Daily faithfulness in the classroom

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, October 2nd.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Up next, the teachers of future leaders.

Christian conservative Charlie Kirk became a Christian at an early age. Here he is on CBN not long before his assassination:

HOST: When did you accept Christ?

KIRK: Fifth grade at Christian Heritage Academy. I remember it. I mean, I was kind of, I heard a hot Gospel. And so I realized the stakes in fifth grade. I was like, ‘oh my goodness! I’m a sinner, I’m selfish, I’m broken,’ and only thanks to Jesus’ perfect sacrifice coming and living a perfect life that I get something that I do not earn but has been given to me, this free gift of eternal life.

REICHARD: Cindy Weber was Charlie’s fifth grade teacher. She thinks of him simply as “my sweet Charlie.” And she taught at Christian Heritage Academy near Chicago for 18 years. My own kids attended that same school at that time.

Her classroom? A daily laboratory for the Christian faith.

A place where prayer, science, math… all subjects pointed to the Creator.

I visited with her in her home in the Chicago suburbs last week. Her heart now is for mentoring other teachers.

WEBER: So whether it was intentionally making sure that someone felt seen if I felt like they were not easily making friends, just trying to even like having an inside joke with each of the students or the class as a whole. So let’s translate that now to faith in Christ.

That intentionality structured her week. Monday prayers for missionaries, reminding students they also were missionaries. Tuesday prayers for government leaders. Wednesday prayers for their school. Thursday prayers for gratitude.

WEBER: …and then Fridays we prayed for unsaved family members and unsaved friends. And so that topic was always an open opportunity for me to ask my students: And what does it mean to be saved? And I heard this saying from a pastor, a local pastor, one time like—and this analogy falls apart quickly if you look into it too deeply. But for the fifth graders, it would always make them laugh, and it would make them kind of, there was like a little light bulb that would go off: walking into a garage no more makes you a car than walking into a church makes you a Christian.

Later in her career, she added response cards for the students. That allowed the children to privately mark whether they’d accepted Christ, rededicated their lives, or still had questions. It created opportunities for Spirit-led discussions.

But her Gospel teaching wasn’t formulaic. She borrows a phrase from a book that called forming faith in children “the mundane, the miraculous, and the mysterious.” That resonated with her own life in the classroom, including the one young Charlie Kirk was in.

WEBER: They were talking about the forming of faith in children, the formation of faith and he broke it down to being there’s the mundane—like the daily intentionality of going through what seems like the motions, of not growing weary of doing well by trying to talk to a child’s heart, trying always to point to Jesus in all the subjects that we’re talking about. Every student in my class, heard that same—whatever information Charlie heard. Everyone else heard that information too. And there could be others who came to know the Lord that year too. I don't know of them, but, but there was the miraculous that you know, the Holy Spirit tugged on Charlie's heart, opened his eyes, removed the veil, and he finally saw and understood. And then there's the mysterious, like we don't know when and why and how exactly it's going to happen when faith is forming in a child.

Faithfulness includes shaping character. When unkindness showed up between students, Mrs. Weber would address their hearts, not merely their behavior.

WEBER: Just to bring it down to a heart issue: what you are doing to another person is making them feel this way, and what does that say about the condition of your heart?

But with the child who is being bullied, I found it helpful and powerful to give them opportunities to lead and to serve. And the term I had heard was social equity—give them social equity—helping, doing things with me in the classroom, just trying to show I value this person, and help the other children. Let that speak to their heart.

Into that environment stepped a boy with big glasses and even bigger ideas. Mrs. Weber remembers Charlie Kirk as focused and bright, respectful in class, who always handed his work in on time and who was a leader on the playground.

WEBER: Every recess I don’t remember a recess where this wasn’t true, he would organize a football game, and he was always the quarterback, and everybody was invited and included. And that is how he spent his recesses. He was very much a leader, very much his own person.

She laughs to recall that Charlie Kirk could be described as an “athletic nerd,” equally at home analyzing ideas as he was in calling plays in sports.

She doesn’t really know the precise moment of Charlie Kirk’s conversion to Christ. But years later she heard him credit that fifth grade year for it.

WEBER:It was only the Holy Spirit and I just happened to be there. And I happened to be there, being intentional, and I happen to be there trying to point the kids to Jesus every day, like thousands of other Christian educators.

And her influence went beyond the one who became famous. Former students still call her, decades later. One came back to talk even after choosing a lifestyle not aligned with the faith. The teacher welcomed her former student with the same steady, solid love as she always had.

WEBER: I had to constantly remind myself not to grow weary of doing good. And so don’t squash these precious children. Don’t squash them. Let them be who God created them to be, but help mold them to behave in a way that’s appropriate to not distract the other peers around them. But help them grow in the strengths.

Mrs. Weber told me that is the core of her advice to teachers: Be ready before the bell rings. Build a bond with each child. Bring Scripture into every subject.

After all, God’s fingerprints really are everywhere you look.

WEBER: More important than best practices in teaching is making sure that God is present in all of your teaching. Like if we just learn only about math but we don’t know God’s connection to math? If we learn only about science and how the world works but we don’t understand God’s connection to that then I feel like it’s futile.

God is a God of order. He created the earth in a very orderly way, very specific things on certain days. And math is very orderly. And we see God’s character in math, and we see God’s creativity in science.

Now that Charlie Kirk is gone, Mrs. Weber thinks about his worldwide influence, recalls the massive memorial service that lifted up the name of Jesus.

She is amazed. But she isn’t surprised.

WEBER: My sweet Charlie. (slight chuckle) He was my sweet Charlie. Yeah, yeah.

From the mundane to the world stage, Cindy Weber’s fifth-grade classroom became the seed bed for a future leader, and for countless other children loved by their Creator.

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