undermine and disrupt pastoral leadership.

Why is this result so tragic? Business people who do understand and embrace a church’s goals are golden. They are the ones who put sails on vision. When they remember that God alone provides the wind propulsion for those sails, their skills become catalysts for rather than detractors from a church’s mission. So here’s my version of A Christian Business Leader’s Guide to Making a Sail:

• Seek understanding. Before making an action plan, pray for open mindedness, humility and the courage to release any agenda. Ask questions, tough questions if necessary. But don’t disguise an assault as a question.

• Become a follower even if you don’t understand. Pastors are human like the rest of us. The sting of past betrayals can create some hesitation to explain every decision. If you don’t understand, try following before fixing. Don’t turn off your brain. In fact, you should be more intellectually engaged than ever as you learn by doing. Believers working together clumsily are far more effective than those who evaluate from the sidelines.

• Invest whole-heartedly or not at all. At some point, you will understand enough of the church’s vision to know if you can embrace it or not. If the answer is yes, roll up your sleeves and get to work, but talk as you go. “This is what I understand the goal to be and this is how I propose we address it.” Working with transparency requires a hefty dose of humility. When we communicate our intentions, we open ourselves to correction and criticism. Those who invest half-heartedly are people whom psychologists label passive-resistant. They create division in the church and render her ineffective. The Bible has harsh words for such people. It’s best to move to a congregation you can support whole-heartedly.

These are my guidelines. What are yours?

 “What we need,” say some, “is to look at the church like a business. Of course the church isn’t a business,” they’ll mutter under their breath, “but pastors could learn a thing or two from business people.” And it’s true. Business professionals are trained to develop systems that run efficiently and effectively. What church couldn’t benefit from a little more efficiency and effectiveness? Enter the era of the businessman-pastor.

I’ve visited a number of churches that seem to prefer business skills above preaching skills, spiritual disciplines and even theological training. Here’s the problem. Business people have two primary concerns: (1) develop a customer base; and (2) keep the customer base happy. Now developing a customer base should fit in nicely with the church’s mission. After all, if a church is doing its job (making disciples), then the church should grow (increased customer base).  But is the reverse also true? Does church growth mean the church is doing its job?

I could line my cabinets with the church advertisements I receive in the mail. What I find disturbing is the marketing strategy, “Every other church is boring, money-grubbing and unfriendly so come to ours. We’re different. We’re better.” That’s business for you-destroy the competition. Hmmm. Are we helping our cause?

Trouble is, the strategy works. Those dissatisfied with their current churches come seeking greener pastures. Our customer base increases with much greater speed than when we focus our energy on making disciples out of pagans. As one pastor said, “To ask a businessman to strategize in the area of evangelism is like asking him, ‘how do you sell vacuum cleaners to people with dirt floors?’.”

His answer is usually, “You don’t.” His goal is to find people with rugs. When translated to the Christian subculture, “churched” people have rugs, making them a softer market to sell our church.

As the customer base grows, it’s important to keep the customers happy. The businessman pastor must focus his efforts on internal ministries, services and of course the aesthetic preferences of his parishioners. He leads a church of religious consumers.

Most Christians would agree religious consumerism is not the goal. And yet, here we are. Religious consumers are as common as Costco members. Is the solution to keep business people out of ministry decisions? I hope not. As a business woman, I’d like to think I can contribute to my church. So how do business people support the church’s mission? THAT is the subject of my next post.