Current Events & Preparing Our Children for an Anti-Christian Culture

The ongoing battle of worldviews being waged in this country is intensifying every day. North Carolina is in the thick of it, with the opponents of HB2 launching heavy artillery aimed at the state economy, in hopes of forcing our government leaders ( who were elected by the people, btw, so this attack is on the democratic process!) to align with the new "progressive movement.

Similar things are happening all over the country. Yesterday, the Michigan Board of Education passed "guidelines" (tied to funding, so we know what that means) saying that all schools must allow students to self-identify their gender. Last week, Massachusetts (my home state) became the latest state to approve protected class status for transgender persons, and, according to the Gender Identity Guidance report by the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, CHURCHES can be considered places of public accommodation and subjected to fines and penalties for not accommodating transgender persons in accordance with their gender identity. Similar wording was issued by a commission in Iowa earlier this summer.

U.S. Civil Rights Commission chairman Martin Castro has lashed out at "religious liberty and religious freedom, calling them “code words" for a host of hateful and discriminatory actions including “Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance.” " [World Magazine, "Churches in the ‘civil rights’ crosshairs", 9/13/16]

What is your worldview? What and who influences your beliefs about right and wrong, good and evil, truth and lies? What are the assumptions ( truth claims ) that determine your opinions and actions? Do your actions line up with what you claim you believe?

Is God real?

What is my purpose in being?

Why is there suffering and what is the solution?

What is truth?

Is truth relative, or is there such a thing as absolute truth - something that is true for everyone?

There was a time, not so long ago, when

Some resources I have used with my teens that you might want to investigate:

*The Truth Project (Focus on the Family)

*Doing the Right Thing: A Crisis of Ethics (Colson Center)

*Impact 360 Institute

*Summit Ministries / the Summit Lecture series

*For the Life of the World (The Acton Institute)

With younger kids, ground them in God's Word, talk about what it means to follow Jesus and how sometimes that's a hard thing to do. Study the book of Daniel. Set a godly example, demonstrating God's love and compassion while also standing up for truth. Teach them to be compassionate. Read biographies of heroes of the faith, who faced hardship, disappointment, calamity, and all manner of challenges with hope, courage, perseverance, fortitude.

Ephesians 6:10-18 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.

Summer Planning

 Summertime. ahhhhhh.

My 2 youngest are working as counselors at a local overnight Christian summer camp, so they are gone from Sunday afternoon until late Friday night, for 10 weeks. They come home on the weekend, sleep, do their laundry, run to Target to replenish their toiletries and supplies, and are off again! Since they are only 10 miles from home, I do see them a time or two during the week. My husband and I cook breakfast at camp every Tuesday morning, flipping chocolate chip pancakes and cooking sausage links, something we started doing last summer. And I usually make at least one other stop in during the week, to drop off cupcakes for the staff and whatever other miscellaneous item one of them needs - an extra blanket, a certain t-shirt for skit night, a clip-on fan for the bed, a slushie from Sonic, etc

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 Otherwise, I fill my days with my "summer projects" - organizing and decluttering my home, school planning for the coming year, reading. I sometimes can't believe that I am in this season of having NO KIDS home during the summer, and only one high schooler left to homeschool, and I do miss the days when my children were young.

No, I really, really do.

But I am trying to embrace this season as well, and have learned to enjoy the quiet. I still complain about not having enough time to get everything done. I think I have just slowed down, and spend more time reading and contemplating... I am an introvert, after all, and a lot of my activity takes place inside my head. :-) But I have big plans for J for this school year, and although I have completed my term on the Board of our support group, I am still active in leadership and still have a great desire to help new homeschoolers get a good start and to encourage as many homeschool families as I can.

I will be teaching high school English again this year, with a small group of teens in my living room, so I am choosing the literature we will study and working on a syllabus and lesson plans.  I know I want to include C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters,  Corrie Ten Boom's The Hiding Place,  and Harper Lee's  To Kill a Mockingbird, but still haven't decided which of the dozen or so others on my list to include. So many good choices!!

I have recently decided that I am also going to teach a Christian Worldview class, using several DVD series, and a Civics / US Constitution class.  I've been feeling an urgency about making sure that J and other teens have a rock-solid understanding of these things before leaving home.  Generation Joshua has a Civics curriculum that looks really good, called iCitizen: Civic Literacy for Young Americans.  I also like Constitutional Literacy from Michael Farris and Patrick Henry College, so I think I want to do the Civics class first semester, and then half of the Constitution class in the spring, finishing it next fall.  I really think the Civics part needs to come first, otherwise I would just do the Constitution class all of this year.   For worldview, I already have Focus on the Family's The Truth Project and also For the Life of the World  .  I'm also planning to use Doing the Right Thing, a series on ethics from The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview.  And then I want to finish with a few weeks studying Darwin's theory of Evolution and alternative theories.  It is so important to me, as a Christian, that I teach these high school subjects from the perspective of a biblical worldview, since they will likely not get that perspective again in their educational pursuits.

Proverbs 9:10 says "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. "



 

The Truth Project

Mark & I attended the Regional Training event for The Truth Project this weekend, held at a church here in Raleigh. The Truth Project, produced by Focus on the Family, is a set of DVDs that takes the viewer on a comprehensive and systematic tour through the areas of philosophy, ethics, sociology, history, science - looking at life from a biblical perspective. I have done a lot of reading on biblical worldview over the past 10-12 years, but Mark hadn't read nearly as much. So this was a chance for the two of us to learn together, and be equipped to lead a small group through this DVD curriculum. Dr. Del Tackett led the training, and for someone who claimed to be a teacher and NOT a speaker... he was a tremendous speaker!




The word "worldview" refers to the set of beliefs or presuppositions by which a person understands or makes decisions about the world. According to a recent Barna study, only 4% of Americans have a biblical worldview; worse than that, only 9% of professing born-again Christians look at the world with a biblical perspective. Barna's definition of a biblical worldview includes a belief that absolutes exist and a belief that the Bible defines them. Additionally, a biblical worldview includes the belief that Christ lived a sinless life; God is the "all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of the universe and He stills rules it today"; salvation is by grace and not by works; Satan is a real being; Christians have a responsibility to witness; and the Bible is "accurate in all of its teachings."

Sadly, many Christians in our culture think and live just like non-Christians. It is hard to tell them apart, except for Sunday mornings when the Christian parks his car in the church parking lot and participates in a worship service. Then he gets back in the car and drives home, and lives just like everyone else until the next Sunday morning, when the unbelieving neighbor gets to sleep late and read the paper, feeling sorry for those poor folks who drag themselves to church every week.

Even those who have a real and personal relationship with Jesus find themselves struggling with various aspects of Biblical truth. We live in a post-modern world in which Christian beliefs are viewed as ignorant, narrow-minded, and even shameful. ( ask Carrie Prejean)

If Christians truly believed the Bible as truth, and understood the character of God and the reality of what Jesus Christ did for us, then their lives would be radically transformed, and the world would take notice.

That is the reason for The Truth Project. It is not an evangelical tool, but is designed for believers, to dig into the truths of God's Word and see how it applies to EVERY area of life, every day of the week - not just on Sunday mornings! It is designed for use in small groups meeting in homes, because life is about relationships, and life-to-life is the way that Jesus lived and taught. And as Christians, we all want to be more like Jesus.

So look for a Truth Project small group near you. I'll be hosting a college group this summer, and hope to start a high school group in the fall.