I
WANT TO INTRODUCE YOU TO AVERY, a former
student of mine. Avery had a lot going for him. His
grandfather was a senior pastor. His parents loved each
other and the Lord. Avery was active in a Bible-believing,
gospel-centered church, had Christian friends, and played
on the student worship band. If there was ever a child that
should grow up to love Jesus, it was Avery.
Unbeknownst to others, there was a battle raging in
Avery’s heart. During his senior year of high school, Avery
sent me the following email:
I have been weighing a lot of things in my life lately, and I
have decided to renounce my faith in Christianity. I simply
don’t know what I should believe in, and I won’t pledge myself
to a religion when there are so many other options.
What caused Avery to reject Christ? In his words, it was
different “perspectives” he was taught at school over an
extended period of time. These different religious “perspec-
tives” planted seeds of doubt that blossomed into disbelief
in Jesus. Avery’s parents underestimated the transforming
power of education and were unaware that it was shaping
their child’s belief system.
I’ve seen enough Averys over the years to believe that if
parents and pastors are serious about raising children to
treasure Jesus then they cannot ignore education. Children
spend approximately 16,000 hours between K-12 in an
environment that is faith-shaping, mind-molding, and
belief-forming.
Grace Church of Eden Prairie, where I am a pastor, recog-
nizes the impact that education has on the faith of children
and has made it a strategic focus of ministry. Our vision is
to see children treasure Jesus Christ, and we believe that
education is a means to that end. It either helps that effort
or hinders it.
Because education is a touchy and taboo subject for many
churches, it is critical for church leadership to be in agree-
ment about what the Bible teaches on the subject. At the
heart of our ministry is the conviction that education is a
Romans 14 issue. Parents are free to choose public, private,
or homeschool. But, because the Bible clearly commands
parents to raise their children in the Lord, I believe the
best choice for parents is to choose some form of Christian
education for their child.
We seek to support and equip families in all three spheres
of education: public, private, and homeschool. Each have
unique needs and we have created a ministry tailored to
those needs. Homeschool families need help doing school.
We offer a monthly support group for parents, regular social
activities for families and children, and weekly classes for
K-12th graders in our building. Public school families
want to know their rights and what is being taught to their
children. We offer worldview training, a prayer and support
group for parents, an educator’s breakfast that equips teach-
ers to proclaim the gospel and live it out at their school, and
we equip students to lead Bible studies and be salt and light
on their campus. The private school ministry promotes
Christian education through a yearly Christian education
fair so that parents can research and explore options at a
one-stop shop. Next year I will teach a seminar to parents of
four year olds titled, “Perspectives on your child’s education”
as this is a natural time that parents are beginning to think
through the educational choices they will make for their
children.
Children spend approximately
16,000 hours between K-12 in
an environment that is faith-
shaping, mind-molding,
and belief-forming.
At the heart of all three arms of our educational minis-
tries is worldview training. A person’s worldview is their
belief system. Mark Cosgrove, in his book Foundations of
Christian Thought, defines worldview as a set of assumptions
or beliefs about reality that affect how we think and how we
live. We want our young people to love Jesus, think like Jesus
and live like Jesus, but to do that they must be immersed in a
biblically-based, Jesus-centered, God-driven worldview.
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