Six Reasons Churches Must Reach Public Schools With The Gospel

The spiritual battle raging in our public schools has never been more clear. One need only visit their public school library, look at signs adorning the hallways, glance at the curriculum, or tune into Libs of Tik Tok, to be reminded of simple reality. The devil is out to destroy our youth.  

With the current state of the battle, it is no wonder that countless Christian leaders make the compelling case for getting kids out of government schools and for building better alternatives. In times of war, it is noble indeed for leaders to sound the alarm, shield our youth from the devil’s fiery arrows, and build bulwarks in which to raise the next generation of saints. 

But we dare not stop there. As someone who leads a ministry aimed at reaching young people in public schools with the message of the gospel, here are six reasons Christians should also have a bold plan to make a godly impact in our public education system. 

#1: If Satan has an agenda for your public school, so should you. We could talk all day about the way the CRT, DEI and LGBT agendas have infiltrated and reign supreme in public schools today. Furthermore, our students are also dealing with a rise of outright Satanism. 

Many students in our ministry have contended with this Satanic surge. Juliana walked into class one day to see her teacher – a self-professed Satanist – wearing a T-Shirt that said, “Satan Respects Your Pronouns.” Natalie faced a Satanist club that launched in retaliation to her Christian club. The same school administrators that confiscated her Bibles gave the Satanist club free reign on campus. When schools are saying no to Jesus and yes to Satan, we have a problem indeed. 

So, here’s the question for the church. The Rainbow Coalition has an agenda for your public school. The Satanic Temple has an agenda for your local school. Your local mosque likely has an agenda for your school. Do you?

#2: If students are perishing in spiritual death camps, let’s launch a rescue plan.  It is hard to even imagine what growing up today is like for young people who have no Christian background. They are bombarded with lies everywhere they turn whether online or all throughout the day on campus. They are perishing indeed and God commands us to rescue the perishing. 

If public schools are as bad as you say, then how good is your rescue plan? What are you doing to infiltrate behind enemy lines to seek and save the lost? With all the devil’s forces out to destroy our youth, we should do all we can to save them.

#3: If you don’t have an influence in your public school, a progressive church or ministry will. Your church is not the only church in town. Progressive churches abound and they are active in your community as are their people. If you don’t influence your school, the progressive church will. In fact, many already are.

We saw the impact of this last year when a courageous young lady named Esther wanted to reach her campus for Christ. Inspired by what she saw God doing with students in Decision Point at nearby schools, Esther wanted to lead an outreach at her school too. She joined the Christian club on her campus, only to realize that the club president and club advisor attended gay-affirming churches. When her stance for truth was to no avail, Esther concluded she had no choice but to step away. Churches who are standing strong need to step into the fight, because if bold young leaders like Esther have to quit a Christian club in order to be faithful to God, we’ve got a problem.  

#4: If God has young men and women still in the public schools, then we must help them stand strong and witness for Christ. While this has been a topic of significant discussion in recent years, one way or another, God does indeed still have many young men and women in public schools. We have a duty to help them to stand strong and fight. To those who give strong admonitions to get kids out of public schools, I would ask, “Is your plan to equip students who stay as strong as your calls to get kids to leave?” 

Students need to be ready to stand for Christ. This requires teaching them the truths of God’s Word clearly, especially in the areas of life, gender, and sexuality. Furthermore, merely knowing God’s truth is not enough. Young people who want to stand for Christ today must be ready to stand alone, and we must cultivate in them the conviction, courage and commitment to speaking the truth clearly, especially when it is costly. 

Students also need to be equipped to witness for Christ, to lead many to righteousness so they can shine like stars in the sky (Daniel 12:3). Students just trying to survive high school spiritually may make it out alive, but the ones who will thrive are the ones who are trained to be bold ambassadors for Christ.  

Though students have this great need, there is often a significant gap between that and what they receive. If you asked church leaders what their plan is to raise the youth in their church to be courageous witnesses for Christ, I imagine most  would not be satisfied with their own answer. This is a shame. Failing to prepare your young people to be courageous witnesses is to squander what some have called the most valuable resource on the planet: the radical zeal of youth. 

It does not have to be this way. 

Jin is a young man who goes to school in Cupertino, California in the heart of Silicon Valley. Last year, led large outreach events on campus and also mobilized dozens of students to personally share the gospel regularly on campus. He even shared the gospel personally with his principal and posted the video of their conversation on Instagram. Jin was a sophomore at the time. One of his club members was able to similarly witness to their Dean of Students.

How did this happen? Jin’s youth pastor, Pastor Paul Dube, has taken the lead to train students in his ministry to be bold evangelists. Because of Paul’s ministry, his students are now the front lines in nearly a dozen public schools in the San Francisco Bay. 

#5: Teenagers today are open and eager to hear the gospel. Young people have always been more receptive to the gospel than adults. They also spend most of their waking hours wandering the halls of their public schools. We have an opportunity to reach students where they spend most of their time at a moment in life when they are most open to the gospel. 

God is stirring the hearts of millions of young people across our land in a powerful way. We have been working with public schools outreach for decades, and all of our staff and colleagues in other youth ministries attest to the same reality:  teenagers are more open to and eager for the gospel than we’ve ever seen. They are still feeling the impacts of the global shutdown. They are tired of being lied to about reality. They are tired of living life with no purpose, no moral compass, and no hope. And they can sense the goodness of God’s truth whenever it is presented to them.

At the same time there is a spiritual battle seeking to destroy this generation and extinguish the light of the gospel in our land, and a famine for the Word of God.If we fail to proclaim the gospel to the next generation, we will have missed this moment. We will have failed to offer the hope of Jesus Christ to a generation at a time when they needed him the most. We will have failed to pass the faith to the next generation at a time when our nation was desperate for an awakening. 

#6: God is building a movement of young people boldly sharing the gospel in their public schools and bringing glimpses of an awakening. Students across the country are bringing the gospel to their public middle schools and high schools. They are witnessing on campus, giving out Bibles by the hundreds, leading weekly Bible studies, hosting large-scale outreaches in the gym or auditorium and inviting the whole school to hear the gospel. 

Our team just released this inside look at the movement we are seeing, which went fairly viral for our small YouTube channel, gathering 100,000+ views in a few days. I assure you that these students and stories are real. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what God is doing through each young person featured in this video and hundreds more like them around the nation.

Believers all over the world commented that this is an answer to their prayers for an awakening in our youth. 

I loved how one person replied on X. “Two things that are true: 1. The quality of the education at public schools has been poor and they've been largely captured by ideology. 2. This is a beautiful movement of bold and fruitful gospel witness in those schools. Praise God. May it spread far and wide.”

These two things are true indeed. So, let’s not miss the movement. Whatever advice we give people on public schools, let’s do all we can to rescue the perishing. And let’s mobilize a generation of young believers still in the schools to stand strong and proclaim the name of Christ.

No matter how dark the hour, Jesus is still mighty to save. And He is worth it.