Tag Archives: writing

When Our Neighborhood Schools Struggle, What Does It Mean to Love Our Neighbor?

Texas released its 2026 A–F school accountability ratings this week, and there was some encouraging news for Austin ISD. The district received an overall B rating, and many individual campuses performed well.

But here in 78757, the news hits a little closer to home. Burnet Middle School received an F rating for the fifth consecutive year. Webb Middle School received the same rating. Under Texas law, those results trigger state intervention that could ultimately include closing the campuses or replacing Austin ISD’s elected board with a state-appointed board of managers.

For those of us who live, work, worship and raise families in north central Austin, it would be easy to see this as simply an Austin ISD problem. But Burnet Middle School isn’t somewhere else. It’s right across the street from where we meet as a church family. 

The students walking into Burnet Middle School are part of the same community we call home. And I think it’s possible to care deeply about those students while also asking difficult questions about how we got here, because caring doesn’t mean ignoring responsibility.

RAISING CHILDREN IN AISD

Our family spent more than a decade in Austin ISD. Over those years, we watched families leave for charter schools, private schools and other educational options. At different points, when I had the opportunity, I shared with administrators some of what I was hearing from parents and students about why they were leaving.

I didn’t always get the sense that those concerns were taken seriously. Obviously, the challenges facing Austin ISD are more complicated than any one explanation. Austin is changing. There are fewer school-age children in some parts of the city. School funding is complicated. The pandemic accelerated enrollment losses. Charter and private schools have created additional competition.

But at some point, leadership also has to ask why families who once chose AISD stopped choosing it. AISD now serves just over 69,000 students, more than 14,000 fewer than it did a decade ago. That’s not something we should celebrate. And it shouldn’t simply become another opportunity for people on different sides of the education debate to say, “See, I told you so.”

ACCOUNTABILITY AND COMPASSION

Instead, maybe moments like this require two things that we sometimes have difficulty holding together: accountability and compassion. Accountability asks, “How did we get here?” Compassion asks, “What do we do now?” We need both. An F tells us something important about academic performance. It doesn’t tell us everything about the people inside the building.

There are teachers walking into classrooms every morning trying to help students learn. There are parents trying to figure out how to help their children succeed. There are administrators carrying enormous responsibility.

And there are middle school students trying to navigate all the normal awkwardness of being 12 or 13 years old while also facing significant academic challenges. Those students didn’t make the decisions that brought Austin ISD to this point.

Neither did the teacher standing in front of them on Tuesday morning. So, perhaps the question for those of us living in 78757 isn’t simply: whose fault is this? Maybe there’s another question we can ask as a follower of Jesus? What does faithfulness look like now?

WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?

Jesus was once asked a fairly straightforward question: “Who is my neighbor?” His response was the story we now call the Good Samaritan. What’s interesting is that Jesus doesn’t spend much time explaining why the man was lying beside the road. He turns our attention toward the people who see him and asks what they’re going to do about it.

Loving our neighbor doesn’t require us to pretend bad decisions don’t have consequences. Compassion doesn’t require us to excuse poor leadership. And accountability doesn’t require us to stop caring about the people affected by it. We can do both. We can expect institutions to listen, learn and change. And we can move toward the people who are struggling right now.

At North Village Church, we’ve been asking a question lately: who are we becoming as a church family? I think moments like this give us an opportunity to answer that question. We want to become people who notice. People willing to ask hard questions without becoming cynical. It’s hard! 

There will be plenty of conversations in the coming months about Austin ISD, the Texas Education Agency, school choice, funding and who bears responsibility for what has happened. Those conversations matter. But we don’t have to resolve every one of them before deciding what kind of neighbors we’re going to be in 78757.

WANT TO HELP?

We are in process of seeing how we can be helpful as a church family. It’s not the kind of help that will turn everything around overnight, but it is the kind of help to do something. If you would like to be involved with time or financial donation, email admin@northvillagechurch.com to get involved.

When Anxiety Starts Growing

I tend to get overwhelmed easily. My brain will focus on a conversation and I will replay the conversation in my head over and over. Pretty soon my worries have evolved like a Pokemon evolution into a whole new problem that is always bigger and scarier than the original problem.

When I find myself in that place, I try to center my thoughts on three areas:

  • What is my responsibility.
  • What isn’t my responsibility.
  • How to move forward.

Then, I make a list of what is my responsibility. I can take a shower. I can get dressed. I can spend time in God’s Word and prayer. This initial movement alone gets my brain out of the “ideating” stage where I loop stress and anxiety and helps me start taking steps forward.

What Is My Responsibility

When I start to think about the specific conversation or event that is causing me stress I try to write down the details of those events. Who is involved? What happened? What was said? Again, these steps help me identify the nuts and bolts instead of getting swept up in emotion. I call it, “Taking Inventory.”

As long as the stress stays in my head the stress is always a blob of emotion swirling around, but simply writing down the nuts and bolts of the stress help me find this stage to be more manageable. I start to catch my breath. I start to see a path forward. I start to feel a little bit of hope in an area that felt hopeless.

What Isn’t My Responsibility

At this stage it helps me to clarify what I can’t change. I can’t change how someone responds. I can’t change how they are responding to the event / conversation. But I can show up prepared. I can listen well. I can reconsider based on what I learn from this interaction.

This little exercise takes only a few minutes. I typically write it into my phone in a text or Notes App. But I can feel my physical body start to relax as I go through this process. Most of my anxiety and stress comes from different scenarios in my head that might or might not happen. Most of the time, my anxiety isn’t coming from the stress of the event, but stress from something that is only happening in my head.

How to Move Forward

Now, I can focus on doing the best work I can bring to the table. If I don’t go through this process I can get stuck. But going through this process gives me a roadmap. I might get overwhelmed again, but now I have a reference point for me to come back to and re-evaluate.

The interesting thing about anxiety is that it usually wants to pull me away from the present moment. My mind starts racing toward outcomes, assumptions, worst case scenarios, and conversations that haven’t even happened yet.

But this process helps bring me back to reality: what is actually happening? What is my responsibility? What steps can I take forward? Sometimes the situation still feels hard. Sometimes the conversation still doesn’t go the way I hoped. Sometimes I still feel overwhelmed later in the day.

But now, instead of spiraling in every direction, I can focus on the next faithful step in front of me.

“Grassroots” Doesn’t Always Mean What We Think

Walk into any grocery store and you’ll see it, packaging covered in reassuring words.

All natural.
Farm-fresh.
Made with real ingredients.

Most of these phrases aren’t lies. They’re just not the whole truth. “All natural” might mean the product used beet juice for coloring… and still contains nine types of preservatives. “Farm-fresh” might mean the farm was three thousand acres owned by a multinational corporation. The label signals purity. The reality is supply chains, processing, and marketing.

That same pattern has become normal in American politics. One of the most beloved words in modern activism is “grassroots.” It evokes images of neighbors calling neighbors, volunteers knocking on doors, and everyday citizens organizing themselves with nothing but passion and conviction. But like the grocery-store label, “grassroots” often tells only the part of the story people want to hear.

The Two Layers of Grassroots

Most large-scale political movements, whether progressive or conservative, operate on two levels:

1. The visible layer: volunteers, rallies, and local chapters

This is the part the cameras see:

  • people holding signs
  • small groups meeting at libraries
  • decentralized energy
  • local organizers who care, often deeply

This layer is real. People are genuinely involved. Just like a snack labeled “all natural” probably does include real fruit.

2. The invisible layer: infrastructure, funding, and national coordination

This is the part people don’t see:

  • nonprofits that create toolkits
  • national organizations providing legal resources
  • donor-funded groups paying for communications staff
  • coordinated messaging that appears “spontaneous”
  • networks that give local volunteers the ability to scale quickly

This layer is also real. And it explains how protests or campaigns can come together in 10 days or appear in major cities within days. It is something true grassroots activism simply can’t do without help. This pattern exists on the left, right, and center.

Democratic-aligned examples

  • People’s Action: neighborhood-based organizing supported by national foundations.
  • Alliance for Youth Action: local youth activism boosted by national grants.
  • Faith in Action: local congregational mobilizers supported by large faith-justice networks.

Republican-aligned examples

  • Convention of States Action: volunteer-led chapters using major conservative funding and think-tank infrastructure.
  • Moms for Liberty: local school-board activism amplified by national donors and legal organizations.
  • The Libre Initiative: community engagement backed by a major national donor network.

These organizations aren’t pretending people don’t care; many volunteers are genuinely passionate. But the speed, scale, and coordination depend on something deeper than neighbors texting neighbors. Just like the “farm-fresh” eggs that actually came from a massive distribution system. The term “grassroots” creates trust. It signals:

  • authenticity
  • independence
  • purity of motive
  • citizens acting without manipulation

That’s why movements use it. But when we assume “grassroots” automatically means “no national influence” or “no financial backing,” we misunderstand the actual dynamics shaping public action.

Why We Should Pay Attention

Just as reading a food label helps you understand what’s actually in the package, looking beneath the “grassroots” sticker reveals the full ingredient list of a movement. So the next time you see a movement calling itself “grassroots,” treat it like that container labeled “all natural.”

There’s probably some truth in it. But it’s worth remembering that behind every clean, confident label is a system much bigger than the words on the front. And the story gets clearer once you turn the box around and read what’s actually inside.

Where “The Phantom Tollbooth” Trips Over Its Own Story

Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth is a classic. It’s whimsical, sharp, and dripping with creative brilliance. But if you’re the kind of person who likes to dig deeper, theologically or philosophically, you start to notice that there are a few places where the story doesn’t quite hold together. Here are three big incongruences that stand out, and what they reveal.

Wonder Without a Foundation

At the beginning of the story, Milo is bored and disinterested. By the end, everything is magical and full of purpose. On the surface, it’s a beautiful arc, but here’s the problem: nothing external actually changes. Milo’s “new world” is just a shift in perspective, and while that’s inspiring, it’s also hollow. If wonder is only based on a feeling, what happens the next time Milo wakes up bored?

Feelings are great, but feelings also change, therefore, the reader has to ask the question, “Without an anchor for meaning, something outside of herself or himself, where does a person find something more stable than feelings?” I love “wonder” but “wonder” alone is temporary at best.

The Rhyme and Reason Dilemma

The whole plot revolves around restoring Rhyme and Reason to the kingdom, which I appreciated. Once they’re back from their journey, everything is balanced again. But pause for a second: why were they exiled in the first place? And why does their mere return magically fix a broken kingdom?

The story never digs into those questions. It wants the satisfaction of resolution without the complexity of wrestling with why wisdom was lost, or what sustains it in the long run. It’s like patching a leaky roof with duct tape: it works for now, but it won’t hold when the next storm of life rolls in on someone.

In short, you could make the argument that this book could do spiritual harm to someone, which is what the authors are trying to avoid. It’s great to ask questions but simply fanning the flame of deconstruction could lead a person to a place of confusion. How’s that helpful?

Growth Without Real Community

Milo matures throughout his journey, no doubt about it. He goes from apathetic to engaged, passive to proactive, which is great! But he mostly does this alone as an individual. Sure, there’s Tock and the Humbug tagging along, but the story doesn’t show deep, transformative community shaping Milo.

In real life, and certainly in a biblical framework, real transformation usually happens with people, in relationship, through accountability and shared experience. Milo grows in isolation, which makes for a clean narrative but a shallow reality.

Why These Gaps Matter

None of these incongruences ruin the book, far from it. In fact, they make it a great conversation starter. They reveal that while The Phantom Tollbooth offers brilliant observations about curiosity, courage, and wonder, it struggles to ground those truths in something unchanging. That’s where a biblical worldview shines: it takes the good questions the story raises and points to a better answer — one rooted in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

What do you think? Where have you noticed moments in The Phantom Tollbooth that feel a little thin? Or are these the very things that make the book such a timeless read?