I have a very diverse schooling background. Two years of home schooling. 5 years of public school spent at three different schools. 5 years of private Christian school spent in two different schools. Then college - 3 years spent at a public college and 2 years spent at a Christian University. That’s a lot of change for someone that never moved (except when I moved away for college).

If I didn’t see it all then I was probably pretty close. I had a lot of different experiences growing up but the one thing that stuck out the most to me about Christian schools was their rules. Rules about things that don’t matter. Rules for the sake instilling discipline and training young people how to act. Guess how well it worked? It didn’t. Never once. No one benefited from the rules. I can say that so confidently because I know how my classmates reacted once the rules were gone. And for those who didn’t rebel later in life they were already on track without “the rules.”

Christian schools would do well to have less rules and more influence over their students. I’m no expert on the studies and statistics. This is just my opinion based on my wide range of experience over a 15 year span. Rules at Christian schools don’t help, they hurt.

The rules I’m talking about are any rules that you don’t find at a public school. These are the rules in place to achieve some so called higher Christian standard. When we have too many rules children and young adults begin to associate the rules with their faith. We should fight hard to keep legalism away from the experience of our kids.

My classmates and I would have been much better off if we would have had Godly teachers and administrators that were there to teach us and influence us. No one is going to learn how to live by a set of rules. Those rules will not prepare our kids for their real world experiences they will have later. I hope that there will be more Christian schools that want to teach concepts and help kids understand the ways of Christ and why His ways are so good. Not just make kids follow rules for the sake of the rules.

Unnecessary rules don’t help, they hurt.