Conversation - with Pastor Robby and Bruce Jacobsen about LifeWise Academy

Welcome to the Church of the Lakes Kingdom Conversations Podcast.

At Church of the Lakes, our mission is connecting all to Christ to become healthy in God and courageous in love.

In 2026, we're emphasizing the kingdom mindset in all of our ministries and missions by becoming more like Jesus and countercultural in our living.

Today's podcast highlights LifeWise Academy.

This ministry provides parents with the only legal way to bring Bible-based character classes into their child's weekly public school routine without any extra scheduling.

Join Pastor Robbie Strack as he interviews the Jackson Local School's Life-Wise program director, Bruce Jacobson.

Be blessed.

Welcome into another Kingdom Conversation.

I'm Pastor Robbie Strzok, and today we are highlighting LifeWise Academy, which is operating out of uh in this church, uh Jackson Local.

So LifeWise is certainly uh hopefully starting to become more familiar within the walls of this faith family.

And they've been serving families in the greater Jackson Local School District.

And starting this year, they're going to be providing classes for students in grades three, four, and five, believe it or not, at all four elementary schools within the district.

And these classes are uniquely and amazingly bringing biblical education.

Hear this during school hours to help us explore this ministry, some of the nuances, some of the life-giving stories as Jackson's LifeWise program director, Bruce Jacobson.

Bruce, thanks for coming in today and sharing a little bit about LifeWise.

How are you doing?

Good, Robbie.

Thanks for uh thanks for having me and uh thanks for highlighting this program.

Well, for those who are certainly listening, uh, I want to inform everyone that Bruce is wearing the color red, which is not uh unintentional.

Lifewise, if you ever see a red bus on the roadways of Jackson Township or in the surrounding communities in Stark County that also have LifeWise programs, you will understand that that's a LifeWise bus heading to and from.

But I want to start our conversation today, Bruce, by going over some of the basic nuts and bolts.

Um, how about this?

For those who may be hearing about LifeWise for the first time, what is LifeWise and what is really the heart behind the mission?

Can you tell us a little bit more?

Yeah.

Um The heart behind the mission is seeing to it that as many kids as possible can hear the gospel.

Uh it's a very gospel-centered, very gospel-focused uh ministry.

And, you know, there's a lot of kids who um might be a part of after-school programs or before school programs, but they need a ride.

And a lot of kids can't participate because they don't have that.

So this gives an opportunity during school hours, and in 1952, the Supreme Court said that as long as it's off-school property, privately funded, and parent approved, uh school can have release-time religious instruction.

And so using that uh caveat in the law, we um go to the schools, pick up the kids.

For us, it's during their lunch and recess period.

So we're not losing any instructional time at all.

But once a week during lunch and recess, we go and pick them up at school, bring them to an off-site location like Church of the Lakes, teach them a Bible lesson while they're eating their lunch, and then take them back to school before for the rest of their school day.

So again, they're not missing any instruction, but they're getting a chance to hear the gospel, and and every lesson is uh Christ-centered.

So even if it's an Old Testament lesson, they're learning about how Christ is a part of that or how this is looking forward to Christ, or or uh how this includes Christ.

That makes me smile immensely because certainly we as uh theologians that or we like to proclaim we're theologians as pastor, probably less less so than more than more often, but uh everything is through the biblical lens of Jesus Christ from beginning to end of the Bible.

So that's encouraging.

And my most excited part about this whole whole endeavor with life-wise, especially within the walls of this congregation, is it's once again living out our mission here at Church or Lakes, which is connecting all to Christ, which Bruce did a beautiful job of doing that uh so far, but then also to become healthy in God, which is all about learning.

And certainly there's uh times in our lives where um we have opportunities to learn.

And I think of all the Sunday school classes that my parents helped me get to, or you know, Wednesday evening uh children's activities or youth activities.

Not not everyone's gonna have those same opportunities, are they?

That's right.

The kids don't have, if they don't have a church home, they don't have a church family, they don't have that connection, and maybe some of these stories you're hearing about for the very first time ever.

Um, you know, David and Goliath or uh Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, you know, things like that that we may, you know, assume everybody knows.

A lot of these kids have never heard.

And so giving them an opportunity to hear that, but not just hear that, but understand how that looks ahead to Christ.

Yeah.

And that picture.

Fantastic.

Well, thank you.

And I I I know that as we've gotten life-wise off the uh ground in Jackson Local, at least, uh, we started offering classes last October, isn't it?

Isn't that correct?

Right.

Okay, and then we've expanded it this year to include all the elementaries.

Well, we kind of did it last year, I should say.

We tried to, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh can you just share something that's encouraged you the most so far on this journey?

I Bruce, I you know, we keep you in prayer all the time, but I'm sure there's parts of the journey that have been frustrating.

But I would love to hear some of the encouragement that you've gotten behind the scenes too.

Well, some of that comes from uh seeing the kids' faces.

Um of that comes from, you know, we don't waste time uh even when we're driving on the bus back and forth from school.

So we're previewing the lesson to come, reviewing the lesson they just had.

But when we're on the way back to school and we're asking them, well, what was the story about?

Or who are the main characters and what was taking place, they're able to respond those things back.

And uh one thing, one little plug I do have to say, uh the kids that are coming from Church of Lakes to our lifewise classes have a pretty solid Bible knowledge, and that's really impressive to me to hear.

Well, that's uh has nothing to do with the church and everything to do with the parents.

We certainly try our best, but you know, uh education of kids comes first in the home, doesn't it?

It does, it's got to begin there.

And and again, for a lot of these kids, their parents may not have much connection to be able to be doing that.

So uh this fills an important void that way to uh make sure they get to to learn about God through the pages of scripture.

And uh the curriculum takes them from Genesis to Revelation in a five-year period of time.

So they're hearing the whole story.

Okay.

Yeah, I wish we could get through the Bible in five years.

We tend to drag on a little bit, but it's always good that um LifeWise has got the focus of the Bible as a whole.

Um, and Bruce, it's such a unique caveat.

Released time religious instruction.

I mean, that is probably the legal terms that has my head spinning, but it's this unique opportunity where LifeWise has the opportunity to partner with some of our great local schools and respectfully, as you said, not take away from instruction time.

Um where do you see this uh really progressing within the school district, especially in Jackson Local within our bounds of our own community?

Um, where do you see it serving students the best or or most often, perhaps?

Well, uh I guess our goal in terms of growth is uh we're looking to have third, fourth, and fifth this year, at least at the start of the year.

Sure.

Perhaps if we have the resources that we need to expand further.

Okay.

Uh the curriculum goes from kindergarten through high school.

Okay.

And so our goal is eventually to be K to 12.

Um, if we could be K to five by the end of the school year, that'd be phenomenal.

But uh we're gonna wait on the Lord and see what he has for us in in in those terms and uh and what what we have enrollment-wise to work with.

Does the local schools, I'm sure they've certainly made this opportunity available.

I certainly am a Jackson alumni and I'm very proud of our local school districts.

I'm really proud of Stark County as a whole.

Um certainly it's a community that people come back to and want to live and work in.

Um and I'm sure, you know, getting that type of sense of of pride also filters into the LifeWise program, does it not?

It it does.

And Jackson's got a reputation for excellence.

That's one of the main um focuses of the LifeWise program is we're serving the king.

And so everything we need to be, everything we do needs to be done with excellence.

And so we try to have to maintain that high level of excellence in everything we do.

And and that reflects back on the school that this is not a you know a rough shod thrown together program that people don't know what they're doing, although sometimes it may seem that way.

Well, that's just kids' ministry in general.

But I have to say that Jackson administration and the schools have been very supportive and and uh very good to work with, um good for us to work with, yeah, put it that way.

And uh we've enjoyed a good relationship and we try to do everything we can having the kids back on time and things like that to try to maintain that strong relationship and uh try to attend as many school board meetings as I can to try to be available if there's questions.

I'm just so excited for the excellence part because uh certainly you see that um I want people to envision uh life-wise from the doorway that they leave the school.

It's not until the it's not just until they get to the church, you know, it's all that time is utilized efficiently, effectively, and certainly excellently.

I love that.

That's great.

Um well, what are some of the biggest joys and maybe some of the biggest challenges, Bruce, that you've experienced as the program director?

You know, you can make a plug here for whatever you want.

Yeah.

Um a couple of the biggest challenges I guess we face are um having enough volunteers.

Okay.

Um, and especially as we're considering expanding into these additional grades, it's gonna mean because of the schedules of lunch and recess at the schools, that there's gonna need to be two classes running concurrently.

So that means a second teacher, that means a second crew of volunteers in the classroom, um and that means a bus is gonna really be busy on the road.

So uh having the bus drivers we need, which we we could use uh a couple of CDL Class B passenger rated bus drivers uh at right now, um, but also having the volunteers in the classroom to help uh, you know, make sure we have good coverage.

Uh, you know, no child is ever left alone with a single adult at ever in life-wise, there's always two deep coverage or more, and often more than two.

Um but maintaining that volunteer base and uh allowing them the flexibility if they have something going on they can take time off.

But um maintaining that and then keeping our funds um you know sufficient to keep the program going and expanding.

So uh if we don't have uh the funds to expand, then we simply can't expand.

So keeping that um going and you know, one of the great ways that we've had a lot of people connect with LifeWise is to sponsor a student for$30 a month as a recurring gift.

And that's uh, you know, we love that because we um we really appreciate that support.

And that's you know, another person that's probably also praying for us as they uh as they make that donation monthly.

Can that be done through the LifeWise website?

Is that the best place to go for that?

That's the best place to go for that.

And uh, you know, we have the QR codes up and around, but you can go to lifewise.org if you click on find your school, um, go to the Ohio page and then look for Stark County, Ohio, Jackson Local.

And uh you'll find our uh way to either enroll your student as a student, you'll find a way to join the team as a volunteer or something, or you'll find a way there to donate if you'd like.

Fantastic.

So hopefully, if you have an interest after hearing this, we'll make a big plug at the end that we can connect you into giving some resources, whether that's your time, talents, or treasures to the LifeWise Academy here at Jackson local.

Uh but Bruce, how can parents or maybe community members play a more meaningful role in supporting the Ministry of LifeWise?

You know, I often think that um once the snowball starts rolling, uh there'll be kids talking to other kids, getting them interested and excited for something like this.

Um is there something else that we can be doing as community members here in Jackson Township to help support the Ministry of LifeWise?

Um well, we we do have a Jackson Township LifeWise Facebook page.

Okay.

Um and one of the things that got to my attention here just recently was we are not committing as much of this program to prayer as we should be.

So that's gonna be a priority of ours in this next year moving forward.

Is um uh like right now on our Facebook page, we have three specific prayer requests that we're asking people to pray for.

So that's a a really significant way that anyone can be a part of the program and help out and and you know, staying up to date on the Facebook page, see what's going on, and maybe how the the prayer needs change and how you can adjust with that.

That's a a great way to help.

How can parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles help sign up their kids through the website also?

Go through the website, you can go through the Facebook page to find the website if that's easier for you.

But yeah, all of the enrollment opportunities are there on the website.

So whether you use the QR code to get there or use the Facebook page to find the QR code to get there, there's uh there's lots of avenues to find it.

Awesome.

Well, thank you for giving such meaningful direction as to how we can help support.

Certainly, that's something that we cherish here at Churchill Lakes is the opportunity to be able to support our ministry partners.

I'm sure if you're listening along and trying to uh envision what life-wise, a day in the life-wise is, Bruce has given us a beautiful picture of that, and I would just ask and commend to that uh to you in prayer.

Certainly, as they start up the new school year, I can't believe it's uh it's heading towards uh yellow buses and red buses on the road, which right.

Hopefully the construction barrels will go away before then, but you never know about that, Bruce.

Yeah, there's always those.

Well, I'm excited also, you were sharing with me before the podcast that uh uh lifewise is growing in all of Stark County, isn't it?

It is.

So last year we started the school year with I believe four programs.

Okay.

And this year we are looking to start with eight, and there's probably a couple more that'll be coming on some point during the during the school year.

So a really strong presence in Stark County.

Yeah.

Um, and honestly, if you have an interest in another school district, say you've got grandkids in another school district, and you want to see them get a LifeWise um program started there, you go to the website, find their school, and there's a community interest page that you can sign.

And once a community gets 50 signatures, they can begin the wheels of getting a program started and getting that leadership pulled together and making that connection with the school.

Well, the vision of LifeWise certainly is to bring uh this unique opportunity to children in all communities.

Um, certainly that's only able to happen when that community surrounds it, not only in prayer, but in the supports of their time, talents, and treasures.

So, certainly, if you're from out of the area, you know, Ohio is certainly kind of the bedrock of LifeWise, isn't it?

It is.

That's where it got its start in Van Wert, Ohio.

And it's it's certainly expanded significantly since then.

We are in 37 states now, and a thousand program, over a thousand programs, uh over a thousand school districts in the country with over a hundred thousand students uh participating in that.

That's amazing.

Because I want people to realize, and I'm sure most do, especially if they're of the millennial generation like me.

Our our generation certainly has not been immune to the financial problems that we've had over the last couple decades, but really it's come down to the fact that most parents are working, both.

And that's a new reality in our world.

And I know some people don't like that new reality sometimes, but this is an opportunity for kids uh to be able to learn about Christ during school hours.

I can't say that enough, enough, enough.

How uh much of that is an opportunity to share the gospel message in such a unique way.

But uh, Bruce, I want to thank you for coming on our pod today.

And um, you know, I'm so grateful for the opportunity that you've laid out that we can join in this in this vision, and we'll certainly lift you up in prayers.

And once again, if you're interested in supporting with your time, talents, and treasures, I'd ask you to please reach out to me at podcast at churchthelakes.org or Robert at churchthe lakes.org.

We'll get you in contact with Bruce, or better yet, go to lifewise.org where you can find the Jackson local page very quickly and easy, right from their homepage.

It'll lead you right there that you can do things like sign up, support, give, and certainly volunteer.

But before we go, I just want to say a big thank you to Betsy, our director of communication, Lynn Brown, our editor, encourager, and my wife Stephanie, our social media coordinator, and getting this podcast up and running.

And just as a reminder, in case you didn't hear earlier in the podcast, that it's our mission as followers and disciples of Jesus to connect all to Christ to become helping God and courageous in love.

And till next time, God bless.

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