The Christian Principal - Our Place in Public Education (Part 1)

My position can be very isolating at times.  I am a lone building principal without an assistant principal or other administrator for support.  That means there is a lot of information that I cannot discuss because of its sensitive nature.  You should not make personal friends with your staff so no blurred lines are created.  It can be frustrating and one of the most serious of topics never gets discussed.  Religion is side stepped a bunch and not because people in my community do not value it.  I think in most instances, people are scared to cross the dreaded line of separating church and state.  If they do, they run the risk of exposing beliefs that maybe are not shared or they may feel that they are ministering to those who do not welcome it.  For this series I want to shed some light on the relationship between education leaders and faith.  I am a Christian and I live out my faith every single day in front of the kids and do not mention a single Bible verse.

First off, yes there is separation of church and state.  That only means that you as a school administrator may not initiate, endorse or lead religious acts or rituals at school.  We are the "state" and cannot support religious activity.  We all went to graduate school and school prayer was covered in school law class.  While to me it is simple, many see this as a chilling climate to be a Christian or whatever you might be.  Others see it as that God is not welcome in schools and this is simply not true.  You can take your Bible to school, you just can't hit kids over the head with it.  Being a principal of faith is quite easy to do and I would like to explain how.

A central belief of ours should be that we are to show our faith though example.  Christianity is not signaled to others by the cross you might wear around your neck or the size of the Bible under your arm.  Your Christianity is evident in how you treat others.  You can be Christ-like in your position and you are very wise to do so.  My goal for the next three posts is to show other Christian administrators that it is okay to life out your faith and that your students will be better off if you do.  Faith does have a place in public education but it can't be an overt practice.  It has to be an unspoken level of conduct that honors God and supports kids.

In the next post I want to highlight how you can use and teach compassion as a way to honor our faith and glorify God.  If you incorporate this as a practice in your office and in your school building, you will not only be practicing a key Christian principle but you will also be creating better students.  I would like to encourage you to come along for the ride.

It would be a huge mistake to not thank Robbey Smith for his help exploring this topic.  Robbey is the Lead Pastor at Redemption Church in Johnston City, Illinois.  My family began attending Redemption a few years ago and it has been a wonderful experience.  It was easy to ask Robbey for his input because he embodies the leadership I hope to shed a light on in this series.