Dear Friend,
Homeschooling your children can definitely take it out of a mom. I can remember the years of tight finances, of too much to do, and of lesson plans stretching to the horizon. But I made a discovery one spring about the importance of delightful moments.
The children were small and I knew the summer ahead would be filled with Oklahoma heat waves, lots of gardening chores, and no money for a vacation. I made a rare impulse purchase of a hummingbird feeder to suction to our bay window as another science lesson. The weeks that followed amazed me. As the tiny Ruby Throated hummingbirds began to visit our window, a profound sense of delight invaded our heat-weary household. We never knew when they were coming, so it brought an exciting anticipation to our day. The children would lay very still on the window seat underneath the feeder to see the hummer’s long tongues in action. The little birds had unique characteristics and we gave them each names.
That summer taught me important lessons about setting the stage for joy. Whether it is filling a corner of a room with things you love where you can retreat when the rest of the house is a wreck, choosing to drink tea from a delicate china teacup rather than an ugly mug, making an arrangement of flowers from the garden for your desk, or feeding hummingbirds, I have found that it is the tiny things in life that give me the courage to keep going.
Now that my nest is empty and my days filled with quiet, I need delightful moments even more. The hummingbirds have been busy this morning!
Here’s to joyful moments,
Jeannette
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Feature Article: Training Your Child’s Worldview
I am pleased to share a recent interview I had with Mr. Eric Smith, the Director of Summit Semester, a Summit Ministries Institute. Eric is a homeschool dad and a man I deeply respect. In this interview he shares advice and resources for families with children of all ages.
TFE: Many Christian parents are concerned about their children’s vulnerability to deceptive philosophies when they are away at college. How does Summit Ministries address that problem?
Eric: We’re concerned too; that’s why Summit exists. The predominant worldview of our culture, naturalism, dismisses Christianity as irrelevant if not harmful. Our kids are vulnerable to the non-Christian ideas taught in the classrooms as well as those lived out in the dorm rooms. In fact we’re all vulnerable to the spiritual deadening that comes from our secular culture.
Ideas cannot be avoided, so Summit exists to equip students to understand and think critically about the competing worldviews out there, wherever they are found; in the classroom, textbooks, friends, commercials, movies, music, even our own hearts.
We want to move students from a position of vulnerability to one of awareness, discernment, and leadership for Christ. To accomplish this, Summit employs three basic strategies. First, we seek to equip students with a worldview big enough for life. Many Christian students haven’t sufficiently dealt with the realities and complexities of life by the time they start college. Students need a safe environment to look at and begin developing a Christian worldview that fits reality. We challenge students to think well, and carefully; in short, we strive to teach them how to think Christianly, and not just what to think.
Second, students need mentors who can teach and model what it means to live the Christian worldview in everyday life. “Teaching” here shouldn’t imply a formal, classroom setting. Rather it entails personal interaction with mentors who can help students identify and evaluate what they have done or should have done, based on what the Bible teaches about God, man, and this world. Summit creates an engaging atmosphere in which students can interact with our staff and faculty as their own mentors.
Third, Summit encourages students to choose their communities carefully. Some young Christians are stuck in our amusement culture. They don’t think; they take little in life seriously. We encourage students to be leaders, and to surround themselves (not exclusively, but primarily) with other thoughtful, teachable, servant-oriented Christian students. Thankfully we see a lot of students like this at our two-week conferences, which tells us many parents are doing a good job. By the way, Steven Garber explains each of these three points in his wonderful book The Fabric of Faithfulness.
TFE: You’ve used the word “worldview.” Will you explain what you mean by that?
Eric: Worldviews are held by cultures as well as people. So, by “worldview” I mean those ideas imbedded in cultures and embodied by people. These ideas provide answers to, and direction for, our lives. Our worldview is the ideas about the world we believe to be true; its implications show up in what we love and what we hope for. A culture’s worldview answers these sorts of questions: What should I love? What should I hope for? What is the meaning of life? What’s wrong with the world, and how can it be fixed? Where did everything come from, and where is history headed?
It is difficult to analyze one’s own worldview because we typically adopt the ideas of our surrounding culture. Whether parents have separated their children from culture, immersed them in it, or something in between, young adults need time to look at the ideas that make up their worldview. They need to begin formulating substantial reasons for their worldview so they can move into adulthood with a stable and confident faith. As with other areas of life, stability comes with strength, so a worldview that is tested and built up with reasons is a stronger foundation that can withstand the challenges of our time.
TFE: How does Summit do this equipping?
Eric: Through conferences, curriculum, local workshops, and extended study institutes. Our website (www.summit.org) is also a great resource, with free lectures, articles, and many other resources for further study. We’re really excited about our elementary Bible and worldview curriculum Building on the Rock. We’re hearing wonderful feedback from schools and parents using it. In fact, Apologia Press recently began re-formatting it for homeschool use. (We produced it for a Christian school setting.) Apologia’s four-volume series is called What We Believe. It’s an outstanding worldview and Bible resource for parents teaching multiple ages at home.
Many people know Summit for our summer conferences for high school and college students. It’s here that we immerse students in classes on culture, ideas, and social issues. Our purpose, like I said earlier, is to equip the students with a Christian worldview big enough for the world. We study the Christian worldview, as well as non-Christian worldviews, including Secular Humanism, Marxism, Islam, Postmodernism, and the New Age movement. Students come away with a greater desire to learn and motivation to enter the battle of ideas typical of the college environment. In addition, most students make life-long friends. In other words, they start building that thoughtful Christian community they need.
TFE: What are the deadlines for applying to your 2010 summer program?
Eric: We receive applications until a particular session is filled. Our conferences in the middle of the summer fill up first, although as of now space is still available at all of our locations: Colorado, Wisconsin, Tennessee, and Virginia.
TFE: We’ll continue the interview with Eric next issue where he’ll discuss further aspects of worldview training in the home and gap year options.
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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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