which
KINGDOM
are you
BUILDING?
By Ron Gordon - Executive Vice
President & COO of Renewanation
T
HREE YEARS AGO, a pastor, passionate about
providing a biblical worldview to the children in his
community, wrestled with this dilemma: “We can’t stop
our Christian school at eighth grade, but we’re also not
providing a solid education to the dozen high schoolers we
are currently shepherding.”
When he assumed his pastoral role, he additionally
inherited a school which had been in existence for twenty
years. Unfortunately, it had continually struggled to offer a
competitive Christian education past the eighth grade. Year
after year, he witnessed students depart and pursue a secular
education at a most critical time when young adults begin
to grapple with worldview ideas and require guidance in
solidifying the defense of their faith with impactful logic
and reasoning skills.
This same issue plagues many Christian schools. While
administrators seek to have a greater impact in their
community and grow their enrollment, Christian parents are
simultaneously targeting a complete educational program:
one which embodies spiritual discipleship for their students,
a professionally developed faculty, sufficient course offer-
ings, ample opportunities in athletics and the arts, and an
overall program that provides validity for future college
and career plans. Meeting these expectations, especially in
the high school grades, can be both challenging and costly.
Christian school administrators and boards attempt a “build
it, and they will come” approach, only to find themselves in
a downward financial spiral they can’t overcome. On their
own and with limited resources, a small Christian school’s
journey to legitimacy often fails prematurely.
44
Collaborative partnerships can be a powerful path for
growing the impact of Christian education. Unfortunately,
the myopic views of most Christian schools and churches
hinder their ability to recognize the more significant oppor-
tunities available to them through partnering. The church in
Corinth also struggled to see the big picture of God’s King-
dom when they became divisive around different ministers.
Paul reminded them in 1 Corinthians 3 that “we are God’s
fellow workers” in His Kingdom, based on the same foun-
dation, and working toward the same goal of growing and
strengthening the body of Christ. Christian schools often
fall into this same trap of being too hyper-focused on grow-
ing their own organizations. We must not view each other as
competitors but as co-laborers to provide as many children
as possible a biblical worldview education. By supporting
one another, sharing resources, and developing a collabora-
tive plan, Christian schools can claim much more ground in
the fight for His children.
The aforementioned pastor reached out to the Renewana-
tion team for support in determining a path to keep these
students connected to Christian education throughout their
high school years. Renewanation had already been helping
another small Christian school 30 minutes away. With an
enrollment of fewer than 50 students, we had encouraged
them to partner with local homeschool groups and other
small Christian schools to strengthen their capabilities
and offerings. By combining their resources with these
like-minded believers, they would jointly be able to provide
additional offerings such as special electives, technol-
ogy integration, spiritual emphasis events, and athletic