As children, families, and educators settle into the rhythm of another school year, I’m noticing the “back-to-school” season looks a bit different than it did when I was kid or even during the decade I spent advocating around education policy.
Homeschooling has seemingly become the fastest-growing educational model in America, with more than 2 million additional homeschooled students in the US compared to 2012. The trend has been partly fueled by Black families, who showed the most dramatic increase in homeschooling during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the pandemic, thousands of microschools have also emerged nationwide, boosting their number to nearly 125,000. About a quarter of these small schools offer some type of faith-based education, and the vast majority are serving families at—or below—the average income for their areas.
In my own life, a friend who pastors a predominantly Black church recently opened a school to accommodate a surge of families who have joined his congregation in Florida. And with a new federal policy establishing the nation’s first-ever school-choice tax credit, many congregations are likely contemplating similar plans.
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How we educate our children—and who gets the power to shape their minds—is a hot-button topic that often creates fissures along ideological lines. But the fact that churches—particularly Black churches—are once again innovating in this area is good news worth celebrating. Personally, I’ve spent so much of my life pushing for much-needed reforms in my own city of Chicago and the country at large. However, I’m favoring these changes not just for that reason. In the Bible and much of Christian history, education has always been essential for formation.
We see this across the Old Testament, from the Lord’s instructions to parents to impress his commandments upon their children (Deut. 6:1–6) to the patterns of the Levites scattered among the tribes as teachers (Deut. 33:10; 2 Chron. 17:7–9; Neh. 8:7–8) to the emphasis on study in the synagogue system that emerged from the Babylonian exile. In the Gospels, Christ embraces the title of teacher, and in the Epistles, Paul says church leaders must be “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:9).
But the Bible celebrates more than just religious education. In Moses’ account of the construction of the tabernacle, Bezalel and Oholiab have “wisdom” because of their mastery of metallurgy and craftsmanship (Ex. 31:3). The biblical writers assume knowledge of agriculture, astronomy, poetry, and commerce. In Psalm 19, David says, “The heavens declare the glory of God” (v. 1), and his theological insight about the Creator rests upon careful observation of the natural order. The fear of the Lord is indeed the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:7), and wisdom then leads us to pursue knowledge of the entire creation.
To carry on the best of biblical and church tradition around education, Christians need not be reactive or defensive. I believe our approach to education should transcend—and stand apart from—battles over curricula and teaching methods. Instead of having constant partisan bickering, local churches need a vision of education that forms disciples capable of navigating complexity, engaging differences, and transforming culture. Christian alternatives to secular schools are good. So is seeking the best way to teach children to read and the best books for them to encounter and debate. But more than that, we need to recover a view of schooling, particularly Christian education, as a sacred vocation.
No matter the institutional context or pedagogical model, education (for better or worse) is always tied to a kind of formation. We cannot spend time training the minds of children without simultaneously shaping their souls. Most readers know this is why so many Christian parents are particularly wary of secular schools and some even go as far as actively opposing all public education. To be clear, I’m not a fan of that approach. Public school remains the most practical option for many families, and there are lots of teachers, students, and administrators in non-Christian schools performing good works and radiating the love of Christ to those around them.
But each municipality, school, and student is different and requires a tailored approach, which in many cases can make faith-based education the right response. When those moments come up, local churches and believers should, in my view, unashamedly create spaces for students to learn despite sneers on the topic from the wider culture.
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It’s been particularly exciting for me to see some Black churches getting more involved in this area and reclaiming a legacy that almost feels lost. After the abolition of slavery, a schoolhouse movement sprang up among formerly enslaved people across the American South. The movement owed a great debt to the Black church, which operated behind the scenes as an invisible institution as its adherents were in chains. When their bondage ended, thousands of emancipated people rose up like an “exceeding great army” and began “clothing themselves with intelligence,” a government inspector wrote at the time.
What the inspector witnessed was not just an educational movement; it was faith in action. Formerly enslaved people understood intuitively what their oppressors had tried to suppress: Literacy and learning were inseparable from liberation. The Black church didn’t just support these schools; it birthed, funded, and staffed them. Churches became classrooms, pastors became teachers, and offering plates funded textbooks alongside ministry.
Some would categorize initiatives like this as mere charity work, but they’re not. Forming citizens of God’s kingdom requires developing their full capacity as humans created in his image. And that call is not unique to the Black church. The Sunday school movement, for example, emerged from the same theological impulse. What began as an effort to educate poor children who were working long hours in factories became a revolutionary force for literacy and biblical discipleship. The church got involved not because it had a lot of resources but because it had theological clarity about human dignity and the role education plays in affirming it.
These days, we face not just academic underperformance and ideological battles over private and public schooling but also a crisis of discipleship in our churches. Our children navigate a digital ecosystem designed to fragment attention and monetize anxiety. They inherit a world where trust in meaning-making institutions is eroding, leaving them to construct identity from the debris of social media algorithms and a consumerist culture.
In the face of these challenges, local churches should not retreat from educational endeavors. If we do, we would be cheating families and communities out of an educational approach that integrates the fullness of human identity—an approach that sees each child as fearfully and wonderfully made, destined for both earthly purpose and eternal significance.
The growth of faith-based microschools, homeschooling, and new church-affiliated schools are seeds for a needed renewal. The pastor opening a school for families in his congregation is not just providing an educational option; they (along with many microschools) are creating an ecosystem where faith, learning, and community reinforce each other. And despite how they’re portrayed, many who choose to homeschool are not retreating from public life but rather reclaiming the family’s central role in training the minds and hearts of their little ones.
Our children are already being formed. The only question is whether the church will reclaim its role in that formation, bringing the fullness of our theological tradition to bear on the educational challenges of our time. History suggests we’ve done this before. Faith demands we do it again.
Chris Butler is a pastor in Chicago and the director of Christian civic formation at the Center for Christianity & Public Life. He is also the co-author of Compassion & Conviction: The And Campaign’s Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement.
