"YOU Can't Loose" - Coffee with the Campus Guru

I had coffee with Jeff Devoll this morning at Peet's coffee in Fairfield. Apparently coffee is the catalyst for all things youth ministry related.  I think all of my meetings with other youth ministry "professionals" (if you wanna use that term) have been at a coffee shop.

This guy has years of experience in the public school setting, and has dealt with literally hundreds of issues with principals denying Christian clubs on campus.  He tells me that most of the issues come out of a principal's desire to stay out of any kind of trouble in an effort to keep the peace on campus.  I agree with that for the most part having been a teacher - realizing the difficulties and challenges of being principal of any school.  He referred me to a letter from the Secretary of Education, who has every superintendent of every school district in the USA receiving federal dollars sign-off on a letter which states the following:


"..."[a]mong other things, students may read their Bibles or other
scriptures, say grace before meals, and pray or study religious materials with fellow
students during recess, the lunch hour, or other noninstructional time to the same extent
that they may engage in nonreligious activities." Public schools should not be hostile to
the religious rights of their students and their families...."

So, if after the presentation of the students to the principal, and after the calls from parents, the principal still doesn't respond, it can be appropriate to ask the school superintendent if the district wants to continue either receiving federal dollars, or close the school down.  Which is probably why Jeff bats 1000 - and has lawyers lined up for days who take cases like these pro-bono because they can't loose. Of course we don't want it getting to this point, but if this is what it takes for the club to move on (in the words of Principal Kahn), "so be it."

And as is customary, after chatting over coffee about this business, we changed a few topics and landed on missions.  Apparently Jeff has been taking kids south of the border for years to a small town called Vicente Guerrero.  They drive six hours into Baja and build homes in this small, under-resourced beach community; the perfect blend of work and leisure for young people to have a cheap, transformational time of missions.  We'll most definitely be joining him this summer.  And I'll keep you posted on the events at PVHS this week.