Voice of Vision: Crafting Christian Culture as Symbolic Stories

Christian educators have a shared stewardship responsibility to be collaborative culture creators. This paper presents a doctoral study on how understandings of mission and vision are enacted in New Zealand Christian school organisational practice. It also highlights how personal and professional leadership influences and culture shape these practices. The findings suggest that the use of school guiding statements for systematic and systemic reflection holds promise for both the research community and educators. For the three schools in this study, cultural and community unity has been achieved by focusing on spiritual and leadership development, service framed within creative practice, and strong generational connections between school, church, and home. Engaging in arts-based inquiry methods and an appreciative inquiry lens, through a narrative process, participants gave voice to their schools’ cultural stories, indicating spiritual development is grounded and, in effect, engineered within a covenantal community.