Jim: This episode of iWork4Him is brought to you by SaferNet, online SaferNet. com. You've tuned in to iWork4Him, the voice of collaboration for the faith and work movement.

Martha: And we are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg, and our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. So what does that look like in your workplace? Well, let's find out right now.

Jim: The workplace and ministry place and mission field of the public school. I don't know about you but I have all but given up on the public schools. Most, but not all, are being run by people who do not have your child's best interest in mind.

Government control and influence of outside interest groups are destroying the fabric of our public education system - where playing with your child's identity is more important than teaching them to read, write, and understand math. But, there is hope. The Bible is being taught in some public schools of America and the government knows about it.

How is this possible and legal? I'm not the expert, but we know someone who is an expert and is bringing the over the country. Kori Pennypacker is with us today from Bible 2 school.com, Bible 2 school, the number 2 school.com. She has an incredible workplace ministry mission field story to tell us. Kori, welcome to iWork4Him.

Kori Pennypacker: Hey, thanks for having me. So glad to be here.

Jim: So, Kori, before we get started with talking about Bible school, we really want to hear your Jesus story.

Kori Pennypacker: Oh, and I love to tell my Jesus story. I grew up in a very traditional family but as a kid, I did not, it was all in my head, but not my heart.

So, I didn't really know Jesus like I thought I did but I got married. I'm a veteran Navy wife now, but back in my Navy wife days my husband went out to sea a lot. They go, they go out. Did you know that? That they do that? And I learned that I couldn't rely on everybody else. I had to rely on God.

So, I was invited to a women's Bible study. So, anybody out there who invites their friends to women's Bible study, it works. I became a Christian not long after that. So it was, it was a very interesting ride because I thought I knew Jesus, but I didn't. It wasn't in my heart. It was only in my head. So I was about 24 when I became a Christian.

Martha: Such an encouragement to all of us to hear, like you said, you know, if you're one of those people that are inviting people, you know, it does make a difference? And your story is a testimony to that. So, how did God lead you to caring for the kids of the public school system?

Kori Pennypacker: Well, I actually started still in my Navy days. I had a, I went to a church where the children's ministry director invited me to be a volunteer for the two year olds at VBS.

I didn't even know what VBS was. And I said, sure. And I certainly didn't know that nobody wanted the two year olds. I thought that was an honor to have them. But I love, love, love these two year olds. And I became their Sunday school teacher. And I was really, it was a game changer for me. We got out, ended up getting out of the Navy and moving back here to Pennsylvania, that's where we're from.

And my husband's job was at home, so it was great. I ended up becoming a children's mission director following in that footsteps. Now, I was tapping people on the shoulders saying, hey, come on, come on along and join in. And then my husband's jobs changed again, and he was traveling.

He was traveling to the West Coast a lot during the week, and then I was doing stuff on the weekend and you guys are married. You know you actually got to see each other to be in a marriage. So, I reluctantly stepped down. I Was children's ministry director of a very large mega church. When I was a preschool coordinator where we had 400 babies a weekend. It was amazing. Yeah, so when I sat down, I was like, okay, what do I do now? And I ended up volunteering. I hear about this organization called Bible 2 school and I'm like, wait a minute. I'm sitting there as a children's ministry director waiting for children to come to me.

And there's, you know, they just keep coming and coming, but there's a whole lot more out there in the community, and we can go to them, and that intrigued me, and I ended up volunteering, and there was a little boy in a small group. His name was Gabriel, and he had came to, he was living with his grandmother, didn't know who God was, and he was in my small group. And he ended up listening to the message and accepting Christ as his Savior in a large group.

It was amazing, came back to my table and said, I said, Gabriel, you know, tell me about that. He said something I totally will never forget. I get choked up every time I talk about it. He said, I've always wanted to know how to get to heaven, but no one's ever told me. And I thought, oh my gosh, these kids are in our public school, they're right down the street from us and they don't know who God is.

So Gabriel kind of pushed me into this volunteering and then being on staff and now I'm CEO of Bible2School.

Jim: That's a great story. Love love love the Gabriel story. It's not the first time we've heard it So is the public school system a ripe workplace mission field?

Kori Pennypacker: Oh Absolutely, and I didn't even know how ripe it was honestly, Jim, until I got involved. You know, the church attendance we hear that keeps going down and down you know, I think the latest Gallup poll is 20 percent of America goes to church.

Think about how that trickles down to kids. They don't even know who God is, and we hear that every week. Who's God? I've never heard of Him. And that's kind of scary. I mean, that really is, it breaks your heart. Cause kids aren't even seeing, like, when I was young, there was like a little house on the prairie, and you know, it was in culture.

God was in culture somewhere. He is not now. I mean, He has definitely been, they were cleansing Him out. So I just, the one other thing that broke my heart is a recent study done by Arizona Christian University that says kids between the ages of 8 and 12, which is elementary school they don't even understand the, the Cornerstones of our faith. Like the God exists like I said or that they're sinners and they they need a savior. I mean if you don't think you're a sinner, then you don't even need a savior.

Do you know, the last thing that that really got and grabbed me on that article was that they don't even understand - we know this; the truth It's not, you know, it's relative - but they don't even uphold that the Bible is understanding a complete, you know, reliable place, source of right and wrong, of truth, so those are the things that, that is out there, so it is a ripe, ripe mission field. And then there's the biblical worldview too. You guys know that there's only, their parents only have a 2 percent biblical worldview. So that's 2 percent of them have it. So it's, it's scary.

Martha: Loaded, loaded question for you. You know, just touching the surface, we see that the workplace of the public school is a ripe mission field for the staff and for the kids. So here's a loaded question. Is there still hope for the public school system and the children that are attending them?

Kori Pennypacker: I love that question, Martha. Absolutely yes. I tell people this all the time. There is hope. This is the other side of this darkness that they're talking about. The Bible is the word of God, is light and People are attracted to that light and kids are searching for truth They are so relieved when they hear that God made them, God loves them, God has a plan of purpose for their life, and Jesus Christ died for their sins. And they don't have to worry, believe in him and they don't have to worry about eternity.

 God's got it. And he's got their, got their eternity and the way we are able to interact with them, then they go and tell their parents and they go and tell their siblings. We have so many kids that come and say yeah, I told my little sister about this. She knows all about it. She accepted Christ as her savior, too.

Isn't that cool? That's very cool. And then you were saying about even people in the workplace. We love public school teachers. We love principals. We love Superintendents. When you all come around, the community comes around them, kids, in a positive light. They want to see good things for these kids, and they want to see positive role models.

There are some bad players, I hear you, I understand stuff that's going on. But on the whole, we have great people out there, and this is something that you can, you know, get connected with them and give them something positive and be like, oh wow, those Christians really want to interact with us and want to help us and want to support these kids.

Martha: You know, and we're going to talk a lot more about what this is, Bible2School. com, where people can go find it, and they'll get the links in the notes. You know, we love talking about children, and as we talk about them today in the public school, I'm reminded of how vulnerable our children are when they're on computers.

And what can start as a very innocent search for a, a homework assignment can lead to a really dark place on the web that can lure them into an unsafe environment. And we at iWork4Him are so pleased to partner with the SaferNet VPN, which helps us with that protection. So SaferNet. com is easy to set up and it has 84 filters to help keep distractions away.

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Jim: Kori, from your perspective as an expert in the field, what are public school kids facing?

Kori Pennypacker: They're, mainly they're facing, I would say two things. They're facing counterfeit, constantly coming at them.

What looks good, sounds good, everybody's accepting of it. But things aren't true. We know. Gender identity and evolution, the sanctity of life, you know, all those things are coming at them that aren't true. But they, it sounds true. So how do you figure out what's counterfeit?

You study the truth and you recognize the truth. So that's why I have hope. Because of, of that but the other thing that I, I want to say that that's coming at them is fear. You know, if you are a Christian kid, how do I live my faith in school? And you know, there's fear of separation of church and state. I know everyone out there has heard that. There is not separation of church and state like you think it sounds because it's really a separation of state and church. There's no state church that's going to be - the government is not going to establish a church

 The public school actually It's supposed to be neutral and protect children's religious rights. So, you know, Jesus can be a part of holidays, of Christmas. You can say Jesus at Christmas, it's his birthday. You can have Jesus in your homework assignments, in your jewelry, in your clothing, in your music as part of your day.

And I just, that's something that we try to really kindly educate people, but kids are facing this, we can't say this, we can't say that, we can't do this, and it's not true. It's not true. So back to that counterfeit part.

Martha: You know, I love that. And I just want to reiterate it. You're saying counterfeit and fear. Those are, you know, you really boiled, nailed it down to just a - boiled it down. I guess you didn't nail it but boiled it down. And you know, making it very clear that, you know, there are some simple things that get very complex that they're dealing with.

So, help us to understand how we can help to protect other people's kids, you know, that just might be naive about what is actually going on in this school. And then, you know, I'd also love to know how we can support teachers in that same conversation.

Kori Pennypacker: Sure, wIth helping others know -it's relationship, everything's about relationship, and just getting to know the other moms or parents.

And just getting to know them to, to let them know you can talk about God and you can have Bible classes like we have. And, and just really, I know there was one mom when, my kids were young that there was a movie that, that we were supposed to sign off on and we didn't sign off on it, you know?

And we went into the class and our teacher and said, you know, Hey, This really isn't appropriate for our son. It's a rated R movie and our son is eight, you know, like, well, why, why would we do that? You know, and this, this other mom was like, oh, I didn't, I signed that, but I really didn't know what I said.

And I thought, you know, just even simply just talking among yourselves of what's going on in your school and how you can support your child in, in, you know, keeping things protected, if you will, or yeah. And also preparing them is what I was trying to say. Prepare them for what they need.

Jim: So, we know that teachers, administrators, you know administrative assistants, the para professionals that are within the schools, there's a lot of believers in those.

And that is, the public education system is in fact their workplace mission field, how can we support them?

Kori Pennypacker: I would say keep them build that relationship again, like I was saying but what I usually do is thank them for what they're doing. I would give them positive feedback when they're doing something good, you know. They often and i'm a leader, too, People just love to tell you what's going wrong, or what they're, what you're doing wrong.

Tell them when they're doing something right. Catch them doing something right. And, I know I send emails to our superintendent and say, hey, that was a really great speech you did. You really handled that issue really well. So that when there is something like, Hey, I don't agree with this movie that's being shown or something that you have credibility, that you have, it's a conversation. It's not an attack.

And so just really respecting our teachers and letting them know that you're partnering with them. They're not the enemy and you're not the enemy. And, and you both, again, have those kids' best interests in mind for them. So and sometimes they just they have different points of view and you can kindly tell them your point of view.

Jim: I love that. Find something they're doing good and highlight that. You know So often as christians we are confused by what we can and can't do especially when it comes to public schools. Over the years, we've addressed this topic in so many different ways with lawyers and employee resource groups, so many different ways.

I just want to encourage you to subscribe to our podcast to stay connected and find the past shows that might answer some questions you've been asking that we answered already. And we'd love to make as a resource to you. You can find us on your favorite podcast platform and subscribe as well as sign up for our weekly email and have the podcast come right to your inbox. Just go to iWork4Him.com/subscribe, and we can stay in touch with you on a weekly basis.

Martha: So, Kori, let's answer just this basic question. Can the Bible actually be brought back into the kids public school?

Kori Pennypacker: Yes unequivocally yes. They can, there is something that we do called release time.

And release time actually is a court ruling supported back by the U. S. Supreme Court from 1952 that says you can release children from school for at least like one hour a week once a week and they need to be off site. They need to have parental permission. And you can't use any tax dollars. That is the federal Ruling that you can do that so you can actually have a bible class during the public school day

Jim: All right. So bible school is a solution you're bringing to the public school system. Let's talk about it in detail. What is it and how can we get it to a school near you? All right, just start it start with what is it? Just go into some detail.

Kori Pennypacker: Sure. Bible2School is a non profit that equips moms, dads, grandparents in communities to build teams and to implement a Bible program in their local public school.

We give them curriculum and website and coaching and just all kinds of good stuff to bring to them that they can implement a Bible class. We do elementary, we have an elementary program. So we have second, third, and fourth grade and we teach you to teach them about the Old Testament, the New Testament, discipleship.

But the kids go off site, so it's a little challenging, and we've been doing it for 40 years, over 40 years, so we have a lot of experience behind us, and we have a franchise model, so we actually teach you to fish, and we teach you everything you need to know about doing this program, and give you all the tools you need.

Martha: So, I'm the person that always is like, show me what this looks like. So, I'm thinking, I'm listening to this show, and I'm thinking, I've never even heard that my kid's school has a release time. Like, can you even, like, how do you break that barrier to even be able to have Bible2School?

Kori Pennypacker: Well, we teach them how to build the teams that you can go and talk to the Principal.

So we actually teach you how to talk to principals. We teach you how to recruit volunteers. We teach you how to raise funding to do this and bring in other people like business leaders. And we can't do this without business leaders. We can't do this without pastors. We can't do this without parents.

So we bring them all in under the Bible2School program. And we teach you how to, how to do that, but yeah, it really isn't education because a lot of principals, I know what most people say is, what do principals say about this? They say, wow, usually they haven't heard of it, and then they go to their solicitor, which is their lawyer, and they find out, oh, you can do this, and then they try to figure out how to work together.

And we at Bible2School make that really smooth, because we have a lot of programs going on.

Martha: Because you've already tried all the different ways and figured it out, right? So you have that ready. I love that it's a franchise model. So it's like, here's everything we've got best practices on.

Jim: Here's what to do and what not to do. I usually figure out the what not to do faster than I do the what to do. All right. So how do you get these kids off campus?

Kori Pennypacker: Either bus them or walk them to a church or a community center nearby. We even have one, we have an electric company that we use their basements because they were right near our school.

So. Business leaders out there, you are very very important in this type of program. But yeah, the Funding you need to get a bus funded - because again, it can't be any tax dollars - So that transportation really is a key key part of it.

Jim: So This is once a week. So According to federal laws what you're saying is that once a week kids are allowed to be released for religious education. And I grew up in minnesota, and I know all my friends went to catholic, you know catechism class, basically every Wednesday afternoon, they got out earlier. I'm like, really?

Martha: early, early release. Yeah.

Jim: So, so this is already legal. That part is easy, but finding the volunteers, finding the funding, finding the teachers. The leaders - that's a big part of what you're doing every day. How are you expanding when you start in pennsylvania? How many states are you in now? And where do you want to go next?

Kori Pennypacker: We're in three states right now. We're in pennsylvania, idaho and tennessee and we want to get a spark in every state. I'm so glad you asked that question. Our heart is to get a spark in every program in every state. And then what happens is, and we're finding this, especially in Pennsylvania, where we started, is that the next district over is like, wait a minute, why don't we have that?

We actually have principals calling other principals saying we want that program. Because it's good for the kids, and it's adult role models coming in and spending time with them and coming alongside the school. So, we actually would love to see this in every school in the United States, whether it's us or another, another organization.

We don't care. We just want the Bible , His Word to be given to these kids.

Jim: Really want to bring the Bible to school. And I think it's important that we recognize That the school public school system is our kids' workpalce. That is their mission field. They're called there. Their work every day is to learn and to study and to interact and to learn how to do the things that they're going to use later on in life. And often we just think of it Well, it's just school but it's not. It's a mission field. There's all kinds of lost and hopeless kids. There's more today lost and hopeless than ever It's so So important that we recognize that - Bible2School. com

Kori Pennypacker: And I gotta, I gotta quick tell you one thing, that there was one little girl who wanted to come to Bible2School for three years, and her, and her parents said no. The third year, this year, her friend wrote a little note to her parents and said, please will you let her come to Bible2School? And she let him come. So, like, kids can be amazing evangelists with their friends.

Martha: Most definitely. You know, we have listeners in every state, and so every listener that's right now listening, or you need to share this podcast with a friend, to really prayerfully consider how can Bible2School be a part of your public school system, your kids education, your community? I believe that we could really make a difference in all 50 states. So Bible2School. com is the website. Is there anything else about how the listeners can get involved?

Kori Pennypacker: Well, just get, get involved with the website, but I gotta tell you too that there's 53 percent of our kids this year have no church home. So if you're looking for a place to plug in and make a big impact with people in your community that don't know Jesus, this is a great way through the school. Everybody can come around kids.

Martha: That's so good. You know, as we talk about involvement in things like Bible2School, it's important that we have involvement in all different areas of our life. And sometimes it's direct and sometimes it is you know, like Bible2School, getting involved in running that program.

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Jim: Kori Pennypacker, great conversation, great bringing this to everybody's attention about how they can get involved in public schools and how every public school would love to have Bible2School as a early release program.

You just need to know about it. And thanks for bringing it to our audience for your workplace mission field which is the public school system. We're grateful. Thanks for being with us today

Kori Pennypacker: iWork4Him is a great organization and I just really am honored to be on here with you today.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers our workplace It's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him!

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Did you know that god has a calling on your life? It's true. He's called you to bring Jesus to the world. For some that may look like a pulpit or a foreign mission field, but for most of us, it looks like a construction site, a cubicle, a hospital, or a classroom. Wherever it is that you work, live, volunteer, and invest, that is your mission field. To learn more about integrating your faith into your work and retirement, check out our books. iWork4Him, sheWorks4Him , and iRetire4Him by going to iWork4Him.com/bookstore.

Thanks for listening to the iWork4Him Podcast with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. Please visit iWork4Him.com to learn more about connecting your faith and work, to join the iWork4Him Nation, or subscribe to our weekly blog.

You can also follow us on social media at iWork4Him to stay up to date and meet our guests. If today's message spoke to you, please subscribe, rate, and review the show on your favorite podcast platform. Your review will launch more workplace missionaries across America. That's at iWork4Him and online at iWork4Him. com. I work the number four him. com.

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