There is nothing wishy-washy about Christian Home Education.
I think we can all be guilty of stereotyping a group of people who go against the norm in any area of life. One of the stereotypes of Christian home educators that I would like to challenge is the one that says that all we do is keep the world and sin out of the house, our children in the house, tack a family devotion time onto the start of the day and then cross our fingers and hope for the best. In my view, this completely misses the purpose of what we are doing. We are not on the defensive; we are on the offensive.
When God Calls a Man or a Woman He Trains Them First.
Josephus, a Jewish historian of the first century tells of a time when Moses was made a general of the Egyptian army in order to defeat the invading Ethiopians (Josephus, Antiquities, 1.6.2). Josephus writes that Moses demonstrated a great deal of wisdom by means of which the Egyptian army tasted success. The point is this: the world has an abundance of weak and ineffective leaders, but when God led his people out of Egypt, he had a particular man for the job. God’s man needed training to lead such a mass of people. For this reason, when Moses came to lead the children of Israel, he was already experienced in how to lead armies.
Consider the outstanding men of history who received training before their great service: the disciples spent three years with Jesus before he sent them to the nations with the great commission (Matt 28:19). David Livingstone studied medicine and theology before being recruited to go to Africa. Hudson Taylor spent several years immersing himself in the Chinese language and studying medicine in preparation for travelling to China. The Reformers were all well-versed in classical languages before God used them to split Europe and the church in half. Time and time again in our history studies we come across the precedent of training before service, and I make no apology for the fact that we are deliberately training our children in the Lord with the hope that one day they will serve him.
Where is the evidence that we are actively training our children FOR service when there is an
implication that we keep them home FROM fear?
1. We Use All Subjects to Teach a Biblical Worldview.
Sometimes this means profiting from the work of a believer who has put together a Christ-centred curriculum. Sometimes this means using our creativity to point to the Saviour through what we are learning. I recognize the line of thinking that says parents can stem the onslaught of secular thinking from state schools with a daily time of family devotions. These family times are extremely important. However, fifteen minutes of Bible teaching a day does not hold a candle to actively teaching our children about the Lord whatever book is open in front of us.
2. We Recognise that God has Gifted our Children Differently
I have a nine-year-old cake baking enthusiast. She spends her spare time watching ‘how to ice cakes’ youtube videos and her culinary expertise means I haven’t had to cook a birthday cake for years (one of the perks!). I have two Helen Keller fans, a historian in residence (is the curriculum in your bed again?), a professional bug collector and five (currently) bird feeders in the garden. All home educators reading this are smiling because at some point they have been dragged by their children up some previously unexplored backwater of knowledge. God has placed the desire in our children to learn, learning glorifies God and who are we to stand in the way of a hungry search for knowledge when Proverbs insists that we are blessed when we gain understanding (Prov 3:13)?
3. We Point our Children to Christ at Every Opportunity.
I am constantly reminding my children to check their Maths BEFORE they mark it. Why? God is infallible – he gets it right the first time. Children (and mummy) are fallible. We have to check our work for mistakes!
4. We Use Our Best Hours to Teach
When are your best hours? They are probably not in those minutes before bedtime, when emotions and tiredness are often running high. They are probably not found in the morning during the rush to get children into their uniforms out of the door. Our best hours are very often those when we are fully awake, prepared and engaged. Teaching our children the ways of the Lord is not an after-hours pursuit. It is the pursuit.
Ultimately, we pray that the Lord will use our children’s lives to serve his purposes. I am encouraged when I call to mind this fact: God called to Samuel in the night (1 Sam 3:4); but Hannah prepared and presented him (1 Sam 1:22).
