Be an evangelist

Being a parent is hard enough, but passionately desiring to see your daughter and your son grow up to be servants of Christ is even harder. How do you handle a situation where your child is planning on doing something that will probably cause some waves, but it is a good thing to do?
My daughter is apparently an evangelist. Of this I am proud!! Still I am a little nervous. She is planning to tell people about Jesus at the school talent show using her ventriloquism. She was simply going to have her dummy (Carlos I think) tell everyone about Jesus. My wife is helping her do it in a more humorous way. Either way she is trying out for the talent show on Wednesday.
How do I handle this? I encourage her, and I get ready for battle. Satan can not be happy with this. To be honest, there is a part of me that hopes there will be a fight. I can't help but think that God would use that kind of a fight for His glory.
Well, let's just wait and see.

Basic Economics

I never took an economics course in school, not in high school and not in college. Still, I managed to understand what the economy was all about. Basically your provide a service or good and you get paid based on what the market says your service or product is worth. This seems so basic, yet so many students are graduating from high school without this basic understanding.

In my part time job at caribou coffee I work with young kids ranging from 16-22. Most of them seem to think the job they have been hired to do is somehow owed to them. This is a significant problem in our culture there are too many students who think they are some how "above" working at McDonald's or some other fast food joint. The ones that do work there don't seem to have a work ethic that has any kind of integrity. They punch in before they are ready to work and they punch out 10 minutes after they are finished with work. Once punched in they insist on standing around until someone tells them to do something.

I don't know if there is a point to this entry outside of complaining. Thanks for reading.

Why I would Rather Not Home School

The Home School thing seems to bring up all kinds of emotions. Those who are for it generally think there is nothing better. Those who are not for it tend to think Home School Students are missing something that everyone else is getting.

Truth be told, both sides have some good points. I have blogged about bad and good reasons to home school but kept my thoughts relatively vague. I will be much more specific with this entry, but it may be long and I will definitely qualify statements along the way.

As a Youth Pastor for over ten years, five of which were spent in a church with a school in it, I have made many observations about those who home school or attend private school. I have noticed some good trends and some negative trends among the students. I have noticed the same among the parents. Let me expound:

• The parents genuinely love their kids. They love them enough to give up the opportunity to make more money, drive better cars, take more extravagant vacations, and live in a bigger house.
  
• It seems like most of the time (at least in Christians circles) the parents homes school because they want to protect their kids from the evil world.

Protecting our kids is something we should do as parents. If we love them we will protect them, sometimes. Let me explain. My son Joash is a maniac. As an 18 month old baby (if you can call him that) he can already climb to the top bunk of my daughters bunk bed (not something we are very happy about). He has no fear of anything. He will have to learn how to fear some things. He is so destructive to himself that we have actually made him wear a helmet just walking around the house because we are scared he is going to accidentally kill himself (the helmet wasn't my idea, nor was it one I liked). There are times when I will see that he is going to fall and bump his head and I will not catch him. That is right I will let him fall and get a little bump on his head. It is not that I want him to get hurt, but he needs to learn to be careful. If there is any kind of serious danger I will certainly catch him or stop him from getting into a bad situation. I know all the moms who read this will immediately cringe and determine that I am a bad parent, but before you jump to that conclusion go talk to your husband. I bet on occasion he has done similar things. This is why there is a mom and a dad.

What is my point? My point is this. Parents can be over protective. Being over protective is not about freedom, it is about letting kids learn some things the hard way. Life is full of hard difficult lessons. I believe it is often good for kids to be hurt so they can learn. This life is full of hurt and there is nothing we can do about it except try to help our kids avoid the major hurts by occasionally letting them fail in smaller things. This is where parents speaking prophetically comes into play. Tell them it is going to hurt, let them get hurt and then ask them if they think it might be a good idea to listen next time.

Private school and home school can be over protective for some kids. Every student is different and needs different boundaries. We never had wot worry about my daughter climbing the bunk bed, we had to convince her to do it when she was 7. Eventually our kids are going to face opposition to what the believe, our job is to help them see the truth when it has been clouded. It is our job to help them know how to avoid temptations even when it is their friends doing the tempting.

Protection can be a bad reason for private or home school options.

• HS & PS (home school & private school) parents often want to consider these options for spiritual reasons.
  

I have seen HS & PS kids who know tons about the Bible, who live moral lives, but whose faith has never really been tested. Just hang out with Bible quizzers for a while, generally the really good quizzers are HS kids (don't get mad, I am not dissing quizzing or the fact that HS kids are good at quizzing). These kids can probably quote more scripture than I can (not that, that is some kind of great accomplishment), but do they know what it means to have an authority figure challenging what they believe and maintaining their faith? Faith is generally developed better under fire.

Again, don't misunderstand. I am all for teaching kids God's word. If you read my posts you will see that I highly value scripture and teaching it to students. I am working on a post for one of my other blogs, Pj's Youth Ministry Minute, dealing with teaching theology to students. I would suggest this; it is the parents job to teach their kids God's word, values, and what it means to have faith no matter what school their kids attend. PS is not a replacement for parents being the primary disciple makers for their own kids.

• PS & HS kids tend to be arrogant in their view of anyone who believes something contrary to what they believe.

I taught a World View and Apologetics class at a private school (with some HS kids in the class). We talked about alternative worldviews as apposed to the Christian worldview. The attitude communicated to me by the students toward other worldviews was poor at best. On one occasion a student called those who disagree with the Christian worldview "stupid." Not only is this untrue it is certainly not loving. Students who have regularly been subjected to apposing views tend to be more tolerant (in the good sense of the word) and less antagonistic. They seem to be able to have a conversation about things with which they disagree without being jerks.

• PS & HS students also tend to be anti-social.
  

This is not to say they are not capable of being social. I actually believe many of the HS kids are capable of being social, but chose not to be. When I was a youth pastor I saw this first hand. PS or HS kids would simply chose not to mingle with those who attended public school at youth group events or programs. I had to work hard to change the atmosphere at youth ministry programs. Over time things got better.

• PS & HS kids have a tendency to be less evangelistic.
  

They would talk about evangelism. They were willing to talk about how ridiculous it is to not be a Christian, but to actually consider talking to their neighbor about Jesus was out of the question. Sure, if they went to a foreign country or on some mission trip they would be evangelistic, but not the person who lived across the street. This is somewhat symptomatic of the church in general, but it seems to be more pervasive with HS & PS students.

There are a lot of reasons I did not want to HS my daughter. These are some of them. I should remind you that I am now officially a HS parent and I attended private school through 8th grade. I am not speaking out of turn.

I also realize the trends I have noticed are only trends, they are not rules. There are exceptions to all of them. I also realize that some students need more protection and hands on parenting and HS is one way to accomplish that.

I think the best reason to home school or send your student to private school is because public schools have become significantly less reliable when it comes to actually teaching kids how to read, write, and do math. This is our reason for choosing the HS option (we can't afford private school and I am not sure we would chose that option anyway). Apparently the school my daughter was attending is more concerned about teaching tolerance, acceptance, and good self esteem then math, reading, and writing.

Home School Help

I have decided, but I am still coming to grips with my decision! I have had some difficult decisions to make in life, but this one (for me) ranks in the top five for difficulty. For years as a youth pastor I apposed the idea of home schooling and private school for most kids. I don't think I would completely back down from those beliefs, but for now my wife and I have decided to home school.

There is a part of me that is almost grieving. I don't know why I feel this attachment to the public school system. In the end I became very frustrated that my daughter has not been taught phonics and simple math. The teaching methods being used are severely inadequate. We have invested 2 1/2 years into Spanish immersion for my daughter and we are now kissing it goodbye. She already speaks and reads Spanish very well (for a 7 year old). That said, she is not fluent and I am fearful she will not become fluent. I cannot sacrifice her overall education just for Spanish. Enough said.

The purpose for this post is not to explain my reasoning, maybe I will do that in the future. Instead it is to seek help. A few of you said you home school. I would love to get some ideas from you as far as what material you used and any ideas you might have for home school beginners like my wife and I. Unfortunately I think we may have to go backwards and undo the damage done for a while. Fortunately my daughter is excited about the prospect of mom and dad being her teachers (we will see how long that lasts).

Please Help, especially if you know of good Spanish Curriculum. She is pretty proficient with Spanish, but needs help with everything else.