As public school teachers and students prepare for the upcoming school year, Alabama Baptist churches are finding ways to help students be successful in school.
“Churches and schools are two main cornerstones of the community, and partnerships can be effective and beneficial for both,” said Martine Bates, principal of Priceville Elementary School in Morgan County. “While we have some restrictions, we are able to have strong ties with interested churches.”
Keith Loomis works with youth ministers through the office of collegiate and student ministries at the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions. Loomis feels that relationships between churches and schools improve the environment on school campuses and positively impact teachers, communities and total student development.
“The Bible says, ‘Jesus grew in wisdom and stature in favor of God and men,’ and that’s part of a student’s developmental process,” he said. “Anything that we can do as a church to support all areas of the development of adolescents helps them become all that God created them to be. It helps them understand the impact they can have on campus for the cause of Christ by reaching out to other students, knowing how to be good friends and witnesses to them in the things they say and do. It’s helping Christian students be salt and light in the world and on their school campuses.”
While many churches organize prayer groups for area schools, some churches reach out to students by becoming actively involved in school activities and students’ day-to-day lives.
When students at Westwood Baptist Church, Alabaster, have trouble in school, children’s ministry coordinator Jenny Funderburke occasionally refers them to present and former teachers within the church membership. Similarly other churches try to meet students’ basic need for love and acceptance.
Lane Dixon, high school ministry assistant at Valleydale Baptist Church, Birmingham, said the church tries to stay relevant by reaching out to students through missions trips, camps, Bible study groups, special events and spending time with them during school lunchtime and sporting events.
“We hope that these public school kids will see we really want to help them and get them involved,” Dixon said. “Because there is so much inconsistency in home life and in the school system as to what students are taught, we try to provide that consistency by reaching out with the truth.”
Despite small student membership, The People’s Church at Oak Mountain attempts to equip youth for daily Christian living.
“Biblical understanding is the key to addressing issues of faith when at public schools,” said youth pastor Paul Kelly. “Our strategy is to give these Christian students the maturity they need to go into a public school being able to counter questions with truth and know the Word when attacked. They need to know what is a lie and what is the truth. They also need to know why they should live this way. It isn’t about buying into the parent’s faith but making it their own.”
Likewise many churches try to help students realize the impact they can have for Christ.
Supporting students’ faith
Youth pastor Jim Peters said Dalraida Baptist Church, Montgomery, is encouraging kids to take their faith to school and share it. “Sharing their faith is what we want them to do, and we’re doing whatever it takes to help them do that,” Peters said. “I think that’s what everybody’s supposed to be doing.”
He said the church also supports faith-based activities in the schools such as See You at the Pole, First Priority and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
“I also speak and otherwise spend a lot of time at the schools,” Peters said. “It gives the kids someone they know they can come and talk to anytime.”
To help churches work with schools, Bates suggests holding prayer services before school, participating in school events, sponsoring lunches, attending school board meetings, inviting school board members to church for special recognition services, providing school supplies and volunteering.
A ministry team at NorthPark Baptist Church, Trussville, in Birmingham Baptist Association even provides homemade snacks once a month for the teachers’ lounges in area schools, said NorthPark ministry assistant Susan Goggins.
“This team wants teachers to know that their sometimes thankless work is appreciated and prayed for,” Goggins said.
Bates said teachers who are involved in church also can make a difference with activities at church.
“I have a teacher who holds tutorial sessions at her church for all who want help on Wednesday nights,” she said. “She has several children who attend. I know of other churches that go into the schools to provide the same services.”
Bates has also seen churches take up special offerings during Vacation Bible School to purchase school supplies for needy children.
“We had one church last year, Point Mallard Parkway, Decatur, that bought a backpack for each grade level and filled them with the supplies required for that grade level,” she said. “It was so neat to be able to hand children a complete kit of supplies.”
Loomis also believes churches should seek to build relationships with students and staff in public schools. “There are certainly things that we can do as Christians and as churches to help meet physical needs as well as people needs on our school campuses through volunteering, cleanup or building projects and teacher and staff appreciation,” he said.
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