Some Thoughts at the End of a 38 Year Career in Christian School Education

Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again.  Ecclesiastes 11:1

Faithful action despite uncertainty.  That is the meaning of this verse, found in the writing of an author who starts out by saying that everything is meaningless.  I think this verse is a good characterization of the thirty-eight years I have spend serving in Christian school ministry.  

Being able to attend a Christian school is a privilege that is slowly fading away. The Christian school movement blossomed from the late 1960's to the end of the twentieth century.  Then a combination of factors, including slow decline in membership and attendance of the churches and denominations that made up the constituency of the schools, the decline of the birthrate and of the number of school-aged children in the culture at large, and the inability of those within the Christian school movement itself to attract the kind of donor support necessary to keep the tuition costs affordable, combined to create a perfect storm of dropping enrollment and school closures.

We still have not seen the end of this decline.  The pandemic provided a short reprieve, creating an increased awareness among parents of the insufficiencies and issues occurring in the public school system, but that bump faded in 2025.  That year was one of the worst in terms of the ongoing decline in membership and attendance among Evangelical churches in the United States and that decline correlates directly with the decline in Christian school enrollment and the continued closure of Christian schools. 

[See the previous post in Cougar Tracks about the closure of Granger Christian School in the South Bend, Indiana area this past month.]

Unlike schools operated by denominations and denominationally-affiliated churches, the effective use of Christian school education for the specific purpose of raising up and training the next generation of church leadership, and of churches working together to support and sustain school affordability has never caught on among the scattered denominational groups and independent, non-denominational churches of American Evangelicalism.  Individual churches are left to themselves to sustain a school they may have started on their own campus, and most Evangelical Christian schools are actually independent themselves, having been started by groups of parents who saw the need and had the vision.  The level of support that Evangelical schools get in terms of recruiting students and financing the operations from the churches is way below that of the schools that are denominationally supported. 

But all parochial private schools are falling on hard times.  Here in Chicago, the Catholic diocese is making tough decisions about merging schools together and closing down those struggling to maintain enrollments.  In the Lutheran school athletic league in which MCA has participated in past years, three Lutheran schools in our general area have closed in the last two years.  When I came to MCA eight years ago, there were four Catholic schools and three Lutheran schools within this same general area of the city.  Now, there is just one Catholic and one Lutheran school nearby.  

And yet, after seventy years of operation, MCA is still here.  We've been through tough times, including recently.  Having an effective Christian school that makes disciples of Jesus and teaches them to observe all things is not what our enemy, prowling like a roaring lion, wants. But God has faithfully sustained the vision of those church leaders back in 1956 who, through the Youth For Christ movement, established both Phantom Ranch Bible Camp and Midwestern Christian Academy as ministries supported by Midwest Bible Church.  This fall represents the seventieth year of MCA's existence.  And a Christian school in an urban setting is a rarity.  

I believe what has sustained this school is its consistent commitment to its mission and purpose, its dependence on the movement, direction and guidance of the Holy Spirit and aligning its operation, instructional program and ministry to parents and students with the principles of the gospel of Jesus.  There have been practical things that have been done, like achieving the recognition of excellence through the accreditation process, and improvements in curriculum revision that have led to the reputation we have earned for academic success.  

And I think one of the most important things we have achieved is making sure that our conduct and our attitude and demeanor reflects our Christian convictions.  I once heard a speaker at an ACSI conference--I think it might have been Dr. Walter Strickland--say that Jesus told us not to hide our lamp under a bushel basket, but to put it in a lampstand where it gives light to the whole room, and that our job in a Christian school is not to light the student's lamp for them, but to show them how to light it, and it is also not to put it in the lampstand for them, but to lead them by example to do it for themselves.  

If you've enrolled your children at MCA, you are making a very worthwhile sacrifice.  I do not believe they can get a better education at any other school in our part of the city, a biased perspective, of course, but it is backed by the strong evidence of our student's achievement on academic assessments.  Our Iowa assessment scores went through the roof last year, and our eighth grade students are admitted to some of the best high schools in the city.  

It is a sacrifice, but it is a mutual one, which is why this works so well.  The teachers and staff at MCA are also making a sacrifice to keep parent's tuition affordable, and the church's contribution, which includes providing a lease-free facility as well as financial support, keeps tuition costs among the most affordable of any private, religious-based school in Chicago.  

So I consider MCA a gift to its school community, a rare blessing.  From here forward, there will be new leadership which will require the support of teachers, staff, students and parents.  Staying faithful to the mission and vision of the school, in its Christian identity will be the key to success.