What we must get in Christian schooling - Part 2

There are some things that are vitally important for us to 'get' in Christian schooling. One of these is for us to teach our students that God has relevance, interest and dominion over every subject, every school activity, every moment of every day. Because we tend to compartmentalise our lives and seperate the God part and the 'real living' part of our daily programme, we need to be trained to recapture the integrity and wholeness of God's Lordship.

Ted Tripp says, in his excellent book, Shepherding a Child's Heart (2011), "Is there any other goal that is worthy? Are you willing to start here with your children? You must equip your children to function in a culture that has abandoned the knowledge of God. If you teach them to use their abilities, aptitudes, talents and intelligence to make their lives better, without reference to God, you turn them away from God. If your objectives are anything other than "Man's chief end into glorify God and enjoy him forever," you teach your children to function in the culture on its terms."

"How do we do this? We pander to their desires and wishes. We teach them to find their soul's delight in going places and doing things. We attempt to satisfy their lust for excitement. We fill their young lives with distractions from God. We give them material things and take delight in their delight for possessions. Then we hope that somewhere down the line they will see that a life worth living is found only in knowing and serving God. In terms of Godward orientation, we are training them in the idolatry of materialism. In fact, we even feed the idols. Years spent denying the importance of a deep conviction of Scriptural truth will not develop into Godly piety during adolescence or early adulthood."

In Christian schooling we need to be teaching our children that God has something to say about Social Sciences, Arts and Culture, Maths and English, homework, competitive sport, spending money, interacting with adult mentors and everything else. They are disciples-in-training (as we all are) and they should be apprenticed into activities carried out by disciples of Jesus. In this, we lay that foundation of deep conviction of Scriptural truth that is a living and lived out reality in our children's lives.

Ken Langley