From the President’s Desk
Dr. Ken Smitherman, President of ACSI, (Retired 2009)
Even if Christian schooling were viewed as essential by all Christians, there exists a brutal reality: Today, Christian schooling is an option that is generally available only to the affluent. We as Christian school leaders must diligently pursue ways of changing this reality. We will need to rethink some long-held positions on school choice and vouchers—a rethinking that may very well challenge our deeply ingrained notions about risk.
Risk may call us to serve student populations that in the past we have not considered serving while at the same time challenging us to consider using resources we have strongly resisted using—maybe even public funds. Does Christian schooling have a responsibility to the underparented, the special-needs student, children from non-Christian families, children with social or emotional challenges, or children of cultural and ethnic backgrounds that might be viewed as different?
Pursuit of some of these new risk areas will challenge our current thinking about Christian schooling. Some, we hope, will be willing to encounter the resulting risk. Christian school leaders bent on pursuing all that God wants them to may very well find themselves in areas they once vowed they would never go—where the risk was simply too high. I believe we may be called to battles we would rather not engage in. But I would unabashedly challenge us all: Going where God leads and pursuing His ends may very well result in accomplishments far outstripping our often-too-modest hopes.
—Taken from a speech delivered at ACSI’s 25th anniversary banquet, July 2003
The Meantime Volume 8 Number 2