“As lesser men cower in the face of the risk, the cost of standing up to the system becomes steeper and steeper. While you will not be locked up for saying the truth, yet, you will be demonized, stigmatized, and deplatformed. You may lose your job. The end result is America’s ability to get the course correction it desperately needs gets delayed. And at some point, if more people don’t stand up and fight hard, the nation is going to die. Having said that, we must inoculate ourselves against excessive, if fashionable, pessimism. The truth may not prevail. But until then, there’s a heartwarming amount of defiance left in this country.”
This quote comes from Mollie Hemingway, winner of the Bradley Prize, Federalist author, and Fox News contributor (quoted in this week’s Word from the Center-https://www.lcrlfreedom.org/). She’s also The Lutheran Schools Partnership VIP speaker for the fall of 2022. She is one of the voices who speaks against the immorality and injustice that daily threatens the freedom and liberty of this country- you and me included in those being threatened!
Demonized? Stigmatized? Deplatformed? ABSOLUTELY- and the attacks are happening in greater frequency. That’s why we need to celebrate glimmers of hope like the Supreme Court’s refusal to overturn Texas' new “heartbeat law.” As millions of babies have been killed for decades, one wonders if the greater plague to our nation (not the pandemic but abortion) may come to an end one day.
As each of our schools and churches consider the realities of attacks, we need to reacquaint ourselves to important documents we compiled back in 2017. Pastors, board members, principals and other leaders reviewed their mission and included statements of faith grounded in our founding documents hundreds of years ago. These documents stand the test of time and boldly address the foundations of church ministry, of which our schools are extensions of.
These documents also addressed our employment practices, job descriptions, facility policies, and admission policies. Assuring alignment with the beliefs of the church and school, statements of belief were written that became a resource for conversations about mission and ministry.
All of this was well and good. But it’s time to review. It’s time to check practices with statements of belief and policies. Refer back to Protecting Your Ministry (leaders, you can find it- I’m sure you can).
In the next months, many of our schools will do their self-study for upcoming accreditation. Along with the surveys, collecting evidence and determining action plans, it would be wise for leaders to be sure that our defenses are set and review their Protecting Your Ministry documents. These documents connect to various indicators in accreditation and are essential for confident leadership.
The reality is that even with these defenses, the attacks are going to come. It’s a diabolical world we live in. However, the Lord of the Church is still the Lord of the Church. As Christans, we are God’s prized possession. We can be confident of God’s promises and be confident of His grace in our lives.
