Sometimes there is a tail wagging the dog in terms of a church-related institution’s need to perpetuate itself. Public money allows doors to stay open that would otherwise close, but at the expense of the reasons the doors were opened in the first place. Why not just have Lutherans teach in public schools, thereby making relationships and establishing inroads in the community? Is that the same thing as being a Lutheran school teacher? Both are Lutheran and both are school teachers. But us it fundamentally the same activity, the same vocation?
Having Lutheran schools that do not or cannot teach Lutheranism but can do all the good things schools do and in so doing can serve the neighbor and hopefully witness for the church to the community, well, why Lutheran schools and not Lutheran garbage and recycling pickup, Lutheran bus and cab services, etc.? It seems like the same principle.
I think in a lot of cases a combination of nostalgia, pre-existing buildings, and a lack of money informs the ministry. The stated ministry purpose, though, has been retro-fitted to the existing operation rather than the operation arising from a deliberated upon ministry goal. Which may be the only option other than folding up shop. It is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is not the same thing as a Lutheran school ministry in which the purpose informs the operation, And the latter, where possible, is preferable.
A question that accompanies your post is Lutheran vocation in the public sphere; the person who's done a tremendous job with this although not Lutheran is Tim Keller. He teaches parish mission off this model. There are others that do the theology, but Keller is an avid congregation-based vocationalist in that sense. Interesting article on universities, many of them evangelical Christian, which train/form toward not job/career, but vocation in Sunday's NYTimes.
As to the rest, in my specific case we could keep the doors open without a pre-school, and many of my urban colleagues in NY have given over facilities to charter schools or rented their now-closed Lutheran schools to the Department of Education. And with that option comes a really fine infusion of income with which to do mission and ministry. It is, I think, harder to get close to the families when the school leadership is not connected. In some charter schools in Arizona and other places, run through folks from the Wisconsin Synod, the idea is for the congregation to do the before/after school wraparound programs so it's Jesus in the Afternoon, and have the values-based charter, albeit without religion, teaching family values during the school day.
Our niche in Brooklyn has been early learning, and the percentage of families reached through the school for baptism/Sunday School/membership has not been lessened significantly from the days when we had the religious instruction. I will say, certainly, that that was better. We have some West Indian staff who know how to get those kids memorizing the Bible at age 5, and/or read long passages at the same age.
But this is by no means some kind of cultural cave-in, as GAinm infers. In fact, because of the way we do our thing, the pretty large public school system of NYC - OK, the largest in the country - has sent staff from other public schools to our place to observe and be mentored.
A true thread topic which we tried awhile ago, given the debilitation and economic pressures on Lutheran Grade and High Schools, (and of course to religious schools in general and the Roman Catholic schools in particular) would be how to discern the best way to continue Lutheran education over the next decade. Schools that had 200 students now have 58, and so on. This almost never has to do with loss of the Christian educational mission. It almost always has to do with financial pressures and budget demands. And leadership.
Dave Benke
