The recent shootings on the campuses of Seattle Pacific University and Reynolds High School are indeed a tragedy and a reminder to us all that life is precious and also temporary on this earth. We hug our children a little tighter, thank God for their safety and presence with us, and continue about our lives.

As I heard the news reports come in bit by bit, the media began a typical play by play of tragedies that we are becoming all too familiar with. Finding out incoming new details quicker than the next guy can become a pursuit with an easy search on social media. But at the heart of the tragedy are lost lives, broken hearts and communities reeling with grief and questions that often go unanswered or are given answers unsuitable to the ones asking. The armchair philosophers chime in quickly (and oftentimes should) on the ills of such things as gun violence, lack of safety in the schools, or the nature of broken families impacted by divorce, mental illness, lack of a moral compass, or any number of fill in the blank crises that many students shoulder daily.

If you want to go down the gun violence path, blaming the guns isn’t going to help. You can find research that points to an increase in gun ownership and a decrease in gun violence if you like. But that’s not the point of this post. My point is simply this: The world we live in is the world that Jesus called us to be in, as his followers. We are to not shrink back and go hide in a hole until Jesus comes back. Tragedies will happen. Our students and people in general need the light of Christ in their lives. We are the light of the world, a city on a hill.

I love the public school system because in large measure it’s where the greatest mission field of students is. You can make the argument for homeschooling and private schooling and I’ll sit down with you and agree with you whole-heartedly over a cup of coffee. I’ve chosen to send my child (who is a believer) to public school because I believe that I should practice what I preach, and teach him the same. I volunteer at the public school; I visit the lunches at public school. I go to students’ events and games. I’ve volunteered at the private school and visited lunches there also, simply to be amongst the students God has placed in our community. My wife and I have even attempted homeschooling with our son, going to the homeschool convention, with an armload of curriculum to boot. It’s the call of Jesus on my life to be in the world and not of it that beckons me to be among those who need Jesus, no matter where that takes me.

When tragedy happens, don’t make the mistake of throwing the baby out with the bath water. There are a lot of teachers and administrators and students in the public school system that needs the church to be salt and light with them.

Pray for the victims and families of these senseless tragedies. Pray for the perpetrators too. Thank a teacher, principal, or parent. Encourage them in their role in the public sector. Follow Jesus’ command to be in and not of in John 17:14-19 or as someone put it better, not of, but sent into.