Who Are We Called to Serve, and How Do We Serve Them Well?
If we are not prepared to truly serve a particular segment of students well, is it ethical to recruit and admit them? As Christian educators, we have a responsibility not only to welcome students but to provide them with the resources, support, and environment that will help them flourish. Accepting students without a clear plan to meet their needs risks falling short of the commitment we make to them and their families. To do right by the specific students we bring into our school means that we e are not just opening the doors of our schools to a group of students, but opening ourselves to the growth and changes we need to make in order to serve them with Christ-centered excellence.
This means that if we are going to serve a particular group of students, it is our calling to become worthy of serving them. That requires listening, learning, and then intentional, mission-aligned strategies that allow us to address their unique needs. Serving our audience well isn’t about doing everything for everyone; it’s about focusing on the groups we’re called to serve, crafting a plan that aligns with our school’s mission, enacting that plan, monitoring how it is going, and continually learning and improving. From years of watching great Christian schools do this kind of work, here are some of the effective strategies I’ve seen them use to serve their target audience in a way that is mission-aligned and a blessing to the students and families.
They Take Time to Understand Their Audience’s Core Needs and Goals
The first step in developing effective strategies is truly understanding the needs and goals of your target audience. Are your families seeking a strong academic foundation, a deep spiritual formation, or a supportive environment that addresses students’ individual needs? What are their joys, challenges, goals, and questions?
Spend time listening, learning, and gathering feedback from current families, prospective families, and even students. Surveys, focus groups, but especially lots of one-on-one conversations can reveal a lot about the challenges and goals of the families you are blessed to serve.
They Set Clear, Measurable Goals Aligned with Their Mission
Once you understand your audience’s needs, it’s time to set specific goals that align with both those needs and your school’s mission. These goals should be clear, measurable, and realistically achievable. Setting goals that are both mission-aligned and audience-focused will provide a roadmap for your strategies and help your team stay focused.
They Align Resources to Support Their Goals
Resource allocation is where vision meets reality. As noted in a prior article, we fund what we value. Once you’ve set your goals, ensure that you have the necessary resources to bring them to life. This includes financial resources, staff, time, and even physical space. It’s essential to be realistic about what’s achievable with the resources you have—and to adjust if necessary.
They Develop Targeted Programs and Initiatives
With your goals and resources in place, start developing specific programs or initiatives that directly address the specific needs of your target audience. Effective programs are usually focused, targeted, and designed to make a real impact. However, they are not necessarily massive endeavors. Sometimes small changes and initiatives can make a significant difference in demonstrating that you are actually listening, learning, and responding to those whom you are called to serve.
They Communicate Clearly and Consistently with Their Audience
A key element in serving your audience effectively is clear and consistent communication. Once you’ve established programs and strategies aligned with their needs, make sure families are aware of these efforts and understand how they benefit students. Regular updates, transparent reporting, and open channels for feedback help keep families engaged and trusting in your leadership. And as you are listening and learning, tell people what you are hearing. This allows you to check your understanding with them while also making it transparent that you are indeed listening.
They Regularly Evaluate and Adjust Their Approach
No strategy is perfect from the outset. Regular self-evaluation allows you to assess how well your initiatives serve your audience and adjust as needed. Create a schedule for evaluating key programs. Depending on the effort, it could be weekly, monthly, quarterly, at the end of each term, or annually. While some use formal evaluation tools, the effective schools that I’ve witnessed don’t necessarily do that, but they all have a near-obsession with seeking and learning from feedback. They want to know what is working and what is not. They want to better understand those whom they are striving to serve.
They Foster a Strong, Mission-Centered Culture
Serving your audience well goes beyond programs and resources. It involves creating a school culture that reflects your values and mission at every level. Students and families should feel that your school lives out its mission in every interaction, from the classroom to the playground to extracurricular activities—and they should feel like they are wanted, welcomed, and a valued and contributing part of the community. Again, that comes from caring enough to listen, really listen, learn, and respond to what you learn.
Mapping out strategies to serve your audience effectively isn’t a one-time task; it’s a journey of continuous learning and life together in a Christ-centered school community. By truly wanting to know those whom you are called to serve, learning about their lives and needs, and putting into place that which will bless them—you are embracing the joyous call that God gives us to love our neighbors.
Disclaimer: Do you use AI to write the articles on Substack? The ethical use of AI is an important topic. When new technologies emerge, they often evolve faster than our ability to make sense of the ethical implications. As such, I offer this disclaimer to provide a transparent picture of my own journey and approach. I’ve already made mistakes, even embarrassing ones, but I will strive to quickly learn from them and provide a transparent view of my present approach. As such, this disclaimer will be updated over time.
The full initial draft (in writing or as an audio dictation), words, and ideas for my Substack articles always come from me. From there, I often use AI for editing Substack articles. I regularly use Grammarly and/or Microsoft Word’s built-in Spellcheck or Grammar Check (both of which are a form of AI) to aid in proofreading and editing my work on Substack. In instances where I use AI for something other than background research or editing my original work, you can expect that I will cite or note it in the article.
I also regularly use DALL-E to generate the images for many articles. In addition, I sometimes use royalty free images. If credit is required by law, requested by the creator, or simply the courteous thing to do, you can expect to see the credits right below the image.
I continue to evolve in my experimentation with the use of ChatGPT, Grok, CoPilot (and various other ChatBot technologies) to serve as an editor for my Substack publications.
What does this mean? There are three common scenarios, though I hope to experiment with others in the future (and I will update this accordingly):
I write a full first draft in Word, Grammarly, or a word processor, and then submit it to the ChatBot, asking it to serve as an editor, akin to how I have one or more people edit almost anything that is published in my formal capacity. This is also similar to how editors review my manuscripts when they are submitted to a journal, newspaper, or book publisher. By the way, when I write for any of these partners, I never use AI beyond the basic spellcheck / grammar check available in Microsoft Word—not even to use and then cite it.
I record myself speaking on a topic and then place the recording in a ChatBot to transcribe, remove disfluencies, and provide a draft transcript that I can refine before publishing it. This is where I’ve made the most past mistakes. Because the ChatBot is transcribing, it adds its own grammatical interpretations and even takes liberty with sub-titles, organization, corrections, and adding clarifying language. As such, I’m still learning to use prompts that ensure my words, voice, style, and intent dominate—while also achieving a quality, personal, but streamlined approach to sharing ideas. Because this is an evolving practice for me, and also because it sometimes creates a final draft that can be flagged as AI-generated content, expect that when I use this approach, it will be noted at the beginning or end of the article.
I use ChatBots to conduct background research related to topics that I’m writing about, akin to an interactive and advanced search engine. If there are quotes or unique ideas that I include in the article, you can expect that I will give some sort of citation or in-text credit.