This weekend I was blessed to attend the Midwest Homeschool Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was over the top phenomenal! If you homeschool or are considering it in the future, you need to attend this conference. When I left, my brain was on overload from all the great information I gathered on all sorts of topics! I am sure there will be many posts about what I learned and what I am trying to do to make our school the best it can be for our girls to get the best possible education we can give them.
With that in mind, let me share some insights from the first speaker I heard, John Stonestreet from Summit Ministries. His talk was titled," Why students walk away from their faith and what we can do about it." That was a title that jumped off the page and struck me in the face. I don't know about you, but the thought of my girls choosing to not follow Jesus one day really makes my heart sick. With great anticipation,I sat in his seminar and was blessed beyond words.
I think something that I had not wrapped my brain around before was the fact that our job as parents is to prepare our kids to enter a world of evil, danger and suffering when they leave our home. I never thought of it that way. While we may be able to protect them from some things, when they leave our "nest" it is not a nice, sweet package out there. They will face crimes that make them questions their faith, natural disasters, evil in ways I can't even imagine. We have to have raised them well enough in their faith to face these things with strength and confidence in who is in control and whose they are.
One of the stats he gave was also startling...1/3- 1/2 of students who enter college claim t hey are Christian claim they are not when they leave. Look at that number! 1/2 to 1/3!!! That is a lot of kids and those could be ours! What are we doing to teach them not just what we believe but why and how to defend that faith so that they can stand up under those attacks at college level?
Why is this mass exodus of faith occurring? Mr. Stonestreet gave some logical reasons:
1. They don't know who to trust.
(they live in an age of information. They can hear facts and opinions from multitudes of people at the click of a mouse. They need to hear truth to be able to discern the information they have seeping in their minds. With this in mind, now more than ever before, the trustworthiness of authorities is of upmost importance. They do not need perfect parents but redemption acted out before them to see how to seek God when they sin. )
2. They don't know how to think.
(We need to teach our kids TO think, not just WHAT to think. They are not able to defend their faith.)
3. They don't know who they are.
( We are what we worship. In America it is stuff. We love stuff because it is of value to us and looks good. We then treat people the same way. Wrong! Teach the kids that if we want to know who we are, we need to get to know who God is then we learn how to treat people. Kids need to learn what it means to be a man or woman. We have a generation of "grown ups' that are stuck in the teen-age mentality.)
4. They don't "get" Christianity.
(They don't understand what they believe to be able to defend it. They think "God wants me to be good, happy and will be there for me without anything in return from me": this goes against scripture. They need to know what they believe and how to defend it.)
So if that is all true, what needs to be done?
We need to make sure our students have:
1. A worldview big enough for the world.
2. A community offering vision oriented around that world view.
3. mentors who embody the worldview being taught.
Seems so simple yet it is such a mighty task. I am overwhelmed yet empowered. I have purchased the apologetic study for the girls to go through next school year with us as a family. We will continue to teach that type study throughout their schooling. I am amazed at how many adults can't answer some of the questions that I have been working through in this book marked for ages 6-12. I am humbled and so excited that God placed me in this session. What a treasure of information.
3 comments:
I think the thing that is really scary as a parent sending your kids off to high school or college, when they are really becoming their own person, is not the obvious things like drugs and alcohol, but the subtle ways in which Satan can lure them away from their beliefs. It can be a professor or a friend who claims to be a Christian, but isn't, or even pastors who really aren't preaching the Word.
Keep your kids in your prayers always!
This is one of the reasons I've loved the Truth and Training level of AWANA. The have to give reasons for their faith and back it up with scripture.
One of the most important day-to-day things to do is to live the Christian walk that you want them to have. So why is that so hard?!!!
Thanks for the sum-up, friend!
Lainie, I agree. That is exactly what I thought about BSF's training until I listened to his talk. He was very convincing to me that it is something we need to talk about all the time and not just do it in one "course" or year so to speak...AS I know you guys do, I just was shocked to hear the high number of walk aways. While I can't guarantee my girls won't be part of that number, I will be sure to do everything in my power to try to give them what they need to make a stand confidently. Oh the joys! :)
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