What is the Measure of a Christian School?

Abstract

For this lecture I was asked, as a school principal, to determine what measure or measures of success we have for Christian schools. We need to be cautious in considering this question. Measures such as performance indicators can be helpful and are indeed necessary, but they cannot measure the success or failure of a school from a Christian perspective. It is God who sets the agenda for what is successful in our world and He alone who determines a person's success. Churches and schools have different but complementary roles and I think this is often misunderstood. The Church must fulfil its role, but they are not in a position to measure the success of a Christian school, any more than a school is in a position to judge the success of the Church. We can try but there are limits. The measure of success in Christian education is about the quality of its relationships: between people, within schools, between the Church and the school, and between all of us as individuals and our God.