Faster Unto Thee

Taking Flak for Christian Schooling

Our plan for the last 5 years was to homeschool our daughter, but due to circumstances beyond our control, we have had to abandon that plan. Abandoning the plan has been painful to say the least. We had met many homeschooling families and overall were deeply impressed with the academic progress, social well-being, and spiritual foundation these children had in comparison to the average child from a Christian home who was in public school.

In place of homeschooling we have chosen to send our daughter to a Christian school. Our decision came after much prayer and researching the schooling options available to us. Now after her first week at school we must say thanks to God, for He seems to have led us to a good school and our daughter loves it and seems to have done well so far. While entrusting her to others for hours a day has been difficult and not without a great deal of second-guessing, we do feel that we are in God's will.

Much to our surprise, some Christians have not affirmed our decision. In particular, we have had several Christian people (yes, Christians!) respond to our choice with skepticism and even subtle hostility. From several of these folks I get the impression that they feel judged somehow, thinking that our choice on where to send our daughter to school is somehow a commentary on what they chose for their child or children. For those people, I want to say that our choice has nothing to do with you, but with us and a commitment to seek God's will on this matter. Others quietly ripple with this odd hostility to anything but public school, as though we are subversive to the government. And this is a government that they constantly criticize! To those I want to say that my first loyalty is to God and His Word. Needless to say, it has been a weird week. 

So why have we chosen a Christian school instead of sending our child to public school? Here is my thinking so far.

1. God's will. The goal of life is to bring glory to Him, and one way of doing that is to bring all areas of life under God's direction. That includes the schooling for our children. It seems ridiculous to me to simply default to public school when other options are available. Too many families never seriously consider sending their children to a Christian school or homeschooling them. They simply default to public school. After wrestling with the choice in prayer over a significant period of time, my wife and I felt that it was God's will that we send our daughter to a Christian school.

2.Influence. The Bible makes it clear that training in light of God's Word as a child is crucial to their faithfulness to God as an adult: "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he shall not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6). Contrast a public school and a Christian school in your mind. In a public school, some teachers are Christians but are not allowed to speak openly of their faith nor are they allowed to express an overtly biblical viewpoint in their teaching, nor are they allowed to pray with their students, directly promote a right relationship between God and their students, etc. Beyond these restraints on the Christian teachers, there are the non-Christian teachers who are hostile to the Christian faith, bristling with secularism and liberal ideas, and more, and have a clear agenda of shaping your child with their worldview. In contrast, in a Christian school, all the teachers must profess the Christian faith, must incorporate biblical thinking into all the subjects taught, and typically teach in a Christian school (usually for far less money than they would make as public school teachers) out of sense of mission for God. Their deep concern is the formation of children for the glory of God. This father wants his child to be influenced by such people, especially in her formative years.

I am unaware of any Scripture which teaches that influence from non-Christians is a good thing or that being among them will help a child "toughen up." In fact, it teaches the opposite. As Wayne Grudem says in his 1984 essay, Biblical Reasons for Sending Children to A Christian School,

I know of no verse of Scripture that tells me that secular training will “strengthen” Christian children. It may callous them so they view sin as more “normal.” It may harden them so they care more about the things of the world and less about God. It may desensitize them so they are more comfortable living in the midst of repeated sin against their Lord. But it will not strengthen them as Christian men and women: “Train up a child in the way he should go” (Prov. 22:6).

3. Boundaries. Involvement in public school can become all-encompassing to the detriment of the family and church involvement, two things the Scriptures hold in high esteem. Sports, band, and other extra-curricular activities through public schools are simply out of control in terms of time commitment and the importance they are given. Sports practice and games have moved into Sunday mornings and can fill every week night, keeping children away from their families and from steady church involvement. In too many schools, students must choose between sports and church - they simply cannot have both - and parents too frequently value their children being good athletes over being disciples of Jesus. Certainly, parents whose children attend public school can set healthy boundaries for their children, but I would rather not have my child in a school that I have an adversarial relationship with. In a solid Christian schools, family and church life are still held in high esteem, and appropriate boundaries are put in place to keep school activities from undermining a healthy family and church life.

These are my thoughts so far. I could go on with more, but that is enough for today. What do you think? Click on "comments" below and share your thoughts.

Deliberately Shaping our Children

My family and I spent last week at our conference's annual Family Camp. The week always has its spiritual highlights and fun, and this year was no exception. The sermons from Phil Jerome and the seminar by Dr. Jay Wile were great, and the recreation and fellowship was refreshing.

            With that great review in mind, you might be surprised to hear me say that every year as Family Camp comes around I always think, "Is it worth it?" You see, getting ready for camp takes time, money, a lot of work, and disrupts our family's schedule. It is by no means convenient or easy to go. And our cabin at the campground...is it really worth owning and maintaining it since we only use it 1-3 weeks out of a whole year? And while camp is fun, it is not really a vacation, even though some people use some of their vacation time to attend. We work at camp! There is always the temptation to skip events like Family Camp for the easier life at home.

            But every year at Family Camp, after just one day, I always say to myself, "Yes, it is worth it." Why? It is worth it because my daughter is having positive spiritual experiences that have the potential to shape her for life. By bringing her to camp and putting her in the classes, bringing her to worship services and more, she encounters the Lord in ways that she would not if we stayed home. There is something special about Christian camping done well. Research statistics continue to demonstrate that Christian camp experiences have a profound, positive effect on children, often resulting in deep commitments to Christ.

            If there is one thing I want for my daughter it is for her to become a strong disciple of Jesus. Anything short of that will be a failure. Part of our strategy to foster that is to place her in environments where the Lord can work in her heart in deep ways. Camp is part of that strategy.

            Our vision as a church is to build distinctively Christian families. To see that happen, we must be deliberate in shaping our children's spiritual lives. What are you doing to deliberately shape your children or grandchildren for the Lord? Do you talk with them directly about the Lord, read the Bible and pray with them, keep them steady in church, and do things like send them to camp? Spiritual formation does not happen by accident. Read again Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and rethink what you need to do and start today.

Mohler on "How Not to Raise a Pagan"

Dr. Albert Mohler delivered a powerful sermon entitled, "How Not to Raise a Pagan" during his November 6, 2008 visit to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. The sermon's text is Deuteronomy 6. Here is my transcript of a portion of the sermon's introduction:

We are witnessing the loss of a generation. It is not comprehensive, by God's grace, but it is, nonetheless, monumental.

There has always has been a pattern that is discernable within the Christian Church of some period of loss among the young when they later  reconnect to the church, but study after study is indicating to us that we are now not experiencing the recovery of a generation that somehow in our complacency we had assumed would happen. The reality is that when most of our high school graduates from our families leave our homes they also leave the church. They also leave any substantial connection to the Christian community. They may have some tacit affiliation or allegiance to the Christian faith but in terms of their lives they live and they think like pagans. We are watching the rise of a pagan generation from within, supposedly, Christian families. And this is coming at the same time that we are witnessing the re-paganization of the culture around us. There is no other way with biblical eyes that we can describe what we are witnessing. As we look around us and we see the contours of this culture, we begin to understand if we listen to the messages, overt and covert, subtle and obvious, when we listen to the advertising, when we – if we dare – dip into the social media and listen to the conversation that is going on, when we listen and we watch and we see, we see the re-paganization of a people all around us. To our utter tragic shock and pain and concern we also see the re-paganization of much of what calls itself the church. We see re-paganization in the form of embraced idolatries, we see re-paganization in terms of the kinds of compromises that Israel was warned never to commit with the Canaanites and with the peoples around her. We see the Christian church now flirting with kinds of amalgams, the kinds of concessions, the kinds of accommodationisms, the kinds of syncretisms, that Israel was warned over and over again that it must avoid at all spiritual costs.  And we also have the testimony that Israel at times did not avoid these things to its own peril and we are witnessing in what may be a Babylonian captivity of the church because of our willful re-paganization and because of our lack of a prophetic confrontation not so much just externally with the paganization of the culture around us, but with our own children who are being taken captive by the spirits of the age.

I don't want to raise pagans. I know you do not want to raise pagans. Many of you in this place today are already parents. Most, by far of you, will one day be parents. You do not want to be the parents of pagans. But if you are not strategic and careful, if you do not heed the Word of the Lord you will raise pagans by default. For others will raise them as pagans out from under you.

Teaching Children Modesty

Before my daughter came (she is now 4 1/2) I thought that the big push for modesty in clothing would come when she neared her teens and became tempted by whatever questionable fashions would be in style at the time. But I was wrong. Teaching modesty had to begin this past year as we picked out clothing for her. You see, many of the clothing styles for little girls are based on current trends among teen girls and young adult women - ridiculously tight pants riding low on the hips, baring the midsection, shirts so tight they looked like they were spray painted on, etc.  These styles are not cute on a small girl (nor on a young adult) but sexualize her and teach her that to dress pretty is to dress provocatively.  Fortunately, our daughter does not like to wear tight clothing as it restricts her very physical play, but that could change if we do not insist on modesty even now.

Teaching modesty to children is lost on most of Christians in America, excepting the Amish, Mennonites , and a few other very conservative groups. Many girls from evangelical churches dress just as provocatively as girls who do not attend such churches. In our hyper-sexualized culture the difference between dressing attractively and provocatively has been lost.

Over at Moore to the Point, Dr. Timothy Paul Jones has a great post on Clothing at the Character of the Christian.  Jones writes,

So why am I so unyielding on this issue? Simply this: The clothes that our children wear do not merely cover the nakedness of their flesh; they shape and reflect the contours of our children’s souls.

Jones also offers some action points for parents:

(1) Set clear standards and say no. This isn’t easy. A few weeks ago, I said no to a ballet leotard because it didn’t meet our family’s standards for modesty. No other leotards were available at the dance supply store. As such, my veto resulted in a rather unpleasant chain of events that ended with some crying and behavioral consequences—and with a clear awareness that we will not compromise our family’s standards. Truthfully, I wanted to say yes. In the short term, it would have resulted in far less stress to give the go-ahead to that particular leotard. But, as Hannah’s father, I bear primary responsibility before God for my child’s spiritual formation. And so I said no—firmly, gently, in love—because the long-term building of Hannah’s character matters more to me than the momentary calm that compromise could have achieved.

(2) Recognize that what is emblazoned on your children’s clothing is likely to be expressed at some point in their behavior. If the child’s t-shirt says “Blame It On My Sister,” why are parents shocked when their son eventually tries to avoid responsibility for his actions, even if that means resorting to deception? If you purchase clothes for your son that declare his ideal day to consist of sleeping, eating, and playing video games, why be surprised when he’s living in your basement two decades from now, still expecting you to pay his bills while he sleeps, eats, and plays video games? “But what the shirts say—they’re just joking,” parents respond. “You’re not supposed to take them seriously!” And perhaps the clothing manufacturers do intend such statements to be taken with a grain of salt. But history suggests that, what one generation smirks at, the next generation accepts as an inescapable state of affairs.

(3) Admit that the need for peer popularity is over-rated. Another primary cop-out from parents: “But my child has to dress this way to fit in at school.” In the first place, such a statement implies that the authority of the peer group matters more than the wisdom of the parents or the Word of God. In the second place, this implies that you would want your offspring to “fit” into a group that evidently bases its valuation of a child on that child’s clothing. Yet, even if we bypass these faulty foundational principles, there’s still a problem with this line of thinking: The idea that this type of peer popularity is necessary for healthy development is a recent phenomenon, rooted more in the social function of the American school system than in any perennial truths about human nature. In fact, despite decades of family fragmentation, the way that a child is accepted in his or her family remains far more important for the child’s development than acceptance or rejection at school. I’m not suggesting here that you should work to make your child unpopular with peers—but such acceptance is far less crucial than we’ve been led to believe.

Read the whole thing. It is worth your time, especially if you are a parent.

The Sins of Old Men and Parenting by Example

Pastor Mark Driscoll recently interviewed D.A. Carson of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.  You can view the interview here.

Near the beginning of the interview, Carson talks about his recent book, Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor, which is about his father's ministry.  Speaking about things he found in his father's journal, he said,

In his journals for example, he recorded - he was about 80 at the time - words to this effect, 'Save me from the sins of old men.'  A tendency to look backward and idealize the past.  The temptation to resent younger men coming along who are more successful than I was.  Too quick to turn on the television because I am lonely.  Insufficient interecessory prayer for my grandchildren.  He just goes down the list - this long thing - and says, 'Save me from the sins of old men.'

I've long thought as I've looked at my parents that he worst kind of Christian home in which to grow up is the one in where there are large spiritual pretentions but low spiritual performance.  The best kind of Christian home to grow up in is the one where there are low spiritual pretentions, but quite high spiritual performance.  Because the best stuff is caught, not just taught.

Boys to Men

Dr. Vern Poythress of Westminster Theological Seminary, a man who is both a mathematician and a  biblical scholar, has much of his work posted on a joint site with Dr. John Frame.  Today I stumbled across an interesting piece he wrote called, "How I Have Helped My Boys to Become Christian Men."

In this article, Poythress discusses a problem in western culture, namely our culture's lack of a means or a rite that signifies their transition from boyhood to manhood.  Borrowing from the Jewish tradition of Bar Mitzvah (Son of the Law), he created a coming of age ritual he calles "Bar Jesus" (Son of Jesus).  Just like a Jewish boy must meet certain educational and character requirements before qualifying for the Bar Mitzvah, so Poythress' sons had to meet certain criteria as well.  Knowledge of the Bible, understanding of doctrine, langauge study in both Greek and Hebrew, and more were required.  If all the criteria are met around age 13, then the Bar Jesus ceremony is given in the presence of many guests.  At that point, the boy, now acknowledged to be a man, yet still under the authority of his parents, gains greater freedom and responsibility under their watchful care.

This is a fascinating idea and has great implications for Christian parents who wish to raise their children in contrast with the world. In particular, I can see homeschooling families make great use of such a rite.  What attracts me the most to this idea is how intentional and deliberate Poythress is in trying to shape his boys into Christian men.  To be thoroughly Christian there must be significant knowledge of the Bible, theology, and more for without that a person will not think like a Christian and therefore will not behave like a Christian should. Poythress' plan seems to hit all the main areas that would shape a boy's mind and heart.

What do you think?  How could a coming of age ritual help be employed in your child's life?  In our churches?  How might one create a "Bat Jesus" (daughter of Jesus) plan for a daughter?  What would be the differences?

Check out Poythress' article and consider how you might be more deliberate in raising your children to be strong men and women of God.

Seven Reasons to Go to Church While on Vacation

My family and I are on vacation this week with extended family. We are having a wonderful time on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The scenery is breathtaking and the weather is perfect and we are all having a wonderful time relaxing together.

My family and I always plan ahead to attend a worship service every Lord’s Day that we are on vacation, whether we are staying at home for vacation, visiting family or on a “real” vacation like we are now. This practice is not driven by some legalistic notion that I simply ought to be in church on Sunday, but by a real desire to be in the Lord’s presence amidst his people in worship.

Here are my top seven reasons to attend a worship service on the Lord’s Day even when on vacation.

1. To honor God.   This reason stands head and shoulders above the rest and is sufficient in and of itself to compel one to go to church while on vacation. God is worthy of worship at all times and in all places and he commands that we believers gather for public worship, not neglecting the assembling of ourselves. In our day, too many believers hold God in such low esteem that they carry no healthy, biblical “fear of the Lord” in their hearts. And so when they are on vacation, they take a vacation from God as well, as though suddenly their lives during vacation may now be lived without reference to God. May God give us a more Puritan view of the Lord God Almighty who simply must be worshiped without interruption. I have often said to my congregation, “do not take a vacation from God when you are on vacation. And be glad that he never takes two weeks off from you.” Is God such a burden to us that we need a break from him?

2. To keep life ordered around God. The second reason is an issue of discipline. As the hymn writer says, “prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” The discipline of regular attendance at worship services on the Lord’s Day except for times of sickness or true emergency is a powerful tool in keeping one’s life centered around God. We need a day of the week to plan our busy lives around; we need a fixed day to submit our schedules to lest we begin to center our lives around ourselves. Making the commitment to be in church while on vacation forces the vacationer to plan ahead by looking for a church to attend, organizing the travel schedule around worship and maybe even shortening time at the beach. In other words, it keeps vacation time from being all about self-indulgence and emotional escape while reminding us that God is always to be the center of our lives.

3. To teach my child. One way children learn the value of something is from a routine established by parents, for we make regular what is important to us. If I say I love God and they should too, but act like God is something to be vacationed from, I teach them the opposite. My little three year old already is watching what I say and do and keeping a mental journal of how daddy’s actions reveal what is really important to him. She needs to see me leading my family to worship even when it is inconvenient and not do so begrudgingly but with joy and love for a wonderful God. She needs to see me lead her to live against the grain of our self-indulgent culture and against the low standards of many believers. She needs my example to teach her, to haunt her when she is on her own and to prove to her that devotion to God is something that can and must be lived out in practical, routine ways. She needs me to show her that love for God is meaninglessly hollow without practical expression.

4. To witness. It amazes me how people stand up and take notice that we go to church when on vacation. People see you leave the hotel or other accommodations and head out church. They see you go to bed at a decent hour on Saturday night so you can be up on time for worship. They note when you ask where to find a church. And the people you might be staying with are impacted by the fact that even if they don’t go, you do.

5. To experience the joy of meeting other Christians. There is great joy in meeting other Christians in some place other than your home church, in experiencing what God is doing in some area of the world other than your own, in hearing of common struggles, victories and hopes. In world that seems too dark at times, one hour or so spent in someone else’s church reminds me that God’s light is everywhere his people are.

6. To experience a timely word. While I certainly have heard a few dud sermons while on vacation, I have more often heard a timely word from the Lord in a sermon or through some other element of a worship service. It amazes me how readily God speaks to me if I just pay attention! What insights and instruction and direction and affirmation and rebukes I would have missed if I had skipped church while on vacation! What believer does not want to hear from God?

7. To give in to holy desire. Pastor John Piper is famous among believers for writing about  "Christian hedonism."  He makes the point that true, deep happiness is found only in full surrender and service to God. When we are fully enraptured with God happiness is the natural result. As I said at the beginning of this post, I go to church while on vacation because I really want to. My heart wants it. And I figure that giving into a holy desire is rarely a bad thing.

 What do you think? What would you add to this list? Do you wish to take me to task for anything said here? Submit a comment and let’s talk.