The Big Shift: Addressing 5 New Realities
“The Big Shift” is a series of articles about the changes many churches with school ministries are experiencing as they move from a historical model to an outreach model. If you haven’t read the first article in the series, you can do so here.
The first article of this series addressed the “The Big Shift,” the reality that many churches have shifted from a historical model to an outreach model for their school ministries. Here’s what that shift looks like in terms of mission, audience, goals, and focus:
Neither model is right or wrong, but rather a choice a church makes about the purpose of its school. Both models have ministry possibilities and opportunities, however, in order to run effectively and productively, a church must choose a model and operate accordingly to its realities. Many schools are experiencing issues because they are actively using their schools for outreach while still operating within a historical model. If a school desires to use their school for outreach effectively, there are at least FIVE major realities that must be addressed.
5 Realities to Address When Shifting from a Historical Model to an Outreach Model
1. Program
In the historical model, schools existed to share the Gospel and serve the needs of the congregation. It was easy to identify these needs because the board members and administrators who ran the school were well-connected to and familiar with the needs of their fellow congregational members.
In the outreach model, the school seeks to serve not just congregational needs, but COMMUNITY needs, as well. Board members and leadership must move beyond serving the needs of their fellow (and familiar) congregational members to serving a set of needs beyond themselves.
Ministries may struggle in two ways in this area:
Focusing solely on the needs of the congregation while IGNORING community needs…yet expecting that community members will enroll.
GUESSING about the needs of the community instead of proactively studying area educational options and gathering feedback from the community about their needs (this can be accomplished through focus groups, research, surveys, and interviews).
TAKEAWAY: To use a school for outreach, a ministry must study, research, and consider community needs and adjust its program to meet those needs. Note: this NEVER means compromising a school’s Gospel mission or God’s Word, rather, choosing to serve needs that align with a ministry’s values, purpose, and vision. There are community needs that schools choose NOT to meet.
2. Financial Plan
The historical model utilizes the following financial model: the offerings of the congregation pay for most, if not all, the education of its students. In many congregations for many years, the generous offerings of its members paid nearly 100% of the cost of education for its member families. What an incredible gift some congregations have given to generations of children and their families!
This financial plan works under the assumption that member families and congregational members give offerings toward the work of the school. Together, they cover the cost of education. With rising costs of education and the desire for other arms of church ministry to have resources, some parochial schools charge tuition to cover the cost of education. All in all, the church subsizes a great deal of the school’s costs in the historical model.
When a church desires to reach non-member families, the historical model faces a financial reality: non-member families do not usually contribute offerings to the church unless they become members. To overcome this reality, many churches have set-up “non-member” tuition.
Here are some common financial challenges ministries face in this area:
The Trap of Cheap Tuition: When the Blueprint Team helps faith-based schools conduct an area school study, our team commonly finds that ministries are charging below or far below the average tuition in its area. This is usually due to the desire to “keep tuition affordable and doors open” for families, however, this extremely affordable tuition often causes strain on both the school and church ministry. It is incredibly difficult for a school to provide a desirable and excellent education on a shoestring budget. And when a school requires most or all of a church’s resources, a church may not have adequate resources for other areas of ministry: outreach, discipleship, member care, programming, and/or mission efforts.
Not Setting a Proactive Church Subsidy: In too many ministries, the school sets a number for tuition and the church simply makes up a deficit of whatever is left over (Cost of Education - Tuition = Church Subsidy). This means that each year, the church has a unpredictable budget. In an outreach model, a better solution may be to put the weight on tuition so that the church has a predictable subsidy for its ministry planning (Cost of Education - Church Subsidy = Tuition).
Takeaway: Financial Planning must be PROACTIVE and REALISTIC in an outreach model to ensure the church has predictable resources for its other ministry arms.
3. Communication
Because the historical model has an internal audience, communications and marketing were very easy and inexpensive. Enrollment was advertised through bulletins and church announcements or through direct invitations through emails and phone calls of the church directory. Zero cost, low effort, very simple.
In an outreach model, the audience is much larger and much more difficult to reach because it is EXTERNAL! Reaching community families requires proactive marketing, and proactive marketing requires a strategy, plan, team effort, and financial resources. Instead of internal communications handling enrollment, external marketing must come into play.
Takeaway: A school that wants to reach community members must invest in building a marketing strategy, executing it consistently through a plan, and committing time and finances to its efforts.
4. Team
Now that you’ve reached reality number four, perhaps you are sensing a pattern: the outreach model requires more WORK! When a ministry expands a school’s purpose from discipleship of member children to BOTH discipleship AND outreach to children and their families, it expands the work of its team. And when a school diversifies its enrollment from member families to BOTH member families AND the community, this also increases training, planning, differentiating, and accommodating on the part of educators to serve an increased and varied set of needs in the classroom.
Teachers in an outreach model are typically doing one or more of the following:
Serving more children as the school grows.
Serving a more diverse classroom: varying backgrounds, cultures, educational foundations, social/emotional/academic needs, and religious upbringings.
Carrying out expanded duties outside the classroom such as marketing, program development, community events, and relationship-building with new families as the school seeks to carry out an outreach model.
Takeaway: The Outreach Model requires more bandwidth. Period.
5. Connection
In the historical model, connection happened quite naturally. It was easy to connect the school to the church because the school WAS the church…it was composed of all member families!
A common issue in ministries that operate growing, outreach schools is a feeling of disconnection between church and school.
This reality is the most concerning because it affects the core mission of ministry (the connection of people to the Gospel) and the very unity of the ministry (church and school working together toward a common purpose). The next article in The Big Shift series will dive further into this idea of connection, specifically answering the question: How do we build bridges of connection in our church-school ministries?
TAKEAWAY: Connection in an outreach model requires attention, investment, planning, unity, shared purpose, and proactive effort.
What’s Next?
Take time with your team to discuss The Five Realities in this article. If your church seeks to use your school as an arm of outreach, which realities has it addressed? Which ones has it not fully addressed…or not addressed at all?
And stay tuned for the next article in the series: Building Bridges of Connection!
Blueprint Schools helps educational teams build thriving organizations so they can focus on supporting students, providing excellence in education, and sharing their Gospel mission with families. For more information on our services, schedule a consultation. We’ll listen to your ministry’s unique mission, model, and needs, as well as answers questions about how our team might help your ministry overcome its challenges, take on new opportunities, and thrive.
