Christian education is standing at one of the most dynamic crossroads in its history. The COVID-19 pandemic may be behind us, but the ripple effects include enrollment surges, teacher shortages, new funding opportunities, the growth of classical and hybrid schools, and the rapid advance of artificial intelligence. All of these forces are reshaping how we educate. Back in 2020 I wrote a CACE blog titled, “Disruption, Disorientation, Disequilibrium … Now What?” We could ask much the same today.
Ironically, innovation is nothing new. In fact, it is part of our calling as Christian educators. As my friend and colleague Dr. Beth Green, Provost of Tyndale University, has written in Redeeming the Buzzword: A Distinctively Christian Approach to “Innovation” in Education, “A distinctively Christian posture can affirm practices of creativity, experimentation, risk taking. … These are all ways of fulfilling our God-given purpose to make culture, which rests in the hope of new creation.”
For much of my work, I’ve had the privilege of walking alongside many educators and innovators who are not only experimenting with new ways to teach and lead, but also share a hope that creativity can deepen—rather than distract—from our formational purpose in Christian schools. This work has included a number of collaborative projects in the past like Mindshift (2019), Future Ready (2022), and Navigating AI in Christian Schools (2024). Now, in 2025, many of us are sensing the need to return to the drawing board, to map the contours of change in today’s educational landscape. To this end, Cardus gathered a group of Christian education leaders, academics, and innovators at Greater Atlanta Christian School in September of this year.
Around the table were twenty academics, network leaders, and “edupreneurs,” who cumulatively are studying Christian education’s impact, leading hundreds of schools, and designing new school models, structures, and programs. The convening, funded by the Templeton Religion Trust and the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education (CACE), asked a simple but urgent question: How are faith-based schools adapting with creativity, innovation, and resilience in a changing educational landscape?
What Time Is It?
When asked to describe our collective moment in Christian education, participants described a season of creative ferment. The pandemic cracked open old assumptions and mental models of schooling, which in turn created space for new models to flourish. Families discovered the benefits of flexibility through homeschooling or online learning, leading to the rapid expansion of hybrid, university-model, and microschools that combine the best of home and campus life. Online programs and AI-enabled learning also abound. Even the most traditional of school approaches—classical education—is finding new expressions in a growing diversity of educational delivery models. Experimentation is the name of the educational game.
The metaphors that participants surfaced were telling. One leader compared this moment to the shift from Napster to Spotify, from early experiments that give way to new, scalable systems. Another likened it to passing the baton from one generation of educators to the next. Still another pointed to the rise of Amazon, when localized, small-scale efforts transform into a vast and connected marketplace of options.
Yet woven through every metaphor was a note of caution. Rapid innovation, participants agreed, must not outpace formation. The challenge before Christian schools is to adapt faithfully—to meet new needs without losing sight of their mission. As one leader eloquently put it, “Formation is a slow, human process; innovation must serve it, not replace it.”
Key Forces and Players
In mapping the ecosystem of change, participants identified five areas—political, economic, societal, technological, and local—in which forces and players are shaping Christian education:
- Politically, new school choice policies and Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) have opened unprecedented doors for Christian schooling. While these initiatives expand access, they also bring new risks of regulation and mission drift. Leaders voiced the need for theological literacy around educational pluralism—how faith-based schools can serve the common good while maintaining their distinctive witness.
- Economically, growing financial pressures on families and the rise of the gig economy are forcing schools to rethink sustainability. Many noted that new funding streams and technologies have provided opportunity for experimentation while also posing a risk of diluting schools’ missions. Participants expressed a need for discernment to ensure that financial innovation serves, rather than shapes, schools’ theological and formational missions.
- Societally, families are navigating what one leader called “liquid modernity”—a lifestyle defined by mobility, flexibility, and customization. Parents increasingly seek schools that fit their lives, not the other way around. Yet this very fluidity is creating hunger for meaning, belonging, and rootedness. Christian schools can offer deep community and shared formation in a fragmented world.
- Technologically, artificial intelligence dominated discussion. Attendees recognized both its promise and its peril: AI could personalize learning and free teachers for more relational work, or it could dehumanize education altogether. “Technology should serve the telos of Christian education,” one participant said, “not dictate it.”
- Locally (or at the school level), educational leaders, teachers, and families are simultaneously the catalysts and constrainers of creativity. While new models thrive on grassroots ingenuity, leaders also face tension between constituents eager for change and those wary of departing from tradition. Networks and associations were seen as critical intermediaries for helping schools learn from one another while maintaining mission coherence across diverse approaches.
Redefining “Success”
If the landscape is changing, so too should our measures of success. Participants challenged the sector to move beyond metrics like enrollment or test scores to deeper questions of formation and flourishing. What if Christian schools measured success by the fruit of wisdom, joy, and service to the common good? What if we tracked not just academic outcomes, but long-term markers of spiritual outcomes, relational health, vocational clarity, and community engagement?
The Cardus Education Survey (CES), which measures a range of holistic outcomes of graduates from different school sectors, was cited as a vital tool—especially as it evolves in the coming years to measure Christian education’s growing diversity. At the school level, participants called for a mix of quantitative and qualitative data, such as balancing traditional assessments with alumni stories and other narrative evidence of transformation. Because of our belief in the imago Dei, Christian schools need to lead the way in resisting narrow definitions of success and recover a richer understanding of what it means to form persons for life and faith.
Faithfully Imagining the Future
“Our task isn’t just to keep up with the world; it’s to show what education can look like when Christ is at the center.”
The convening’s insights can be summarized with five points, which Christian educators can apply in their own settings as they navigate the changing headwinds in education:
- Mission first. Creativity and adaptability must flow from theological conviction. Innovation detached from mission risks becoming mimicry, not ministry.
- Pluralism as opportunity. The growing diversity of Christian schooling—classical, hybrid, online, microschool—is a strength as it opens more doors for more students.
- Formation through technology. Used wisely, technology can deepen rather than diminish formation, thereby freeing educators to focus on what only humans can do: guide, mentor, and love.
- Community as anchor. Amid disruption, belonging remains the surest marker of flourishing. Schools that nurture deep relationships are most likely to thrive.
- Shared learning. The sector needs stronger bridges between research and practice, as well as between leaders and institutions. As James Davidson Hunter observed, change has always emerged from the power of deep networks.
The convening closed on a hopeful note. Participants left energized by new partnerships and possibilities: research collaborations to connect innovation with formation outcomes, networks of experimentation for adaptive models, and frameworks for responsible AI use in faith-based settings. Perhaps most importantly, there was a shared conviction that Christian schools should not merely adapt to change, but rather are called to shape it faithfully. As one participant reflected, “Our task isn’t just to keep up with the world; it’s to show what education can look like when Christ is at the center.” In an age of acceleration, that kind of faithful imagination is the innovation we need most.
