Primary Education: Integrating Faith and School

Marcio & Tia Sierra, pastors of Lighthouse Christian School in Madison, WI, sit down with John Terrill for a discussion on Christian primary education, their school & church, and how they have embraced faith and education together.

Learn about Marcio & Tia & Lighthouse School

Donate to their ministry: Lighthouse School Donations

With Faith in Mind is produced at Upper House in Madison, Wisconsin and hosted by Director of University Engagement Dan Hummel and Executive Director John Terrill. Jesse Koopman is the Executive Producer. Upper House is an initiative of the Stephen & Laurel Brown Foundation.

Please reach out to us with comments or questions at podcast@slbrownfoundation.org. We'd love to hear from you. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:03

Welcome to the With Faith in Mind podcast in our current series, Christian Education at the Crossroads. I'm one of the hosts, John Terrell, and I'm excited about today's conversation, where we invite a dynamic husband-wife, pastor, school, principal team to the show. Marcio and Tia, welcome to With Faith in Mind. Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Thank you.

SPEAKER_07 0:25

It is great to have you here. Let me just uh share a little bit about um Marcio and Tia. Um they've been married since 1999. As I um described, they're um they pastor a church and lead a school together. They serve as principal and senior pastor of the church and school. Um they're both graduates of UW Madison. Uh they serve, again, as I've noted, as teammates in their leadership. Um Marcio earned his Master of Divinity from Regent University, um, and Tia, a master of bilingual education from Edgewood College here in Madison. They make their home in Middleton. They're actually neighbors. They live in the adjacent neighborhood to me and my wife and family. Um, and they're the parents of a son, Marcio, and a daughter, Isabella.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_07 1:15

And um I I've come across, in fact, uh Marcio and I, as we record, we actually are skipping our rotary meeting. Um That's correct. So we're recording about midday, and um uh and both of us are involved in in rotary. But I come across uh the two of you often. You're just really um cherished leaders in our community. I know you've won lots of awards and recognition, and people are just grateful for your leadership. So thank you. Maybe another little sort of interesting piece of trivia about them is um it's actually trivia for me. Um Intervarsity, as some of our listeners will know, is based here in Madison. And Lighthouse Church and School occupy what used to be the National Service Center or headquarters for Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. So it was crazy to go in to your um building, I don't know, a few years ago and see what you've done to it. You've improved the place.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Yes, yes. We actually purchased the building in 2017. Um it's it's fun to bring people that used to work at Intervarsity and then come to the building and they're like, oh, that's where my office used to be, that's where I used to be, and now it's a very different thing.

SPEAKER_07 2:22

Yeah, well, the space is really dynamic. I mean, it was a dynamic space before, but it's it's really fun to see how you've how you've kind of reconfigured it and reimagined it. And so um well done on all of that. It's um I'm I'm so glad that the that that 6400 Schroeder Schrader Road, is that the 6402 Schrader Road. 6402. Okay. Um I'm glad that it's you know in your hands and and and been able to be used so well. I would love to to know how you first met. I wonder if you could just take take me into that story. Um did you meet at UW Madison or where is it Yeah, tell me the story.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

No, we actually met at uh West High School, just a couple miles from here.

SPEAKER_07 2:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

I was a senior and Marcio was a sophomore when we met, and we met at a party.

SPEAKER_07 3:06

That's right. Okay. And and Marcio, I know um uh T, I don't know, were you raised uh all the way from sort of birth in Madison?

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Were you I was I was born and raised uh just a couple miles from here um near the campus, and I was not raised as a Christian. Um I did attend the Catholic schools growing up, um, and I actually was not a Christian when Marcio and I met. And it was kind of a journey for me to come to know Jesus.

SPEAKER_07 3:36

Yeah, I imagine there's a story there. And Marcio, you came to to the United States. I'm from Honduras. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

I was born and raised in Honduras, and we moved um to Wisconsin because my father actually came to get his PhD at the University of Wisconsin. And that's uh I've never heard of Wisconsin before, I've never seen the snow before. Yeah, I don't think I even owned a jacket.

SPEAKER_07 3:54

Yeah, big change.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

And yeah, so we came here um and I started going to West High School. So I was learning English when I met Tia, and she was helping me with that, and she was learning Spanish. So I was helping her with that, and that's kind of how we became friends, and then now we're married with two children.

SPEAKER_07 4:11

Yeah, that's good. That's a great, great story. So the the relationship continued through the UW years. There was some overlap there. Yes. Um that it's great to hear that part of the story. Um okay, so let's let's jump a uh a little bit ahead. I I would love for you to paint a picture of the work and ministry of Lighthouse Um Church and Lighthouse Christian School. Um what is unique about the project? Um invite us in. Tell me, tell me a little bit about you know how it started and and um how you first got involved.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

So Lighthouse Church is a bilingual, international, multicultural church. Uh, all of our services are in English and Spanish with simultaneous translation. There's people in our church that don't speak English. There's people in our church that don't speak Spanish, and we're all together, you know, as one. Um, and the majority of the congregations are actually immigrants. We have a lot of immigrants from Latin America, Spanish-speaking countries. And we actually have many families from Africa as well. So it's very diverse. Uh, so we cater a lot to the Hispanic community, um, African American and African community. Uh, a lot of the members of Lighthouse, I would say, are um I call them hardworking, low-income families. And then in 2004, uh, we started a big ministry uh that is part of the church. Under the church, is we started a school.

SPEAKER_04 5:34

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Um, and we'll talk more about this, but the school serves about 60% of the students are uh Hispanic and about 30% African American, um, 100% low-income families as well. And we're part of the school choice program, Wisconsin School Choice Program here in Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_07 5:52

Yeah, I want to explore a little bit of that. I'm one of the reasons I'm so excited to talk to you is um, you know, we the series is titled Christian Education at the Crossroads. And a lot of our guests have represented the world of higher education, Christian higher education. But boy, there's so many facets to Christian education, right? You know, it takes place in the church, it takes place in primary and secondary schools, and to be able to bring a husband, wife, pastor, principal, team into the studio to have this conversation is really exciting because I think there are really unique dimensions that you experience in your work. Um so we want to get into that in a lot of ways. Um before we start to dive into that though, um you occupy the same building. Um, and so I'd love to know in what ways the ministry of the church and the work of the school located in the same building are either mutually reinforcing uh and helpful. And then, you know, are there so are there a couple of ways where the where the two um projects um collide a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Yeah, I would say when we first started, um it was a challenge for the church congregation um because we just kind of took over the building. Um, and so we had to start sharing space and it felt uncomfortable to the church because, you know, back then, so this is this is our 18th school year. So this was 18 years ago. I think um the church felt like church and school should be separate um because they're two different things, and why do we have to be involved in this? And so it took a long time for us to kind of teach the congregation that this is a ministry of the church. This this isn't separate from the church, this is the church. And so now the church understands that it's because of the school that we're able to have this bigger building and this nice space because we literally have a Sunday congregation and then we have a Monday through Friday congregation.

SPEAKER_07 7:52

And there's a lot of overlap or not so much overlap?

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Um, typically it starts out with not much overlap, and as new families come in, they often join the church. So uh it's hard to tell which happened first, church or school. Right. It's kind of both. People come to the church and then realize we have a school and say, let's enroll. And people come to the school and say, Oh, there's a church, let's come.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

Yeah, right, right, right. But I will say um since we started the school in 2004, a big percentage of the growth of Lighthouse Church membership is related to the school. Right. So we have a lot of families who came to the school, learn about the church, and now are part of of Lighthouse Church.

SPEAKER_07 8:34

Right. So mostly it's been, you know, some some issues of just kind of stumbling upon one another and and trying to figure out how to share space. But mostly it's been a positive to occupy the same same building, a lot of a lot of um kind of mutual support and um cross-fertilization, it sounds like. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Yes, we have to change the culture of Lighthouse. Like, like, like Tia said, at the beginning, there was the conflict of children's church ministry on Sunday saying that teachers on Monday took my pencils, and then the teacher saying children's church was using my chairs or they didn't live at the same. And there was a lot of talk about we are one. So Lighthouse has three core values, and one is unity, service, and equipping. And we realized that the school and the church were all about serving, we're all about uh being united, and we're all about equipping. So now I think we're a very good cohesive team. I mean, and like we say, we have our services on Sunday. Uh we have children's church. I actually call it children's church Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. until 4.30, 5.30 p.m. And really is is is one thing, and we're very well connected. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Yeah, and it's it's kind of the whole, you know, the church for years struggled with, you know, well, how do we get outside of the four walls and and bring the gospel to the city? And this was an amazing opportunity to bring the city into the four walls and bring the gospel to the city, um, which is what we've been doing ever since. So I think once uh church members realize just how gospel oriented it is, um, then they start to really feel proud that they get to be a part of something even if they only come on Sundays.

SPEAKER_07 10:15

Right, right. That's that's really helpful. Thank you. Um I would like to explore um your thoughts about Christian formation. Um and I I think you know it's so interesting to talk to you both wear the pastoral hat and then you're also leading this school. So um Tia, I wonder if we could start with you. When you think about formation and your role as the principal, um what is most important? Um, what is the you know, the the one or two things that are just essential for the kind of formation you want to see take place in the lives of kids?

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Yeah, so our um our philosophy and our motto and our value is our our goal is that every student would leave from Lighthouse knowing how much they're loved by God. Um that's kind of the basis of everything we do. Our motto is love God, love others, love yourself, which of course is um the great commandment. Um, and that's where we start. Um and we have a kind of a different approach to um formation in the sense that a lot of our families are not Christian. Um, we we accept anybody, and so we get families that have no experience with a church or with the Christian faith. And so we our philosophy is to have students experience the love of God and just trust that God will begin speaking to them what their value is, um, what what God's plan is for them. And so we don't do a lot of um kind of doctrinal teaching at our school. We it it's a lot more practical.

SPEAKER_04 11:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Um, like this week, we're gonna think about how to be kind to each other. And we read verses about that, and then we ask kids to practice that in the classroom, outside of the classroom, at home. And so kids really are just experiencing God's love um as they're growing up in Lighthouse.

SPEAKER_03 12:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

And um, we're just teaching them that, you know, God has this great plan and this desire to be in this relationship with them and help them to become successful in the future. And so that's kind of how we view formation.

SPEAKER_07 12:24

Yeah, that raises, oh, that's great. And it it it makes me want to be an elementary student again. Yeah. I know you do some really imaginative things with kids, helping them dream about their future. Could you talk a uh I have a uh uh an example in mind, but I'd love to hear you just share some of what you do to help, you know, young students who are forming and and their families imagine a path that um might be different that they would, you know, that they might not imagine if they didn't have encounters with you.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Yeah, right. Well, first of all, all of our classrooms um have a a college that they represent. Um so we've taken a lot of college or technical college. College college or technical college. We've taken first and foremost all the local ones, UW Madison, Edgewood College, M A T C. And so each class is its own um college.

SPEAKER_06 13:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

And so for that year that they're in that class, they really get to see what it feels like to be a student of that college. So like our seventh graders are badgers. So they're, you know, they come and do a field trip at the UW, and the UW comes into the classroom and talks to them. And so we're really trying to right away establish, even in our youngest students, that college is a possibility. Right. You can, you can do whatever you want, you can be whoever you want. God, God is gonna help you be successful as you seek him and as you study hard. Um, and so, and and not that everyone has to go to college, but we want to kind of change their mindset that they, that there's possibilities in their life and they don't have to just do what their parents did, and they don't, they don't have to live um paycheck to paycheck. You know, they can actually dream about um what they want to do and what skills they have.

SPEAKER_07 14:12

Yeah, and and I it's I think it's really interesting that you pair not just the four-year sort of uh public and private institutions, but you have the technical colleges as well that you represent. Yeah, that's that's that's really cool. I um keep keep going. You have another example.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Well, um, you know, another thing about our school is that we I don't personally make any claims that all of our students are going to be academically high achievers. I think that's kind of a secondary uh goal in life, right? The academic side. And so we really go from a strengths-based approach to kids. If kids are good at music, we we focus on that. If they're good at dancing, we we let them lead a dance class. You know, we look at the kids as individuals and find out what are you good at, what are you interested in, what are you passionate about? And we help develop those gifts and talents. And it might not be academics and it might be academics. And we just help kids see um what God has put in them and what possibilities there are and and help them feel confident. Um, each of our classes, they lead chapel every week. And so that's their opportunity to teach and preach and you know, put on a um they can put on drama if they want to. They they sing, they dance, and and that's really kind of their um shining moment to develop into the leaders God is calling them to be.

SPEAKER_07 15:33

Yeah. Is the competency or strength-based approach, is that typical for Christian education, or is that something that's really unique to Lighthouse?

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Well, I personally think it's unique to Lighthouse. Um, having worked with uh the Christian schools in this community, um, I think that it is much more of an academic approach to education. And as I said, I my first goal is that students um know how loved they are by God. If if we accomplish that, I think we've accomplished what God has sent us to do. I think that academics will follow that because obviously the the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge. And so um it's been it's been a little challenging working with schools that don't share that philosophy. Um, as I said, we allow all students into the school and we treat each student as an individual that has potential. I think in other schools there's kind of an entrance process, and well, we don't know if you're a good academic fit. Um, so at least in our school, I'm trying to break that mold of it's not all about academics. If if you first seek the Lord, academics will come and you'll find your strengths and you'll you'll find the things that you're gonna be good at. Um, and sometimes the things that they're really good at is simply sitting and listening and trying really hard. And and we honor them for that. We are we honor their hard work, even if they're not achieving high grades. Um, and the other side of that is that we do take students with disabilities, which is also not necessarily typical for Christian schools. I think Christian schools will take a certain amount of disability types, maybe not all. We're really seeking to be a place where all students would be could be successful if it's a good fit for them, if we're able to help them to succeed, we want them in our school.

SPEAKER_07 17:30

Yeah. Well, there's something so beautifully honoring about that approach that you know you're really working hard to see the dignity and the image of God in all children and that they all have potential, right? And um eliminating some of the some of the thresholds or barriers, like you know, admission standards and some of these things that it can be, you know, become so competitive that you know it closes the door for so many kids. Yes. To even have a Christian education experience. Um I want to, Marcia, I want to come over to you here in just a second, talk a little bit about the church, but Tia, um, how do you support the spiritual development with physical and emotional support? I know you work with a lot of families that are under some um some distress. Yes. Um, a lot of immigrant families, um, families uh that are, you know, struggling uh with um economics and and and just you know kind of paychecks and those kinds of things. How do you how do you come alongside in some of the other dimensions that really help students thrive and families thrive?

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Yeah, so as you said, we seek to honor the dignity of all humans in our school, and and that goes beyond just the school day. We really want to partner with families and help them be successful.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Um, so if they're hungry, we feed them. We have our um bi-weekly or two times a week food pantry. We're currently building a permanent food pantry so that families can shop whenever they need to or want to. Um, we also offer uh therapy right at the school. It's free. It's free for families, it's free for students. Um since COVID, um, a lot of our families have really experienced a lot of depression, anxiety, um, sicknesses in the family. And so we've offered um, we've offered the therapy, we offer assistance with rent, we offer transportation help. If they can't afford uniforms, we try to find donors that can help pay for uniforms. We just, we really feel that as as Christians, it is our obligation to help the whole family. Um, they're here to experience Jesus, and and that's who we want to be for them.

SPEAKER_07 19:33

Yeah, that's be that's beautiful. I know you guys work so hard at that. And I I was even I spent some time on the website and just saw all the ways that you try to come alongside families. Marcio, as a pastor, um, I'd love to get your your thoughts on on how you um see um people formed, transformed. How does how does the gospel transform people and how how do you how do you best achieve it? How does the church best achieve it?

SPEAKER_02 19:59

You know, there's a Bible verse that says that Jesus grew in stature, he grew in wisdom, in favor with God, and in favor with men. And that's our goal. You know, they grow in stature physically. So we want to make sure they're eating correctly. We want to make sure that they have uh uh housing, that they have all the things that are gonna help so that they can grow physically. Um they grew in wisdom, that's where the education comes. You know, we want to make sure that they grow academically. But you know, one thing, it's very difficult for a child to achieve academically when maybe um, you know, they were fighting at home the night before because they're about to get addicted.

SPEAKER_07 20:36

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

You know, or uh there's other difficulties. So we want to help the family so that they can grow there, but then also in favor with God. So uh we we want to talk about God. We want to talk about the word of God. We want the word of God to be part of everything that they do at the school. So when you come to Lighthouse Christian School, I mean, in everything, God is present. I mean, this is not something that um oftentimes I tell people you go to Christian schools and and you learn about God at chapel and in Bible class. Uh no, here you go to history class and they'll bring, you know, the word of God into it, you know, in Christian values. You go to math class and they're gonna bring the word of God in and Christian values, and then in favor with men, meaning we want to be um part of the community. So we teach the children how to serve. Uh, we do a lot of what we do at Lighthouse. Actually, let me tell you a quick story. The food pantry started because during summer, we have a summer summer school program. Uh, we had a project with the children and we said, hey, what can we do to serve the community? And actually, one of the child, children that uh is was part of the summer school, whose family uh goes to a food pantry, said, Can we build? Have you seen those little houses that are in neighborhoods and that they have books? What if we build those little houses, but instead of books, we put food in them? And then people can just drive by And we can take food. These are like the little free libraries. Like the little free libraries, but for food. Right, right. So for the summer program, we built six of those little houses. We we call them little lighthouses. And we started putting food in them. Wow. So we put one in front of our church building. The pandemic came, and we started the food pantry by filling that little lighthouse with food. This was an idea of a child of one of the kids. Wow, what an amazing idea. And now we're building uh almost a million-dollar uh food pantry. And it started with the idea of one child who said, Why don't we put food in there? So we teach them to serve. Uh, we teach them to serve in the community. We tell them about how we can help others, how can we love others? That's part of uh the theme of the of the church: love God, love yourself, and love others. So, as part of the formation is yes, we want you to be good students. Yes, we want you to be ready to go to college if you want to go to college, but more than anything, we also want you to be a disciple of Jesus, yes, who knows how to love, who knows how to serve. When you get married, we want you to be a good husband, a good wife, a good father, a good mother, and grow in the ways that God wants us to grow.

SPEAKER_07 23:09

Oh, wow, that's that's beautiful. I did not know the story about the the food pantry and the origins of that. So that is an amazing, amazing story. Um, I imagine that um some of the kids and and families that um come to the church and the school um have experienced brokenness and they need help in reshaping their picture of God. How do you do that? And I'm I'm interested in in kind of adults, uh Marcia. I want to turn to you here in just a second, but Tia, how do you do that in the lives of kids?

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Um, well, it's it's pretty simple. We just love them. Um our teachers are also very committed to the gospel, and they they don't work there unless they really love kids and can really see them through God's eyes. Um, it's kind of an organic process once kids enter our school building and realize wow, all the adults in this building really care about me. They really love me. Um, and we know them, we know their history, we know their family situation, and we we that doesn't bother us. That that makes us love them even more. They start going home and saying, Mom, dad, uh, we need to go to church, or can you buy a Bible so we can read at home? Can we sing this song about you know worshiping God? So it's a very organic process that, you know, Jesus said to just love them, right? Let the little children come to me, don't stop them. And that's and that's all we do. And we have found that children make the best evangelists to the families. And once the families really start seeing in their kids that kind of that hope and that change in them, they themselves want it too. And that's why we offer um, you know, we offer parenting classes, we offer opportunities for for parents to come, even if they don't necessarily want to get involved in the church. They're welcome to come to chapel. They're welcome to come and, you know, pray with somebody if they need prayer. Um, it's just a it's an open environment. It doesn't have to just be you have to come to church on Sundays. We've just we've just made Lighthouse a place where God is present all the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

Lighthouse Christian School has become like a church. So it's not as strange, for example. So as a pastor, it's not that I'm in charge of the church and teach in charge of the school. I'm always at the school. Everybody knows who Pastor Marcio is. Parents come and your office is together. My office are together, and the parents come and they see me as a pastor. Some of them don't go to a physical church, but they say, you know, oh, we're part of lighthouse. So sometimes when they ask me, you know, how large is lighthouse? Well, are you talking about how many people come on Sundays or how many people are we serving through the week? So it's not strange, for example, when Tia talks about love to see a parent talking to uh praying with a teacher. You know, there's oftentimes that I'm walking by and we see that a teacher is having a hard time with a child, and I'll stop by and I'll start praying with the kid, talking to the kid what is going on. Um when we grew up, we we had the idea of like, oh, if you misbehave, you're going to the principal's office. Oftentimes it's like you're going to go and talk to the pastor. You're going to the pastor's office, and it's different with me because I'm just like, hey, what happened? How's it going? You know, what happened? And you know, we we do things like that. You know, for example, we don't have detention at Lighthouse, we have restoration. Right. So instead of going to detention, you do something that has to do with restoration. You know, even just changing the name of it, we're like, you know, we're trying to grow, we're trying to become better people. But I think love is what it is. Something that we we say at Lighthouse is that there's no exceptions and no excuses. And as believers of God, we feel like if we cannot help these children and the families, then who can?

unknown 26:55

Right.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

I mean, if we have God who created the heavens and the earth, who who is, you know, our supreme everything, if we cannot help these families, who can?

SPEAKER_03 27:07

Amen.

SPEAKER_07 27:08

Yeah, that is so so um so powerful. I I I I imagine and there's a lot of easy questions I could ask around just curriculum. And I know they're not easy issues because you have to think really carefully about curriculum, uh-huh. But I I get this sense that you've really thought about every dimension of this experience. Uh somebody walks into the building, whether they're, you know, intending to go to the church or the school, or you know, they don't know where they're gonna intending to go, that they're going to encounter um something that's deeply spiritual and is um oriented toward helping them.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_07 27:47

I I'd love to explore how you have thought about these changes. How how do you think about um this integration, this deep kind of spiritual integration? Um how does it happen? Sort of take us into the process of how you've, you know, maybe there's an example or two of how you've seen a need and you've layered something in.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Well, my personal story, um, growing up, I have ADHD. So um growing up in the early 80s, uh, there was no such thing as ADHD. Um, I was the kid that got sent to the principal's office. Um, I was that kid that every teacher is frustrated with, um, that they don't know what to do with. So my entire primary um experience basically has educated me on what school should be like. Right. Um, so I personally look through that lens with every single decision. We have kids that, you know, are coming from pretty hard backgrounds that have a lot of trauma. And and I came from that place too. So I'm constantly thinking, okay, if this were me, how would I want my principal to treat me? How would what would be a step that would help me make a good decision next time? How can I start, you know, transforming the behavior of this student, knowing how difficult it is because I was there. Um, so I I believe that God, you know, had a plan. Obviously, I didn't know it was to run a school, but he knew. And so all of my life experiences, I just bring into it. And of course, you know, just it's it's the golden rule to treat others the way you'd want to be treated. How would I have wanted to be treated as a student?

SPEAKER_04 29:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

How would I want to be valued? What if I needed help? How where could I find that in the school? So that's how I've made a lot of decisions as far as the school side.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

The lighthouse uh school continues to be evolving. Um, so we we we don't do things the same as when we were doing in 2004. And I think one of the benefits that we have being a Christian, uh private Christian school is that um you can come today to the school and give us an idea, we'll pray about it, and we can start implementing it on Monday. You know, and and if it doesn't work, then we try something else. You know, so so that's one thing that we do. Uh, I mean, oftentimes, I mean, we have a committee, we have a board, you know, and and and we have a group of advisors that help us, but we really seek the Lord in in how we want to do things. I mean, that we might get a child, and um the child is misbehaving, you know, school starts in September, is a new child that is not used to the culture of Lighthouse Church. And you know what the principal, myself, and others that are involved in the development of this child, we pray. We get together, we pray, we say, okay, God, give us wisdom. How can we help this child? What can we do? Um, we partner with other organizations, we do a lot of copy and pasting. You know, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. Uh, but but I think that's the key that we say, how can we love this this child and what can we do? And God gives us creativity to do a lot of the works that we do. You know, oftentimes there's children who school starts in September, and we say, you know, for the first three months, let's not even focus on academics for this show. Let's just love them, yeah, let's show them that we care. And then come October, come November, the children just change because they see that we love them. Oftentimes we are just the next program that they had to be part of because they're broken. They go into social workers, right? They go to this program, they go to another program, and Lighthouse Christian School just becomes another program and they're gonna challenge us. After some time, they realize, okay, these people are serious, they love me, and I'm gonna achieve. And a lot of the times when Tia has said we focus on love, we focus on just helping the children, academics is not the priority. We're still a school that exceeds expectation. And DPI, which is the Department of Public Instruction, in the report cards, we are doing better than the aggregate for the state.

SPEAKER_07 31:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

Or Spanish-speaking uh English language learners are doing better in reading and English than the aggregate for the state. So when you focus on loving the children, when we come up with ideas on how can we we can better serve the child and their family, they start excelling academically.

SPEAKER_07 32:08

Yeah, and that's that point shouldn't be lost. You know, there really are stringent accreditation and metrics that you need to head.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_07 32:15

And um, I think the approach that you're taking shows that it does pay off. That you know, loving students well and their families well can lead to real success in so many ways, uh, including academic success. Aaron Powell Marcio and Tia, you talk about loving kids, having amazing teachers, knowing family situation. This sounds idyllic. Uh, and I've heard many teachers, both at public and private institutions, that have a heart for these ideas as well, but they don't see it as possible uh given their restrictions in funding, time, or other resources. How do you do this? Um, how do you accomplish it, accomplish this?

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Um, so the people that we love, even just a little bit more well than the students as our teachers. Um, we really believe that the key to being able to do all of this is our teachers. Um, and so we pour most of our resources into them. Um, even though we are a private school and don't have the funding, we have given priority to teacher raises. Um we've also all of our teachers have a coach, um, which is um not typical in schools. Um, every teacher gets coached by either someone virtually or someone in the building that's right in the room with them, right? Helping them to use the best academic strategies, but also classroom management, social emotional strategies. So we our teachers feel really supported to be able to do this work. We know that they can't do it alone. So our teachers are more, it's it's more of a team environment, right? Each teacher is working together with another teacher or a team. Um, nobody's just kind of on their own doing their own thing. We're right in the classrooms every day um supporting uh the values and and goals that we that we want the kids to achieve. Um so you know, we know that it's a stressful job because for the majority of the last 18 years, I've also been a classroom teacher. So I kind of stay intimately connected to you know what teachers are struggling with. And so if we get extra money, if we get grant money, if we get donations, we typically first pour it into teacher appreciation or teacher salaries.

SPEAKER_05 34:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

Um and trust God, trust God that as we grow as a school, the funding will just be there for what we need to do.

SPEAKER_07 34:44

How do you draw parents into the mission of the work?

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Um Well, we just let them know this is this is how it is. And and once they see what's happening in their students, they they pretty much fall in line. Even if it's not what they believe or it's not anything that they've practiced before as a family, um they see the results and they they believe it.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

But we have also and actually Tia started it, she um built this program. We have a parent leadership program where we actually encourage the parents to be part of. And we in this uh parent leadership program, we teach them how how to help your children with school, how to uh instill faith into the children. Then we did a program called FAST, um, you know, with the parents and the children. Now we have a program called Anchor, which is like like FAST, the FAST program. And if you're in academia, you you've heard about this program, but now we include faith into it. So we're constantly communicating with the parents. We're constantly asking the parents to be uh part of what the children are doing. Um, the parents are invited to be part of chapel. Uh, and a lot of what happens because of the love that they feel, you come to the school and you'll see a lot of the parents that you wonder what are they doing here? That they came to pick up a child, two hours later, they're still in the school because they're talking to someone or they're eating with the children. And it's almost this environment of love and peace where that they come to the building, they feel like we want to be here. So they're part of everything that we do. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Yeah, and parents really do lead the school in the sense that every program we've added or implemented or changed is because of parent feedback. So we really rely on the parents to decide what how they want their school to look like. So, for example, when we added Chinese or Mandarin classes, it was because the parents requested it. Um, we had students that were speaking Mandarin, and some of the parents came and said, Hey, how about we why don't we learn this? And so we said, Great, let's get a Chinese teacher.

SPEAKER_02 36:45

Yeah. We have a healthy meals program for the children because we want our children to eat healthy. We asked the parents to come up with menus, you know, and to come up with some of their foods that are culturally sensitive to a lot of the families that we have. Uh, we have mental health therapy, but we included the parents as well. So parents can come for free mental health, not only the children, but if they come, they can come for free and they can have their sessions. So in everything that we do, we try to include the parents.

SPEAKER_07 37:10

Yeah. I I want to ask you, you know, it's largely behind us, um, but I want to ask you about kind of the season of COVID, because I think a lot of parents have stories with young kids, have stories about that season. I know we have a five-year-old, and um and we have flexibility in our family, so we were able to adjust, you know, and have jobs that we can do from home and things like that. But a lot of parents don't have that flexibility. What did you do to care for your students and families that that might have been a little different than sort of the the the major responses or the typical responses uh during COVID?

SPEAKER_02 37:51

You know, that was a very, very difficult time for everyone. But I think uh sorry, for example, a lighthouse church and school, over half of our families were without work. Yeah. Many of the families that we serve at the church and at their school are undocumented, so they are not allowed to get unemployment.

SPEAKER_05 38:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

And if you think about it, um the businesses that closed immediately were restaurants, hotels, service industry. That's where many of the Hispanic and African-American community work. Less than 20% of African American and Hispanic uh families can work from home. So that was uh a big struggle. So at that time, Lighthouse had 18 laptops, and we have over a hundred, 200 kids that need laptops. So we went, uh, I was even posting things on Facebook. Do you have a laptop and a tablet that we can use? So we right away were trying to uh help with laptops, with um tablets. But then we came to another situation. Many of our families live in apartment buildings. Yeah. So they didn't have a basement where they can build an extra office. So these are usually families of six living in a two-bedroom apartment. They don't even have a table where they can sit with their laptops. So I even started trying to find breakfast trays that you can use in bed so that kids can actually sit in their beds and be able to put a laptop comfortably. Things like that. We started a food program. So we were doing hot lunches, and families were able to come every day uh to get a hot lunch. Uh, then we started doing the food pantry. And Lighthouse Church also partnered with Mount Zion uh church here in the city, and we raised about half a million dollars uh to be able to help with rent, with the electric bills, uh, and different things like that. We opened our school also, and this was um more towards the fall of 2020, where we opened our school where children where families could bring their children uh to actually work at our school because their parents, once they started working again, they said, Pastor Marcia, we need the school to open because we need to go and work. We don't have babysitters. And actually, that's when we also made a decision on in September of 2020 that we were gonna open our school uh for the families to be able to bring uh children to school. At first, we started with about with about 80% attendance. Within a month, over 90% of the families started bringing their children back to school. And we had to do a lot of things to make the school accessible with all the uh regulations with COVID and all of that. But I think um we were working with the families. These were parents coming to us and saying we don't know who to leave our children with. Yeah, there were times where parents will say to me, because I will be in my office, can I drop off my child? And I will be at my office, and the conference table is full of kids just doing work. I'm thinking, what do I do with these children? Yeah, we need to open the school. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 40:35

Yeah, that's a that's a really powerful, you know, response and a really creative response. I think you guys, you know, I just look back on that time and there were so many interesting things that you were doing to try to attend to the needs of families in a really challenging time. I want to touch on this briefly because I I don't know if our listeners understand sort of all the intricacies of this, and it it it does, I think, change from state to state. But uh Wisconsin has a voucher program and it is um open to Christian education. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that and how you leverage that program to help families um manage tuition.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

Yeah, so even when we started in 2004, um a lot of our families couldn't pay and the church was supporting 100% of what the school was doing. Right. Um, and we were losing a lot of money because the school is very expensive. Um, so we actually started praying. I knew that there was a voucher program in Milwaukee, and we actually started praying that the Lord would open this up to the entire state. So that first year, when the state uh said there's gonna be a voucher program, we jumped on it. We only got 10 kids because they were only gonna give you know spots to the top 25 schools. You only get 10 kids. But just with those 10 kids, we were able to, you know, get things we'd never had before. Before that, we were using secondhand furniture. And I was the teacher and the secretary and the principal. So we with that money, we were able to start branching out, hiring more people, expanding. Um, and we knew that this this would be the way that families could have the choice to to to go to a private school. Um, and so any program that the state has opened, we just we jump on it when the special needs scholarship opened up. We we jumped on that so that we could help the families with special needs even more. Um it's been a great program for us.

SPEAKER_02 42:34

Yeah, and when you think about the the families that we serve, uh mostly Hispanic and African-Americans, they are conservative families, they're families of faith. They they are used to going to church and and they want a Christian education for their children, um, but they cannot afford it. So I think the the voucher, like we call it of the school choice program, gives parents the opportunity to be able to send their children to a school of their liking. In Madison, um, if you know about Madison, Madison has the highest achievement gap um between African American and their white counterparts in education. I mean, it's it's education is not very good. If you Madison is the tale of two cities. If you live in Madison, Wisconsin, and you're African American and Hispanic, they're gonna get the worst education in the nation. So um parents want a choice, and I think the the school choice program has allowed us to be able to give them that choice.

SPEAKER_07 43:29

Yeah, I I want to turn, thank you. That's really helpful. And I know it's uh uh uh it's complicated. Um and states are different, but I know you've really leveraged that uh in this context with the state of Wisconsin. I'd like to turn a little bit, ask a question or two about diversity. Um you lead a multi ethnic, multicultural, bilingual, maybe it's trilingual now, school. Uh how does diversity uh aid in kind of your education? Mission. And then I want to ask you the secondary question, which is, you know, in what ways does diversity can potentially complicate? But as as as people of faith, as Christ followers, I'd, you know, I want to ask both of those questions against the backdrop of your of your personal faith. So first, how does how does a diverse school, a very multi-ethnic school, contribute to what it is you're trying to achieve?

SPEAKER_01 44:25

Well, it's it's really beautiful, right? It's it's like heaven. It's we're bringing together different backgrounds and nations and languages and becoming one people in the Lord. We have a common culture, and that's that's Jesus. Um we are able to do so many fun things to celebrate the cultures in our school. Um this month is Black History Month. So every day we have fun activities going on. We do a big program at the end of the month. Everyone gets involved. It's it's not strange to celebrate culture in our school. It's it's kind of the expectation. Um and we don't look at each other weirdly or, you know, what's wrong with that person? It's it's very much a celebration of who God has created us to be, and and diversity is our strength, right? People walk in and and say, wow, this is right like the most diverse school in Madison. How do you do it? And we say, well, it's because of Jesus that we do it. Um on the other, you know, to the second question, it's it's a challenge. It's it's mentally draining. Um, Madison is not very diverse friendly, believe it or not, even in the church. Actually, the church is more segregated than the rest of society. It is a challenge. It is a challenge to keep white students in our school. Um, and our kids are great. If you walk into a classroom, you wouldn't know which student had a disability or which student was struggling because they're all sitting quietly and learning. Um, and so we encourage people to come and visit our school because it really is a peaceful place to be. However, it is hard to keep uh white people that are of a higher economic status. And that's frustrating to me. I don't really know the dynamic behind that because as a parent, I've loved that my student my children have been able to experience this culture of, you know, so many different people and different languages. It's really developed them into these great teenagers that just accept people and love people.

SPEAKER_04 46:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

Um, but that is a challenge and it's it's something I don't have the answer to yet. But I I continue to to try to work on it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

And I think other uh challenges are so you cannot see us here, but my wife, Tia, she's Anglo, uh, she's white, uh, I'm Hispanic. Even though she is the principal, I'm the pastor, and I'm the I don't do it a lot, deal a lot with the academics. There are parents that before even talking to the principal about issues with the school or curriculum, they want to talk to me first.

SPEAKER_04 47:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

You know, because they want to talk to the person of color before even going to Tia. It's almost like I need to give them permission. It's like, you know what? Talk to Tia, she's safe. Right. You know, so so those are challenges, yeah. Uh, you know, for her as a principal. But then uh many other issues, like we have to translate everything.

SPEAKER_04 47:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

Uh, and then trying to find, especially right now, that um it's very difficult to keep employees and to find employees, they're um finding African American and Hispanic bilingual uh teachers, uh staff is very difficult. It's is it's not a hack commodity. I mean, it's it's where do you go? Uh so we tried right now, we're over 70% of our staff is um diverse, you know, Hispanic, African American. But that is a challenge because there's not a great pool of African-American teachers there. There's not a great pool of you know, Hispanic bilingual teachers. When we need to hire a receptionist, we need a bilingual receptionist. Right. You know, so everything is uh a little uh complicated, but it's it's worth it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 48:14

Thank you. I it's really an honest response. I really appreciate that. What is the one thing you wish um more white Americans, um Anglo-Americans, you used to kind of reference them, knew about um families and students of color. Uh what would you like to say to them? And then, you know, I'd like to flip it. What would you like to say to um families, students of color uh about you know, Anglo-Americans, white Americans?

SPEAKER_01 48:43

Um well, to the white people, I would say that um our students have great potential and I would hope they could look at them that way.

SPEAKER_04 48:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

Um, again, looking at them, looking at them based on their strengths, not their weaknesses. Um we often get stereotyped on different at different events at different places because of our our students.

SPEAKER_04 49:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:10

So I would ask the white Americans to look at us through the eyes of God because um they're they're really wonderful kids. I just can't say enough about how great they are. And they're going places, right? They're gonna be the next leaders and senators and lawyers and doctors. Um and on the other side of that, yeah, I would say to the families of color that you can make your way in this world. You don't have to just fall into um what you've known, but but you can push your way into places that maybe don't feel comfortable right now. But once you show them how, you know, how smart you are, how strong you are, you you can make a place for yourself in the white spaces.

SPEAKER_07 49:52

Marcio, anything you'd like to add about that?

SPEAKER_02 49:54

Well, yes, I I think um we are all human beings created in the image of God. Uh it's interesting. Just recently we got a letter or children uh or some of the students from our school uh went to an event and they sent us a letter uh just telling how well behaved our kids were. Almost like, congratulations. And I I feel like, well, what what did they expect? Do they send those letters to every school if they're white students, or what did they expect that our children were gonna do just because they're mostly brown and and and black? And you know, we are human beings, we we're smart, we have talents, we have the same gifts that God has given everybody. So um don't think that we're something less than um what maybe society or the news are talking about. We have very capable families. Maybe they don't have the opportunities and education that some other people have, but we have people who are very smart and gifted by the Lord and come and meet us, come and be relational with us. And when they help, I want to say thank you to a lot of families and organizations and churches that have helped us, but oftentimes it's from afar. We get a check, but they have never come to our school. Yeah. You know, come and be part of what we're doing. Experience it and experience it.

SPEAKER_07 51:08

Yeah, you you the two of you navigate um diverse communities so well. I mean, I think if I just sort of had to write your epitaph or something, I would, you know, just you you're so comfortable in lots of different circles. And I wonder if you could share an insight about how you've learned to do that. Obviously, you've been married to each other. Um, but there's, you know, and you've come from, you know, originally from different countries, but you know, this is a diverse United States, right? You could you could be from New England and marry somebody from the deep south, and it's a cultural marriage as well. But how have you learned to to navigate and to work uh well across diverse communities?

SPEAKER_02 51:47

I think the key is to build relationships. Things are very different when you are working together with a friend, than not only a colleague. You know, it's not only, I'm gonna say names, for example, it's not that I'm working with Pastor Marcus Allen because we're colleagues. Yeah. I know his wife, I know his children. They have been at my house. Right. And there's a big difference when I'm working with someone that I know and is close to us, than just with like, I'm gonna help the African-American community when I don't have a connection. You know, we talk about a lot about immigration and oh, these kids, you know, in the border and we're not connected. When your child is playing with Jose, when there's a relationship, when they come to your house, you go to their house, you think differently because now there's a vested interest in everything that you say, in everything that you do, and you want to be part of what's happening. What happens to them affects you. That's when you can really use that verse in the Bible that you can cry with those that cry and you can rejoice with those who rejoice, because there's a connection there.

SPEAKER_07 52:48

Yeah. Gee, anything?

SPEAKER_01 52:49

Yeah, I would say um just being curious, you know, never making assumptions and always asking the question, hmm, why is that family like that? And how how can I get to know them better so that I can serve them better? When I stepped into this position 18 years ago, I had absolutely no clue what an education gap was or that it was this bad in Madison. And I just, when I saw what was happening to our students, I developed a heart for it. I I thought this is really unfair. And I wish everyone could see the unfairness of what's happening with this side of the world. And so just yes, allowing the Lord to really put that compassion inside of you for the other person and and and always assuming the best about them and that that yes, they have something to offer to this society and and to God's plan for all of us.

SPEAKER_02 53:42

We have to be intentional about working together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 53:46

I want to start moving toward wrapping wrapping up our time together, but um, what is the report card? If you had to sort of give a report card for Christian education, uh Christian formation, are are you hopeful? Um not so hopeful or somewhere in between?

SPEAKER_01 54:05

I think that there's a lot of work to do in the Christian community. Um I think we have to be much more inclusive of all people and be a place where all people will thrive. And I don't know what that would take or what it would mean, but we're not that right now. We're we're not loving our neighbor the way that God has called us to. And I see that, you know, just in the barriers to, you know, schools taking in students with disabilities, the the lack of people with disabilities that feel comfortable in church or people who are different, feeling comfortable in a space that the first time they come in. Um, so I think that the the church in general has a lot of work to do. I think we've gotten really comfortable.

unknown 54:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

I think that Christian education for the most part is how can we protect ourselves from the world or from those that are not believers instead of saying how can we be light to the world? Really important. We're gonna bring you in. That's a big difference because one is I'm gonna protect you from the world. The other one is like we're the light, they're they're in darkness, we need to bring them to us. How can we love the community better versus how can we just isolate ourselves from the community?

SPEAKER_07 55:24

Yeah, yeah. I I'd love to know um what you're working on. We're gonna put all the details in the show notes about how folks can get in touch with you um and you know if they you know want to support um the good work that you're doing. But I'm curious, what are you what are you dreaming about? It sounds like this food pantry is a big project. Um what else is in the works?

SPEAKER_02 55:46

You know, an exciting thing that we just did is in partnership with Fountain of Life, um, Mount Zion, and Lighthouse, we are working together. We actually apply for a a big grant. And the goal is that together, the three different congregations, we're gonna work on how to bring faith, how teaching parents how to teach faith to their children. Um so that's a partnership that we're working on. Uh, we have a school, um, Fountain of Life is working a lot with families who come out of the prison system and how to connect them. Uh, Mount Zion is working with uh a lot of juveniles uh in the justice system. So we're coming together to see how we can help these families help their children. But then also the food pantry, we're we're we're growing the food pantry, and we had a lot of dreams.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

We do. Um, our next big project will be to build a middle school. Um, we have almost 200 students on the wait list um to come into the school. So we really do need more space.

SPEAKER_07 56:44

Yeah. So lots of great plans um and uh partnerships with churches in Dane County, the Madison um metro area. So it's fantastic to hear about this. I know you're I want to end with this question. You are both so entrepreneurial uh and you've won awards for this, and um and you're social entrepreneurs in in in the best sense of the term. Um what advice would you give to those who um want to see change, want to affect change? Uh what would you say to them from a, you know, from a an encouragement perspective or a coaching perspective to help them get on with the change they'd like to see take place?

SPEAKER_02 57:23

I will say, yes, we need to be wise, we need to uh do our work, but we have God, we need to have faith. So let's not be afraid to build the plane while flying it because we don't have time to waste.

SPEAKER_01 57:36

Yeah, stop talking and start working. Yeah. There's lots of work to do.

SPEAKER_07 57:42

Well, that's a great place to end. We are so grateful. Thank you, uh Marcio, Tia, for being a part of this conversation. Uh again, we'll put all the details in the show notes. Um, just so um just deeply grateful for the work that you do, and um you've really blessed our city. So thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 58:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_07 58:02

Thanks for joining us. If you've enjoyed today's podcast, be sure to subscribe and give us a rating on your favorite podcast app. Also, be sure to check out our upcoming events on upperhouse.org and our other podcast upwards, where we dig deeper into the topics our in-house guests are passionate about. With Faith in Mind is supported by the Stephen and Laurel Brown Foundation. It is produced at Upper House in Madison, Wisconsin, hosted by Dan Hummel and John Terrell. Our executive producer and editor is Jesse Koopman. Please follow us on social media with the handle at Upper House UW.