ARLINGTON—Schools at all levels welcome the help of concerned churches—if congregations take the proper approach, Superintendent Thomas Wallis of the Palestine Independent School District told Texas Baptist youth ministry workers.

Youth Mnistry Conclave particpants pray.

At a recent Palestine Head Start assembly recognizing the efforts of about 250 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds, Wallis said, the meeting leader asked the children’s fathers to raise their hands. Four men responded. The remaining adults in attendance either were guardians, mentors, volunteers or ministers.

Working to support children who otherwise would lack adult support is one way Christians can help schools, Wallis said during Youth Ministry Conclave, a Texas Baptist-sponsored event for youth workers and leaders.

Young people are looking for help, he stressed. They also are looking for something to belong to, as evidenced in the fact that roughly 772,500 of them nationwide belong to gangs.

Church can provide that help and that positive place to belong, Wallis said. Ministers regularly attend sporting events to support their students, but they also need to go to academic competitions, choir concerts and other extracurricular activities for their students. If ministers are seen regularly around students, school administrators will know the ministers truly care about students.

Participants worship at the Youth Ministry Conclave in Arlington.

Youth ministers also can train their students to look for their peers who eat by themselves or seem to lack friends, Wallis encouraged. Urge students to befriend these young people as Christ would.

“I challenge you to go to your schools, your administrators to make your gang—God’s gang—the cool group,” Wallis said.

In order to have this kind of impact, congregations and believers must be proactive, Wallis said. They need to meet the administrators of their local schools and discuss ways they can help and understand the boundaries of what administrators desire.

While students have freedom of religious expression, the exercise of it cannot interfere with school activities, Wallis noted. A circle of students praying in the hallway that prevents other students from getting by will not be tolerated. Youth ministers who show up with free pizzas at lunch and disrupt the school’s schedule or order will be asked to leave a campus.

But if students and ministers work within legal guidelines, they can have an impact on their campuses, Wallis said. And that aid will be appreciated. When administrators see church leaders as helpful on their campuses, they are more likely to turn to them in the case of a crisis such as a student death.

“We need help,” Wallis said.

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