WHAT IF THEY OFFERED YOU CONTROL
OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS?
By Jeff Keaton - Founder, CEO & President of Renewanation
W
HAT WOULD your church and pastor do
if the superintendent of your local public
school district walked in and said, “We want
to turn the leadership of our public schools over to your
church. You can teach anything you think is necessary
to provide children a quality education. By the way, the
government will fully fund the schools.” How would your
church leadership team respond? You may be thinking
that will never happen, but in some places in America, it
is essentially happening.
A headmaster of a Christian school in Florida
approached me with a real dilemma. The school he leads
was once a safe, Christian school primarily servicing
churched kids. In some distress, he described his school
as a now thriving inner-city school with more than
enough funds to operate but with very few children from
Christian homes. In essence, he said they have almost
become a “public school,” but they are allowed to teach
biblical truth every day.
He went on to tell me that his school had changed
as a direct result of the Florida scholarship tax credit
program. This program allows businesses to give part
22
of their taxes to scholarship programs that fund student
scholarships to private schools. In Florida alone, close to
70,000 students now attend Christian schools as a result
of these scholarships!
After listening to this headmaster’s story, I looked at
him and said, “Your mission has just changed.” I advised
him that the new mission of his school was to evangelize
and disciple his students and their parents. I challenged
him to embrace this phenomenal opportunity God had
opened up. I then asked him the question I posed to you
at the opening of this article: “What would your church
have done if the district superintendent offered control
of your local public schools?” I then expressed to him
that is basically what has happened at his school, and
they must not miss this amazing opportunity.
Since I meet many pastors and church leaders who
seem to believe that K-12 education is not a part of their
church’s mission, let me ask this question. Is discipling
children a part of the mission of the church? The obvi-
ous answer is an emphatic yes! On this, we can all agree.
However, too many churches are locked into old think-
ing that says we must keep a divide between the church