Dear Friend,
I hope you had a wonderful Mother’s Day last Sunday! It’s hard to believe that I’ve been a mother for so many years – 24 now. Sometimes it feels like forever and yet it seems like yesterday that I brought my first baby home with the uncertainties of a brand new parent swirling in my mind. While I made many mistakes through the years of parenting and educating my children, there were also incredible times of growth and joy.
Probably the most rewarding experiences were the many times my children and I collaborated on a creative venture. We each had different skills to bring to the table and it resulted in a synergy that astounded me.
 I’m pleased to be able to offer the results of one of those creative projects for the first time in a quality softcover. Called to Influence: A New Approach to Life, Education and College Admissions is the result of four years of working with my oldest son trying to distill what we had learned on the homeschool journey. You will find the book filled with transparent stories, lessons learned, and practical advice for succeeding in the brutal world of college admissions. Check it out here.
Blessings,
Jeannette
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Feature Article: Developing a Worldview at Home
I’m pleased to be able to continue our interview with Eric Smith of Summit Ministries. In our last issue he talked about the variety of ways that Summit Ministries is seeking to help young people develop a Christian worldview. This week he tackles how parents can strengthen and equip their students at home. As a side note, between these two issues of Training for Excellence, Eric’s wonderful wife, Sara, gave birth to their fourth child, Evelyn. Please pray for this family as they welcome this baby girl and continue to minister to students from all over the U.S.
Training for Excellence (TFE): What can parents do to strengthen their child’s Christian worldview while their student is still in high school? I’m thinking about family things, not really Summit related.
Eric: My primary recommendation is this: Talk with and ask questions of one another. I really like what you said in a recent “Training for Excellence” e-zine in which you promoted family discussions at the dinner table. Talk about life. Go to the art museum, or any local art exhibit, and wrestle over a definition of art. Go to a baseball game and talk about a biblical theology of leisure and sports. Discuss current events and local, national, and international news. Ask questions and look for answers. But keep in mind, this will go both ways. So parents need to be prepared to think too!
But there is one topic that shouldn’t be missed. That is the gospel. Many students I encounter have a truncated view of the gospel. They have a low view of sin, their own especially. As a result, the central message of God’s love, the cross, and resurrection appear irrelevant. This translates into a cultural view of Christianity – both on and off the college campus – that it’s irrelevant. So we’re all bound to be affected by that lie. To counter it, study the gospel as a family, then talk regularly and apply the good news to your day. The best sermons — including our sermons to our kids — are full of personal testimony. Our kids can learn from a theology textbook, but they’ll get more from our confessions, gratitude, prayers, and Christian life lived out.
TFE: What one word of advice would you give to parents?
Eric: Talk about life with your kids, but especially personalize and discuss the gospel.
TFE: What one word of advice would you give to students?
Eric: Seek opportunities that will put you around the types of people you want to emulate.
TFE: Many homeschooled students graduate early and are looking for some type of gap year experience. Does Summit Ministries have anything in this regard?
Eric: Yes, we offer a gap-year program called Summit Semester which we conduct each fall at Summit’s Snow Wolf Lodge in southwest Colorado. We’ve designed the 12-week program around the retreat-type atmosphere of our two-week summer conferences. To this setting in which everyday distractions are minimized, we invite a small group of about 30 students to join together as a thoughtful community for the purpose of engaging the hard questions of life. Under the teaching and mentoring of top-tier Christian scholars and bright Summit alumni, students come out of this program with life-long friends, a network of mentors, and a strong Christian worldview that has been challenged and strengthened daily for three months.
These students are doing great things on their campuses and asking their friends and professors the questions they wrestled with at Semester. Adam, a Semester alum and chemical engineering major at Cornell, recently asked one of his professors out to coffee. This isn’t uncommon, but this particular Cornell professor is one of the leading evolutionary biologists in the world. Adam knew this, and wanted to hear this gentleman’s best arguments for evolution, while politely asking him why he didn’t believe in God. Adam called me to thank me for Summit Semester; he said he wouldn’t have had the humility or confidence to do this without it. I don’t believe Summit Semester should get all the credit; Adam comes from a good family, but we’re glad God used the time and people of Semester to prepare Adam. Today he’s a well-grounded Christian creationist, and one whose worldview is big enough to handle the challenge of Darwinian evolution.
TFE: What is the deadline for applying to Summit Semester?
Eric: We conduct rolling admissions, so the sooner the better. We typically fill up in the summer. Check out Summit Semester
TFE: Please explain Summit Oxford.
Eric: Summit Oxford is a place for college juniors, seniors, and those doing post-grad work, to study at a prestigious university while living in community with like-minded Christians. It’s an opportunity for advanced culture and apologetics training from Summit faculty living on site with them, while also studying for a term at Oxford. A term at Oxford provides students with outstanding recommendations when applying for graduate schools. Some of our students have been invited to continue studying at the Masters and Ph.D. levels at Oxford. Those who see their calling involving leadership and scholarship should seriously consider studying abroad in this program.
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Resources: That the World May Know
Eric has reiterated my constant advice to parents – talk to your kids. A lot.
Seventeen years ago when we were contemplating the beginning of our homeschool adventure, we chose Deuteronomy 6 as the verse that would guide us into this unknown territory.
The term Deuteronomy in Hebrew literally means The Words. Let’s set the stage. Moses is 120 years old. He is addressing a new generation destined to possess the promised land. These people had survived the 40 years of wilderness wandering because their parents had not been faithful. Over and over Moses reminds them of the importance of obedience so they will not make the same errors that their parents made. Deuteronomy is a renewing of God’s covenant with Israel. In chapter 6 we see that the home is to be a divine school:
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.”
What a powerful command! Moses expected more than, “Oh, by the way, one time our people wandered around the desert for awhile before we came here.” He did not want an occasional comment squeezed in between watering the donkey and fixing the roof. He was cautioning them that there should be a continual communication and celebration of the story of God’s mercy and goodness.
The really exciting thing though is that not only is this Israel’s story, it is our story, both historically in our faith, but also in our lives today. For years our country, our churches, our parents have been unfaithful. As homeschoolers, we’ve been called out to pursue a different path. We’ve been called to conquer the promised land, not to continue wandering in the desert.
To be faithful, though, requires something of us. We have to tell the story. We have to engage our children (and be engaged ourselves). When my children were in upper elementary school, we purchased the fairly new video series That The World May Know from Focus on the Family. Once a week we would sit down to watch a new Faith Lesson and our dinner table discussion would be fueled for the week. Not only did we get a much richer sense of biblical times and meanings, but we began to understand very clearly the exciting concept that we were also a part of God’s larger story, that we were called to influence culture just like God had called the ancient Israelites to do. Our new softcover book, Called to Influence, is the direct result of that seed planted in our lives years ago by teacher and historian, Ray Vander Laan.
That The World May Know series is a great place to begin equipping your younger children. Check it out here!
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About Us
Jeannette Webb is the founder of Aiming Higher Consultants, a firm dedicated to helping Christian students gain admission to great colleges. She has a heart for assisting parents as they train their children for excellence. Jeannette works to empower families to make thoughtful choices for their younger children, to confidently navigate the difficult high school years, and then ace the college admissions process.
If you liked today’s issue, you’ll love her personalized consulting services that help you map out a holistic plan for your student.
While Jeannette is best known for her clear-sighted counseling, her clients feel that her biggest gift to their family was permission to be themselves.
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