by Jeffrey Beavers
You may have been optimistic like me. At this time last spring, I imagined that we’d be mostly through the tribulations, tears, and toils of the pandemic. I also remember thinking and praying that we’d be through the worst by Easter of 2020, a full year prior to that. We are now finishing a third academic year in which this game-changing pandemic has impacted (perhaps an understatement) our lives, the lives of our families, and our ministries deeply.
As we reflect on the pandemic, I think we can agree that many blessings have arisen out of it. Most Lutheran schools have grown as a consequence of frustrated, failing public schools, and a recognition that we do what we do well. We’ve been able to pivot to continue to educate and minister to our families. We’ve sharpened our skills to master multiple modalities (online asynchronous, synchronous, blended, in-person) to continue to teach content with rigor from a Christian worldview. The trials and perseverance have reminded us that grit is at our core as Lutheran educators, and we stand firm in serving our Lord daily. There are most certainly more blessings that you have also thought about, which are not listed here. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul (Psalm 103:1-2).
As we turn our thoughts from the blessings, I think it's fair to assume that, perhaps like me, you have been pondering what the long-term consequence and impact of the pandemic might hold for our ministries, our administrators, faculty, staff, students, and families. Some are apparent now and easily seen; others may not be so easily seen. Like an iceberg, we can see the tip, but what lies underneath?
Each year I create goals that are shared at the first board meeting in the fall and approved by the board. This time of year, I begin assessing progress on these goals and developing revised goals for the fall. Some goals remain on the list, and some are completed and may be revised to dig deeper or dropped off. Here are five scalable thoughts for your consideration as to what may be lurking underneath the tip of the iceberg in our journey ahead. I’d love to hear your thoughts, too.
Christian Culture: Assess, care for, and feed the excellent, established, and grace-filled Christian culture: first, by identifying Christian identity and threats. Continue to identify, prepare for, and respond to potential external threats to our Christian mission (e.g., anti-Christian sentiment, un-Christian societal pressure, and un-Biblical policies). I’ve found helpful resources from the Alliance Defending Freedom and Pacific Justice Institute; both are non-profits full of resources, have national offices across the country, and provide services to the church and our Lutheran schools in the area of religious liberty. I’ve also enjoyed reading the writings of cogent thinkers like Albert Mohler in his book, The Briefing and updates on critical matters that shape our daily worldview as Christians. If you’re like me, you’ve had attorneys on speed dial throughout this pandemic, and although the pandemic exacerbated threats to Christian liberty, they’re not new, nor are they going away anytime soon. Second, like no other time in ministry, wellness is of critical importance. In light of the impact of the lingering pandemic, assess and monitor how COVID has impacted stakeholders enterprise-wide to provide increased and responsive care and feeding. Let us treat with double honor our faculty and staff who are on the front lines and are so crucial to our mission and ministry; don’t forget yourself as a leader. Care and feeding are critical to doing what you are doing. Are you getting it?
Apathy, The Big Ministry Opportunity is Now: This is a time like no other in our nation’s history and certainly not in our lifetime. This is a special time to boldly carry out our schools' mission of sharing Jesus. This is a time to be encouraged, a time to continue to be innovative, a time to leave room to say ‘yes’ to the Holy Spirit, and a time to trust the Lord to see what He has in store for us (1 Corinthians 2:9). This requires teamwork (including school boards), perspective, and time to plan strategically. Natural born enemies of this opportunity are burnout, negativity (continually focusing on how bad it is), and enslavement to the here and now and to what we’ve always done.
Mental Health Matters: There is no doubt that the mental health of our students across the nation has been shaken. We are seeing a much more vulnerable student who is debilitated with depression and anxiety. Then, from a pandemic to a war in the Ukraine? The mental health of our students is paramount to recovery, future development, and ultimate success. Although we’ve been blessed to add additional student support in counseling and student services, we will all need to be keen to the mental health matters emerging: skyrocketing anxiety, depression, increased suicidal ideation and even suicide attempts, and general feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Counselors are critical, but we all should be trained on the signs of a student who is in trouble and be able to move into action - all eyes and all hands on deck!
Economy, a High Impact: If your ministry is like ours, you know this well already. You may have had families leave because of the loss of an income, or even an income earner, God forbid. With increasing inflation, climbing prices at the pump, and rising prices at the dinner table, the inflation we are seeing to our cost of living will have an impact. To assist families and remain whole as a ministry, we’ve had to strengthen our financial aid line item to fill the gap on what families can’t afford so it is not impacting the bottom line. I believe this is of the utmost importance and good practice rather than the dangerous practice of discounting seats. The blessing for us during these times has been that other folks who have been blessed have been more generous in giving to both our annual giving and the endowment fund to support financial aid. Other school-wide, practical goals have been strong stewardship principles in budgeting and spending, delaying capital projects that aren’t critical, and adopting the school-wide philosophy, “if it can wait, wait; and if you don’t need it, don’t spend it”; these all have been helpful. I am certain there will be more financial aid giving and tightening the belt in months to come.
Catching-up, Academics or Social-Emotional: A clear theme that developed during the pandemic involved the question, “will we need more academic rigor or more social-emotional support and care for our returning students?” Yes, and yes will likely be the answer. As students have come back, they’re behind and need more TLC to build confidence to fill the missing gaps. We see this in our students, but it is especially evident in students that we’ve added from other (public) school settings. The gap is very apparent, and significant building blocks can be identified as missing. A long-view approach may be required as we still don’t know what we don’t know as a result of COVID; this will not be a one-year recovery quick-fix. In K-8, it may be more pronounced where language development, the ability to identify emotions, and the showing of empathy are impaired from almost two years of mask-wearing. In our 9-12 ministry, we are seeing a significant emergence of middle-school behaviors, unseen in secondary education previously, resulting from missing socialization components for the past two years. To round it out, friends at the college level are seeing applicants who aren’t prepared and don’t seem qualified. I believe patience and the care that our Lutheran schools’ heart is known for is a great recipe to address this problem.
These areas are not new, and I am sure you’ve given each of these considerations some level of thought. Many others can be added to this list. This list of posed problems, some beneath the tip of the iceberg and unseen, which we may face in the near future, will likely grow. Each has a scalable solution for each of our ministries. It's good to share these ideas. I pray that you continue to be blessed as the important, inspired, and anointed leader you are for Christ’s sake in your ministry! I hope these were of some interest; I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Jeffrey S. Beavers is the CEO of Crean Lutheran High School in Irvine, CA. He can be reached at jeffrey.beavers@creanlutheran.org.