The Church Answers Podcast

Churches That Own Schools, Part 2: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

One of the fast-growing movements in churches today is the growth of Christian schools owned and controlled by a church. There is indeed much to celebrate with this movement. But there are a few cautions as well. Thom unpacks these issues in two episodes.

Duration:: 12m
Broadcast on:: 11 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Welcome to the Church Answers podcast presented by Chaney & Associates. Chaney & Associates are the accounting firm for the church. Now get ready for fast-paced insights on key issues affecting the local church today. We release three episodes each week, so make sure you've seen or heard them all. And now, here's the CEO of Church Answers, Tom Rayner. Welcome to the Church Answers podcast. My name is Tom Rayner. My co-host, Jess Rayner, is now with us. He'll be back shortly. Taking a very needed time off. That's all I can say, he deserves it. He's my son and my wife said he really deserves it. So I believe that he deserves it. We're always sponsored by Chaney & Associates. The accountants for the church, the accounting firm for the church. They provide your bookkeeping. They provide your accounting, your payroll services. Credible firm that just takes so much of the things that many churches have really no business doing. And even if you're a large church, you really need someone else to be doing this. And they serve small churches, church plants all the way up to the biggest of churches. They've got you covered. They're doing an incredible job and we are grateful they are part of this ministry and they're co-librating with Church Answers. Okay, last episode, I talked about churches that own schools. And I said, it is a very positive movement overall. It is a movement where there's a high demand among families to see their children in schools that have a worldview that is more compatible with their worldview. Or in many cases, if it's just Christian families, a Christian worldview that is more compatible with the church, the school, and the neighborhood. And it's a good thing that is taking place and it's a great way to be an effective church in your community, to be an effective church or reaching people. They're potentially evangelistic opportunities to reach people with the gospel through these schools. Again, it depends on the school's philosophy. Do they want to bring in nine Christians or is that an emphasis or do they want the school to be more insulated than that? Those are different philosophical questions. But the point is, there's a great opportunity and about as soon as the school has started, it begins to fill up. And it's an opportunity for the church to speak into this issue of formation. Now, just educational formation, but spiritual formation. And so I want to make that very clear that the Christian school movement, the homeschool movement, and sometimes they kind of blend together into a hybrid model. Overall, this has been a very good thing. Overall, it's been a very good opportunity for the church. But here is the reality and this becomes a flip side. Go back and listen to part one because I talked about a lot of good things. But here's the flip side of this. Some of these things become train wrecks. And when I'm talking about these things, I'm talking about churches that own schools. In fact, I have seen many times when a church has divested itself of the school. In other words, let it go independent because the relationship was so acrimonious that they cannot even work together. I have been in two consultations over the years where that was the single issue while we were called in to try to resolve ongoing conflict between the leadership of the school and the leadership of the church. And so part of the bad and the ugly in these situations is that the two institutions, the church and the school that were started together and that were started, you hope of one mind, have gone their divergent ways. Now, what has happened? I always like to read Francis Shafer was kind of brought up on his writing and I can remember well when he died. And the influence he was at La Brie and the influence he was with his writings in Francis Shafer shaped a lot about who I am. And Francis Shafer would often talk about this watershed, if you will. And it's basically a stream can begin at one point. But if there's a little bit of a pebble right in the middle of the stream, it might cause part of the stream to divert to the right. And another stream to divert to the left. And what started is one stream eventually goes into two streams that get farther and farther and farther apart. That is what has happened to many of these Christian schools and churches where you have this acrimony's relationship. They started off apparently unified, but there was a pebble, there was a rock. And that pebble or rock was what is your purpose? What do we look like going forward? And one of the situations I was able to trace back to 30 plus years in a church where the church in school, which was being torn apart because of fighting against each other, was one of the original people in the school had a different perspective of where the school was going than the church as a whole did, particularly the pastor at the time. The person who represented the school side of it saw this as a freestanding school that would eventually be autonomous and operated on its own. And the many leaders within the church saw the school as a mission or part of the ministry of the church. That is not insignificant. As they began, if you will, to go down that stream and they would get farther and farther apart, obviously there were not only philosophical differences, but there were differences that were financial in nature because quite often these schools began in church facilities and they don't quickly go to their own facility. And in this church, in this particular school, it was in the church and the church had built classrooms and the church had built to GM and the church had built a football field and I could go on and on because the church thought it was a ministry of the church. But the original leaders of the school saw it as something that was going autonomous. They did not mind borrowing, if you will, the church facilities are using them for a season. They saw this very much like a church that was planning another church and that church would eventually be sent off its own and they were grateful for the sending church, if you will. But that was not the intention in this particular consultation. That was not the intention of the church leaders. They intended this to be a ministry of the church. And why was that? Well, they thought that the church could minister to the community better if they were one in the same, the school and the church. They thought that could be more intentional and evangelism if they were one and the same. And what typically happens on these issues is when you go down this watershed and you go down this divergent pathway, you get to the bad and ugly side of churches that own schools because they are now talking about two major issues, one is control, who decides what and the other's money. How do we find what? And that is the issue that many times bring these to a breaking point. And many times what started off is this healthy ministry, healthy partnership begins to pull apart and it is now a partnership of conflict and a partnership of animosity. So what do we do? In many cases, it depends to keep the metaphor of the stream going. It depends upon where you are on the stream. If you're up close enough before you hit the little pebble of rock, you may have time to bring them together. But in the situation of the two churches where I was involved, they were so divergent, so far apart that there was really no reconciliation, that there was too much division, too many differences. And so they pulled apart. So if you are a pastor in a church and you inherited, if you will, a Christian school or let's say that you're talking to a search committee about going to pastor church and it owns a Christian school. These are the type of issues that I would talk about on the front end. I would ask questions of governance. Who, how does the school make its decisions and how involved is the church? How autonomous is the school from the church? What's the future that is there? What do the bylaws say from the church's perspective and from the school's perspective or are they really the same organization and the same bylaws? That's going to tell you a lot perspective, pastor, about what you will find out when you go to that church and how it's related to the school because many times in interviews with pastors, the pastors don't question about the Christian school. Oh, we've got a Christian school. Okay, that's good. Instead of asking, tell me who makes decisions. Tell me how the board is decided. Tell me what the governance of the school is and how involved the church is in that decision. My point in all this is not to get into pastoral advice when you're talking to a search committee. My point into all of this, if there is bad and ugly, and by the way, in the previous edition, we talked about the good, but if there is bad and ugly in the in the partnership between churches and schools or churches that own schools, it usually has a history that goes back with their lack of communication, lack of clarity, and maybe lack of unified purpose as well. And of course, all of those can be interconnected very closely too. So there is a lot to say about churches that own schools that is positive and I tried to make that point so crystal clear in the first episode. But many times to say the metaphor one more time, the school becomes the tale that wags the dog. And when we was intended for the church to be the part of the partnership that actually makes the decisions and for the school to be the ministry that carries them out. Instead, the school has determined that it wants to be in control. And by the way, I'm going to say this one more time. When there's an acrimonious relationship between the school and the church, usually one of two issues is the issue of power and it's the issue of money. And they get to that because they have lack of clarity on the front end. So in this two part episode, I just want to wrap it up by saying this. It is a good thing that churches have an opportunity to reach their communities with the gospel and disciple believers through schools. It's a very good opportunity. It's an opportunity that we should not take lightly at this epoch of our history. I would also say this is this is part of your plan. Talk to somebody who has done this before. Don't just jump into it without any type of guidance or wisdom. Listen to someone who understands how this unfolds, how it impacts. Sure, there are a lot of legal issues, a lot of financial issues. A lot of issues related to the church that will then become related to the school. Get you someone to walk alongside you and start it the right way. Whether the church is going to start what ultimately will be an autonomous school or whether the church intends for this to be a ministry of the church. That's a big question and it's a question that needs to be answered. The bottom line is if you can get some of these things resolved early in the church and the school's relationship, you have a great opportunity because there are many millions of children of parents that are ready to send their kids to your school if you started. My name is Tom Rayner. You've been listening to the Church Answers Podcast. As always, thank you for those of you who view us on YouTube and then those of you who listen to us on your favorite podcasting out. If you're youtubers, if you don't mind subscribing to the Church Answers channel, don't get the word out and we're always grateful to Chaney and Associates for paying the bills and for being our ministry partner. As always, thank you for being a part of the Church Answers Podcast. We'll see you soon. You have been listening to the Church Answers Podcast presented by Chaney and Associates. Chaney and Associates are the accounting firm for the church. You need to focus on ministry. Chaney will focus on finances. 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