Teenagers. Moody, rebellious, stubborn, frustrating. A transitional age that just needs to be tolerated until they graduate high school (and maybe even college, if we’re being honest).
And yet, according to studies by organizations like Barna, most Christians accept Christ before the age of 18. A staggering 94% of Christians got saved before they reached adulthood, most of whom were between the ages of 9 and 15.
So if these people–who are people, not a subset of human called ‘teens’–are the most reachable and likely to respond positively to the gospel, shouldn’t we be devoting more resources to reaching them?
Some would say we are. After all, what church in America doesn’t have a youth group which meets at least twice a week, goes to camps, hosts Madden tourneys, and plays flag football on second Saturdays? America’s youth groups get a lot of attention. But is it the right kind?
evangelizing as a teacher is against the law, right?
“What they get is evangelical Christianity’s best entertainment: video games, movies, games at church,” says Brandon Briscoe, a high school art teacher and young adults pastor at Midtown Baptist Temple. “They get this, rather than going into their communities, praying for opportunities, opening the Bible with their peers.”
According to the United Nations, there are over 1 billion adolescents alive today.
“And we don’t give them our best, even knowing that their hearts are the softest,” Brandon says. “No one’s talking about this, which I don’t understand. It’s heartbreaking to me. Churches can hardly get people to help in student ministry, let alone get people who are going to trust God enough to go into schools and witness there. To me, it’s depraved.”
This is one of the main reasons that Brandon, and others like him, decided to go into teaching as a profession.
“Mitch Medlin calls it fishing in a barrel,” he says. “People like a challenge, so they go fly fishing or lake fishing. No one faults the guy who goes fly fishing and doesn’t catch anything. But how is it that we can’t get people lined up to go fishing in a barrel? You just stick your hand in and pull one out. We have whole conferences about fly fishing, but we can’t get anyone to line up at the barrel.”
Perhaps it’s because of the glory associated with fly fishing–but let’s leave behind the angling metaphors for now. There’s a certain fearlessness, admirability associated with foreign missions. To some, going to your local school and preaching the gospel may seem like the weak man’s work. And, as Brandon said, that thought is depraved.
But perhaps another reason there aren’t more people going into schools with the good news is because of fear. After all, evangelizing as a teacher is against the law, right?
Not quite.
ABIDING THE LAW
I want to teach well, but my priority is still relationships.
Prior to the 1960s, school-led prayer and public Bible reading were common starts to the day. However, in 1962 the US Supreme Court ruled that reading of the Bible and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer was unlawful in public schools. Another lawsuit ruled that mandatory Bible reading in public schools was also prohibited.
In 1971, the Supreme Court established the Lemon test for activities in public schools. According to this ruling, all practices by public schools must:
Have a secular purpose;
Must neither advance nor inhibit religion; and
Must not result in an excessive entanglement between government and religion (Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971).
Therefore, public school teachers in the classroom are prohibited by law from both advancing and inhibiting religion in the name of the school. Keep in mind that this is regarding all religion, not just Christianity.
Upon reading this, it may sound like teachers are never allowed to discuss religion or their personal beliefs. However, this is not necessarily the case.
If a student asks a teacher directly about their personal beliefs, the teacher is allowed to respond. However, teachers must be sure to make it clear that these are their personal beliefs and not those of the school.
Of course, the Christian teacher can also have the following mentality regarding evangelism versus the law of the land:
“I think about one, and I don’t think about the other,” says Josh O’Hora, a high school history teacher and leader in Midtown Baptist Temple’s student ministry. “The Bible’s clear on how we ought to obey God rather than men. I don’t care if I lose my job for preaching the gospel.”
This is the mindset it takes to evangelize as a teacher.
“I’m not trying to get fired,” Josh says. “I want to teach well, but my priority is still relationships. I don’t care about history hardly at all, but all my kids know I love them and I have a heart for them in this life and for their eternal life.”
Others agree, like Jeff Grasher, who teaches high school English and is the student ministry pastor at Midtown.
“The only situation at school where’d I’d feel uncomfortable fully preaching the gospel and telling kids what the Bible says in class is if there was a principal in the room,” Jeff says. “I’m not pushing my agenda, because that’s unbiblical. But I’m letting kids learn, and I’m not afraid of uncomfortable teaching environments.”
Of course, this boldness must be tempered with a level of responsibility.
“You have to do your job really well,” Brandon says. “If you’re not a good teacher, you can’t get away with anything. People have to take you seriously, see you as valuable. Do everything unto the Lord, take it seriously, be blameless, live peaceably with all men. Once you’ve established your testimony, you have more freedom to be bold with the gospel.”
And even with their fearlessness in evangelizing as teachers, it’s rare that they’ve been told to stop.
“In a decade of teaching, I’ve not heard one time anyone say boo about it,” Brandon says. “People probably don’t like it, but no one’s said anything about it.”
“Teachers who aren’t believers have told me, oh, be careful, I don’t want you to get in trouble,” says Jeff. “No one’s said, hey stop that. It’s only ever been curiosity and fear.”
And even in the face of potential rebuke, as Josh said quoting Acts 5:29, we ought to obey God rather than men. So, if Christian teachers ought to preach the gospel without fear, how can they go about doing so?
DOING THE WORK
The kids responded, who cares? Let’s just talk about it.
“At school, I evangelize like I would anywhere else,” Brandon says. “Someone asks me what I believe, I give an answer, and I preach the gospel. That’s about seventy percent of my witnessing opportunities: simple conversations when people ask a question about my faith. The other thirty percent is me hunting for opportunities. I see someone has an issue, is anxious, and I tell them that Jesus can fix that.”
When people think of teachers evangelizing in schools, they often think it must take place like secret church operations in foreign countries. However, teachers have much more freedom than others would think.
Jeff tells a story of an instance where he was talking with a small group of quote-unquote-troubled-teens about Jesus. They were interested and engaged, but one girl piped up from the other side of the room.
“She said, ‘Um, Mr. Grasher, aren’t you guys supposed to not talk about, like, God in school?’” Jeff recounts. “And the kids were like, ‘Man, would you get outta here? There’s always one person in class who says something like that when this comes up.’ The kids responded, who cares? Let’s just talk about it.”
Kylie Grasher, Jeff’s wife and a former high school Spanish teacher, had similar experiences during her six years of teaching. During her time as a teacher, she was able to share the gospel with lots of students, and even study the Bible with some of them after receiving permission from parents.
She is reminded of one student in particular to whom she was able to minister. He had a friend Kylie studied the Bible with, and they invited him to join them.
“He came once or twice, and we were praying for his salvation, but he was still working through things,” Kylie says. “While I was teaching there, he didn’t get saved. But I kept praying for him. And in his senior year he started getting to know one of the girls from church, and she shared the gospel with him. He came to church, and Montana Rex led him to the Lord, and then he just sparked and is now serving the Lord faithfully.”
Kylie’s testimony highlights the power of prayer as a teacher. It also fights the notion that prayer has been taken out of schools.
CONTINUING IN PRAYER
Anybody who says prayer has been taken out of schools doesn’t pray.
“When the Supreme Court put an end to prayer in schools, they were putting an end to a formal, administrative-run, maybe even ceremonial act which honestly was a little absurd constitutionally,” Brandon says. “But people who say they took prayer out of schools don’t know anything about prayer. Anybody who says prayer has been taken out of schools doesn’t pray.”
Christians are commanded to pray without ceasing and make intercession for all men. This means that the Christian should never say they took prayer out of schools, as they should always be praying for their students. And when students are reached with the gospel, they can take up the torch of prayer as well.
“From my first day of teaching to my last day of teaching,” Kylie says, “I had a group of kids praying in my classroom before school started.”
And from their labor both in evangelism and in prayer, each of these teachers has seen lasting fruit.
REAPING THE HARVEST
You don’t always see the change you want, but they often pop up later.
Kylie has seen several of her students saved and plugged into church. Josh has seen students profess Christ and receive hope. Jeff is watching students he shared the gospel with move into the young adults class at Midtown and get discipled. Brandon can count at least 20 faithful people in his ministry whom he knew while they were in high school.
In five years, Jeff has taught 750 students. In ten, Brandon has taught around 2,700. Needless to say, the barrel is packed tight.
Brandon’s decade of teaching has resulted in many students of his going on to become faithful ministers of the gospel themselves. Several young men he was able to invite to Bible study, which led to them being discipled, and they now both lead Bible studies for other young adults. Several young women needed a father figure, and he was able to show them Christlike love and tell them that Jesus is the way; they now disciple others and abound in Christ’s love as well.
“Every person is different, so you have to treat them differently and meet them where they’re at,” Brandon says. “You don’t always see the change you want, but they often pop up later.”
Evangelism as a teacher isn’t different from evangelism at other jobs; however, there are significantly more people to invest in.
“People who choose desk jobs will have fewer opportunities, but that’s between them and God,” Brandon says. “Teaching increases your odds of finding faithful followers. It’s like planting a small garden versus a 40-acre farm.”
Recalling the UN’s statistic, try a 1 billion-acre farm. The fields truly are white to harvest, and it’s high time Christians step up to the task of teaching.
SENDING FORTH LABORERS
Teachers are trained and seasoned to lead people and teach people, to guide people and to counsel people, to minister to people
At Brandon’s school, there are about 170 employees. He says 20-30 of them are evangelical Christians, but few of them will ever open their mouths for the gospel at school.
“I don’t understand the way Christians think,” he says. “I sometimes check myself; am I biased? Possibly. But I also like the facts. The facts say these people are the ones who get saved. So why the heck aren’t we giving so much more of ourselves to them?”
There are thousands upon thousands of adolescents in America’s schools, and they need mission-minded teachers to bring them the light of Christ.
“They’re trying to figure out their whole lives,” Josh says. “They’re contemplating all these big questions for the first time, and the answers they receive are going to set in them by the time they’re young adults. It’s one of the most critical times of envisioning, training an individual on what is truth.”
Teachers are also specifically equipped to be able to preach the gospel, although they may not recognize it at first.
“Teachers are trained and seasoned to lead people and teach people, to guide people and to counsel people, to minister to people,” Jeff says. “You’re learning skills that translate from spiritual truths, like go make disciples.”
As a teacher, the Christian can then put those skills into practice in the lives of an ever-growing number of souls.
“Depending on your district, there are over 100 kids that are influenced by you in one way or another at least every week,” Jeff says. “I have almost 200 kids. They know me by name, and I know them by name, and I can speak into their life. And that’s a lot of people to potentially share the gospel with. It’s not the only career where you get that, but it’s one where you get very moldable, broken people that you can speak to.”
Melissa Wharton is a discipler and small group leader in Midtown Baptist Temple’s College and Young Adults ministry and is a member of Temple Worship.