LifeWise keeps insisting it is “just optional Bible education.”
Then why is LifeWise Christian Academy of Wells County listed in an Indiana Commission to Combat Drug Abuse community plan alongside legitimate public-health, youth-service, and government-linked agencies like Wells County DCS, WIC, Wells County Probation, Community Care of NEI, Family Centered Services, and the YWCA?
This is not a church bulletin.
This is a government-linked behavioral health and substance-abuse planning document for Wells County, Indiana.
The plan says CADA’s mission is to investigate alcohol, tobacco, and other drug problems, coordinate efforts to reduce those problems, and examine funding for programs designed to achieve that goal.
So the question is simple:
Why is a school-day Bible program being folded into the same community infrastructure as child services, probation, health care, youth services, and substance-abuse prevention?
Because this is the part LifeWise does not want families to understand.
They are not merely operating “off campus.”
They are building influence.
They are embedding themselves into public systems.
They are showing up in school districts, local government networks, youth-service spaces, prevention coalitions, and public-facing community plans — all while insisting this is just a private religious option with no public entanglement.
No.
This is how institutional access is normalized.
This is how a religious program becomes treated like a civic partner.
This is how public systems get conditioned to see sectarian Bible instruction as part of the community support network for children.
And once that happens, the line between “optional” and officially endorsed starts getting very blurry.
Indiana families deserve to know exactly what role LifeWise is playing in these spaces, whether public schools are involved, whether funding opportunities are connected, and whether children are being funneled into religious programming under the cover of “community partnership.”
Optional does not mean neutral.
Private does not mean separate.
And public systems should not be helping a religious program launder itself as youth services.
What people are saying:
- Secular Education Association: Tagged for transparency because LifeWise Christian Academy of Wells County appears in this government-linked community plan alongside agencies and organizations such as State of Indiana DCS, Indiana WIC, Facebook User, Facebook User, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Indiana and Facebook User
The public deserves to know what role LifeWise is playing in these youth-service, behavioral-health, and prevention spaces — especially when the same organization claims to be merely “optional” off-campus Bible education.
- Secular Education Association: The entire document for reference- https://www.in.gov/cji/behavioral-health/files/Wells-County-2025-CCP.pdf
- Facebook User: This group is positioning itself to be a future Christian charter school located within public schools. This will obviously erode public education, but it also sets the stage for religious warfare once those faiths that are “mainstream” realize they are being assaulted by an ultraconservative Christian nationalist group posing as biblical education. What is so disheartening is that the people who serve as volunteers are kind and well meaning, but have been duped.
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User BINGO
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