Most of the faithful leaders I studied had learned to live as two people. There was the person who showed up on Sunday, and the person who showed up on Monday. One believed things. The other performed a job. Between them stood a wall, quietly built and carefully maintained, so that what happened in one room rarely touched the other. … Read More
Western Civilization Is Not Our Home
Christian Education has always faced a fundamental question: What are we forming students for? What is the end goal that sits at the core of our purpose and guides the process? In our current cultural moment there appears to be a growing impulse within Christian Education in the United States to pursue the preservation of Western Civilization as a central … Read More
250 Years Later: What if the Pursuit of Happiness Isn’t the Goal?
In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson asserted that the pursuit of happiness was a self-evident truth and an inalienable right. The concept is everywhere, from advertisements to “happily ever after” tales. A search for “happy” on Amazon Books produces over 70,000 results and at least as many definitions of that word. We live in a culture built around the … Read More
When Christian Schools Outgrow Spreadsheets
From Resourceful Workarounds to Faithful Stewardship Small Christian schools are remarkably good at making things work. A spreadsheet becomes an enrollment system. A Google Form becomes an application. The principal knows which families have special tuition arrangements. The secretary knows where the important paperwork is. Someone has a notebook with all the passwords. When a parent calls with a question, … Read More
First Questions: On Teacher Recruitment
There is a question sitting beneath almost every strategic conversation I hear happening in Christian schools today. It surfaces in board meetings, in hiring cycles that stretch too long, in resignation letters that arrive too soon. It is the question of people—specifically, whether your school can find, form, and retain the kind of teachers who make everything else possible. Ask … Read More
Imagine Stepping Away
A number of years ago, I had the privilege of serving on a curriculum-writing team led by CACE’s own Darryl DeBoer. We spent a week in Seattle building a K–12 curricular supplement for Christian schools. As the Friday deadline approached, many of us became increasingly anxious. The work wasn’t finished, flights were looming, and every glance at the clock seemed … Read More
Proximity over Position: Forming a Heart for Belonging in Christian Schools
I went into my doctoral research expecting theology to do the heavy lifting. I was wrong. For my dissertation, I studied how Christian evangelical leaders in large corporations navigate questions of inclusion and belonging. I assumed that a leader’s denomination and doctrine would predict and influence how they approached difference. Tell me what someone believed, and I could tell you … Read More
Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant
As another school year comes to a close, we educators find ourselves bearing a familiar mixture of emotions. There is gratitude for God’s faithfulness. A sense of relief that summer is near. Joy in having seen students grow and move on to another grade or graduate. And, for many of us, exhaustion. Our profession has a cycle with a beginning … Read More
How Strong Is Your Network? Leading Change in BC K-12 Christian Schools
If you want to lead your community through crisis or change, the first step is to ask, “How big is our kingdom vision and what is the strength of our network?” This focused question surfaced for me as I studied change leadership in British Columbia (BC) K-12 Christian schools. My dissertation addresses the following questions: Christian school leaders must wrestle … Read More
Trauma-Informed Christian Education: On Earth as in Heaven
May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.Matthew 6:10 (NLT) In the first post of this series, we considered how student behavior often tells a story. What may appear as defiance, apathy, avoidance, or even academic success may be a student’s learned response to stress, fear, instability, or shame. When we … Read More