Suppose you are on campus visiting some of your Cru students when a teacher stops you and takes you to the principal’s office. Do you know your legal rights and freedoms? Is this teacher infringing on those?
Or what if you are a high school junior who wants to start a Cru club at your school, but the school board tells you that all clubs must be curriculum-related and denies your request. As a high school student, do you have any legal rights and freedoms that the school board is denying you?
These are both real-life situations that actually happened at one school!
It is not easy to know what you can and cannot do on a high school campus when it comes to issues of faith. High schools are not spiritually off limits; however, there are some limits to campus ministry and who can do what. Knowing these limits will help you effectively reach the campus without damaging relationships or creating deep divisions.
Students Have Protected Freedoms
In the United States, students have amazing rights and freedoms to express their faith as defined in the First Amendment of the Constitution and the Equal Access Act. To briefly summarize: these laws allow for meetings during non-curriculum time that are voluntary, student-led, and student-initiated, with non-students not directing, controlling, conducting, or regularly attending.
Public school students have the right to express their religious beliefs in public school under the First Amendment right of free speech. “Congress shall make no law … abridging (diminishing) the freedom of speech.” The law is well settled that religious speech, even prayer, is protected free speech under the First Amendment.
Here are ten specific examples of the freedoms students have:
- Pray, read their Bible, and talk about their faith.
- Lead prayer or Cru clubs and announce these opportunities.
- Express their faith through classwork and homework.
- Share their faith (as long as it does not disturb instructional time).
- Express their faith at school events and graduation ceremonies.
- Wear clothing or jewelry that expresses their faith.
- Share literature about their faith.
- Celebrate Christian holidays.
- Meet with administrators about Cru or other Christian clubs.
- Opt out of activities or class content that contradicts their faith.
Teachers also have protected freedoms. For more information about those freedoms, check out A Teacher’s Guide to Religion in the Public Schools.
Student Groups
Remember the high school junior who wanted to start a Christian club? Cru leaders met this confident, friendly girl, and soon she got involved in the local Cru ministry. Cru was not an on-campus club at her school, and all the local gatherings took place off campus. At the start of her junior year, she had a desire and vision to start a Christian club that would meet on campus at her school.
However, when she went to the school principal, she found out the school board had added an additional requirement for all clubs and groups. It stated they would only allow curriculum-related groups whose “function is to enhance the participants’ educational experience and supplement the course materials [at school].”
The student strongly believed the school board was wrong to deny her the rights given by the Equal Access Act. So she started to push back against the school board.
After several meetings with the school board, a few news media interviews, and some perseverance by this young lady, the policy was changed.
In the process, however, the school board and leadership were publicly portrayed as “the bad guy.” This created a strained relationship between the school and the new student groups that began to spring up. While the policy was changed, it unfortunately created a difficult atmosphere surrounding what should have been an exciting opportunity.
If you are a high school student whose legal rights and freedoms to express your faith are being denied, you get to choose how you will step out in faith. Whatever choice you make, remember your rights and freedoms are important, but they neither limit nor enable the spread of the gospel. God is the one who changes hearts, not the law.
There are many examples of Christians who have seen God move in amazing ways under authorities who work directly against them. We can read about God moving this way in many places throughout the book of Acts in the Bible, and He is still doing this in many places around the world today.
Students on a high school campus have some amazing freedoms to live out their faith.
Adults Who Want to Help
Students themselves have amazing freedoms, but many of us reading this are not high school students. We are caring adults who want to minister to high school students. I am one of those caring adults, and as a Cru leader I was taken to the principal’s office twice in the same week and I had no legal rights to which I could turn.
I was visiting students at school when a teacher I had not met saw me walk into the lunchroom. She looked at me suspiciously and started to walk toward me. I could tell she was going to ask me who I was and what I was doing. After a series of questions it was clear to me that she was not pleased to see me visiting students at her school. She led me to the principal’s office, but he was not in, so I was asked to leave.
Later that week I was back at the school and that same teacher saw me, pointed at me, and marched me right to the principal’s office. This time he was in, so she explained why she brought me into his office. Then he asked me to tell my side of the story.
I had previously met with this principal several times. He knew who I was and all about the work we do with students. After I told him what I was doing at the school and the unfriendly teacher had left, he apologized for the misunderstanding and asked me to try to avoid that teacher if I could.
Because I am not a student or school staff, they would have been within their rights to kick me out, maybe even permanently. However, when we cannot rely on legal freedoms, we turn to building relationships in the school with trust and faithfulness. The principal has the authority to grant me access to the campus and my relationship with him was key in keeping that access.
When opposition surfaces (and it will), we must have the credibility and good reputation that says we are reliable, trustworthy adults. We are people who will do what is best for the school and what is best for students.
Your rights and freedoms are important, but they neither limit nor enable the spread of the gospel. God is the one who changes hearts, not the law.
Building Trust
Starting a ministry at your school is like building a foundation made of several blocks. Your foundation includes prayer, dependence on God’s Spirit, and evangelism–but that is not all. One important block of the foundation will be building trust with key leaders on the campus. This will create opportunities to make a difference at the school.
We have personally seen some amazing things happen for the Lord on high school campuses:
- A varsity baseball coach sat down with one of his players in the middle of practice and told him how God loves him and that He was there for him.
- A vice principal was talking with a student who was failing several classes and found out the student had a home life that was in crisis. The vice principal stopped and asked the student how they could pray for his family.
- A Cru leader, who volunteers each week as a math tutor, had a student ask a spiritual question during a tutoring session. For the next 20 minutes, the tutoring session was transformed into a short Bible study to answer the student’s questions.
In each of these cases, it was a deep well of relational trust, rather than specific legal rights, that allowed these caring adults to proclaim Christ on the campus.
Leading With Respect
In this perspective of campus ministry, we depend on consistency and care for others, rather than legal rights, to open doors on campus. Our example is Christ, who had all the rights and authority in the universe, yet in many situations He set His rights aside to change hearts and meet people where they were.
Once you are on campus, begin to build a resume of trust. Treat the leaders of the school with respect, even if they do not always respect you. By leading with respect, we show the school’s leaders that we care deeply. Once again, this should sound a lot like what Jesus taught.
The apostle Paul also chose to appeal to a relationship rather than rights. In Philemon 1:8-9 Paul asked Philemon to show kindness to Onesimus as a brother in Christ when he said, “That is why I am boldly asking a favor of you. I could demand it in the name of Christ because it is the right thing for you to do. But because of our love, I prefer simply to ask you. Consider this as a request from me- Paul, an old man and now also a prisoner for the sake of Christ Jesus.”
As you reach out to your local campus, ask God to open up relational doors with leaders and students at that school. It may not be easy. There could even be conflicts and disagreements, but we believe that reaching students is worth the effort.
