Living Out the Great Commission Through Education

Reaching the Nations

At TeachBeyond we believe that the Great Commission gives us the foundation for our vision of reaching the nations through education. Jesus’ command involves discipling others as we carry the good news of the gospel around the world.

Whether it’s one-on-one tutoring with students, a classroom full of faces, or somewhere in between, educators are carrying the hope of Jesus into the hearts of children and their parents.

But perhaps one of the best ways to understand how this is happening is through stories. The following journey of stories is about real teachers, real students and real families who are gaining educational skills but also experiencing the transformational love of God.  

Literacy Gained Through Love

A child picks up a book. It’s difficult to read, so she sets it down angrily. Reading takes too much effort to enjoy the story in this book, much less learn from it. She thinks reading shouldn’t be this hard for a 12-year-old.  What follows that thought? Embarrassment. Hiding. Shame. Resistance.

At Fire Mountain Schools in Europe, Co-head of School, Sarah, began meeting with this 12-year-old girl, Nora*.

Despite feelings of shame, Sarah was able to convince Nora to take a reading assessment. Maybe she’ll try a little. Maybe she’ll purposefully try to have extra poor results because that’s all anyone has ever believed about her. Her poor results, though, aren’t swaying Sarah’s beliefs in her. Week after week, Sarah shows up with books and a belief in her abilities, and week after week reading becomes easier.

For Sarah, teaching is how she lives out the Great Commission, pointing every student she serves to Christ. While she often understands that her calling reaches beyond academics, it is moments like these with this 12-year-old girl that reminds her that love and care is truly what makes students flourish.

For Nora, improving her literacy skills has led her to becoming a transformed person. After 5 months with Sarah as her teacher, Nora not only improved her reading by nearly 3 grade levels, but she has traded her anger, shame, and combativeness for happiness, joy, and a spirit of cooperation.

Nora sets another book down, completed, with a smile on her face.

Confidence Gained Through Discipleship

At a school in West Asia, a teacher opens her book. She’s ready to begin her lesson to a room full of students, but her mind floods with memories of how she came to this moment.

Dana* used to begin every school day with tears. She lamented over what she had missed as a child and what her own sons were missing in their education. Through tears of frustration and overwhelm, she learned what planning and instruction looked like in a literacy-rich environment, focusing on the love of reading.

“Dana, one day there will be a day when you will put a toy and a book out in front of a student, and the student will reach for the book first,” she remembered her mentor saying to her one day as she struggled. Learning how to lesson plan where literacy is woven throughout every subject was a completely new experience for Dana. But she persevered to learn, and she believed her mentor’s words.

Now Dana stands in a new school, a teacher and a leader. She sees children running to books and the benefits it brings to their lives. But most of all she remembers her mentor as someone who invested in her, prayed with her, and gave her the training she needed to flourish not only as a teacher, but as a person. Dana carries that same mission with her now.

A gentle tear finds its way down her cheek as she closes her book and looks at the faces of the children ready for what’s next.

Compassion Gained Through Prayer

Throughout the classroom, hands reach into their desks to grab their books. It’s time for the class's daily Praises and Prayer time, and today, students are writing to their future selves. As students write, their letters reflect the impact that their daily prayer time has had.

The teachers at Rainforest Academy in East Asia began this daily Praises and Prayer time as a way to model prayer in the classroom. As students begin to write their letters, stories of how God answered their prayers begin to take shape on the page.

From the simple ask to have a good day to compassionate requests for God to heal sick friends and family members, students scribble down testimonies to God’s faithfulness.

As the teachers stroll through the room, reading what each student has written, they remember the discussions throughout the year that led them here. These letters are more than the cultivation of a deeper prayer life; they are a testimony to what happens when a school sees education as missions.

The students go about their day, pack up their books and head out into the community where their transformation makes further impact.

Community Gained Through Gathering

A stack of books sits off the side of a basketball court. The school day is over at Arbor Christian Academy in the Dominican Republic, but teacher Kat Goetz is continuing her ministry to kids outside the classroom and on the basketball court.

As families gather on the sideline, they watch as kids practice basketball skills like dribbling and layups. With each drill comes joy, laughter and encouragement, and suddenly the realization comes that these practice days have brought community.

One week some siblings join in, another week brings a cousin, soon neighborhood kids are asking to join. Parents gather on the sidelines to observe, but as time goes on, the simple observant crowd becomes a community gathering place. A place where moms share a conversation and younger siblings fellowship with their own play.

Woven through it all is a growing joy in helping students see how the discipline of sports can shape their spiritual lives. They are practicing repetition, perseverance, teamwork, and learning to care for their bodies, all in gratitude for what God has given them.

Kat ends practice with a prayer of thanks and praise to God, with the hope that as kids learn to give their best on the court, they will also learn to give their best to the Lord. As she picks up her books to head home, she does so with gratitude for the space the basketball court has become: a place to move, to play, to grow and to belong.

The Impact of Stories

Stories are a powerful thing. We use them to remember and share what happened. We use imagined ones to communicate values and lessons. But through these real-life stories, we get both outcomes.

These stories teach us about reaching the nations through education, and they also reach our hearts. Each story reminds us that the Great Commission is being carried out effectively by teachers, staff and families all around the world. May these stories and more like them encourage us in our own walks of faith to remember we are each a part of God’s kingdom story.

*Indicates name has been changed.