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On July 9, 2024, journalist Giavanni Alves with Lonestar Live published Pastor accused of grooming, molesting teen was often at Austin High School. For those who haven't read the piece, it reports that Aaron Ivey, former worship pastor at Austin Stone Community Church (the Stone), was fired after allegations of sexual misconduct emerged, including inappropriate relationships with adult men and a minor, raising concerns about his presence at Austin High School where the church held services.

As someone who was, up until a few years ago, unquestioningly loyal to the Stone and the Reformed Baptist strand of evangelicalism, I thought church meetings in public schools were brilliant. From a church's perspective, public schools offer an ideal worship space because they are:

Especially in evangelical circles where evangelism and church-planting are prioritized as a means to 'advance the gospel, ' schools are prime targets for new church plants. Church plants, in particular, focus on leveraging public schools as worship spaces because the most significant cost for a church tends to be staff salaries and property. For the young church trying to scrape by, getting access to a cost-effective, prominent location with established facilities that offer community integration at a flexible price is a no-brainer.

What is often unseen with church meetings in public schools is the tradeoffs of getting access to a school at less than market rent. One tradeoff is how churches become dependent on volunteers for countless hours, getting to church early and sometimes staying hours after services to set up and tear down the space. Most folks who have selflessly given of their time without pay to 'serve God' in turning a school into a worship space can attest to how much burden a dedicated worship space would take off their shoulders.

I witnessed firsthand how much thankless work goes into setting up and tearing down it takes to transform Austin High into the worship space for Austin Stone's Downtown campus week after week. What first led me to question the church's strategy of using schools was seeing how many volunteers were needed. It was (and likely still is) commonplace for the most dependable volunteers to feel like they can never miss a Sunday or take a break because the church relies on them to 'make Sunday happen.'

Along with seeing volunteers burn out and feel trapped, I began questioning the safety of both parishioners and students when schools are used as churches. For example, during the last year of my time at the Stone, my family transitioned from St. John to the Downtown campus.

One Sunday, my youngest son, about three at the time, told me he needed to go potty. I took him to the bathroom outside the gymnasium, the main worship space. Only a few other men were in the bathroom when we went, but my son understandably didn't feel he had enough privacy to do his business. While sitting on the toilet, he looked up at me with his little brown eyes and said he needed to go potty, but he couldn't here because he was embarrassed.

Internally, I was rolling my eyes as I wished the boy would do his business so we could go. If anyone could pull the embarrassment card, I thought it would be me. After all, I was the one that was going to have to wipe his butt.

Externally, I smiled at my son, helped him get dressed, and said we'd find another bathroom with more privacy so he wouldn't feel embarrassed. Our search for the holy grail of public bathrooms took us up a flight of stairs and down numerous hallways before we found the perfect zen commode for him to do his business.

He took a few minutes to use the restroom, but while washing our hands, I had a thought pop into my head. I realized that the entire time we'd been in the bathroom no one else was around. It was eerily quiet, especially since 800-1000 people were just a few hundred feet away, worshiping Jesus in a concert environment.

I couldn't help but think if someone wanted to, there are numerous places around the high school where a child, college student, or anyone could be taken and harmed without anyone knowing any different. After that experience, I began to feel less and less comfortable with my family worshipping at Austin High School.

I shared the advantages of churches worshipping in public schools and how those advantages are most beneficial to church plants. For those not familiar with evangelicalism, you may not be familiar with the concept of a church plant.

A church plant is the development process of starting a new church. A new 'plant' often comprises a core team (10-30 people), a planter (eventual church pastor), and some seed money. Usually, there's a combination of a sending church, denomination, and/or church planting network that offers training and finances to help give the plant the best chance to become an established church.

To be clear, though a church plant may be a church on paper, they are usually still in the incubator phase, and it often takes 5-10 years for a plant to become a full-fledged church. I share this because it's during this season of development and incubation when churches most often leverage public schools as worship spaces. Part of the church's becoming an established congregation is finding a long-term worship space, either by building a church or a long-term worship space outside the school.

Here's the thing: According to Austin Stone's website, the church has been meeting at Austin High for the last two decades. In the church world, this is like the 40-year-old guy who still runs around in his high school letter jacket.

Furthermore, the Stone doesn't continue to meet at Austin High because it never grew out of the incubator stage. Quite the contrary, as the website goes on to say,

"We also meet at five other locations across the city. While our church has expanded, our passion has remained the same."

The church has six campuses spread throughout Austin. Let me state it plainly: the church has been able to purchase permanent property for all five other campuses because it has stayed at Austin High. Giavanni Alves points out how, from July 2, 2023 - June 30, 2024, the Stone reserved church services for 54 Sundays. She goes on to share:

For context, during the height of the COVID pandemic, the campus met at Emo's Austin. The concert venue is outside downtown Austin but still an ideal central location. According to Eventective, the starting fee for the space is $6,000, which can go up to $25,000. Let's assume the church secured the space for $6,000 a Sunday. To rent the space for the same 54 weeks, it rented Austin High; the cost would be $324,000

To the Stone, this means it would cost approximately three times more to rent an actual event venue outside downtown. By renting Austin High, the church pays a fraction of the market rent for an event venue downtown while maintaining a strong presence in attracting college students from the University of Texas—Austin and young professionals.

I concluded that despite the benefits, churches should definitively not be allowed to worship in public schools. Along with volunteer exploitation, here are a few other incidents that have led me to my current position.

I found out about former Students Director Stan Depue's inappropriate behavior with at least one high school student. I've written about Stan's improper relationship with one of the students in the youth ministry while he was the Student Director at....wait for it, the Downtown Campus of the Austin Stone.

Go here to read more about this incident: Aaron Ivey — Another Case for Why Evangelicalism Needs to be Torn Down

When the story came out about Stan's behavior COVID was in full force, and my family had recently relocated to Atlanta. Though I was no longer at the Stone when I heard about the incident, I immediately flashed back to when my son and I found ourselves all alone when I took my son to the bathroom at Austin High.

I am not saying any abuse happened at Austin High. I don't know the details about what transpired. What I do know is there are ample opportunities and spaces inside of Austin High for abuse to take place.

With Aaron Ivey's inappropriate behavior and child sexual abuse allegations, here is another leader at the Austin Stone who had unrestricted access to the high school for YEARS while he was abusing a minor. Mind you, the downtown campus has approximately 1,000 - 1,500 attendees at Austin High on Sundays. That number of people theoretically makes it more challenging but still possible to harm someone while the church worships. In my opinion, what's scarier is when smaller churches meet in schools. The exact amount of space is accessible, but only a fraction of the people are around to notice any out-of-the-ordinary behavior.

Finally, I thought back to when I was in high school. It's been well over twenty years since then, and I didn't go to a school nearly as big or affluent as Austin High School. At the same time, I vividly remember people weren't allowed to walk around the school without first checking in with the administrative office. Why couldn't a person walk off the street and peruse our school campus? The answer is simple: It's a safety risk for students.

Yet, when churches meet in public schools, a loophole is created that provides an opportunity for someone who may want to harm students to gain access to the school. When it comes to student safety, there is more than just ensuring that people who shouldn't be on campus are prevented from accessing the space when students are present. The other part of keeping a school safe is preventing anyone with malicious intent from accessing the property to get a lay of the land.

For example, why do school shooters most often attack the schools they have attended? To be sure, there are multiple reasons, but one of the main ones is that they are familiar with the campus's layout.

In his book Columbine, author Dave Cullen goes into meticulous detail, showing how Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planned their terrorist attack. Understanding the infrastructure of the campus allowed the attackers to know where to plant bombs, where the largest groups gathered, and which exits students would use to run from them. Similarly, the attacker of Parkland High School was a student who knew the campus.

Here's my point: The safety risk of children in general and students in particular is not worth the benefits that churches gain by saving a few dollars on renting space in a public school. If a church wants to genuinely serve a school and its community, instead of saving a few dollars and making schools take an unnecessary safety risk, it should meet with community and school leaders about serving them on their terms.

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