Reviving the Bible in Public Schools | Joel Penton

Transcript:

Matt Kane: The option of school choice has become more and more appealing to parents over the past decade. A recent survey showed 60 percent of parents searched for a new school for their child last year were 36 percent of them considering private or faith-based schools. Unfortunately, a main obstacle for parents is costs, which is why we’re happy to have Joel Penton with us today.

He’s the founder of LifeWise Academy, a non profit that provides Bible education to public school students. Joel, thanks for joining me today. To begin, I’d like to give you the floor to tell our listeners how LifeWise Academy is able to blend Christian learning into public schools.

Joel Penton: Yes. thank you for the opportunity.

As you mentioned, we do provide Bible education for public school students, and we do so during school hours. What few people realize is that in 1952, the Supreme court ruled that public school students can in fact be released from public school during school hours to receive. Religious instruction. If the program is off school property, privately funded, and students have parental permission.

And so our program LifeWise Academy provides the resources for communities to be able to set up a program that will come and pick kids up from school, take them off site, usually to a church, teach them a Bible lesson and bring them back to class. We coordinate the details with the school and parents and participating families don’t have to pay a dime.

Matt Kane: The separation of church and state has been a major topic of debate for decades, and liberals have certainly hijacked it to remove any meaningful mention of God from public schools. What has the resistance been like as you have brought LifeWise Academy to schools in 29 states and counting throughout the U.n so far?

Joel Penton: it’s been interesting. The first few years, we didn’t really see any resistance of any kind. even to this day, 90 percent of the time when we go to a school and meet with the administration and show them the benefits and, we get school approval, but it was, we have had in, the recent year, a growing number, a Growing opposition.

And I think it’s simply because our ministry really has been exploding. That it’s becoming much, much more popular. When parents find out they can do this, they get very excited. And for whatever reason, students now in much larger and larger numbers, simply having access to Bible education during school hours is, it’s for some reason, making some people nervous.

Matt Kane: And why do you think that is? the Christian faith is, even if, let’s say you’d speak with an atheist, there’s nothing about the Christian teaching that’s really detrimental to anybody, and it certainly hinges on free will, and that’s what amazes me about people or groups who resist any form of Christian teaching.

A lot of them cite a freedom of choice, and what they clearly miss is that, as I just mentioned, Christianity hinges on free will. The Christian faith in no way, shape, or form tells you. Likewise, like minded Christians to force people to become Christians against their own will. In fact, we know at the end of our lives, we’ll have chosen where we end up based on our choices.

So again, that all hinges on free will. When it comes to education, teaching about Christianity in public schools should be no different than teaching anything else. It’s educational. If anything, the Christian teachings will have a positive impact or no impact, but certainly not a negative one. So what do you, make of that?

Joel Penton: it’s hard to say. I think you could there, those who oppose what we’re doing would probably fall into a variety of categories. there are some that are frankly deceived into thinking that maybe there’s, something suspicious going on or something, and that they’re really just led astray.

But I think the most extreme, there are those who are simply contrary. To biblical values, those who do not like scripture, those who do not like the gospel message. And I will say that we are, be, we are very clear and bold with the gospel message. When we’re teaching kids about the Bible, we’re not simply teaching the Bible as history or as literature.

We are sharing the good news of Jesus, how he died for sin and rose from the dead and that for. Centuries has been an offensive message, and, 2000 years ago, they were killing Christians in the Coliseum for saying those types of things. And so we’re not too concerned if there’s some people writing some mean things about us on Facebook.

Matt Kane: Yeah, when you put it that way, perspective is everything. I want to talk a little bit about a study that was done by Thomas P. Miller that actually showed some behavioral statistics in students. Who partake in Bible education. I’m sure you’re familiar with that study. Can you tell us what you know about it?

Joel Penton: Yeah, that third party study showed that when a school implements, in fact they studied our program in particular. when a school implements LifeWise release time into their public school day, they immediately see Attendance increase, to the point that it actually, they see a net increase in students having class time, even though students are being pulled out for a small portion during the week to attend religious instruction.

They’re actually in school more simply because they’re showing up more for school, which is huge in a day where chronic absenteeism is a real issue, particularly post COVID. They also found that behavior improves that in school and out of school. Suspension numbers go down. And The schools are seeing an incredibly positive impact.

Matt Kane: And a question that I’m wondering is, obviously, if you speak with Christian minded people, Catholics, any other form of Christianity, I’m sure they’d be a bit more open, but how do you bridge the gap between people who How do you, maybe convince some other people who have, negative thoughts about what’s, what, you’re offering here?

How, do you work with them to try to make this?

Joel Penton: Yeah, we would take a few lines of reasoning. We would say, Hey, number one, do you want kids showing up for school more? If so, here’s a great way to see that. Hey, do you want kids to behave better when they’re in school? here’s a good reason. And we would also say, Hey, you know how a lot of families.

Frankly, are leaving public schools. They’re, looking for other options. this is a great way that, some of those families that want something more, that want this type of enrichment activity, that you can be attracting those kinds of students to your school. When we’re able, to have those conversations with administrators and they recognize, wow, there’s no cost.

This is simply added benefits, for our school that usually goes very well.

Matt Kane: What would you say is the driving force behind this public school exodus, or at least consideration of leaving? I know the last couple of years, for example, the Biden administration, things across the nation got pretty crazy with a lot of the DEI, LGBT, chaos and fixation.

But what do you equate that to? Is it, a combination of everything? Or do you think it’s people really trying to seek God as the driving force?

Joel Penton: I think it’s a variety of things. I do think there are some families that are concerned about what students are being taught. I think there’s some families that are concerned about what’s not being taught in schools, which is why our program is so attractive to so many families.

They simply want This kind of they’re a well-rounded education that would include biblical instruction. But I think on a broader level, we may just have an increase in a kind of personal responsibility of parents feeling like, Hey, I want to have a larger say in what my children are being taught and how my children are being taught.

I want to guide that. and so that’s why I think you see, kind of a. some jostling around of what parents are using. But again, I think that’s one of the reasons why we see such growing popularity in programs like ours.

Matt Kane: One last question before we let you go. LifeWise Academy is currently serving over 50, 000 students across 29 states.

What are the long-term goals in terms of numbers and anything else that you’re striving for and ultimately how will you achieve them?

Joel Penton: Yeah, great question. we’ve been almost shocked by the. How quickly we’ve grown. We when we started, our goal was to serve 25 schools by 2025. Here we are in 2025, having 20 X that goal and serving over 500 schools.

We recognize that there are 13, 000 school districts nationwide. there are. 90, 000 public school buildings. There’s 50 million public school students. And the last few years has taught us that we believe there’s a viable path to reinstall Bible education and make Bible education available to every single one.

but the way that it’s going to happen is local communities, local community members stepping up. It’s, doing the simple work of getting to our website, adding your name to the local community interest list, raising your hand saying, we want this in our community. And it’s local people that form steering committees and volunteer in classrooms to make sure that their local students have Bible education.

Matt Kane: I think the religious landscape in our country is closely tied to the political landscape as well. And I think these last four years of chaos combined with this election we just had in November has certainly created an opening for God to really take a more prominent role back in our society. So, I’m excited to see what happens with that.

And again, these last four years, God and Christianity were mocked and challenged openly. Under the Biden administration and certainly displayed how important the role. of Christ is in our society. So we’re definitely pulling for LifeWise Academy to continue to grow and bring people to him. Tell our listeners where they can find you guys on social media or any other important online channels.

Joel Penton: Yes, thank you. the best way to learn more is to get to our website, LifeWise. org. That’s L I F E W I S E dot org. And you can learn all about the program, but most importantly don’t leave before you Find your local school. You can look up any school district in the nation. You can see if there’s a local movement underway.

You can, as I mentioned, add your name to the community interest list and you can get engaged because this really is possible coast to coast.

Matt Kane: We’ll be sure to direct our members there and to all of our listeners, as always, be sure to like and subscribe so that you don’t miss any of AMAC’s great content.

I’m Matt Kane, Until next time. Thanks, Joel.