Fresh out of Bible college and equipped with my teaching credentials, I was ready to jump headfirst into my mission field of choice—the public school. While I knew the public school setting was a field ripe for the harvest, stories I had heard led me to believe I was in for a battle. I feared I would face stiff persecution because of my faith. Parents would vehemently demand a secular environment for their faithless children. Colleagues and supervisors would count my regular church attendance as a strike against me if I was even able to land a job at all. Civil liberties groups would have moles on the inside ready to report me every time I mentioned the name of Jesus Christ or offered to pray for someone who needed the Lord’s comfort.

It didn’t take long, however, for me to realize I wasn’t alone at the school where I landed my first teaching position. The lady across the hall spent her weekends preparing Sunday school lessons. The third grade teacher around the corner had a husband who preached at their church on Sundays. My principal was a man of faith and he and I were even graduates of the same Bible college.

Even though I felt there was power in the number of Christians on staff, I still wanted to make sure I abided by the laws that regulate the degree to which I can interject my faith into the culture of a public school. Laws and school board policies are not always cut and dry, and it is often difficult to know what the boundaries are. What is widely accepted in one community may lead to litigation in another.

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” While many argue this was never intended to govern the policies of public schools, the role of religion within our schools has been called into question on our country’s biggest legal stages over the years.

In the 1968 United States Supreme Court case Abington School District v. Schempp, the majority ruled against this school district near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two families objected to the daily routine of having public devotional readings. Eight of nine justices agreed that this violated the First Amendment.

The state of Kentucky adopted a law in 1978 that ordered the posting of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. The Supreme Court ruled that this broke the neutrality stance schools were to take when it came to religious matters.

In 1995, the Sixth Circuit court ruled against a Tennessee high school student who wanted to do a research paper on the life of Jesus Christ. Although it was an open topic, her teacher said the student’s subject matter was inappropriate and that she had to choose another. The school district, and ultimately the Sixth Circuit panel, upheld the teacher’s stance.

The Third Circuit court ruled in 1990 that a Muslim teacher could not wear a religious headscarf while in school. This case was cited in 2003 when a Pennsylvania teacher’s assistant was disciplined for refusing to remove her one-inch cross necklace.

The apostle Paul wrote to the church at Rome that he was not ashamed of the gospel. At the closing of the book of Acts we read that this same apostle, even while being kept under Roman guard, boldly spread the good news at every opportunity.

We also read in the Gospels that Peter denied even knowing Jesus when he was pushed to take a stand for the Lord.

Christians in the public school sector often struggle with the desire to be more like Paul and the fear of becoming just like Peter in their workplace. As with every person who wants to stay true to the charge in Matthew 28:19, 20 to reach and teach everybody about the love of Christ, it is difficult for public school employees to find the right approach to sharing Christ with others.

Scott Inskeep is the superintendent of the Reading Community City School District near Cincinnati, Ohio. The city of Reading is an old neighborhood steeped in its German-Catholic heritage. The school district, which barely encompasses an area of two square miles, competes with two parochial elementary schools and a parochial high school within its own geographical borders. From his vantage point, Mr. Inskeep can see both sides of the argument.

“Separation of church and state in the public schools has its place,” Mr. Inskeep states. “People have the choice to send their children to faith-based schools if they want their children exposed to religious ideas.”

Yet Mr. Inskeep also acknowledges that our faith, or the lack of faith for some people, is part of what defines us as human beings. To Mr. Inskeep, a cross around an instructional assistant’s neck, a visible inspirational message contained within a teacher’s personal workspace, or a football coach’s participation in a National Day of Prayer event on school grounds before the school day begins does not necessarily promote one religion over another.

In 20 years of school administration experience, Mr. Inskeep has only had to confront an employee about expressing religious beliefs one time.

“The teacher was strongly infusing his faith into his academic lessons,” Mr. Inskeep explained. “A parent complained, and I had to intervene.”

For this particular teacher, it was close to becoming a matter of not doing his job because he was spending time sharing his beliefs and not always teaching what the school board had contracted him to teach. And few Christians would feel comfortable intentionally cheating an employer out of an honest day’s work in the name of evangelizing the lost.

Mr. Inskeep offered his opinions on some hypothetical situations. He saw no problem with a member of a school’s faculty accepting an invitation to watch a student perform in a church event. “It would be no different than going to a Saturday morning football game,” he said. Mr. Inskeep also saw no First Amendment violation in school staff attending a morning Bible study or prayer time before school. Not only would he not object, he felt it was only natural for men and women of faith to extend an offer of prayer to a colleague or a student’s family who was experiencing a tragedy in their lives.

But these are just the opinions of one local superintendent.

“All it would take is one complaint,” he says, “and the whole situation in a school could change.”

Fifteen years later I still consider public schools my mission field. I work daily with adults who do not know God, and I want to show them how he can work in their lives. I sing with a worship team at my church and I have invited coworkers to attend with me. I have told colleagues I have been praying for them while they undergo medical procedures. When asked, I have taken time before or after school to answer questions and explain things from the Bible.

Many of my students come from deplorable home situations and desperately need to feel the love of Christ in their lives. I have to show them that love. The law states plainly that I cannot directly tell them.

In the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25, Jesus said the king will bestow blessings upon those he has gathered on his right because they had satisfied his hunger, quenched his thirst, and provided him with warm clothes and shelter.

The righteous won’t even realize they have cared for the king, and the king will explain, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). Each year I have 10-12 children in my classroom who would certainly qualify as “the least of these” Jesus speaks about in this parable.

While I can’t keep them after school and teach them who Jesus is, I can make sure they are well fed. I might not be able to equip them with Bibles to read on their own, but I can equip them with warm winter coats. I can put my arm around a sobbing young lady who cannot comprehend why she has to suffer abuse at the hands of someone who is supposed to protect her. I can give a boy starved for attention five minutes of uninterrupted time and absolutely make his day. I can be compassionate. I can teach why stealing, dishonesty, and bullying are wrong.

Part of the public school mission field is certainly ripe for the harvest. Yet much of it is freshly plowed ground ready for the tiniest seeds to be lovingly, and legally, planted. I pray that one day in Heaven I will be able to see the fruit of my labor for the Lord. |L