Why I Still Believe in Christian Schools
A Veteran Head Reflecting on Decades in Christian Education
It was December 1976…
My fellow kindergarten classmates and I performed in a winter program for our parents at the local public school in our small Illinois town. Although I don’t remember much about the program, my parents told me that the theme for the low-budget production was “Charlie Brown is King of All.” According to my parents, they talked on the way home about finding a school that would boldly proclaim a different theme at Christmas: Jesus Christ is King of All. Thus, I started my adventures in Christian education the following year as a first grader, not because Charlie Brown was the star of the show, but because Jesus wasn’t even in the cast. At the same Christian school, I met my wife Julie in second grade–the only girl I’ve ever loved–and some of my closest friends to this day. I’ve been involved in Christian education ever since. (Full disclosure, in case someone fact-checks my records, I did miss a few weeks having been kicked out of school my freshman year. Yes, true story.)
My dad also left his job as a teacher and coach at our local public school to start the athletic program at this same small Christian school that I began attending in August 1977. He’s been involved with a few different Christian schools over the years in many different roles, but he’s still teaching and coaching. At age 81, my dad wakes up every day with purpose. My wife has worked in Christian schools, along with my siblings and their spouses. My brother taught and coached in a Christian school during his battle with cancer. He went Home to be with the Lord in May 2022. The greatest help and encouragement for his family during that time was and still is the community of their Christian school. My mom, before the Lord took her Home in 2007, served faithfully in a Christian school. Several members in the next generation of our family have taught, coached, or volunteered in Christian schools. And now, the oldest of my six grandchildren (with a seventh on the way) is attending preschool right here at Timothy Christian Schools.
This work is important to me. The people involved in this work–staff, faculty, administration, board members, alumni, parents, and students–are dearly important to me.
I’ve been here at Timothy Christian Schools for sixteen years. The school, founded primarily by hard-working Dutch immigrants in 1911, opened with 34 students and one teacher in a leased space on the second floor of a commercial building on the west side of Chicago. There’s a Dutch phrase that our founders often said in those early years. It’s on a plaque in my office: “alle begin is moeilijk”, which means all beginnings are difficult. These early pioneers of the Christian school movement in Chicagoland relied heavily on doing more with less, teamwork, and prayer. They held to a throwback work ethic that the day is over when the job is done. In an early edition of our bylaws, which is 64 pages shorter than our current bylaws and board policy manual, Article 1 opens by explaining the mission of the school, which was fundamentally to instruct and prepare our youth to “become useful members of church, state, and society.” Then Article 2 identifies the basis for this instruction as “the Word of God.” Our school has seen plenty of change since those early years, I suppose both good and bad, but the basis for our instruction remains entirely unchanged: the Word of God. It’s the enduring part of our mission. In 2019, acclaimed author Bob Swierenga captured the history of our school in a 900-page volume. The book is appropriately titled His Faithfulness Continues.
Since I started my journey in Christian education, the complexities of this work have grown…exponentially. The endless dedication to excellence in every square inch of our schools is an overarching theme in each meeting. We measure everything: test scores, enrollment, fundraising dollars, college scholarship totals, growth benchmarks, and other piles of data. The pressures and expectations from the market have increased. Popular culture and politics are always lingering outside our front doors. Technology today is more like science fiction than the tech I started with in my career. Our teachers work harder than ever before with new professional development and training introduced each year. School administrators are tasked with holding fast to the mission and staying the course with strong gravitational pulls from multiple directions.
Please don’t misunderstand me. We should be committed to excellence and measure outcomes. We should listen carefully to the market and responsibly and biblically engage with popular culture and politics. Technology can be a great tool, and we should work hard as professionals to improve and grow. It almost seems silly to feel compelled to explain this. We all know it. It’s a frequent topic of our conversations and professional development as school leaders. Sometimes it’s even a form of peer pressure. However, it’s not the biggest reason why I still believe in Christian education.
We must never lose sight of the foundation of this work. In the midst of it all, are we instructing our youth in the Bible and daily reminding them of these basic truths? God loves you. He has a purpose for your life. Nothing will be impossible for you as you live out that purpose for His glory. Given the tensions and the pressures on our young people today, this message has never been more important.
So I remind myself frequently of a phrase that I heard many years ago about this work: the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. We can’t backpedal or compromise. We must always stand on the authority of Scripture with courage and love. Our students can graduate from our schools with every advantage, but without Jesus, they have nothing. With Him, they have everything. That’s the bedrock of a Christian education. In the midst of constantly pressing for better and reaching for more, let’s firmly remain Christ-centered and eternally significant.
Do I still believe in Christian schools? More than ever. It’s my conviction that there’s nothing of greater importance happening in the world today than the work in our Christian schools. It’s why I remind our team here at Timothy that we can’t be distracted or divided. The work is too important! Yes, we can (and should) engage in productive conflict. In echo chambers, we get clumsy, whereas we make our best decisions when there’s tension and the earnest realization that the outcomes of our decisions carry consequences. Truly, we think harder, we seek input from stakeholders more, and we pray without ceasing when something is really at stake. So we must have passionate discussions with one another and key stakeholders as we consider the best strategies to achieve our goals. But we can’t allow the devil to divide us. After all, the most lethal threats to this work have always been from within.
The devil hates our work. He seeks to dilute and ultimately destroy it. On our own, no matter our commitment to excellence, he’ll eventually beat us…convincingly. But as we remain committed to giving Jesus the highest place in our schools and as we work together as the body of Christ, we will have victory. God will continue to favor our undertaking in the Christian school movement.
On occasion, we all get tired in the work. “Even youths grow tired and weary…”. But if you’re getting tired of the work, then try pressing reset to ”renew your strength.” (Isaiah 40:30-31) Pause, take a few deep breaths, and remind yourself through prayer and God’s Word of the ultimate reason you got into this work. People are counting on us. God has called us to a common mission of training, equipping, and inspiring this generation of young people to go into all of the world and make a difference for His Kingdom. Such important work–believe it!
“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58)
Matt Davidson is in his sixteenth year as superintendent of Timothy Christian Schools, the largest Christian school system in Illinois, and a recipient of the Department of Education’s Blue Ribbon Award and the Illinois Governor’s Blue Ribbon Award. He also serves as board chairman for the Illinois Coalition of Nonpublic Schools. Prior to his time at Timothy, Matt served as superintendent of the largest private school in Arizona. Matt started his career in Christian education as a Bible and US history teacher in Illinois while also coaching basketball and baseball. Eventually, he added the roles of dean and principal to his resume before his roles as superintendent. Overall, Matt has been in Christian education professionally for 33 years.