Part of the series Wrapping Up 2015-16
Written by Léo Gaumont, published on 2016-05-23.
The focus on what’s best for the children has been obscured by a focus on what’s best for parents or organizations because we don’t focus on Jesus.
We are generally all ignorant of what is actually happening around us. This ignorance can either be perpetuated and capitalized upon or fixed to empower the masses. It is time to enlighten home educators who have generally been kept in the dark respecting what is occurring within their community. (Ephesians 4: 11-16)
Bible Reference: 2 Chronicles 7:14
Don’t we just love finding solutions to problems? At least, I do. Perhaps that is because I am a natural fixer and I delight in seeing what was broken as repaired or restored. In fact, I believe that is also the heart of God. He created the world perfect and willingly gave man enough freedom to reject Him which, as you know, he did. And, even though man has been running from God ever since, God never gave up trying to fix the problem created by the fall, even being willing to personally descend on earth in the form of man to not only repair and restore man, but to redeem him. The ultimate solution to the ultimate problem! Thank you, Jesus!
To redeem is to go beyond repairing or restoring, which actually deals with the effect of a problem rather than the cause. Redeeming goes beyond fixing the cause or the problem, to eliminating it. This is what we need to do to save Christian home education. We need to bring it back into right standing, much the same as Jesus’ sacrifice provided opportunity for mankind to be repaired and restored into right standing with God. I am not saying that we need a saviour, because we already have one. What I am saying is that unless home education agencies in general, and home educators in particular, seriously refocus on why Christian education was restored to the home from the schools, we will not be able to clearly see what the objective for home education was and continues to be and we will simply return to what we want to escape.
Home education has never been about money, as almost every other jurisdiction in the world knows. Neither is home education about out performing the world in their school and educational games. It is not about winning spelling bees, writing a world class essay, offering solutions for some major issue or inventing a new gismo, even though these are noble accomplishments, nor is it about being able to fill the children’s heads full of knowledge, even though this is good too.
Home education is when parents seriously consider that Jesus’ great commission, to go out into the world to preach the gospel, starts at home with the children God has given them. It is about taking the authority and associated responsibility to make sure that the truth has been written in the hearts of the children and demonstrated as being the major component of the heart of those in authority, starting with the parents. To teach the heart is to prepare for eternity. The head may get us through this life, but then what? How about eternity? What was Jesus willing to give us so that we could have that eternity with, rather than separated from, God? What do you think His expectation of us would be in exchange? Is this expectation part time or only applicable in some instances, something like entertaining a Christian world view on Sunday at church then a secular world view thereafter? We cannot serve two masters so let’s pick the Winner.
The problem with Christian home education today is that we are becoming increasingly unaware of where we have come from and as a consequence we have mostly lost our faith and vision, not only for ourselves and our children but for society in general and the home educating community in particular. We have traded the eternal for the temporal. We have become self-serving and sectarian. We need to be shaken out of our lethargy and cult-like followings so that the Christian faith and home education can be redeemed as a service to the Lord and not to ourselves or our children, even if they are the focus of the exercise.
The solution, while simple, is not easy. Christian home education needs to be reunited, repaired, restored and redeemed as a service unto the Lord as we fulfill our responsibility to share the gospel with a lost and dying world. When money, grades, subjects, government, schools, home education providers, agencies, ICHESs, facilitators, and a whole host of other home education issues and concerns take second place to seeking the Kingdom of God, they will find their place and their appropriate functions. Let us all passionately repent, refocussing back on the author and finisher of our faith and make all that we do, starting with our children, a full time, uncompromising ministry unto Him.