I vividly remember driving north one early morning on the 57 Freeway (yes, in California, we say “the”), transitioning from Orange to Los Angeles County. During my commute, as I prayed over my day, a deep desire began to stir within my heart—a desire for more of God’s Kingdom to become evident at my school. God had used me in the past, but I wanted more. 

So, I asked, “Lord, what would you have me do today?” 

I tried to ask with greater faith than I truly felt. 

His response was immediate and clear, though not audible. He whispered into my heart, “Pray for your principal.” 

Honestly, I was terrified by this instruction. My principal and I weren’t close, and she was a no-nonsense leader without a significant faith background that I could discern. 

On any other day, I might have dismissed this as just a passing idea or avoided following through out of fear. But on this day, I was determined. I had seen enough miracles in my life to no longer doubt God was real—and that He wanted to work through me in supernatural ways. 

So during my prep period in the late morning, I pushed through the fear and stepped into my principal’s office, awkwardly saying that I felt the Lord wanted me to pray for her. After I asked if she needed prayer for anything specific, she paused for quite a long time—so long that I began mentally freshening up my resume! She finally broke the silence by sharing a profound struggle with one of her children. She was facing maybe the most difficult crisis a parent can face, and she was doing it largely alone. As I joined in her grief through prayer, God met her in a powerful way, and our relationship was never the same. 

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What would it look like for Christian educators all over the nation to ask the Lord every day on their way to school, “Lord, what do you want me to do today?” And then be willing to step into the adventure of obedience? 

Since leaving the teaching profession to serve on staff with Christian Educators, I have rubbed shoulders with hundreds of educators who have served—and continue to serve—as powerful ambassadors for Christ in public schools. These are just a few of them that I know personally:

• Andrea led a Good News Club at her California school, where over 75 students heard the gospel each week.
• Christal, a Texas principal, is creating a culture of love and gratitude across her entire school, enabling her staff to discover and walk in their unique God-given identities.
• Terry, a Kentucky middle school educator, dramatically stopped a school shooting by listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
• Morgan, another Kentucky middle school educator, prevented a suicide by trusting the whisper of God to help her discover hidden, encoded text in a student’s digital assignment. 
• Sarah, a Washington elementary school teacher, has learned to look forward to the “difficult” students being placed in her class because she learned to trust in God’s redemptive power at work through her.
• April, a California elementary school teacher, watched God raise up a prayer team of former “bad boys” in her second-grade class, who took it upon themselves to lay hands on and pray over students experiencing behavioral or emotional challenges. 
• Deb, a California principal, has repeatedly experienced God’s supernatural healing power as she has prayed for staff with medical conditions.

Do these educators have superpowers? Are they unusually gifted or anointed? Has God favored them? The answer is yes. Let me explain…later.

But first, do you know how many followers of Christ serve as public school educators? How many can you count at your school? George Barna has estimated that nearly half of all public school educators identify as Christians, saying their faith is important to them and they attend church at least once a month. 

However, I don’t buy it. I place this data in the same category as the statistic that there are over 2.5 billion Christians on the planet. Don’t you think that our world and our schools would look and feel different if these numbers were real? Why aren’t we having more of an impact? 

The fact is that all of us struggle here, including myself. The temptation to prioritize safety, comfort, and success over seeking first the Kingdom is strong, especially in our nation. The American Dream celebrates self-reliance over dependence on the Holy Spirit. If we’re honest, many of us spend more time and money helping our children earn college scholarships than we do discipling them to be world-changing Christ followers. 

Yet despite the shiny exterior, the American Dream is rooted in poverty. Prioritizing success through self-reliance starts from the view that I am responsible for meeting my own needs. Even when we succeed financially, we often end up poor in spirit, lacking in relationships, and missing joy. In this way, the American Dream is antithetical to the life that is available to us. 

When we remain in a state of self-reliance, we miss out on the joy of seeing God work more powerfully in our lives. We miss out on the adventure of taking a risk to obey the leading of the Holy Spirit and seeing God come through. We miss out on the love of the Father being poured out in us and through us onto others. We miss out on the peace that comes from a place of deep trust in Jesus after watching Him be faithful over and over again. And we miss out on the wonder of seeing God provide for us in miraculous ways. 

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt 6:33, NIV). If I could “translate” what Jesus is saying here to Americans in the 21st century, I think it would sound like: “Stop trying to achieve the American Dream. Surrender your life to Me, and make My priorities your priorities. I have all the resources of the universe at My disposal to meet your needs, and I love to bless you. Relax and let Me lead you. Trust Me to write your story better than you can.”

There it is. That is the superpower, the anointing, and the favor of those ambassadors God is using on the earth to advance His Kingdom. 

The truth is, our schools (and our world) are in desperate need of educators who will step out in faith to seek first His Kingdom, willing to surrender their reputations, their comfort, and even their career goals, to follow Him where He leads. But please understand: no one does this perfectly. All of us are works in progress, often taking baby steps toward a more complete surrender. His mercies are new every morning. 

During the AWAKE Experience, a one-day mini-retreat for educators offered by Christian Educators, we focus on the passage in Scripture where the “ambassador” metaphor originates: 2 Corinthians 5. In verse 20, Paul declares that, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” 

Paul builds up to that statement starting in verse 11, stating, “Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others.” So, to walk as an ambassador for Christ, we start with knowing the fear of the Lord, and through these 10 verses, Paul continues to add ingredients to the mix of what it means to be an ambassador for Christ. While I don’t consider the following list to be exhaustive, we can certainly use these truths to help us grow in various aspects of representing Jesus in our schools…and everywhere He leads.

Ambassadors for Christ…

1. Walk in the fear of the Lord (vs. 11): While the fear of the Lord is a complex idea, it is helpful to contrast it with the fear of man. Whose judgment are we most concerned about? Who are we trying to please?
2. Willingly risk their reputations for Jesus (vs. 13): Paul indicates that some accused him and his fellow Christians of being “out of our minds.” Are we willing to endure criticism from colleagues, students, parents, or administrators for legally walking out our faith?
3. Are compelled by Christ’s love (vs. 14): Paul reminds us that Christ died for everyone. Are we spending the time daily to be in God’s presence and be filled by His Spirit to overflowing, so that our students and colleagues experience more of His love when they encounter us?
4. See others through God’s eyes (vs. 16): Paul states that as ambassadors, we no longer regard others “from a worldly point of view.” Do we critically judge our students and others rather than see them as made in God’s image and worthy of being sought out?
5. Show that they are a new creation (vs. 17): At the time we received Christ, we became new creations! But Paul reminds us in Romans 8:1–17 that we continue to walk in that identity by setting our minds on the things of the Spirit rather than the things of the flesh. Are we embracing our roles as new creations?
6. Carry out the ministry of reconciliation (vs. 18–20): Since God reconciled us to Himself through Christ, we can lead others to be reconciled with God through faith in Christ. Are we modeling the forgiveness of Jesus, who forgave those who didn’t deserve it? Are we forgiving those who falsely accuse us or in other ways make our job as educators more difficult than it needs to be?

You may be thinking, That’s a heavy load to carry; maybe I’m not cut out to be an ambassador. If so, you are in exactly the right place. The first step to being an ambassador for Christ at your school is to admit that you can’t do it and ask Him to help you. God loves prayers like that and is eager to answer them. The next step: ask Him to lead you, just like I did that morning while driving down the 57 Freeway.