How can an overtly evangelistic program like Mission Generation’s School Chaplain Program be legal in countries throughout South America when it’s illegal in the United States? Well, using legality to explain is not the best way to explain why some countries allow the Gospel in public school and others do not.
Latin American countries are as secular as the U.S. in regard to religion in public schools. They have roughly the same percentage of the citizenry claiming to be Christian. Similar to the U.S., Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries also have older statutes allowing and even promoting Biblical education, ethics, and morals, which are currently considered obsolete. In addition,
Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries are left of the political/social norm in the U.S.
Communist and Socialist governments shun Christianity because their propogandist endeavor is to inspire “faith” in the government. With very few exceptions, the national and regional governments in the countries where we work are NOT in favor of open evangelism, prayer, and Bible study in their public schools. The school chaplain program faces constant resistance. The ministry has been sued over 40 times. The founder, Rocky Malloy, has even been indicted on federal charges in Bolivia for bringing the Gospel to public schools and yet, the School Chaplain Program continues to grow and is stronger than ever!
The reason why the School Chaplain Program has been allowed in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries has more to do with deployment strategy than with the law. The strategy is to facilitate grassroots implementation of the School Chaplain Program and expose the community to the benefits of having God in school on a large scale. Testimonies from teachers, school administrators, parents, and pastors are posted on social media with the contact information of the people giving the testimony as well as that of the ministry.
Viewing these social media posts, other parents and education professionals contact either those who testified or the ministry. Most people contact the program directly. When they do, they are encouraged to sign up for the free training classes and become spiritual school counselors (chaplains). Education officials and parents want children to be safe from gangs, free from drugs and alcohol, avoid the catastrophic impacts of teen pregnancy, and graduate with purpose and destiny. Mission Generation’s program accomplishes all of these goals and more by integrating Jesus-centered, Bible-based programs into education.
Operating under the adage, “forgiveness is better than permission,” the ministry trains evangelical teachers to be spiritual counselors without any governmental permission or approval. By the time State or Federal authorities learn about the program, it is already in place and transforming lives. Threats and lawsuits to stop the program have never worked because once the parents see the difference in their children, there is no turning back. This is why rapid and large-scale deployment is critical to success which is facilitated by the ministry’s strategic philosophy.
Public hearings have been held in some cases, but the government has failed to make its case in every instance. Parents ask two simple questions that have defeated the government’s position every time:
- If you remove Mission Generation’s program, what will you replace it with?
- What guarantee can you give us that the replacement program will have the same results as Mission Generation’s program?
Up until now, no government program has come close to matching Mission Generation’s Gospel outcomes. As a matter of fact, Mission Generation’s program has displaced programs that have cost governments millions of dollars. The following three statistics alone have crushed the government’s objections to the Gospel in school. Jesus is the answer.
- Teen pregnancies are reduced by up to 85%.
- Drop-out rates are down by up to 45%.
- Graduation rates are up to 37%.
The far-left nation of Venezuela is a remarkable case in point, considering the repressive restrictions and limitations on communication in that country. A single teacher learned of our program and spread the news. By the time the government found out that Jesus was being taught in their public schools, there were over 400 schools fully engaged! The fire was too big to stomp out. A nation with a dire shortage of teachers took no action other than veiled threats to curtail operations.
Why not bring the SCP to the United States?
A crucial difference between Spanish and Portuguese nations and the U.S. is that in Latin countries, the local communities have greater control over their school districts. This is primarily due to how schools are funded. Although Spanish and Portuguese central governments are more leftist than the U.S., independent school districts are not threatened by lawsuits brought by nongovernmental organizations originating from outside the school district. That kind of aggressive liberal legal action does not exist in these Latin American countries.
This is not the case in the U.S. If a conservative, Jesus-loving independent school district in the U.S. were to implement the School Chaplain Program, forces from outside of the community would spare no expense to remove it. U.S. schools are sued regularly by organizations outside their communities for displaying any vestige of faith, references to the Bible, or prayers in the name of Jesus. Thus, a different strategy for the U.S. must be development.
The school chaplain program needs to be strategically reengineered before being deployed in the U.S. An example of a potential model comes from Stockton, California where a group of volunteer police chaplains serve as school chaplains. The program has been running for several years and is very successful. Evidently, the security benefits of having uniformed police officers in schools outweighs the political negatives of their spiritual activities. Police chaplains are not commissioned officers. They have a badge and a police radio, but no weapons. They wear insignias similar to those of military chaplains.
Cooperative efforts with different police chaplain organizations in the U.S. are progressing in order to certify volunteer police chaplains for service in U.S. public schools. Deployment could be as early as 2023.