It’s an exciting time to be in Christian education. Before 2020, Christian schools saw enrollment decline, and many schools across the country closed. Today, Christian schools are experiencing unparalleled growth, resulting in admissions waitlists, new building projects, and the opening of new schools across the country.
Amidst the growth, we at Summit have been encouraged by the conversations with educators. First-year teachers, new-to-Christian-school teachers, veteran teachers, and leaders alike are all looking for support in capitalizing on this unique season. They’re all asking,
How can we educate in a way that helps students build a lasting faith?
Though the answer to this question is multifaceted, there is a practical tool and framework that doesn’t require expensive tools or a rework of classroom plans. As a matter of fact, you can use it tomorrow.
Using the Big Story Behind All Learning
Regardless of age, all students constantly face major challenges and questions that demand answers. From pre-k to 12th grade, students are grappling with important questions like:
- Why is there suffering and sadness?
- What is my purpose?
- What does it mean to be human?
- Is there hope for the future?
Culture is “teaching” your students how to see, interpret, and engage with the world by providing answers to these questions. YouTube, social media, universities, and friends are all shaping their worldview.
As Christian educators, we can find peace and hope because we know that, although students are presented with faulty worldviews, a biblical worldview offers something uniquely powerful: a coherent, true story of everything.
This story is the story of God’s good design. It outlines his plan for mankind and the created world and answers those big life questions students are wrestling with. This story, sometimes called God’s big story, or the biblical metanarrative, unfolds in four chapters:
- Creation (Ought) – We see God’s good design in the first few chapters of Genesis– how things ought to be. His original design was for all of creation to flourish.
- Fall (Is) – Sin entered the world when Adam and Eve chose self-rule over God’s good rule. Sin separated man from God, introducing sin and brokenness into the world. Eden is no longer, and we can all recognize that something is wrong with the world we live in.
- Redemption (Can) – Ultimately, Jesus came to restore a right relationship between God and man and to begin restoring all things in creation to himself. His death, burial, and resurrection answered the question of what can be done? Though we are not agents of salvation, as image-bearers and co-rulers, we are called to push back against sin and find ways we can counter the effects of the fall.
- Restoration (Will) – Because of Christ’s redemptive work, we know where things are headed. One day, a new heaven and earth will be a reality. Sin will be defeated, and right relationships will be restored between man and God, others, and the new creation.
Everything we study finds its meaning within this story. When Christian educators frame all learning within this framework, they push back against the pervasive two-story view of reality that so many inadvertently adopt. This view of life relegates God and spiritual things to Bible class, chapel, and other “spiritual” times. But as Christians, we fight back and live the truth of Colossians 1:17. If “God is before all things and in him all things hold together,” that must also include every subject and aspect of school life.
Why This Matters in Every Classroom
Every competing worldview tells a version of this story. The question is not whether our students are living within a story but which story is shaping them.
Christian educators have a golden opportunity to help students see, interpret, and engage with the world from within the true biblical story.
When that happens, truth is no longer fragmented, and every subject becomes an environment for knowing and loving God more.
If the biblical story does not shape students’ thinking, something else will. The classroom becomes a critical space where students learn to discern between competing stories and recognize the True Story.
Practical Application
One of the most practical tools for educators is translating the four chapters into four guiding questions that can be asked of any subject or topic:
- Ought – What is the good design here?
- Is – What is broken or distorted?
- Can – How can this be restored or pushed towards the original good design?
- Will – What is the ultimate hope or future?
This framework can be applied to any subject, grade level, or lesson. Here are a few illustrations:
Creation – Every subject reveals something about how God designed the world.
- Science: When teaching ecosystems, highlight order, interdependence, and purpose to reveal God’s wisdom and design.
- Literature: During any story or novel, explore themes of beauty, justice, and human longing. Determine what the author is suggesting ought to be.
The Fall – Students already sense that the world is not as it should be. Biblical worldview teaching gives them language for that reality.
- History: Discuss injustice, war, and corruption not just as isolated events or merely the results of the choices of individual people, but as evidence of humanity’s brokenness.
- Literature (especially dystopian works): Help students recognize distorted visions of “utopia” as examples of human self-rule gone wrong.
- Science: Acknowledge natural disasters, disease, and decay as part of a groaning creation.
Redemption – Students are not just observers of the world—they are participants in God’s restoring work.
- World Language Classes: Learning another language becomes an act of restoring the connection between people divided at Babel.
- STEM: Innovation becomes a way to solve real problems and serve others.
- The Arts: Creativity reflects God’s image and pushes back against brokenness with beauty and truth.
Restoration – Without a vision for the future, students either fall into despair or false optimism. The biblical story offers a different ending: all things will be made new.
- Many Subjects: Have students trace a “restoration thread” through a unit, identifying moments when justice, reconciliation, or human dignity broke through the darkness.
- Science: Frame scientific work as participating in God’s restoring purposes—bringing order, healing, and stewardship—while recognizing its limits.
- History: Lead students in analyzing the future visions of historical leaders. Ask, “How did this leader’s vision of the ideal future guide his or her choices and plans?”
Teaching from a biblical worldview is not about forcing connections—it’s about revealing and exploring what is already true. When the biblical worldview takes hold, it transforms at the deepest level. It should influence how students see knowledge, understand who they are, and engage with the world around them.
That is what makes Christian education so exciting. Teachers have an opportunity to make the ultimate difference in students’ lives by not just informing their minds, but by forming their worldview.