When Junior surpasses Senior

A church we attended started a school.  They share a campus, having now fully shifted from Sunday School rooms with microscopes to chemistry labs with flannel graphs. It's an odd relationship, frankly.  The church started the school as a 'ministry,' just as it did with sports and global mission trips and counseling.  There are separate governing boards and liability insurance policies, even though they share board members and physical space.  In time, the school developed a reputation as one of the top schools in the area: best arts, sports, academics, etc. Were it not for the steeple on the fieldhouse, visitors might not know of the association.

Yet tension exists: who birthed whom? Who has the power?  Where do the funds come from? Who pays for renovations in the shared space? Who makes the decision about masks when the rules for schools are different than those of houses of worship? 

More pointedly, who is making the bigger impact?  By most accounts, the school exceeds the church in these (and other) metrics: greater revenue, brand awareness, impact, quality. 

How did this happen?  Did the church not keep up growth? Was the school more singularly focused on its inherently more narrow mission? 

I thought it a single case study until we visited a different church one Sunday, knowing only the reputation of the school it started.  Known for its excellence in instruction and facility, we had high hopes for the church.  We quickly realized that the church had not kept up, maintaining its painted cinder block, Styrofoam coffee cup standards.  The instruction followed the trend.  What happened? Was there a differing governance structure? Was it the school's capital campaign? 

Then it happened a third time.  And a fourth.  Churches spinning off schools whose impact exceeded its originator. 

Maybe I'm reading too much into this.  Maybe these are the wrong indices.  I don't know. 

What I wonder is what can the senior organization learn from the junior? 

What happens when a ministry or program or skunkworks is better, faster, cheaper than the parent?  In (good) business, the core folds into the subsidiary and shifts focus or spins it off (for a profit).  But what about the nonprofit and church world? 

This observation is not intended as a criticism, but as a reflection to the originator: what can junior teach senior?

I've been asking myself that a lot lately.