After 15 years in full-time vocational ministry as a youth pastor and pastor of education and family ministries, I left the full-time ministry to become a public school teacher. I get asked sometimes why I made this move. As a Christian, it seems like I would enjoy working in the church more than the public school district. I want to answer this question for everyone, and hopefully, inspire people to be involved in a public school in a variety of ways. We need people in the public school system who love God and love people. Here are a few things I want to encourage people to think about.
There is a push for Christians to want to move to homeschool because of some of the things that happen in the public school system. I don't want to discourage or encourage this. This is where parents need to know their kids. Some kids need to be homeschooled for a variety of reasons. Some kids would thrive in a Christian school. When I was in the public school system, I was active in our Fellowship of Christian Athletes. As a teacher, I am the sponsor for our school's FCA group. The kids in the FCA group have encouragement in their faith and they are able to be a good influence. These kids are good kids, and my fear is, if we pull all the Christian kids out of the public school, then the influence of these students will be lost. Some students need to be removed from the environment of the public school, but some students will be missionaries to their school campus. This is even more effective when these kids have a solid support system with parents, church leaders, friends, and Christian staff members at the public school.
What really sealed the deal for me, however, was not the mission field. What really inspired me to go into education was not a what, but a who. A man named Dr. Mike Rogers. Dr. Rogers was the principal at the middle school my children attended. Dr. Rogers was a man of faith, and he really loved what he did. He cared about the kids, he cared about their education, but he cared about them personally, how they were doing. He invested in the kids, he loved his students. He made a difference. There are a lot of good teachers out there who really love students. There are also teachers who seem indifferent or even combatant to their students. With everything happening in our world, in our schools, students need people who love and care about them. Dr. Rogers made a difference in the everyday lives of kids. I was inspired by his example to do the same.
This world, this country needs people to be involved in public schools who love students. We need Christians who want to show the love of Jesus to people, to students. We need teachers, assistants, substitutes, bus drivers, custodians, and volunteers who love kids and want to show them that they matter and have value. We need people to support groups like FCA and Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) in our schools and communities. We need people who can show Christlike love to show that love in our public schools.
