Faithful and Flourishing Christian Schools Podcast

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Welcome to Faithful and Flourishing Christian Schools. I’m Bernard Bull, and I want to talk today about the idea of mission drift. It’s something that’s gotten a lot of attention. There was a book that came out a number of years ago that garnered a lot of attention on the topic of mission drift, and it obviously frames the whole conversation in a negative.

Because we’re talking about faithful and flourishing Christian schools, my preference is that we’re talking in the positive. We’re talking about the things that we choose to do, but that invariably also includes things that we choose not to do. And the path to excellence in any domain in life does entail considering both the things that we do and the things that we don’t do.

If we want to make sure that our mission really drips from each and everything that we do, if we want to be the kinds of schools that exhibit what we believe, teach, and confess, that communicate clearly what we believe, teach, and confess, then it does entail a measure of intentionality.

If I have any criticism about modern Christian education, including myself and things that I fall into, it’s that it sometimes lacks intentionality. In fact, I think in some cases, I’ve even seen individuals think that intentionality is contrived. It’s less genuine. It’s less sincere when you do something with intentionality, and they want it to be more spontaneous, and they expect that it will just sort of happen.

And I’ve seen this happen fairly often in school settings because we’re very busy, and we have the tyranny of the urgent. There’s so much to attend to. There are so many unexpected things that come up in an individual day that warrant our time and care and attention, and that is real, and that is part of the calling. And amid all of that, it leaves little room to stop and ponder and consider what’s best.

And that’s what I want to do in this episode then. I want to talk about what are the things that show up consistently in a school that begins to fall prey to mission drift or that begins to fall prey to mission muzzling, where the mission just isn’t quite as clear as it was at a time in the past and where it’s not as evident to people why this place really exists and what it’s trying to accomplish by its existence.

And it brings me back to an article in 1991. It’s written about higher education, but I do think that it has relevance for all levels of Christian education. It’s a guy named James Burtchaell, and he published this article in First Things in 1991. And it was called The Decline and Fall of the Christian College. He does a fine job outlining nine elements of how a once distinctly Christian college or university can find itself largely a secular private institution over time.

This change is not something that typically happens overnight. It’s something that tends to happen over time with some subtle or sometimes blunt shifts that happen in the institution. And that’s where I find Burtchaell’s framework of these nine changes to be a helpful tool for consideration… [listen to the episode for the full content]

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Welcome to Faithful and Flourishing Christian Schools. Today I want to talk about money, mission, and faithful and flourishing Christian schools, because I think that money is sometimes seen as a dirty word in ministry settings and in para-ministry settings like Christian school settings. And money’s a subject that people often seem to apologize for bringing up, and you can hear it in how the topic gets introduced sometimes.

Somebody prefaces the budget discussion. Somebody says, “I hate to talk about money, but...” and then they go into the conversation. Or somebody moves the finance report to the end of the agenda so it doesn’t set the tone for the meeting. Underneath this is something that I think is good. We don’t want some kind of financial matter or money to undermine our mission or to detract or distract from our mission.

And so I think these are people who believe that the school exists for something other than money, and it does, and they’re protecting that, and that’s a really wonderful instinct. If some people begin to think that the financial model is the core of the school, then that becomes problematic. Practically speaking, you need to have some kind of financial margin in order to live out your mission in a school setting.

There needs to be some source of funding. And so this really requires our best thinking. And I appreciate the fact that people are trying to protect against letting financial matters drive and dictate things. And I will say that even in my own church body, those conversations happen all the time on a school level, even in the entire denominational level, where there are people that can make decisions, and they take action, and the actions are framed as being primarily about finance.

But we all know that financial matters have implications for ministry matters and other matters. Imagine you’re in a congregation, and imagine that there’s some board of members who are really smart, gifted businesspeople. And so there’s a committee that’s formed, and that committee’s job is all things related to the legal matters and related to the property matters and the financial matters and all of those kinds of matters about the financial strength and stability to support the mission.

And then the pastor, and maybe there’s an associate pastor, and maybe there’s a school, the principal, and others, they’re in charge of the ministry components of what happens. You can say it that way, and you can separate it that way, but it’s not as clean and distinct as that in the real world. Let’s imagine, for example, that committee that’s in charge of all of the property. Imagine that they do some research, and they find out that property value is skyrocketing.

It’s amazing in that community. And so they realize that the property the church sits on is worth a ton. And so they put the church up for sale and the church building up for sale, and they sell it, and they sell it for several million dollars. And the pastor goes up to the committee and says, “What are you doing?”

And they respond, and they say, “Well, it’s our job to deal with the financial matters. It’s your job to deal with the ministry matters.” And the pastor said, “Well, I kind of need to have a church where we’re gonna worship, and where our church is located has implications for the people that we serve and we care for.”

And maybe the people at that committee say, “Well, we found a place about 20 miles away. It’s a third the price, and we’re gonna move over there, and it will be great.” And the pastor, of course, would be right to say, “Why didn’t we sit down and talk about this together? Let’s figure this out together.” Because those financial matters have an impact on what the pastor does, and what the pastor does has an impact on the financial matters as well.

So there is this distinction, and I come from a confessional Lutheran background where we often talk about the two kingdoms, and there’s this kingdom of grace, and then there’s a kingdom of the left that deals with what people might think of as earthly matters. That’s an overly simplified distinction.

The reality, though, is in the world, these financial matters have implications. They have consequences and implications upon how we go about our work in a Christian church and in a Christian school, whether it’s an independent Christian school or it’s one that’s attached to a congregation. So that’s why I want to talk about this.

And the main purpose of this podcast episode is about how we can take these financial matters seriously, how we can deepen our thinking about these financial matters, not so that we can just be the most financially strong school around, but so that the financial resources help amplify and support and bolster living out that Christian mission of the school each and every day.

That’s really what we want to talk about here. I think that sometimes schools avoid designing a real thoughtful financial model because they don’t want money to be the driving mission. I think it’s sometimes also because maybe they haven’t taken the time to build the education of what options exist and what are available as well.

But I think sometimes it’s this idea that they wanna put the big rocks, the big priorities in first, and there’s just not a lot of room for the financial conversations after they’ve dealt with those other matters, and they just don’t want that money to drive the decisions and the mission. But the issue is that when you don’t attend to the financial model, the money ends up driving the mission anyway.

It’s in a much harder way later, and oftentimes it ends up being at the worst possible moment when it’s a crisis and a difficult situation. And even well-planned-out financial models for schools can fail. God makes no guarantees of earthly success as we’re going about good, noble missions in our schools.

And we can make really great decisions and still find ourselves in a difficult position. I know that many of my listeners are not necessarily big poker fans, but there’s actually an interesting book by Annie Duke, who was, I believe, the first woman to win the National Poker Championship, and she wrote a book about leadership called Making the Bets.

And I heard her speak one time. I was invited to this invitation-only event about next-generation computing hosted by IBM in this nice place down in Florida, and she said one thing that really caught my attention. She said, “A lot of leaders think that leading is akin to a game of chess. And if you think ahead enough and you play all the right moves, you’re just pretty much guaranteed to win, or statistically, your chances are incredibly high.”

And she said, but the reality is that leadership is probably more akin to the game of poker, where sometimes you’re dealt a hand and it’s not a very good hand, and you have to play the hand to the best of your ability. But even if you play your hand as perfectly as you can, you may still lose. And I certainly don’t want to suggest, especially in a Christian school world, that this is all just a matter of chance and making bets and playing a game of poker.

I’m simply pointing out the fact that we live in a sin-stained world, and there’s a measure of unpredictability about running and leading and serving in schools, and sometimes you can make the best possible decisions given the circumstances that you’re in, and the outcome isn’t always what we had hoped and dreamt and prayed would happen.

And I just want to acknowledge that. I don’t want to set things up to say, “If you do these things, your school will be financially strong and stable no matter what,” because that is a myth in a sin-stained world. I think schools that never built a model, though, it’s a school that then hits a really rough year or a rough sequence of years, and there’s really no way to go back, and there’s really no plan, and you have weeks or months to make a decision.

You can just put yourself in a really tough situation. Again, I can’t say that anything in this episode will guarantee that we won’t ever end up in this situation. But we can think about it and do our best thinking and put our best planning into it. So let’s talk about some common myths, because I think that can lead into talking about the model.

So we’ll talk about myths, and then we’ll talk about some different ways of thinking about financial modeling. One myth is that if our ministry is faithful, God will somehow provide. As I just said, that’s not how life works in a sin-stained world. God will provide. We have clear Scripture that God will provide grace through faith in Christ.

We are saved by grace through faith in Christ, not by works so that no one may boast. That is a provision of God. The Scriptures say if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just, He will forgive us and purify us from all unrighteousness.

So we have a God who promises to forgive. We have promises where God says, “I will never leave you or forsake you. I’m with you to the end of the age.” A promise, “Come to me when you’re weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” We have lots of incredible promises, so yes, God provides in that sense. But never in the Scriptures does it promise that we will be free from disease or disaster or tragedy or financial challenge or difficulty at times.

We have promises. We have the promise of consider the sparrow, and there’s even passages about how God does hear and answer prayer. What father, if his son asks for a loaf of bread, will give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him?

So we do have a God who hears and answers. But that is not some sort of prosperity gospel that suggests that somehow if you name it and claim it, that if you name the fact that you need $100 million for your school and you pray it in the right way with as much fervor as possible, that somehow God is obligated to give you that money.

We do not worship a cosmic genie. That is not the God of the Scriptures. Yes, we have a God who is faithful in the matters that matter the most and for eternity. We have a God who will never leave us or forsake us. But we are not guaranteed an easy path or all of the finances that we need to flourish in the ways that maybe we think we need.

Another myth would be talking about money as somehow unspiritual. The Scriptures talk about money a ton. In fact, a lot of people will abuse passages, and they’ll say that money is the root of all evil. Well, that’s a misquote. It’s the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. It’s that position of the heart that actually becomes problematic.

We actually see that money, it’s even referenced in 1 Corinthians when there’s a list of different gifts. It talks about some people being called to generosity, which to me suggests that there’s a possibility that God sometimes grants certain people gifts. Some people are blessed with financial resources, and I’ve run into many generous donors and supporters who talk and think this way, and they don’t see that money as just theirs to hoard and use for their own joy and pleasure.

They see it as a gift that’s been entrusted to them, and their job is to use it as an expression of love of God and love of their neighbor, to use it in a way to advance missions that matter, and that’s a really compelling thing. So talking about money is not unspiritual. Of course, getting obsessed with money and thinking about it exclusively and at the disposal of these other important matters, that can be problematic.

Another one would be that tuition should fully cover the cost of educating a child. While that is one possible model, it is absolutely not the only model, and for many schools, it’s not the best model. And the reality is there are an increasingly small number of independent and parochial schools in the United States, for example, that operate this way.

And the ones that try to, sometimes they price out families, or they become schools exclusively for those who have a lot of wealth. Now, some will have a kind of model where they have the full tuition, but if there are families that really wanna be there, then they can charge a little bit more tuition to everyone, and those who can afford it will pay, and then they’re able to give a kind of scholarship from that tuition to some of the families that don’t.

So that’s a model that some do choose to use. But this idea that tuition should cover the cost of educating a child, that is one way of thinking about a school, but it is not the only way. Another myth would be that fundraising means begging people for money. The schools that raise the most are usually not the ones necessarily that even ask the most, and fundraising is not about begging people for money.

People may say that this is just semantics or I’m using marketing language or something, but I am not. This is actually about what we believe about money. Fundraising is about inviting people to be part of God’s work in the school. It’s about talking to people who believe that God has entrusted them with resources, and they are looking for opportunities to use those resources to advance God’s work in areas like Christian education.

And I have sat down with many people who think about their resources in that way, so much so that when you sit down and they make a sizable gift, they are so excited for the opportunity that they sometimes will thank you before you have a chance to thank them, and that’s an incredibly humbling thing.

They are absolutely one hundred percent partners in the gospel. They are partners in what God is doing at that school. It is not just the paid teachers and staff and the students and the parents. It is a host of other people that God often works through, including generous supporters, to help make a school work.

And so fundraising is not just about asking people for money. Another myth is we’re too small to have a fundraising or development operation. And again, you don’t need to have some full-blown advancement office, but I do think for many schools, it makes sense to have some approach, some plan to invite people to be able to share of their resources to help support what God’s doing there.

People who are excited, and they would be excited to be part of it. Another myth would be a balanced budget means that we’re financially healthy. That I believe is a simplistic view. A balanced budget can be a really good thing. But if you balance your budget by deferred maintenance, so you have an HVAC system that’s about broken and it’s falling apart, you have asbestos mitigation that probably needed addressing 40 years ago, you have windows that are broken, you have people who are having to make a vow of poverty in order to even work or serve at your school.

Yeah, you could have a balanced budget, but there are other problems that are quite significant that given enough time could actually undermine your school significantly. And so it’s not as simple as just getting to a balanced budget and we’re good to go. The idea is building a financial model that entails a balanced budget and that addresses all the financial needs that exist in the school.

And I’ll just do one other, ‘cause I wanna come back to it in a little bit, which is the endowment, the idea of an endowment, that’s just for really big schools. And that is not true, and you may not even know what an endowment is, so stay with me. I will talk about that somewhere along the way in this podcast episode.

All right, so that’s maybe the first couple of sections here. I broke this out into some different sections I wanna talk about, but I thought those were some myths to get us going, and I hope that along the way throughout the rest of this episode, we will debunk some of those myths even more. So where does the money actually come from?

And where can it come from? And this contributes to different types of financial models. I would say that typically a financially sustainable school is not just one with more money. It’s one that has a financial structure, a financial model that holds up when something goes wrong. And that usually means that there’s some kind of diversified portfolio.

If you think about being an investor, imagine you have $100,000 and you want to invest it in the market. Do you put that $100,000 in a single stock, and if that stock goes well, you’re good? Or do you diversify and split it up among different stocks so if some are doing well, some are not doing well?

So by diversifying some, you can give yourself a little bit more stability. You can do what we would call mitigate risk. And every school in America is working with some combination of usually six different types of funding. Some choose to just focus on one or two of these exclusively, and others try to diversify across more of them.

And my argument is not the more the merrier. You have to decide for your school with the right people which of these desire what measure of priority, and how does that mix look for your school? So let’s go ahead and walk through the different funding sources that we could be talking about. The one obvious one is tuition.

It’s the most common primary source for a lot of private schools, and it tends to be the one that most schools lean on the most, they lean into the most. And it obviously is heavily dependent upon enrollment and tuition-paying students. So students who are willing and able to pay a large amount of your stated tuition or some sizable amount of your tuition.

It obviously depends upon having a good approach to admissions, to retaining your students once they get in, to marketing, which is pre-admissions. It’s how do people learn about your school, what are the different ways that you help people discover that your school exists? And then admissions is that process of building relationships with them and giving them a chance to see if your school is a good fit for them and their family, their kids.

And then once they’re there, the retention, give them a great learning experience at your Christian school, and God willing, staying and continuing to also pay tuition while they’re staying. That’s all a part of a tuition-dependent school. It’s focused upon enrollment. If your primary financial model is tuition, then you will tend to have a lot of thinking and talking about marketing, admissions, and retention.

That will tend to be your focus, and those are really closely interconnected. Not that the other financial contributors don’t decrease the value of admissions and retention to marketing, but it does put a heavy focus. And when you’re very tuition-dependent, the temptation can be that sometimes you recruit families, and you know that you need the tuition of those families to keep the doors open, to pay the salaries, to cover the facilities costs, and to keep that school going.

There can be this temptation to recruit and admit anyone that’s willing to pay tuition, even if your school isn’t the best fit for them, and even if they’re not the best fit for your school. And that can be something that’s challenging to talk about. It requires us to sift our admissions and marketing retention strategy through our mission and our core convictions and who we believe we’re best positioned and called to serve.

Those are important conversations for us to have. So there’s tuition. The second one would be fundraising, but I’m gonna talk about fundraising in a lot of different categories here. So the first one I’ll talk about, I’ll just call it unrestricted gifts. Think about an annual fund. These are donor dollars that are granted to your school, and they’re not designated for a specific purpose.

So someone writes you a check for $100, and they say, “Here, use this however it’s best to advance the mission of your school, to serve your students, to care for your faculty and staff and your facilities and all of those different things.” That’s an unrestricted gift, and the school gets to decide where the money goes.

And so there are many schools that have some kind of unrestricted annual fund, and maybe that annual fund, they depend upon it to keep the doors open. Maybe they treat the annual fund as nice to have. So there are certain projects that require attention in the next five years, but it doesn’t necessarily need immediate attention.

And so they have an annual fund, and then they use these funds when they arrive to address some of those needs that are not immediate or urgent, but eventually they would be if they didn’t address them. And this is very different, though. Some schools actually design it, and it’s structured where they are depending upon a certain amount.

Maybe you’re a small school and you say, “We need to raise $50,000 a year to help cover some of the costs of our school, and we’re gonna build it in.” And that then requires you to have a structure for regular fundraising. And of course, it’s really helpful when you build a pool of regular donors, not just one-time donors.

But the unrestricted annual fund tends to rely upon people who are recurring supporters, people who say, “I’ll give $5 a month,” or, “I will give $100 a year or $1,000 a year.” And you have a list or a pool of those people, and you build relationships with them, you communicate with them regularly, you help them be aware of and feel part of what’s happening at the school, and they support your school over an extended period of time.

Of course, some will join that list and some will leave that list over time. But for this financial model, for this part of the model, the annual fund, that requires you or having someone in your school or more than one person who are building those relationships in an ongoing way for those regular gifts, and who’s returning to people and asking them each year or whatever the cadence is, if they’re willing to make a gift again.

And so you have that. So now we have tuition, and then we have the unrestricted gifts, especially the annual fund type. And then there’s a third funding source. Call this restricted gifts. So restricted gifts could come from foundations where you apply for grants. Of course, you could get unrestricted gifts from foundations as well.

You just need someone who’s learning how to write grants, and some foundations require very simple grant application processes, others are more complex. But restricted gifts are not just limited to foundations. You could have any donor who wants to make a gift that’s restricted. And a restricted gift comes with restrictions where you’re actually legally bound to use that gift the way that they describe.

So say I really like basketball at your school, and I want to write a check every year to help cover equipment costs for basketball. If I write you a $1,000 check every year, and it’s equipment costs for basketball, you cannot use that to pay teacher salaries. You cannot use that for anything other than equipment costs to pay basketball.

Now, note, I am not a lawyer. I’m not making any legal advice on all of these matters about finance. There is no official legal advice. I’m talking about this more conceptually, and I’m thinking about a general financial model. But restricted gifts are ones that come with restrictions. I find restricted gifts to be wonderful resources in a school.

And some people say, “I want as many unrestricted gifts because then I have more flexibility with the money.” And I get that, and I understand it. But restricted gifts play a really wonderful role as well. One, they teach us as leaders of our schools to be more disciplined, and it also allows us to connect with people around the areas where they’re quite passionate, around the things that they care about a great deal.

And so you could have a fund that is maybe $100,000, and it’s restricted for science lab equipment. And probably in your school, you may not be buying $100,000 of lab equipment in a year. So you have that fund that’s restricted for science lab equipment, and maybe you spend $10,000 of that a year, and then you’re able to go back to that restricted account year after year, and you can take some more out of it.

Maybe it’s building interest, and maybe you’re only using the interest on that, or sometimes you have to use more than that. Maybe you even use half of it if some big project comes up related to the science lab. So if you have a number of these restricted funds, you can learn to use those restricted funds to help support the needs of your school, and it simultaneously honors the intent of the donor.

And you are using the money, again, always honoring the donor intent. That is something that I hold very near and dear to my heart. I am a relentless advocate and champion about not just in the letter of the law, but in the spirit of the law, honoring the intent of the gifts that come from donors, because these are their resources that they have entrusted to us for a stated and specific purpose.

And it is a matter of our word to use those gifts in a way that would honor them. I am constantly asking that question about not just how do I use this in a way that technically follows the restriction, but how do I use this gift in a way that really fits what they have said is how they want it to be used?

To me, that is really valuable, and that’s how you build a true, meaningful relationship because they are partners in the gospel. These are not just people who write checks and give money. They are partners. They are part of the educational ministry and what’s happening. Could be restricted for a building or for a program or a scholarship fund.

A lot of schools primarily do restricted gifts when they’re working on a capital project, and someone will write a check for a specific building project, and that’s restricted, and you use it for that building project only. And by the way, there are restrictions that you could go back to the donor.

Suppose that they give you a gift and it’s restricted for something that doesn’t exist later on. You could just talk to them and see if they’re willing to loosen the restriction or change the restriction, or oftentimes when they make the gift at the beginning, you have a donor agreement, and you can work with your appropriate lawyers to work on this kind of thing.

And in the agreement, it says it was primarily for this, but if that doesn’t exist anymore, then it could be used in a secondary way, and donors will oftentimes do that type of thing. Restricted money grows the school’s obligations without growing its capacity. That’s the opinion that some people have about it.

They like this idea of unrestricted gifts. I don’t believe that. I don’t accept that. I think that’s a really narrow way of thinking about financial modeling. I think restricted gifts are a great part. Imagine you have tuition that’s coming in, you have an annual fund, and then you also have pools of restricted gifts for different areas that you can tap into to fund those areas, and sometimes even to fund them above and beyond what you would have typically done in a year, and it can really bless and pursue Christ-centered excellence in an area that might not have been possible otherwise, and that can be great.

Now, one thing we do obviously wanna be careful about is if a donor comes and it’s a restricted gift and the restriction is somehow intended to detract or distract from your mission or to take you off mission or to even undermine your mission. Of course, you have no obligation to accept such a gift, and it also is really important to be honest and upfront with donors.

It’s rare that you would run into a donor who would intentionally do that, but I suppose it’s possible. I’ve honestly, as one who’s worked in fundraising a lot, I don’t think I’ve ever run into a situation where I met with a donor who tried to do that or wanted to do that. But of course, if it is something that they wanted to give to you and they want it to be used for a purpose that just doesn’t align with your mission and what you believe, teach, or confess, then you have the right and the responsibility to decline that gift.

Or you could always have a conversation and see if they’re willing to restrict it to something else. And if they are, then maybe that’s a win-win. A fourth area then, so we have tuition, we have annual fund, we have restricted gifts, is endowment. And the way that endowment works is that the core body of the money is actually not spent.

The school draws a percentage annually, and it’s usually somewhere around 4% or 5%. And oftentimes, schools will do 4% or 5% of the average value of their total endowment over the last three years, so it doesn’t fluctuate quite as much if the market goes up or down one year. You can depend upon a reasonable, consistent amount of release each year.

To make this really simple, say you have an endowment of $100, then you would get $4 a year from that endowment. And that endowment would be invested, which is gaining interest, and it’s increasing in value, and other people may be contributing to that endowment, so it’s growing. But you would release $4 a year of that $100, or if it’s $1,000, $40, or $10,000, $400, or $100,000, $4,000, or $1 million, $40,000.

So for every million dollars you have in your endowment, you have $40,000 that you are able to release for the school. Now, endowment gifts can be unrestricted or restricted, meaning that they could be endowments or restricted to the endowment, but once it’s released, it could be used for any purpose in the school.

Or some donor gifts to the endowment can only be used for a certain purpose. It could be an endowment to help pay for your math teacher or endowment to help pay for your coach or an endowment to help cover the upkeep of your building. That money releases, and you can use that to help pay for your annual costs and your needs and other things of that sort.

A lot of times people don’t know how endowed positions work. Let’s say you have a teacher who makes $50,000 a year and you have an endowment, maybe it’s a million-dollar endowment, and it releases $40,000 or $50,000 a year. That would cover then either $40,000 or $50,000 of that person’s salary.

The endowment may cover the full salary or it may cover a portion of the salary. Sometimes the endowment is set up where a portion of that release helps underwrite the salary, but then another portion of that release is granted to that teacher to use for special resources and special projects that he or she wants to do in their classroom.

There are lots of ways that you can write up these endowments. That’s where you can work with your legal counsel or others in order to figure that out. And endowments could be a beautiful thing. It’s the only source here that releases without being re-raised. Once you have that million dollars, you essentially are going to be releasing $40,000 to $50,000 a year forever, or as it grows, even more could be released. Of course, some people are worried, what if the market changes and it goes down?

And that’s a reality. And when schools get in really difficult or dire straits, they will sometimes try to release more than the standard 4% to 5%. And there are some legal and other parameters that are involved in this, so I don’t wanna get into all of those legal matters. You should consult with the appropriate legal person to understand how all that works.

But that is always a sign of a strained school. If a school is tempted to somehow try to obtain the rights to release more than the 4% or 5% from their endowment annually, that’s not a good sign. That’s usually a sign that they are on a downward trajectory, and if they don’t turn things around quickly, they will probably not be staying open.

So the numbers can be small though for a long time. Like I said, a million-dollar endowment at 5% releases $50,000, or $40,000 at 4%. And so some people look at that and they say, “I’d rather just have the million dollars to use.” I actually think about this differently. I find endowments to be a wonderful, responsible use of resources.

You’re investing over time. It creates a predictability. It creates a stability. Again, it can be susceptible to what happens in the market, but you can grow this over time. And think about this. I’m at an institution that started in 1894, and if the amount of funds, even accounting for what a dollar was back in 1894 versus today... I did the math one time.

The amount of money that was raised at the school where I lead right now, the amount that was raised in the first six years, if they raised that same amount each year for 10 years, and then they just stopped, and they put it in an interest-bearing bank account in 1904, and I followed how much it would be valued today, our school would be one of the 10 or 20 largest university endowments in the entire United States.

Think about that. That’s the power of compounding interest over long periods of time. And so this is a little bit of the long game, and it involves this idea of thinking about the fact that, yes, you’re building this endowment, and it can bless and benefit and sustain your school in the short term. But what about the next generation?

As you’re doing this and you’re passing it on, you are passing on some strength and stability that can continue to grow for who knows how long, until Jesus returns, God willing. I think sometimes people say we’re too small for the endowment, and I think that is not helpful. The small school really benefits from permanent revenue more than a large one sometimes.

Imagine this. Some schools are churches where there was a family in a small rural community, and the family had a farm, and the farm had a lot of value, and they passed away, and the farm was valued at $10 million, and they gave $5 million away to their family and their estate when God called them home, and they left $5 million to go into an endowment for the school.

And it’s a small one-room schoolhouse, and essentially that endowment funds the school until Jesus returns. That is actually enough to underwrite the couple of teachers that help run and serve the students in that small school for a very, very long time. And they don’t have to charge tuition, or if they do, they charge a small modest amount of tuition, and they have a sustainable model.

And so even if you’re in a small school situation, it’s something you can think about. And endowments and gifts can come in the form of immediate gifts, where someone makes a gift right away today, and they write a check. It can also come where people include your school in their will. It’s what we call a planned gift, and they say, “I’d like to designate 10% of my estate to the school so that when God calls me home, 10% of that, or when God calls the last person in our family home,” however they wanna do it, “10% of that will go in an endowment for a fixed purpose or just for the school in some way.”

Now we have our fourth model financially. We have tuition. We have the unrestricted annual gift. We have the restricted gifts that just go in this account. We have the endowment, where you’re using the release of 4%, say. And now we go to the fifth one. This is one that very few people think about, very few schools use, but it’s worth noting and naming, which is third source funding.

So third source funding is often something like a business or some kind of operation that the school runs that then generates revenue for the school. It could be something like an extended care or a summer camp program, or they have facilities that they rent. Maybe they don’t use their facilities very much in the summer, and they rent them out for weddings or other kinds of events.

Or maybe you are a small school in the country, and you have a farm that was donated, and you actually operate the farm, and the teachers and the members of the congregation run it as a farm for kids from the city to come and experience farm life for a day, and they pay for it. It’s like farm camp for a day, and they pay an amount, and farm camp is run, and the revenue from that, the profit from that helps operate the school or keep it going.

I’ve even heard in some places, in one country, there was a school that had a large fish farm. They farmed and grew fish and sold the fish, and the profit from that fish farm was used to help fund the school. I’ve heard of a place out west, somewhere in California, I believe, I’m not sure exactly, where there was a community theater, and they gave 50% of the ownership of the community theater. All the profit from that 50% went to help fund this particular school, if I recall correctly.

Could be any kind of business endeavor, and some people get nervous about this. They don’t like it. They think that it can detract or distract from the core mission. We’re not in the business of making money. We don’t wanna do these other things. But there are other ways this can happen. In fact, there’s a whole college that does this.

It works out fairly well for them. College of the Ozarks in Missouri, they have an entire lodge, and they have a farm. They have a stained glass-making operation. It’s actually a college where students, if they get in, they pay no tuition, and that’s mostly because of federal funds that they get from a special program and then donor dollars that are released.

But they also do make some profit from these businesses that the students run, and then the profit can help cover some of the tuition and scholarships for those very students that are working there. And the students have to work a certain number of hours instead of pay tuition. Now, I’m not talking about a K-12 school where the students have to work.

And we don’t wanna have child labor laws being broken here. I’m not talking about that. But I am talking about the idea of something creative. I have seen churches that have simple programs where maybe there are bake sales, or maybe there is a greenhouse that volunteers in the church operate, and they grow seedlings, and then they sell them each year, and that’s a fundraiser of sorts.

The profit from that helps go to the school. There are sometimes tax implications and other things that you wanna think through, and this does require management. You usually need some kind of people with real expertise, real staffing. You need the legal expertise, the appropriate licensing. You’re obviously sometimes competing for the attention of the school.

It’s valuable often to have some people that are focused on that who are not responsible for the school. But it can be a source of revenue for schools, and it works. So you have now a fifth option. To just remind you one more time, we have tuition, we have unrestricted annual fund, we have restricted gifts that come in, we have the endowment that has that 4% release or 5% release, then we have third source funding.

Now, that’s five different possible funding. And then the sixth one that I’ll mention right now, and there can be some others beyond this, but these are the big six, would be government funding. There are a number of parochial schools, Christian schools located in states where there are voucher programs and other kinds of tax credit scholarships, education saving accounts, other things of that sort.

It really varies enormously state to state, so I won’t get into the details, but you can be aware of it. And there are some places where you might be in a location where the school gets $7,000 or $5,000 to $7,000 for every student who’s enrolled that comes from some kind of government program, and that may be in addition to whatever tuition you charge.

Maybe you decrease your tuition as a result. Some schools, depending upon what the rules are in the state, maybe they keep their tuition up. They’re actually operating with a larger amount per student in order to provide nicer resources, more teachers, more amenities. Of course, this is something that is a game changer for some schools in some areas.

There are critics. There are people who say, “With this comes compliance demands,” and what if there are administrative rules from the government that clash with your mission and what you believe and teach and confess? How do you navigate those? Some people argue you shouldn’t even get into this space because of those complexities, and others say, “Yeah, that is a risk, but we’ll try to mitigate those risks.”

There are many Christian schools that are operating fine and faithful to their mission and their confession while participating in these programs. The other critique that people will have sometimes is what happens when and if the money gets pulled out? What if there’s a change in administration and that money is no longer available?

That is a reality, and that’s a risk, and then if that money were to disappear, do you have some other financial models in place so that your school doors can keep open and you can continue to serve at least a smaller percentage of students? So the conditions under which the school accepts the money are not always conditions under which it will operate in ten years.

And by then, the budget starts to assume the money, and that’s obviously an important consideration. We have all of those. Now let’s think about this in terms of a portfolio. So any one of these six can fail on its own. And a school that’s built on one of them alone is incredibly vulnerable if that one thing fails, whether it’s tuition or your endowment or anything like that.

So the useful question is not really just what is our funding source, it’s what’s the right mix of funding sources for us now and in the future? Reality is you can’t just flip a switch and have all six of these overnight. It will take some planning and work, and your individual situation will determine how much time you have to prepare for the future and what’s your current situation.

Maybe you have a time of plenty right now, but you expect that things are gonna get tighter in a few years. Maybe you can plan for increasing or expanding that mix over time. You also can, of course, wanna do a question about what happens to this mix that we choose under different kinds of stress. You can do a little bit of scenario planning and walk through if-then options and how you would respond to different situations.

Two schools can have identical budgets, and they can be in completely different financial positions. One is maybe 90% tuition, the other is 60% tuition, 20% annual fund, 10% endowment draw, 10% from a greenhouse that they operate or a big bake sale that they do every year.

It’s the exact same revenue, but it’s a very different financial model and different school. Imagine this. If enrollment drops 8% with one of them, they have a crisis. If enrollment drops 8% with the other one, it’s a tough year, but they can work through it. That’s why this becomes good stewardship, good prayerful, careful thinking.

A portfolio helps give you some time. It doesn’t prevent problems, unexpected consequences, difficulties, even getting to the point where now maybe your school has to pray and decide, make that painful decision to close the doors after many years. It doesn’t protect from everything, and each part of this portfolio has a different kind of complexity to it.

But this portfolio does mitigate some risk. It does help you create a little bit more predictability and stability, and it gives you some time as a school to be able to make mission-minded decisions instead of always being in the middle of an emergency that you have to adapt to and respond to and make huge cuts and shifts here and there all the time.

Because what happens oftentimes is schools have thought so narrowly about this that when they get into a little bit of a bind, their only option is, “Who do we have to fire? What do we have to cut?” It’s all just about cutting your way to a balanced budget. And while that can be a reality, and I have been in situations in places where I’ve had to make reductions in spending that way, and that’s hard and it’s painful.

But if you’re building a broader portfolio, you can at least give yourself a little bit more time to be able to think through these things. And so imagine you have some funds that are a kind of cash reserve that are lightly restricted that you can use for various purposes, and then you have a drop in enrollment.

Maybe the drop in enrollment is because there was some tension in the school and some angry families left, and that’s unfortunate. So you don’t expect that it’s gonna happen every single year, but it was a one-time event, and you’re hurting from it that year. Maybe you have that cushion, some of those funds that you can use to address that year without having to make massive cuts.

Or you reduce your spending a little bit, and you tap into that, what’s essentially a kind of savings. So you see what I’m saying? You have a little bit more flexibility, and it allows you to make mission-minded decisions. It allows you to make decisions that take into account the people that you care about who are working there, the people you care about who are the families that you’re serving.

It gives you some time to think and pray and use biblical wisdom and discernment to the best of your ability with all of these kinds of things. So you can ask some basic questions. What percentage comes from your single largest source? How much has to be re-raised or re-earned every twelve months? You can maybe talk about that.

How much should be restricted? This is just a great conversation to talk about and ask, what would it look like for us to build out some more of these different financial streams to create some greater stability and strength from which to live out our mission? And that’s really the question here: what fits for your school?

You can bring some strong finance people from the business world onto your board, and they’ve given you something really valuable. But you do wanna keep in mind, some people coming from the business world, they have certain ways of thinking about money and certain ways of thinking about these things that may not always translate to your nonprofit Christian school mission and mindset.

I have run into this before where it’s a great Christian person, member of your church, they’ve led a big organization, but honestly, and I’ve even talked to people, when they step into that corporate world, they have to put on a little bit different face, a little more hard-nosed approach to doing things, and that may or may not be how you want to operate your school.

I’m not saying they’ve done something sinful necessarily, but sometimes even well-meaning believers, when they step into their business in the corporate world, they set aside some of the biblical virtues. There are other believers who take that very seriously and think through that carefully and try to honor what God teaches in His Word as they go about their work.

But I’m just saying, keep that in mind. Yes, you want to tap into the great financial expertise of believers who have come from the financial world, but don’t just assume that they’re experts in using biblical wisdom when it comes to finance, because those are not one and the same. Some Christians have been well-discipled, and they’ve studied and been well-equipped and have embodied more Christian virtues in how they handle finance in a secular workplace, and others maybe haven’t matured as much in that space.

So just keep that in mind when you’re working with different people. But you still could really be blessed by... I’ve certainly been blessed by a lot of those people, and even presently. You know, in business, the model is built for the margin so often, and revenue exceeds costs. The surplus is the point, but it’s not the only way to think about financial stewardship.

And the school’s model is obviously built for something else. You want a stable mission-consistent education and community, an education that is serving the students and their families you’re called to serve, and it’s sustained over decades and time. And that sometimes calls for thinking about things financially a little differently than how some do in the business world.

There are transferable components, but there are some things that we don’t want transferred to how our schools operate. I’m not saying that a margin or a profit margin is bad. In a nonprofit, we don’t really do profit margins. It’s called excess capital. It’s money beyond what you need for that present year that will be used for the future year if it can be used in that way.

A school with no surplus obviously can’t maintain a building, and it’s in real jeopardy. It’d be like you living without a single dollar in your savings account. That’s a little bit of a riskier situation. So that’s something. The school needs some kind of margin so it can keep doing its thing. It doesn’t get into cash flow problems where you get a certain amount of tuition, and then by the end of the semester, the tuition dollars start to disappear, and you’re short on cash.

That can be a really complex thing. That’s where the model of additional funding sources comes in, because if you’re just getting tuition and you’re not getting donor dollars that are released throughout the year and other kinds of funding sources, then it is really hard. Even if you get enough money, it all comes at one time.

So it’s nice actually from a financial cash flow management to have funding that’s coming from different sources at different times in the year. Many schools find that a real blessing, really helpful. I’m gonna leave with just some questions, but these are some questions that I think could be really helpful for you to ask in your school as you’re thinking about the financial model that best supports a faithful and flourishing Christian school in your setting.

One is, what does our community actually look like? What about household income, employment, church membership, whether there are competing options for other schools? Because that will impact how you think about one of those funding sources in terms of tuition and what’s the right fit. I do know some places where it’s very high household income and private schools that have a low tuition, parents think there must be something wrong with it, so they won’t send their kid there.

I know some schools that actually have to have a higher tuition because they wouldn’t get students because of it. And then if there are some families that come and they can’t afford the tuition, then they can still offer some scholarships to them. The second question, though, is who is the school for?

I’m not saying in some aspirational way. Who’s enrolled right now, and who are you created to serve? Who do you believe you’re well-positioned and called to serve? That may lead you to think about the financial model a little differently as you answer that question. A third question would be: what is our relationship to the congregation?

The relationship from an educational ministry standpoint, what does the congregation expect? Is there going to be some kind of annual giving from the congregation where members are contributing or even it comes through the offering plate essentially, and that’s one of those sources of annual fund that’s contributing?

I do know congregations that meet annually, and they make a pledge on how much as a congregation they’re going to commit to help fund the school, and then the school budgets according to that, and that answers how many students they can enroll. That’s different than how a lot of schools work. I’m just saying there are some that do that.

Others, the congregation commits a certain amount each year to the school budget, and then the school budgets and expects that. So as long as the offering gifts come in enough to cover that, then they have at least some predictable source of what we would call a kind of annual fund in a school. Now, there are many independent Christian schools that aren’t tied to an individual congregation.

Maybe there are multiple congregations or individual Christians that give regularly. But what is our relationship to the congregation? Another one is this: what is our giving history? Not what do we raise, but what have people actually given in recent past? So you have some kind of benchmark. You can set goals for growing that over time, but it’s also important to be realistic with where you are and not create some aspirational budget where now you have to go out and somehow raise a million dollars in order to keep your doors open when you’ve never raised more than $500 in the past.

We want to live in the real world, and thinking about the past is good, and then you can also set some goals for the future, but be responsible in your budgeting. Another question would be, is there a natural third source operation that’s available for our facility, given our staff, given our community needs?

That’s always one that’s intriguing to think about. It’s not an easy one to get going, and there are very few Christian schools today that actually operate a third source funding. But the sky’s the limit, really. There are so many different paths and opportunities for third source funding of some type.

And then what does our state actually offer? What are the funding resources that are available? What strings are attached? What restrictions are there? How stable and predictable is it over time? You can understand that source. Then you can also say, how long do we have to do this planning? What’s our planning horizon?

A school planning three years can build a different model than one that’s planning for thirty years, or one that says, “We have to figure this out in the next six months or we’re gonna close.” Those are three completely different scenarios, and I think that is useful for us to think about. You get the idea here.

What I’m talking about, and I know this sounds like it’s all about finance, and you’re saying, “Wait a second, this is a podcast on faithful and flourishing Christian schools, and you really didn’t talk about Jesus very much, or you didn’t even talk about the Word of God very much.” There’s a lot in God’s Word about generosity.

There’s a lot in God’s Word about finance, and I encourage spending time in the Scriptures and being well-versed in it. But I will say that biblical wisdom, reading the Book of Proverbs, biblical wisdom, not just Proverbs, so the whole Scriptures are full of biblical wisdom, but biblical wisdom can lead to thinking through these things in a way that honors God and loves your neighbor.

Because what we’re trying to do here is not, again, just build the strongest financial model. We’re trying to create a financial model that helps strengthen and sustain our mission, that gives us some stability from which to live out our mission to love God and our neighbors in this community. And as I said at the beginning, God makes no guarantees of earthly strength and stability in all ways. But we can try to be good stewards of the resources granted to us.

And oftentimes there are more resources available to us than we realize. We just need to take the time to do some careful learning and thinking. I hope you find this useful, and I look forward to your comments.

[Auto-Generated Transcript of the Podcast Audio with Edits]Today we’re going to talk about AI, and this is based upon a presentation I had a chance to give back in 2024. I’m writing this in August of 2026, so I’ve had a couple of years to let this simmer. But the core concepts of this original presentation really stand, and I’ve continued to expand my thinking and deepen my thinking around the implications of AI, and particularly the spiritual implications of AI.

Some people know that my original research and my doctoral work was really focused upon the social, spiritual, and ethical implications of technology, and I presented on this topic in the 1990s and the early 2000s, and it eventually turned into a book, some of my early thinking on it, called Digitized: Spiritual Implications of Technology.

And while there are parts of that book that are somewhat dated today, the core principles, the premise of the book still stands, and a lot of the fundamental principles, concepts, what I hope are biblical concepts, still stand for today. So you’ll probably see a little bit of that coming through in my reflections here.

But let’s talk about it. My original presentation, though, on AI was called “AI and the Soul: Christian Identity and Faith Formation in a Digital Age.” And every presentation, for me, is an opportunity to share. But this one felt especially meaningful because it touched on a topic that’s increasingly prevalent in our schools and our communities, and it touched on a topic that I’d been reflecting on for over two decades and studying in various ways.

I’m continuing to grapple with this and make sense of it, and I have a little bit of a civil war going on inside, if I’m completely candid, about some of these matters. They are yet to be resolved. But I remember in this presentation, the energy in the room was really incredible.

Educators were clearly intrigued and concerned, and I think some were pretty eager to figure out how to help their students navigate life in a world where artificial intelligence is increasingly prevalent. I had over fifty attendees who stayed after the session just to talk, to discuss, and reflect about the urgency of a number of the questions, and that was already two years ago.

Consider what has happened just in the last twenty-four-plus months. Let me just walk you through some of the key ideas, and we’ll start with some basic foundational ideas about what AI is and what it isn’t and where it is right now, and then we’ll get into some principles and questions for us to consider.

Now, when I’m talking about artificial intelligence, I’m talking about the simulation of human intelligence in machines and in various computer technologies. So these systems are programmed to perform tasks that typically require human cognition. This could include things like problem-solving or decision-making or learning, understanding a language, recognizing patterns visually or sound patterns, patterns in text.

Could be in a variety of things. And there are really three primary types of artificial intelligence. There’s one that some people refer to as narrow AI or weak AI. This is really designed to perform specific tasks, things like voice assistants. Siri or Alexa would be examples of this. Recommendation systems, Spotify, Netflix, chatbots.

This is where we are right now with a lot of the AI tools that we’re using, and it’s the only type of AI that, to our knowledge, is really widely prevalent today. Although some people would argue that we’re already at this next type of AI, which would be general AI, or some refer to it as strong AI. This is a system capable of performing any intellectual task that a human can do.

Experts predict that this could emerge sooner than we expect. I remember when I was giving the presentation two years ago, experts predicted that this might emerge somewhere between 2060 and 2100. So we have a little bit of time. Yet since then, people have moved that date up significantly to the point where some are expecting it to happen in a matter of months or years, and others argue that maybe it’s already present.

What some people would argue is that what we’re really seeing today is just increasingly complex weak AI, that first category, combining multiple human-like tasks into one system such that it begins to look and feel more like how a whole human mind works.

But it’s not there in its entirety. Yet also keep in mind that in one sense, most of us humans don’t even meet the standard of general AI, meaning that we vary in our capacity to conduct various types of cognitive tasks. Some of us are better at recognizing visual cues and auditory cues than others, and some of us have higher and lower levels.

And that’s why we have different theories like Howard Gardner out of Harvard, the cognitive scientist who liked to describe human cognitive abilities not in terms of a single IQ or a single intelligence, but he talked about multiple intelligences. There’s musical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, mathematical-logical intelligence, and so forth.

So he had a number of categories. If we think about AI in a similar way, and we’re comparing AI to human cognition, that it’s really fundamentally built upon the framework of the idea of human cognition, then we could say that really narrow AI and general AI blend together. That in essence, you have narrow AI, you have a number of capabilities that could be merged into one system that are increasingly reaching levels of complexity that are comparable to some humans and maybe not all humans. So then we get the third category, which would be super intelligent AI.

Now, this is another stage, and I would argue that this is, at this point, hypothetical, where artificial intelligence completely surpasses human intelligence across all fields. Some predict that it will follow general AI by fifty to a hundred years. Others think that it will come rapidly after general AI is accomplished.

Yet what’s already here and likely to be more immediate is increasingly complex weak AI that far exceeds human abilities with regard to very specific tasks that were formerly done by human beings. And this is already happening, and it will continue to expand in the weeks and months and years ahead. So for example, let’s imagine that we have a medical doctor who’s using their training and their cognition, their senses to identify tumors in a human body, and they’ve done it largely in a manual process where they receive the images or whatever kind of data is made available to them, and then they analyze those data, and they can determine where a tumor is present, its size, all of those sorts of things.

Well, it’s very possible that a technology could identify tumors with much more sophistication and detail than your typical human being or your typical doctor, or maybe any doctor at some point. So is that super intelligent AI? Well, it is narrow AI that is super intelligent in one specific task. And then you add to that, and you get this system, eventually, this hypothetical system that just has that level of proficiency or skill in these cognitive tasks, such that it’s hard to find any task that a human being can do better than AI. That’s the theory.

That’s the framework. I’m not arguing for it. I’m just saying that’s what we’re dealing with when we’re looking at artificial intelligence. But I would argue that generally what we’re dealing with right now, most of the technologies that are available to the public that we know about, they are forms of narrow AI, but they’re being combined together.

And over time, a narrow AI cognitive task that can do one thing and a narrow AI cognitive task that is very similar. You begin to lump them together almost like Legos, and it builds something more complex to the point that eventually maybe people are willing to call it general AI. And some of those exceed human capabilities so far that they begin to call it a hint of super intelligent AI.

You get the idea? That’s really what we’re talking about here. So how does AI work? AI achieves its capabilities through a number of different methods, and I am no in-depth expert on all of these. I don’t have the deep technological expertise behind this in the way that a computer scientist with a cognitive science background could describe it.

But one would be machine learning. This involves training systems on large data sets to improve performance. And examples could include things like fraud detection or adaptive learning platforms, like if you’re an educator, something like DreamBox or Khan Academy. And I think in many ways we would probably call things like ChatGPT, they’d be in this machine learning category. Another is deep learning.

This is a type of machine learning that uses neural networks that are modeled after the human brain. And I do think that this is probably more of where some of the current chatbots fit, and also even some things like Duolingo, even though it seems to be incredibly inefficient or ineffective in helping people actually master a new language.

But what might be more common in this deep learning would be things like drug discovery software, where there’s a lot of development happening in the healthcare research space with the use of deep learning. Then there is another kind that’s called natural language processing.

This is about understanding and generating human language. And examples include things like Google Translate and email spam filters and virtual assistants like Siri have some of this built in, but also the chatbots included some natural language processing as well. And so there’s a lot out there.

Then we have computer vision, which is distinct in its design. This type of AI involves interpreting visual data like images and video. And while newer, as in the last couple of decades, it is growing really, really quickly. And we’re seeing that pop up all over the place. And we see these examples showing up in Apple Face ID and Tesla Autopilot, but a lot of the chatbot-like technologies and the new technologies you can subscribe to online are making use of this computer vision.

These various types of AI technologies are already embedded in educational tools and systems, tools that we can subscribe to online. They’re shaping how students learn and interact, and they will get more powerful and quickly. In fact, one well-known futurist, Thomas Frey, he went on the record to suggest that the largest technology company of the future will be an educational technology company.

Imagine something larger than Google that’s entirely focused on maximizing human learning, and that will undoubtedly be an AI-informed technology company if he happens to be right. Now let’s really flip. I gave you sort of the technical jargon or some of the models or frameworks for thinking about AI, but let’s talk about some of the key questions about the spiritual implications of AI.

Because at the heart of my initial presentation a couple of years ago and my ongoing thinking are really a set of questions which challenge us to think deeply about AI’s role in our lives and our schools. And while I don’t unpack all of them, and I’m not going to here, I just wanna offer them for you to think about at this point.

So here’s the first one.

Will new AI tools become a source of avoiding depth or of amplifying depth?

You know, it’s one thing to use a chatbot as a proofreader or an amplified search engine or a tutor or even a ghostwriter, yet all of these, if the work is to reflect our best thinking and wisdom, all of these require us to be deeply informed and engaged in the process.

So will we use AI to outsource tasks, or will we use it in ways that can help us become wiser and deeper thinkers? Think of the old Bloom’s taxonomy and consider cases where we use AI to help us operate at a high level of creation and evaluation rather than just trusting the system to do that part of the work.

And this is where I’m increasingly concerned, and I’ve been following the research reports that are coming out around the role of AI in impacting human confidence and competence. And a number of studies have come out in health care. For example, there was one of doctors who conduct colonoscopies.

They looked at the doctors three months prior to the implementation of this AI experiment, and they studied and they determined how frequently and the level of expertise displayed by the doctors in identifying polyps during a colonoscopy. And then for three months, these doctors were allowed to use this AI software to help them identify polyps.

And then after using the software, they removed the software, and they had the doctors go back to doing it the way they did before the AI tool. And what they found was that after having used the AI tool for three months and then not using it anymore, they were six or seven percent less effective and less accurate in identifying polyps than they had been only three months earlier.

In other words, they had become so dependent upon the AI that they’d begun to defer to it, and almost like not working out and not using your muscles for a time, their skill, their competency, their proficiency in identifying polyps atrophied. Now, is that a problem? Is that not a problem? Well, it seems to be a problem especially if all doctors atrophy in that way.

And my point is that we want to make sure we use technology, but isn’t it still important for people to reach really deep, high levels of expertise and competence and to grow in that competence over time and to get better and better? This is my critique of just leveraging AI to do all the writing for you without doing the hard thinking yourself.

It’s not just about the product that’s created. It’s also about what writing does to your brain and how it helps you think and organize your thoughts. So if you have AI generate much of your essay for you, are you developing the nuance and the precision and the depth of understanding of those concepts such that you can weigh competing priorities and ideas, and you can take disparate ideas and connect them in new ways, that kind of creativity, that kind of problem-solving?

And that, to me, is where I have a concern, and I think it requires a lot more thinking, a lot more careful thinking.

The second one is, will AI increasingly become the new deity to which we pray or turn for help and answers to our greatest needs? Now, I know this might sound extreme, but technology regularly becomes a substitute for prayer.

Do we see technology as the savior? And I think this is more important than we realize. It happens all over the place.

Medical technology, for example, is a great blessing. But does it diminish our prayer? Or should we be praying and making use of the technology and the tool? And what is necessary for us to be careful not to let our minds fall into the trap of almost just treating prayer as a spiritual nicety, an icing on the cake, but the technology is the core and the fundamental savior and solution.

I think that’s one that requires more attention.

The third one is, will it amplify the worst parts of us? Look no further than the algorithmic video-sharing social media sites that feed us more of certain content based upon its analysis of even our most subtle behaviors. We look at an image for point eight seconds rather than point five seconds, so it gives us more of that, even if we delayed in an attempt to resist a temptation.

So maybe it showed us something that’s not good for us, but we were tempted just to look at it a little bit longer, and the algorithm identified that, and so it feeds it to us more until it finally overcomes us and we give in to the temptation, and we start to just absorb and immerse ourselves in that content that isn’t very good for us.

That’s just a simple example. Our conscious decision to choose something better could be undermined by the algorithms programmed to capture our attention as much as possible, and that requires some further thinking as well.

Fourth question is this: Will the worldview of the designers of these technologies conform us into their image?

In full candor, the answer is almost certainly yes. It happens with every technology. But awareness of how it is shaping and influencing us is still good and critically important, and I don’t think we have taken enough time to really dig into this and to understand it more fully, and to begin to identify habits and practices that help us avoid just being reshaped into the image of the technologies that we use.

The fifth question is this: Will we prefer the low-risk interaction of AI over the depth and difficulty of real human relationship and interaction? Again, this is already happening. People are displacing human connection with lower-risk technology, and it’s contrary to how we were designed. It may be an adequate replacement in the mind of some, but we are designed to be in deep, meaningful relationship with other humans and with God.

In the Book of Genesis, God said it is not good for man to be alone, and he was provided a helper. Many people look at that and they focus upon the nature of marriage and a relationship between a husband and a wife. But this points to a fundamental notion of humanity.

We are created to be relational beings, to be in relationship with God and to be in relationship with other human beings. That’s why even the fundamental callings that we have as Christians are to love God and to love our neighbors. A man comes up to Jesus, he says, “Teacher, what is the great commandment of the law?”

And Jesus says to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, mind and strength. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commands depend all the law and the prophets.” It’s fundamental to how God has designed us and called us. Our vocations, our callings are all about loving God and loving our neighbors and being in close, deep, meaningful, mutually beneficial, trusting relationships with other human beings. And if we are increasingly and more frequently preferring and devoting more of our time to low-risk interactions with AI and technologies over those deep, meaningful relationships with human beings, I contend that we are losing something critically important.

So that requires our attention.

The sixth one is this: Will reliance on AI for decision-making bypass biblical discernment and complex Christ-centered critical thinking? This is critically important. The moral frameworks used by current AI systems are almost certain to be far beyond the scope of a biblical model for ethical decision-making and discernment.

I’ve even gone so far in my thinking to muse about the idea that AI is, by its very nature, at a minimum amoral and possibly almost fundamentally immoral in how it deals and interacts with people, because it can’t experience remorse. It cannot actually repent.

If it has done something wrong, it is limited by its makers and designers on whether or not, or the extent to which it can try to make that right. It has a lot of limitations in this moral and ethical space, and I would contend that it’s time to revisit and fully understand what the Scriptures teach about the idea of discernment, biblical wisdom.

The topic of biblical wisdom and ethical decision-making and discernment, there is so much in the Scriptures to teach us about what wisdom truly is, a biblical understanding of wisdom and digging into the Proverbs in new ways.

And proverbial wisdom goes beyond the scope of what current AI is really capable of doing at this point.

Because it’s not just about, is this absolutely right or wrong? There are situational components, and I’m not saying that all moral decisions are relative, but the right thing to do does require understanding and biblical wisdom about the situation that we’re in, the specific situation that we’re in.

And oftentimes, Christians, human beings, we’re called to take action and to speak in situations where we don’t have access to all of the accurate information. It’s not entirely clear who did what or who didn’t do what. Judges have to try to make judgments, and they don’t always know if they have all of the facts straight, and there’s a biblical wisdom and discernment component that’s critically important too. And outsourcing that to some kind of technology strikes me as increasingly problematic.

These questions are not intended to be abstract. They are urgent, and they are practical, and they challenge us to reflect on how AI shapes our students, our schools, and even our own hearts and minds.

So what about some practical strategies for schools? I’ll just conclude with a few final thoughts here, so practical strategies. AI offers opportunities, but it also brings risks, and to navigate it faithfully, Christian schools really have to take some intentional steps.

So I’m gonna offer some.

One is prioritize authentic community. How does your school model and foster experiences of face-to-face connection, showing students the depth and the value of human relationships? That alone, investing in that in a world of AI, is important.

Second, teach and model biblical wisdom and biblical discernment. And I would argue that using proverbs and using riddles and using fables, I have a whole ‘nother podcast episode that I recently did on this. They can play a great role in this. But help students evaluate AI tools with Scripture open. Teach them to see how the tools align or conflict with God’s Word.

But more importantly, just teach a biblical understanding of wisdom and discernment and decision-making and testing and approving God’s will, and do it over and over and over and over and over again. And make sure that we’re spending lots of time in God’s Word as we do that because God works through his Word.

That’s where he promises to meet us, in his Word and sacraments.

The third one is become archeologists of the modern age. Encourage students and teachers and staff to investigate the biases, the benefits, the limitations, and the worldviews embedded in AI tools, helping them to understand how technology shapes their thinking.

Studying AI, not just using AI, with our Bibles open is important.

Next one, number four. Make AI a subject of study, not just use. I think I just said that, but I put it out as a separate bullet point here. Study AI critically alongside your students. Discuss its implications, its limitations, the spiritual truths it highlights or obscures.

And then the fifth one is practice positive use cases together and then debrief them. Use AI intentionally in some projects or some problem-solving activities, and then reflect as a community on what went well, what fell off, and why. Now, some people say, “We don’t want any AI in our school,” and I understand that, and I respect it, and there’s some wisdom in that.

But it’s kind of like the idea of responsible drinking. If your children are going to drink alcohol, do you want them to first do it when you’re nowhere around, or would you rather them learn to do it responsibly with you in the room where you can guide them and you can help them?

Or to drive responsibly. Before they just hop in a car, do you want them to practice driving with you, and then with a teacher, and then eventually on their own, or do you wanna just throw them out there and say, “Here’s your car. Drive around and figure out how to do this”? Well, same thing is true with AI.

If we don’t involve it somehow in the school, in some kind of intentional way, how are we gonna help them learn to use biblical wisdom? Just to assume that they’ll figure it out on their own, that it’s just a tool or a technology with no implications, strikes me as incredibly irresponsible. That, to me, seems like letting a toddler play in the interstate.

So use AI intentionally in class projects or problem-solving activities, strategically, intentionally, selectively, and then reflect as a community on what went well, what was off, and why.

Next one, number six, instill healthy habits and disciplines of the Christian life. Be relentless and intentional in cultivating practices like prayer and Bible study, service to others, other Christian disciplines.

These habits anchor students in their identity in Christ as followers of Christ, even as they engage in these rapidly changing technologies. We wanna set those habits up now so that they continue through life.

The seventh one is teach high-touch relationship building. Relationships are essential to faith and flourishing. AI cannot replace empathy or love or community, Christian community that we are called to practice as believers.

The eighth one I would say is, how about if we encourage experiences of authentic community over human-machine interaction? Which one is the predominant one in our schools? Show students the richness of human connection through frequent, deep, intentional experiences, friendships, service projects, worship, problem-solving together. You can even design real-world treasure hunts that have learning embedded into them and they have to work on it. Creative activities, singing together, doing art together, reading together, doing things together with other people so they know what that feels like, they know what that looks like, and they know the benefits clearly.

And then the ninth one is invite students to explore creative and God-pleasing approaches to our relationships with various AI tools and systems.

Be creative, be playful, you can embrace an experimental mindset, but we wanna do it with the Scriptures open.

You know, when I gave this presentation a couple of years ago, some attendees asked whether schools should develop a formal AI curriculum. And while the curricula might play a role, I encouraged a much broader school-wide plan focused on studying and building things together with students and with Scripture.

This isn’t just about teaching technical skills or knowledge acquisition.

It’s about cultivating spiritual disciplines.

It’s about nurturing biblical wisdom and discernment.

It’s about instilling Christian habits and healthy habits.

It’s about providing experiences of community and relationships that showcase the value of human connection over just digital interaction or technology-human interaction.

This approach, I contend, ensures that students are not just prepared for a digital world, but they’re also being shaped as Christian individuals who navigate AI and any technology with wisdom and with integrity.

AI is unquestionably transforming our world. And Christian schools have a unique opportunity to engage it, but faithfully. By asking hard questions, by fostering authentic community, by doing some of these other things that I’ve talked about and grounding our approach in Scripture, we can, by God’s grace, prepare students to navigate these changes in a way that honors God and blesses their neighbors, those around them. This is not a journey that we are meant to undertake alone.

Together, as Christian educators and Christian schools, I believe that we can guide the next generation to embrace technology without losing sight of their identity in Christ, and without it just becoming this Trojan horse that finds its way into our life and then reveals its true nature when it’s too late.

So my question for you today is, how is your school preparing for AI? I’d really love to hear your thoughts. I think we need to spend much more time, not just on how to use AI, but thinking through these bigger questions and these larger plans.

I hope you find this useful. I’m looking forward to your comments.

[Auto-Generated Transcript of the Podcast Audio with Edits]Welcome to the Faithful and Flourishing Christian Schools podcast. Today I’d like to talk about the blessing of rituals and shared practices in Christian schools. As an ethnographic researcher by training, I have spent years immersed in studying cultures and communities, really striving to be a neutral observer and a witness to the rhythms and the rituals that shape collective life in a given community or a particular setting or an organization.

Well, reflection inevitably follows observation, trying to be that fly on the wall, and my work has led me to uncover patterns and practices that really hold a lot of power to bless and guide others in a given community.

And one of the more striking traits that I’ve observed in faithful and flourishing Christian schools is how they embrace rituals and shared practices. These schools are marked by a profound sense of identity and mission, a shared sense of purpose, a connection to their origin story, their reason for existence.

But it’s supported and sustained by more concrete practices, by meaningful habits and traditions and rituals. And without venturing into the dangers of legalism here, these schools have cultivated rituals that are rich in meaning and purpose. Whether it’s a weekly chapel service, daily devotions in the classroom, simple acts of praying together before a meeting, a common prayer or song that they sing at the beginning of each meal, these practices serve as touchstones and milestones for their shared identity.

They are reminders of the school’s mission. They’re reminders of their calling and their core convictions as a community of believers. Research in anthropology and sociology consistently affirms that rituals are an important means of building and sustaining shared identity. They create a sense of belonging.

They strengthen ties among the members of a given community in surprisingly powerful ways. They also communicate values in ways that go beyond what we can often capture in a few concise words. So for Christian schools, this is obviously especially important. Rituals, when they are connected to Scripture and they’re centered on Christ, become tools for reminding students and teachers and families and others that they are part of something important, maybe something bigger, a community on a shared journey of faith and learning together.

Rituals in Christian schools often operate on three distinct but interconnected levels. So we have some rituals that are unique to the school itself. They reflect its specific history, its culture, its mission. Consider how a school might have a special prayer or a song that’s passed down from generation to generation.

Maybe that’s part of a mealtime prayer or a beginning of the day prayer or the beginning of chapel. They might have a tradition of celebrating milestones with a particular blessing and a certain kind of service or gathering. Then there are other rituals, a second layer, other rituals that connect the school to its shared confession, perhaps a tie to a specific denomination, and that’s grounding the community in its own rich theological traditions and practices, of its faith heritage.

It could be sharing certain liturgies or the church calendar, something that’s specific to that denomination. It doesn’t have to be unique to that denomination, but it’s specific or distinctive of that denomination. And then there’s the third. There are the rituals that connect the school to the broader Christian church and its global mission.

Observing Advent or Easter or Christmas in ways that unite the community with the universal body of Christ. And together, these layers of ritual weave a really beautiful tapestry of identity, reminding everyone of their place in God’s story in that place, in that school and community. With that said, of course, rituals must never become a substitute for a community that is rooted in God’s Word.

I’m not trying to place rituals or traditions as equal to or above Scripture. They must always be in service to the truth of God’s Word. So while rituals can beautifully express and reinforce our faith, their true value lies in where they point, pointing us back to Scripture, which is our ultimate foundation.

I’d like to use the example of a sign. Imagine that you are trying to get someone to the hospital, they’re very ill, and you’re nearing the hospital, and you can’t quite find it, and you see a sign with an arrow, and it gives you directions to the hospital. Now then imagine all of a sudden someone pulled the car over in front of the sign, took the sick person, and set them up next to the sign, and with a sigh of relief felt like they had accomplished their task.

That is absurd, right? That is not the purpose of the sign. The sign can’t do anything in and of itself. It only points to the place where healing can take place. The sign points to the hospital, and that’s where the person has to go. And that’s why we use rituals and traditions. There are very good rituals and traditions.

And sometimes if you don’t have signs, it’s hard to find the hospital in a busy world. So rituals and traditions can point people in the right direction, remind them of things that can be easy to lose sight of. But they are not the thing in and of themselves. They are not the most important thing. They point to the most important thing.

And that’s always really important for us to keep in mind. Doesn’t mean that they’re not valuable, but it just means that they are most valuable in a role of service to what is premier, which is God’s Word and God’s love in Christ and all that God gives us. As the psalmist reminds us, God’s Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

Rituals serve as signposts along that path, guiding us back to the truth and the promises of God’s Word. So what about when members opt out of shared practices? Rituals and shared practices have the power to build a greater awareness of their unity in Christ, the community’s unity in Christ, and reinforce a school’s mission and identity.

But what happens when some individuals choose to opt out of these practices? This can create obviously noticeable tension within the community. Opting out might be due to theological differences or discomfort with certain practices. It could simply be a lack of understanding about their purpose or importance.

It can unintentionally communicate a disengagement from the community’s shared mission, weakening the bonds that hold the group together. At the same time, it is important to approach these situations with humility and a good measure of compassion and a willingness to listen and learn, recognizing that shared practices at their best invite rather than compel participation.

A Christian school must ground its rituals in God’s Word and clearly articulate their meaning and their purpose. This creates opportunities for understanding and engagement, and it allows individuals to see these practices as more than empty traditions or mindless mandates. They are meaningful ways to reflect God’s truth and to strengthen the faith of those in the community.

When shared rituals point to Christ and they remain rooted in Scripture, they become a powerful witness to the beauty of unity in the body of Christ. Schools should strive to make these practices accessible and invitational while also fostering a culture where participation is seen as a blessing more than a burden.

And I think that is an important statement to remember, maybe even to restate. We’re talking about traditions and rituals that are seen by as many people as possible as a blessing and not a burden. Rituals also serve as a powerful tool for teaching, of course, teaching and learning the Christian faith.

Through rituals, we embody the truths of the gospel in tangible ways. And in a Christian school, there are rituals such as beginning each day with prayer. We can recite Scripture together. We can celebrate the church calendar, inviting students to actively participate in their faith.

And again, we can create those school-specific rituals and traditions as well. And these shared practices begin to shape hearts and minds and reinforce the story of God’s redeeming work, and they form habits of worship and devotion. From small moments like blessing students as they walk into the classroom to large gatherings for worship, rituals provide touchpoints, touchpoints of faith formation that extend far beyond the walls of the school.

The meaning and value of these rituals go beyond the collective to bless each individual within the community. Being part of a school with distinct rituals gives individuals a sense of stability and, God willing, a sense of belonging. It provides students, teachers, and families with a clear sense of that identity and purpose and offers the comfort of shared values and the joy of participating in something that doesn’t just disappear from one day to the next.

It’s more enduring. For students, this sense of stability and belonging can be transformational. In a world that so often feels fragmented and uncertain, like trying to nail jelly to a wall, being rooted in a community with meaningful rituals provides fertile soil for growth and flourishing. It teaches all of us that we are not alone in this faith journey, but we’re part of a larger community, the community that we’re in and the larger community of our denomination and the larger community of the body of Christ, the universal body of Christ.

It also shows us that our faith is not just personal, but it’s also something that’s done in community with others. It’s something that connects us to God and to others, and there’s a call to love and serve others.

I have to admit though, as I’m making this episode and I’m reflecting on this, on the power and the beauty of rituals, I have to admit and acknowledge a personal lament.

In my years of leadership in Christian schools and even with my own family, I didn’t always take these lessons as seriously as I wanted. And I now see moments where I could have nurtured shared practices to strengthen community bonds, to point others to God’s promises, to foster a deeper sense of stability and identity.

And too often, I just underestimated the power of a consistent ritual or the simple act of gathering to remember who we are in Christ. And this realization humbles me. It honestly brings me to my knees sometimes. It reminds me that leadership is also not about perfection, but it does entail seeking forgiveness, learning, growing, praying for wisdom along the way, and asking God to bless through his Word despite my failures and inadequacies, my shortcomings over the years.

I share these thoughts not from a place of mastery, but from a place of striving and hoping and praying that others might benefit from lessons that I sometimes learned far too late.

[Auto-Generated Transcript of the Podcast Audio with Edits]Welcome to the Faithful and Flourishing Christian School podcast. Today we’re gonna talk about origin stories. Every superhero has an origin story, a moment or a series of events that reveal where they come from, who they are, why they exist, what they’re all about, and from that, they often begin to discover what they’re called to do.

Batman’s purpose is rooted in tragedy, a vow made in the wake of losing his parents, driving him to protect others from suffering as he did. Superman’s mission emerges from his extraplanetary identity, sent from a dying planet to protect his adopted home, using his powers for the good of humanity. Or how about Spider-Man’s purpose, which was forged from loss and guilt, learning that with great power comes great responsibility?

I actually misapplied that to Superman in a conversation with someone recently, and I’m not sure they’ll ever forgive me, but regardless, Spider-Man: with great power comes great responsibility, and this comes after failing to save his uncle. Or we could go to Wonder Woman, who was raised as a warrior in a sheltered paradise, and she steps into the world of humanity to fight for justice and peace.

Each and every one of these stories offers some kind of defining moment or a series of moments that give purpose to the hero’s life and shape their future decisions. Just as origin stories reveal the core identity of their heroes, so too does the origin story of a school help clarify its mission, that foundational reason for its existence, maybe even the unique difference that it’s positioned to make in its community or even beyond.

So my question is this: Do you know your school’s origin story? Schools often draft mission statements that explore values and goals, and as I’ve found in my own research, mission statements can be very powerful and very useful, but they’re not actually essential to being a faithful and flourishing school.

Now, I’ve never seen a faithful and flourishing school without a mission, but they don’t always necessarily have a carefully crafted 15 to 20 word mission statement with an action verb at the beginning. That could be useful, but I’m just saying it’s not necessarily essential. But a mission and a reason for existence and clarity about that reason, that is important, and that’s what I’m trying to get at in this episode talking about the origin story.

I’ve mentioned this before. A mission statement, while valuable, is not the mission itself. The true mission, the foundational purpose of the school, that exists long before the first sentence of a mission statement is ever written down, and clues to that mission often reside in the story of why the school was founded, who it was meant to serve, and the challenges that it sought to address, and oftentimes the difficulties that it had to overcome to persist in pursuing that early mission. So by returning to the origin story, a school can start to reconnect with its actual mission, grounding itself in the reason that it was established in the first place.

Every school’s origin story is distinct, if not unique in many cases. There’s a mix of vision, there’s some passion involved, there’s a response to one or more specific needs. There’s the result of some kind of coalition of the willing who came together with a shared goal. Consider a Christian school that was started by a small group of families who wanted a place where their children could receive a truly Christ-centered education, one where the school honored and supplemented and built upon the legacy of faith formation that started in the church and home.

They wanted a place that would reinforce and not undermine their shared convictions, their core beliefs. Their origin story might involve the struggles and the sacrifices and the dreams, the difficulties of those families as they pooled resources, they prayed together, they worked tirelessly to make the vision a reality, and they saw it come into life and had to adapt along the way, too.

This story is not just some kind of history of your school. It’s more than that, and that’s where I think we lose sight of it, and we just stick it away in some binder to be shared maybe at an accreditation visit or for a special occasion. This is a collection of stories that together begin to reveal this compelling reason for existence, this purpose that goes way beyond the formal words in a mission statement.

You see, the problem with a mission statement is that we oftentimes have a small group of people who work on a mission statement. They are workshopping the words. They pay attention to every single word in the statement until it’s something that they think is beautiful. And the people who are in that room, they know all of the ingredients.

They know all of the hard work, the difficult debates and discussions. They know all that stuff that came into the shaping of that sentence. So when they see that statement, they think of all that was contributing to its formation. And I’m sure that’s really meaningful for the people who are part of writing that mission statement.

The problem is that’s not everyone. Not everyone was in the room. Others only got to see the end result or a partially drafted version. They gave a little feedback. It went back into a room behind closed doors, then it came back to them. But what I’m talking about here with an origin story is it’s actually not an origin story.

It’s a collection of stories that all point in the same direction, that all point to the purpose and the reason for existence. It’s a tapestry of stories, and that can be far more powerful in advancing the actual mission than just a mission statement. Again, I’m not anti-mission statement here at all.

Mission statements can be valuable. They can be wonderful and succinct and compelling statements reminding people of why they exist. But you gotta have the stories behind them. And that’s where I find a lot of value in this concept of an origin story and a tapestry of origin stories. It speaks to what we might think of as maybe more akin to a calling.

And while the Scriptures typically refer to callings or vocations for individuals, I think we can also recognize that God gathers people and calls them to do something together, to do various things together, something that often can’t be accomplished alone. And that has the promise to be a great blessing to others.

And so in this sense, I contend that it’s perfectly appropriate to think of schools as having callings similar to how individuals do. Looking at the school’s origin story provides more than just some kind of historical insight. It offers inspiration for the present and for the future.

And as schools grow, and they change, and they adapt to new needs, they sometimes start to drift from their original mission, hence the concept of mission drift. They’re pulled by the pressures of competition, the tyranny of the urgent, regulatory landscape changes, the changing educational trends, the changing demographics in their community, concerns and troubles with finances, turnover in leadership and staff with some of the stories leaving with them.

But by revisiting the origin story, a school can start to evaluate whether it’s still aligned with its foundational purpose or whether adjustments are needed, too. I’m not saying that in telling the origin story, we have to do everything possible to mimic the exact appearance and activities of the first generation version of the school.

The reality is that missions do develop, and they expand. Missions are these kinds of wild things, and if we follow them where they lead, they’re gonna lead us to new and sometimes uncomfortable opportunities. So a school might have started with a goal of serving a specific target audience, and maybe over time, it adapted to serve a different audience but still with that same level of Christ-centered excellence that was part of the original origin story.

So I’m not arguing that we’re tying ourselves to something that doesn’t change at all, but reminding ourselves of the things we were committed to never changing, the things that are non-negotiables for us. And, you know, we can ask, are the programs, are the initiatives, the policies today, are they consistent with the spirit of what the founders really intended?

Or has the school started to drift into some kind of generic path or just a generic private school, losing sight of what once made it distinct and vital, maybe even unique sometimes, and valuable in the community? This doesn’t mean that a school has to remain stuck in a narrow view of the past, ignoring new possibilities or opportunities, as I just said.

You can consider, for example, how the writers of the U.S. Constitution included an inspiring vision for a nation. Yet even the writers failed to achieve all that they wrote, and they didn’t even understand perhaps the implications of everything they wrote at the time, with moments in our history where we fell incredibly short of these ideals, demonizing and dehumanizing others rather than embracing the vision and the virtues articulated in the founding document.

In that way, an origin story does not limit, but it does inspire, and it inspires us toward continuous growth and discovery and striving to become the best version of that original reason for existence in light of the challenges and the opportunities of a given age. Understanding a school’s mission through the lens of its origin story, it also shapes its values.

Rather than imposing abstract values on top of a mission, the values often emerge naturally from the stories themselves. For instance, a school founded by families with limited resources but a deep commitment to the Christian faith may naturally value family, deep and meaningful relationships. Maybe even a place where every person is loved and valued and seen as a sinner in need of a Savior and as a unique child of God full of potential.

And a shared commitment to maybe some sort of counter-cultural approach to education that tests everything with the Word of God. These are qualities that were essential to its founding, and they have life for the present moment, too. By recognizing and honoring these kinds of values and surfacing them and talking about them and telling their stories, the school not only stays true to its mission, but also creates a really authentic and deeply connected Christian culture and ethos in the school.

This approach can be incredibly transformative. It breathes new life into the institution’s mission and purpose. And we can see this all over the place. For example, teachers, staff, and students, they can benefit from knowing the school’s origin story, maybe even creating rituals and days when the origin is retold and celebrated.

And when they understand the challenges and the vision that sparked the school’s creation, they may just feel a greater sense of belonging and pride in what they’re a part of, a sense of this quest that they’re on together. And with it, a sense of responsibility to build upon what came before them. It’s no longer just an organization where they work or learn.

It becomes a place with a legacy, a legacy they belong to and a purpose that they can help advance, a mission they can help advance. This connection to a shared story strengthens the school community. It creates unity around that common mission. I think it also fosters a culture where people want to live out the mission.

There’s an excitement, an energy, a joy, even a passion about it. Additionally, sharing a school’s origin story with families and alumni and supporters can absolutely strengthen relationships and inspire deeper support and engagement. When people know that their contributions support a living mission tied to a rich history, they are far more likely to invest their time and their resources and their energy and their prayers in keeping that mission alive.

The origin story provides context. It provides meaning. It makes the mission feel real and relevant today. So the mission of a school is not just about what it does, though. It’s about why it does it, why it exists. By rediscovering and honoring the origin story, a school starts to connect with its true purpose, and it helps it avoid chasing after shiny objects that might mislead and unintentionally lead away from that core purpose.

It helps them align their actions with that foundational calling. Like the best superhero stories, this origin story and collection of origin stories does not just define the past. It shapes the present, and it helps give clarity about where to go in the future, offering a sort of guiding light that keeps the school, I don’t know, let’s say faithful and flourishing and focused on its founding reason for being there.

So if you’re part of a school community, I’d like to challenge you today to take some time to rediscover your school’s origin story. Talk to people who are a part of it. Reach out to them. Maybe if they’re retired and they’re still living in the area, or they’re far away, reach out and learn and listen.

Hear what’s in the substance of those stories. Dig into the history. Talk to those who were there at the beginning or their children or their grandchildren, or read the accounts if they’ve been written down, the ones that tell the stories of the founding vision. Practice sharing these stories with others in your community, with teachers and students and parents and alumni and supporters, donors, and let it come alive in your conversations.

And then play the role of adding new aligned stories to it, like adding a new layer to a beautiful piece of music, a new instrumental layer. Consider creating special moments or rituals today to celebrate and remember the stories of the past, keeping it present in the school’s culture. And as you revisit the origin, consider reflecting on how it can guide the school’s current practices and again inspire future directions.

Because by actively connecting with and celebrating your school’s origin story, you keep its mission dynamic. You help ensure that it stays powerful and a living influence that shapes and sustains a faithful and flourishing community. So that’s my challenge for you today. Learn and deepen your understanding of your school’s origin story and then add to it and take on the joyful responsibility of building upon that legacy for the next generation.

I’m so excited to share this podcast episode with you, “A Fable, a Riddle, and Proverb Walk Into a Christian Classroom.” It is based upon a presentation that I gave a few months ago. In it, I make a case for the value of using three ancient forms as part of Christian education: fables, riddles, and proverbs. Yet, I’m not arguing that this requires a massive curricular change. It is the sort of thing that a teacher could start tomorrow, if he or she saw merit in it, and I think it has relevance for just about every level of education and setting. I hope you find it edifying and useful.

[Auto-Generated Transcript of the Podcast Audio with Edits]Building a faithful and flourishing Christian school requires more than a team with impressive qualifications. It demands individuals who are fully aligned with the school’s mission and shared confession. In fact, when choosing between a person who is 100% committed to the mission but only 60% qualified, and another who is world-class in qualifications but only somewhat aligned with the mission, I contend that it is always wise to go with the person who is on board with the mission. This is not an invitation to embrace mediocre education, but it is a challenge to reconsider what it takes to pursue and achieve Christ-centered excellecne in a Christian school.

Some of the most high-impact Christian schools prioritize mission alignment, which requires vetting candidates for their commitment to school’s reason for existence well before considering their qualifications. This approach to building and recruiting a team relies on identifying those who not only bring talent, but who understand their work as a calling to love God and neighbor, to advance the stated mission, and to speak and act in ways that reflect the shared confession of the school.

The first step in building a mission-aligned team is to be crystal clear about the shared confession…the core convictions. From that comes equal clarity about the competencies and character traits essential to serving in any role at your school. While specific expertise is usually required, what really sets a school apart is its culture…one that embodies its reason for existence and core beliefs. Perhaps this is why faithful and flourishing schools consistently develop a list of essential qualifications for any team member…a set of truly non-negotiable qualities for anyone who leads or serves at the school.

Leaders at high-impact Christian schools are unwavering about these essentials. It can be tempting to compromise when it is two weeks before the start of the semester and we are trying to fill a critical vacancy, but how we act and think in those moments also reveals how committed we are to the mission and shared confession. In my years of research, I found that leaders of faithful and flourishing Christian schools embrace a “tough” mindset when it comes to these moments and the non-negotiables of those who serve at the school. They refuse to compromise on the fundamental qualities they believe are needed to advance the school’s mission.

A mission-minded hiring process is important if you want to ensure that candidates understand and connect with the school’s reason for existence. Crafting job descriptions that clearly communicate the school’s mission and shared confession sets the tone for applicants. It also attracts those candidate who resonate with the mission. As such, the interview process must go beyond a simple qualifications check, focusing instead on discovering if candidates really want to be part of your school’s quest. Some candidates may be an ideal fit, but they have never had the opportunity to fully express their Christian convictions in previous roles, so the focus should be on their personal commitment to the mission rather than simply their past work environments.

Yet, this is a very different type of interview process. I often say that, as a school leader, my approach is akin to a first date where you skip the first five to ten dates and dive into the heavy stuff right away. It might seem a bit awkward at first, but in less that an hour both you and the person being interviewed will usually be certain of whether this is a good fit, and I contend that it is far better for all parties to figure that out now rather than later.

After recruitment, then comes the hard and intentional work of establishing a strong, cohesive team culture, one that sifts everything through the mission, keeping it the centerpiece of daily life together in the school. One thing that often inspires me about faithful and flourishing schools is the level of attention that they invest in onboarding, teaching new team members about the origin story of the school, helping them develop a clear and deep understanding of how their role advances the mission, introducing them to key traditions and practices that reflect the mission, clarifying expectations and resources, and inviting them to fully embrace the “all in” approach to shared life and work together.

Connecting new team members with the school’s origin story and distinctives is also a wonderful way to deepen their sense of belonging and purpose, allowing them to see and believe they are part of something important. Of course, onboarding is just the beginning. Regular mission-centered discussions and gatherings reinforce the shared purpose. With these and related practices, every member, from the newest hire to the most veteran staff member, develops an increasingly clear understanding of each person’s role.

Despite our best efforts, there are times when someone on the team may not fully align with the school’s mission and shared confession. When this happens, it’s important to approach the situation with “gentleness and respect,” but also without compromising on your school’s mission and shared confession. I know it can feel hard, even harsh, to part ways, but keep in mind the reason that your school exists.

Imagine a surgeon in an operating room tolerating an assistant who doesn’t care about the well-being of the patient or is not capable or willing to do what is needed to achieve a successful surgery. Would a quality surgeon let them stay because they didn’t want to hurt their feelings, or with the thought that maybe they will become qualified over time? Similarly, why would we tolerate a situation where someone is not fully on board with the mission and confession, perhaps even undermining what the school is striving to accomplish?

High-impact schools have learned that hoping for a change of heart rarely leads to a long-term mission fit. And as you are trying to make this happen, you are building tension and uncertainty within the team, and you are likely communicating mixed messages to the students and families that you are called to serve. In these situations, it is time for candid but caring conversations about the mission, inviting the individual to reflect on whether they want to be part of advancing it. Sometimes, even most of the time, parting ways respectfully and supportively is the best choice for all parties. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a high-impact school that doesn’t include stories of navigating these difficult situations, but ultimately turning them into reminders that everyone at the school exists to serve the mission.

A mission-minded team brings a school to life in ways that no qualifications alone can achieve. When the team sees their work as a calling to love God and neighbor, it is noticeable…even undeniable and inspiring. This dedication to building and sustaining a mission-focused team goes a long way toward serving the students with Christ-centered excellence. Even after decades of studying such schools, I continue to be inspired every time that I see a team like this in action.

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I just returned from the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) National Convention. It was a wonderful experience, a great time of fellowship, connecting with brothers and sisters in Christ from around the country…and even around the world. One of the topics that was relevant to my role as an LCMS university president was a resolution related to the LIMOS (Lutheran Identity Mission Outcome Standards).

I know that there is some measure of anxiety or concern about the LIMOS. Some are even concerned with the phrase “Lutheran identity.” Yet, I wanted to take some time in this podcast to offer a different perspective on the LIMOS, and to make a case for why I believe that the LIMOS are a beautiful gift, not only to Lutheran universities, but to Lutheran education as a whole.

So in this podcast, I go through standard by standard…each of the seven, and I explain how they draw us back to God’s Word. Because at the heart of a faithful and flourishing Lutheran school are the Holy Scriptures, which point us to Christ and all of God’s good gifts.

Plundering the Egyptians: Secular Knowledge in the Christian School

When the Israelites left Egypt, they carried out Egyptian gold. Bezalel used it to build a dwelling place for the Lord. Aaron melted it into a calf. Same metal, two destinations. That image has intrigued me for more than thirty years.

What does a Christian do with knowledge that comes from outside the faith? I trace how the church has answered this question, from Augustine to C.F.W.

I look at Walther's call to sanctify the sciences under the authority of God's Word.

I challenge the idea that knowledge is a neutral tool.

Some of what we receive is gold that can serve God or an idol.

Some is closer to lead, handled by people who insist it's safe.

From there I make a case that the Christian school teacher and the public school teacher are both noble but they do not have the same vocation.

The work of using God's Word in every subject belongs to the Christian school in a way that is limited in the public school classroom.

Mentioned in this episode

Exodus 12 and the Israelites leaving Egypt; Bezalel and Aaron

Augustine, On Christian Doctrine and The City of God

C.F.W. Walther on sanctifying the sciences

Daniel in Babylon; Paul at the Areopagus (Acts 17)

Luther's use of Aesop's Fables

Melanchthon on education

Stultitia Dei: A Journal of Lutheran Education, a new peer-reviewed, open-access journal

Call for papersThe first edition of Stultitia Dei takes up this theme, secular knowledge in Christian schools. The call is open now at researchinlutheraneducation.com, submissions due July 31.

In this solo episode, Bernard Bull makes a case for creating Christian schools that lean into wonder and awe…becoming an awe-full Christian school.