Can God move in public schools?

Can God move in public schools? Intellectually, you know He can. However, if you keep up with current events and trends in education, you are less likely to believe that He will.

Be encouraged as I share two stories of God’s big, beautiful invasion on public school turf.

My pastor’s wife taught high school physical education as a young woman before she got married and attended Bible school with her new husband. After several months of planting imperishable seed in the lives of the girls she taught, this godly role model found herself in the middle of an unquenchable move of God among her students.

During P.E. class one day, girls began to ask her questions about faith in God and how to get saved. She shared with them, aware of the public school taboo she was violating, and soon led the entire class in a prayer to receive Jesus as Lord. Not only were the girls saved, but many of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues.

Later when she shared this wonderful outpouring with us, she said that girls were running in the locker room and halls, praising God and speaking in tongues! Can God move in a public school? He certainly did then.

Yeah, you may think. She was a cute, hip, young teacher, and that happened years ago. That sort of thing could never happen now!

Do you suppose that now–2013–it is just too difficult for God to navigate through the halls of public education?  Well, buckle up…we’re heading to the coast to a progressive-run state where God is impotent and utterly irrelevant. Or so the left-leaners think…

My friend is a middle-school teacher in what is undeniably one of the most—if not the most—progressive state in the union.

Whereas my pastor’s wife was in her 20s during the P.E. class outpouring, my friend is in her mid 50s, an age that is not known to stir the buzz among most 13 and 14 year-olds.

She began a Christian club for interested middle-schoolers. Other students soon found out about the weekly club held during lunchtime, and they began packing this teacher’s large classroom. Soon kids started getting saved on a regular basis. She had guest speakers—local pastors—who spoke to the students about Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Kids kept coming, and new kids were added to the number getting saved.

As you might suspect, though, the ACLU caught on to the Christian club and threatened the school with a lawsuit. My friend was told to stand down. She had learned about the legal rights of Christian young people to meet on school property for the purpose of common religious interests, however, so she was equipped to hold her ground on behalf of the Christian club.

The ACLU backed off on the following conditions: pastors were no longer allowed to speak; my friend could not lead the meeting in any manner; and the students had to take on all leadership roles of the club—including planning, speaking, and prayer. If it was not entirely student-driven and maintained in the future, the club would have to disband.

Following much prayer and discussion with her husband and the parents of some of the students, she determined to abide by the new set of rules imposed by the ACLU so the kids could still meet.

She cringed in anticipation of what her seventh and eighth graders would come up with, and her fears were justified. Gone was the eloquence of the pastors; gone was the maturity that her own input had once provided. The first meeting after the ACLU’s threats was definitely seventh and eighth grade in flavor, tone, and quality.

As she sat in the back of the room, relegated to the role of sponsor only and not speaker, she was struck by just how goofy and middle-schoolish the program was. But the next thing that happened absolutely caught her off guard. One of the students gave an altar call, and all over the room, seventh and eighth graders responded, some with tears in their eyes. The ACLU’s demands served not to quench the Spirit, but to inaugurate a more intense move of God!

Not only were more students getting saved, but seventh and eighth graders were taking up the mantle of godly leadership as they ministered to their peers at their own level.

This club is still going strong and boys and girls are still getting saved, discipled by one another, and learning to become effective leaders.

Can God move in public schools? Pray, be available, and just watch Him!

Dorothy