Protective leaders in my congregation had wanted its school to remain 100% Lutheran, and now it is 100% dead. Such are the fruits of abject parochialism.

I was at my church’s special meeting in which leaders presented facts and figures showing how our Lutheran school was in critical condition financially. Months earlier, I had gotten acquainted with a Christian school that was thriving in another area with the zealous involvement of conservative Christians of various affiliations. The LCMS pastor I knew who had enrolled his own children there praised the school’s program highly for its Christian character and academic rigor.

In our area, Lutherans comprise a smaller proportion of the population than they do in the heartland. So upon hearing how dire our Lutheran school’s financial situation had become as the number of Lutheran-affiliated enrollees declined, I suggested that it might be worthwhile to explore reorganizing the school into a broadly supported Christian academy modeled after what was evidently working well elsewhere in our district.

The assembly, dominated by a couple of prominent voices, simply wouldn’t hear of it, and before the end of the meeting a large infusion of church funds was approved to keep the Lutheran school open. Yet it closed just a couple of years later, its Lutheran identity preserved to the bitter end.

The school had been operating in a densely populated suburban area — a ripe mission field. Were the children of our community well served by this outcome? Was the Church? The Gospel? Was God glorified?

Many Christian church bodies maintain a high view of the authority of Scripture, a trinitarian understanding of the nature of God, and the firm conviction that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. And in the feast to come we good Lutherans will be seated together with all other such believers, each heartily welcomed by the Lord. So perhaps more of us can come to the table with other Christians here, especially for the sake of the children?