CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) AND SCSBC’S RESPONSE: Find the lastest updates here for students, faculty and staff.
CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) AND SCSBC’S RESPONSE: Find the lastest updates here for students, faculty and staff.
Seeing our schools mature into their second and third generation is a blessing. Timothy Christian School celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and Vancouver Christian School its 75th. These milestones and the maturing of our schools present a vital reminder for school leaders and board members to reflect on our institutions’ founding mission and vision and gauge our faithfulness to those founding ideas. Inspired by the thinking and writing of my friend and Christian Schools Australia leader, Darren Iselin, this article will review some of the factors necessary to avoid mission drift.
There are plenty of books and articles that document the risks of Christian education institutions drifting away from their core vision into some weaker form of Christian secularism (Benne, 2001; Burthchaell, 1998; Dosen, 2001; Harris, 1993; Hull, 2003; Marsden 1994; Wagner, 1990). What is less documented and less common but still concerning is the mission drift of Christian institutions toward hardline Christian fundamentalism. Both a drift to the “left” and a drift to the “right” are examples of Christian schools that have forgotten their founding vision and have not worked to maintain their position as core to the purposes and practices of the school.
Organizational theorist Schein (2004) identifies three phases of an institution’s Story: the founding or pioneering phase, the midlife phase, and the maturing (or possibly declining) phase. In the founding or pioneering phase, the founders’ vision is the raison d’etre for the organization, and the people involved fully live out that purpose in all aspects of the school. Everything that happens is fully aligned with that core vision.
Furthermore, this clarity of vision and purpose often draws others in as a compelling and purposeful movement. Often these founders have absolute clarity on the “why” of the school, and that clarity sets them and their school apart from those around them. They take risks, invest highly in time, talents, and treasures, and sacrifice greatly for the sake of the school. As Iselin (2009) notes, this phase of a school’s Story is often accompanied by stories of God’s sovereignty and His profound provision. This founding phase is often defined by a corporate sense of a deep conviction of God’s calling and a concurrent willingness to pursue that calling even against what might seem at the time as overwhelming odds. These founding stories often take place in the opposite direction of the culture in which they exist and, therefore, display a strong bent toward conviction, creativity, and faithfulness to God’s call above and beyond all.
In the midlife or institutional phase, there is often significant leadership succession at both the head of school and board level and a movement toward redefining the founders’ core values. In this phase, the school develops its institutional identity. This is where the school solidifies its core values or begins to drift. Schools that solidify their core values intentionally develop practices, habits, routines, and rituals that draw them back time and again to the founding vision of the school. This includes the telling and retelling of the founding narrative and creating artefacts (art, displays, symbols, logos, etc.) that remind everyone of the school’s vision. The school leaders must then put weight and meaning to these stories and artefacts, thereby ensuring the core founding vision becomes central to the school’s culture. I think of the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) wherein God calls His people to speak His commandments constantly to their children to ensure the true Story of God and His people is passed on from generation to generation.
On the opposite side of schools that institutionalize their founding vision are schools that begin to institutionalize a “new” identity. As our schools mature, grow in size, and gain resources, they often experience success in varying fields (enrolment, academics, athletics, and the arts). This success can slowly come to define the school rather than being a by-product of the core vision. The school then becomes known for its program success, and those programs then begin to colonize the founding vision, competing for time and attention. Schools in this phase often see themselves with intentions to grow and extend the original vision. That focus on institutional growth then begins to become part of the core purpose, and with that comes the temptation to compromise core values to increase enrolment and strengthen programs.
In the maturity and potential decline phase (note: decline here refers to vision and not enrolment!), the school becomes more bureaucratic, systemized, and efficient, all potentially stifling the living out of the school’s founding vision in fresh and counter-cultural ways. Schools in this phase tend to institutionalize the risks that developed in the midlife phase. “Growth as purpose” and “program success as core ideology” have now become, consciously or subconsciously, the filters through which decisions are sifted – schools in decline lock in their systems and bureaucracy around non-core ideology. Things like fundraising, enrolment growth, athletic success, school rankings, etc., now become the stories, artefacts, and symbols of “faithfulness” and take up significant space in the school’s spoken and written media. Let me be clear: all these components in a school are good things! However, they are not the central vision; they only serve under the school’s core founding purpose.
Contrary to what we might think, the movement toward secularization does not often occur with some significant event but slowly, with a drift in focus and attention toward what might be good for the school but not essential to its calling. As our schools charge tuition and compete with other schools as an option for parents, we need to be mindful of the pressures the market puts on us and ensure we stand strong in our convictions rather than bending under the pressures of economic growth. This bending can be seen when worry arises about our Christian convictions’ impact on enrolment.
Schools that have matured well in this phase institutionalize the work done in the midlife phase, remembering their founding stories. They take the stories, artefacts, and symbols representing the core vision and make them filters through which programs are approved and supported, success is defined, and all decisions are sifted. Flourishing schools in this phase are explicit in their distinctiveness and core values, which are tied to the founding vision!
How, then, does this maturing come to be? Leaders and board members are key. They are tasked with ensuring mission fidelity and mission sustainability. Let me suggest a list of guiding questions that I believe will help leaders and board members ensure such mission fidelity:
May our schools be found to be faithful to their founding visions of raising up children to love and serve God and work for the good of the Kingdom! I would love to discuss the ideas on this list and how SCSBC might help support your school strengthen its focus.
Dave Loewen
SCSBC Executive Director
