Before the 21st century, Christian communities frequently talked about the image of the 3-legged stool. This stool was a figurative representative of three important aspects of a child's life: a Christian home, Christian church, and Christian school. The strength of this 3-legged stool was found when these three entities were all stable and equally working together, especially in faith formation.
Today, that 3 legged stool is quite wobbly. The negative image is still an accurate one. When one leg of the stool is cracked, broken, or non-existent, the stability suffers ... in fact, the other two stable legs must do quite a lot of work to provide stability. When one of the legs is significantly more prominent, the stool is also put out of balance.
This is a biblical concept that comes from, among other passages, Ecclesiastes 4:12: "A cord of three strands is not quickly broken." Strength and stability is found in threes. In fact, we are created in the image of God, and structurally, that image is a trinity (Balswick, King, Reimer 2016 The Reciprocating Self). We are created to function best and to flourish in threes. Our home relationships are designed to be father, mother, child. Practically, especially for teenagers, parenting is difficult, and parents need all the help we can get ... thus, we need help from our church and our school. Parenting within a community, especially for faith formation, is also covenantal. Most churches, both ones that practice infant baptism or infant dedication, have a question for the church members asking them to assist in the raising of this child. Most parents need that promised help (I know that I did/still do).
Faithful Christian parents and faith communities have for generations leaned into this trinitarian model. Parents partnered with their local church and with the Christian school in their community to help raise godly and God-fearing children. The 3-legged stool (or the cord of three strands) brought stability and strength to faith formation.This typically looked like parents leading family devotions around the dinner table each night, attending church twice on Sunday and once during the week, and attending Christian school. Each of these three areas were directed by the parents at home. Parents enrolling and sacrificing financially to pay for Christian education; parents requiring church attendance and encouraging attention (through peppermints or pinched ears); parents leading devotions at nightly dinner time by reading scripture or going through a catechism, discussing during free time the sermon from church and Bible lessons in school.
Each of the legs goes through times of weakness, but that is when relying on the strength of the other legs is essential. One example is during the teenage years: the parent to teenager relationship often is strained during the teenage years, cracks become apparent in that leg ... and that is when it is important to have a youth pastor or Christian teacher or coach to provide some extra stability.
Times have changed and our very important stool has become more wobbly over the years.
Both Pew and Barna have provided research on the decline of church attendance in the 21st century; this has been exasperated during and after Covid ... families just have not returned to church. Compound low church attendance with a growing instability in the home (38% of Christians are divorced, 2021), and anecdotally, most of us can attest to the difficulty of finding time for family devotions. With the church and home legs weaker, the Christian school for some students may be the only stable leg of the stool.
While I am writing from the perspective of a Christian school administrator proposing ways to strengthen the other legs of the stool, the Christian school leg is not always stable or even present in a student's faith formation. Some Christian schools are growing in enrollment, but sometimes this is not accompanied by a strong Christian culture among students or staff which can cause an unstable leg. Also, Christian schools are becoming more financially exclusive, so more Christian families are selecting homeschooling. Regardless of your view on homeschooling, for this discussion, it does remove one of the traditional legs of the stool. I acknowledge, some Christian schools are not stable legs of faith formation, and that is something that we need to continue to strengthen.
Is the 3-Legged Stool Still Important?
In Chap Clark and Kara Powell's insightful book, Sticky Faith (2011), they identify a number of "legs" that help young people grow in their faith. Sticky Faith promotes young people have meaningful spiritual relationships with adults. Their research claims that teenagers need 5 spiritual mentors speaking into their lives for a stable faith formation. Yes, esssentially they are adding 5 "legs" to that stool. I encourage you to read the book and check out the resources from the Fuller Youth Institute linked above.
So how can a Christian school help stabilize the 3-Legged Stool? Here are just a few examples:
Stronger Church Partnerships
- Encouraging church attendance among students and families. Talk about the importance of church attendance throughout the admissions process and in school newsletters. Teachers can spend Monday morning asking/sharing about what everyone learned at church.
- Create a church directory of all the churches represented in your school; include a school family who can act as a liaison for other families searching for a church home.
- Encourage youth group activities for their students. Invite youth pastors, promote local church youth events, allow churches to use school facilities, promote an "invite a friend to youth group" campaign.
- Partner creatively with churches for financial assistance for church families (that used to be expected in past generations). Focus on accessibility for church families who want to attend your school.
- Connect with churches to serve in the community together. Teenagers, especially, can serve in the church and through the church ministries.
Stronger Faith Formation at Home
- Provide resources for age appropriate family devotions (especially for teenagers).
- Add "talk about your faith" homework assignments to encourage faith conversations.
- Reduce homework load and school activities, so families can have time together or time to attend church activities. If there is a common mid-week church night, respect that with school scheduling.
- Bring in speakers who are experts in faith formation or host a panel discussion with "expert" parents in your school family.
- Create a parent book club and read Sticky Faith or another book on faith formation.
- Should a school have a chaplain and run "church" services during the school day?
- Should a school run a "youth group" at school?
- Does the school provide extensive before- and after-school care until evening, including devotions or "Sunday school" lessons?
- Does the school need to provide a meals (especially breakfasts and dinners) to strengthen that aspect of home, with structure of meal prayer times?
Asking more questions than providing answers with this blog, but feeling the need to "stabilize the stool" in regards to faith formation.
