Helping Schools

When I was young, schools were a pleasant place to go and spend time with other children while learning things. It was mostly fun. No one wanted to do homework, take a test, or sit quietly and listen all day. But still it was enjoyable to be with other children and have an interesting day. A day to explain to parents at dinner. A day for best friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, secret clubs, and sometimes good grades. It was a safe place for most students. A place where adults watched over us and told us things to prepare us for future lives as adults.

Today, that is all too frequently not true. Schools can be a battle ground where evil seeds grow. Where safety is provided by metal detectors, locking doors, police officers, and frightened teachers. Unfortunately, the safety of schools has changed to violent attacks and mass murders across America

U.S, News reports a list of school shootings between 2018 and 2024. In 2024 there were 39 school shootings, killing 18 people and injuring 59 people. This is down from 2020. This is terrifying and unprecedented in American history. It must stop. It must change. We must do more than offer prayers and thoughts. We must do more than cry and fret over what is happening. We must commit ourselves to take effect action. We must choose to make a difference in our country’s schools for the benefit of every child, teacher, principal, lunch lady, janitor, and school worker.

We all know this. The question is: What to do? How do we make a difference? How to know where the problem lies? The first answer is that God knows how we are living and what our country’s children are facing. God cares even more than the parents about these problems. Jesus is the Prine of Peace. He wants there to be peace and safety in the schools. Jesus knows the end from the beginning, Isaiah 46:10. In Psalm 139, The Psalmist states that God knows every person before they are born. Every act is written in God’s book before it happens. There is not a place a person can go that God will not see. Every second of every day of our lives is seen by God before it happens. Psalm 139:16 says, “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

God knows the good we will do. But he also knows the evil some people will do. He knows about it years before it happens. Years before life is destroyed. God knows and he chooses to lead us day by day and show us how to avoid the snares of evil people. Sometimes he sends us to other places where evil is not happening. Sometimes he teaches us how to change the world around us to protect others from becoming evil. Sometimes he helps us change the people walking a dangerous road toward committing evil in the future. God has many ways to remove evil from our schools. We must choose to let Jesus lead us and teach us how to avoid, protect, of change people to stop the evil before it happens.

I believe there are many ways to stop evil before it is upon us. I believe in being a warrior for Christ rather than a person busy with the things of this world. This takes time and commitment. Personal time with Jesus, with other Christians, with kids in school. For 2000 years, Jesus has changed societies one person at a time, one soul at a time, one choice at a time. He will do the same for our schools if we begin to look for the things we can do today to make a difference in the future. If we begin the process of letting Jesus change us today then tomorrow will be better. If we continue to choose to learn from Jesus each day then all our tomorrows will be better. 

Here are ideas for busy people to find time to learn from Jesus what we can do today.

1. Lunch at work can become a devotional time. You can stay at your desk to eat, read and pray. You can meet others in a conference room or other gathering area to eat, hold Bible study, and pray. You can focus on how to help kids and teenagers to grow closer to Jesus as you grow closer to Jesus.
2. Family time can be used to grow closer with your kids and learn more about their school time and friends. Replacing family movie night with family board game night is a way to relax and encourage children to open up about their concerns or problems. This will give patents more knowledge to pray for their children. Sitting across the table from your children and engaging with them face-to-face can make all the difference in their lives and in your family.
3. A regular family discussion and challenge night. This is a night set aside to discuss a specific subject. Subjects are created by children or parents. Letting children pick the subjects may help them be more involved. Pray and let Jesus guide the family in subjects to discuss. Subjects could include anything from vaping, speeding, limiting screen time, sadness, dress codes, chores, fast food, or more serious subjects. Such as who is Jesus, which of the ten commandments is the most important, why did a family member die, how to handle family disputes, or why we go to church. The list is endless. The focus is for everyone to have an opinion. No one is belittled or silenced for their opinion. Everyone uses reference sources to support their opinion such as the Bible, school rules, teacher rules, city laws, church sermons, Sunday school lessons, books, magazines, or news facts. The focus will be to use reliable sources of information to discuss and debate. Learning what is a reliable source for information is part of the process. Spend time together as a family to learn about each other and to engage in civil conversation. If conversations become heated, it is time to stop and pray for the Holy Spirit to provide peace, joy, gentleness, kindness, and self-control. Galatians 5:22-23.
4. Make family time a priority. Carving out an hour a week, or a Saturday a month for the family to engage together. This will probably require changes in priorities. Individuals may need to cut pack on activities outside the family. Things like golf, pickle ball, sports watching, extra-curricular activities, late night wine drinking, screen time, household cleaning. Teenagers can learn to cook pizza from Chef-Boyardee and start a regular pizza extravaganza night. Giving parents time out of the kitchen so they will have fewer responsibilities helping to make time for family night. There is also sandwich night, or Dad’s grilling night to spread family responsibilities around family members.
5. Spend less time watching your children and more time teaching your children.
6. Spend less time giving your children things and more time to sharing things with your children.
7. Smaller children enjoy being read to by parents. There are Christian bedtime books that tell Bible stories in child appropriate ways. There are vacation Bible school type crafts for care givers to entertain and teach child. Bible story coloring books.
8. Grandparents’ night can become a way for children to learn from a previous generation how things can be different and better.

These things will help parents engage more with their children face-to-face, have more meaningful dialog, and better understand the problems children are facing.

Reaching other children in schools is also important. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of religion. It is possible for students to decide to have a Christian club at school. A time for praying and talking about Jesus. Students can talk to anyone who is interested in their beliefs. It is important to state that no one is being forced and that only willing students need to engage. No one should be bullied, coerced, or left out for having different beliefs. At the playground or in study hall, if children are free to talk, let them talk about their church, how Jesus helps them, or what Bible verses they like. There may be a troubled student who will be reached by another student. A life may be redirected from a very dangerous road.

Jesus knows which children are having problems at home or with dangerous thoughts. Jesus can point your child to say hello to the dark sullen kid in class and make a difference in someone else’s life. Inviting that dark sullen kid to church may change everything. As a family you can pray for the troubled kids to be reached by someone in the school who cares. Jesus knows who these kids are, he knows how to reach them, and how to change them. With Jesus as our guide, we can reach out to troubled people and troubled families to make a difference in their lives and in our communities.

Parents can form multiple prayer groups to pray specifically for the school, students, teachers, and all others in the school. If a teacher or principal is interested, they can join the prayer group or send emails suggesting things to pray for the school. Prayer groups can invite the Holy Spirit into the school to bring peace, joy, kindness, gentleness, and self-control into the school. Teachers and students can say a private prayer as class begins inviting the Holy Spirit into their classes and asking for their eyes to be opened for the needs of others in the class.

These are a few examples of what other people have accomplished.

1. A young boy got into a fight with another boy at school. The father was a Christian and he told his son who was in the fight, that he should pray for the other boy. The other boy was considered mean and difficult. The father said there were reasons why people are mean and difficult. Praying for this type of person is important. After praying for the other boy for a while, he decided to invite the boy to church with his family. The boy accepted and eventually the entire family started attending church. Through prayer and kindness, the other boy and his family were changed.
2. A busy mom with two children and a career did not have time to read the Bible or focus on Bible studies and devotionals. She started an at home Bible study with her young kids. The children enjoyed time with their mom and the mom learned a lot about Jesus in the process of teaching her own children. Playtime became Jesus time.
3. A teenager mentioned to his father that one teenage boy in the class did not seem to like anyone or have anything nice to say.  The father suggested his son simply start making a point of saying hello to the other teenager. The other teenager was offended at first and concerned about what the nice kid might want. But slowly the ice thawed. One morning the teenager said, “Hey, how do you feel?”. The other teenager responded, “Hungry.”  The first teenager had an extra sausage biscuit in his pocket and gave it to the hungry teenager. Over time he discovered the other teenager lived with his grandmother in an apartment and slept on the floor. The first teenager’s family had a bedroom set in the basement not being used. They donated it to the grandmother for her grandson. The first teenager’s family began helping out the other teenager and his grandmother.
4. A busy mother of two children, worked as a nurse. Her husband was a military man often away from the family in another country. The woman prayed to God about how little time she had to spend with Jesus. Through her prayers she felt led to stop picking up the kid’s clothes off the floor before washing them. The children had clothes hampers in their rooms for dirty clothes. They were told if they did not put their clothes in the hamper, then the clothes would not be washed. The kids complained and protested. But little by little the mother found ways to reduce her chore time and to do list. She found more time to spend with Jesus.

There are other stories similar to these. Christians have the wisdom and power of the Almighty God to lead and guide them in helping others and making an everlasting difference in the American school system. We don’t need to change the laws, we don’t need to fight over teaching the Bible in schools, we don’t need to post the Ten Commandments in every classroom. These are not the things Jesus taught 2000 years ago. Jesus taught people who were listening about God, and about God’s ways. Jesus showed kindness and gentleness to the troubled, outcast people whom he met. Jesus has changed the world one conversation at a time. One person at a time. One soul at a time. This is God’s way of sharing himself with us and removing evil in the world. This should be our way of changing schools.