Welcome to podcast number two. Last week we launched “TheChristianEducator.org” with a discussion of the parent’s responsibility for their children’s education. I received several emails and comments from our staff regarding our inaugural podcast. We welcome your comments, suggestions and insight. You can email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . At the end of the podcast I will have special opportunity for anyone that contacts me via email.

Today I want to begin the dialog about the concept of “discipleship-based Christian education.” We live in a time where education has found a significant place of value; perhaps more than it has ever had in history, in shaping our society and culture, particularly here in British Columbia where our government has put an enormous amount of our resources into education. When we talk about a specific type of education we have to start with the goals or end product of our labours. A simple illustration would be the hockey school in our area for grade 8 through 10 boys whose goal is to develop them into strong hockey players. They spend five to six hours a day in hockey training and three to four hours a day in classes at a local middle school. Yes, there are other noble goals in a program such as teaching team work, work ethics, and sportsmanship but when a kid spends 5 to 6 hours a day on the ice they are going to become good hockey players and this is the ultimate vision of the school. It drives its curriculum, its methodologies, its staffing and every activity. Our educational jurisdiction of British Columbia states its educational mission as follows: “…to enable all learners to develop their individual potential and to acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to contribute to a healthy, democratic and pluralistic society and a prosperous, sustainable economy.” To summarize our government system here sees education as a means to maintain our cultural values of democracy, pluralism and prosperity. This defines the ultimate goal of most public educational systems in Western culture. We want our kids to grow up to maintain our political structures, be tolerant of people with different beliefs and worldviews and most of all become contributors to the economy. We want prosperous, healthy citizens and the educational system is the means to get there.

I think these are admirable goals for our public education and I applaud our government’s ability to define these goals. But let’s be clear; these are not the goals of “discipleship-based Christian education.” Am I saying that we should be against these goals as Christians? In most cases, no. Do I believe in democracy? Yes, but kind of that Winston Churchill believed in when he said: “…democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Do I believe in pluralism, well sort of, I like the tolerant attitude of other beliefs and think that Christians should be the most tolerant people on the planet.  Jesus, afterall, told us to love our enemies, but to build a society on multiple worldviews will one day decline into chaos or one worldview will turn into a dictatorship. And what about sustainable prosperity? How do you define that? When is enough, enough? I think the Christian definition of prosperity is very different than this world’s. Again, there may be elements of these goals in Christian education but if our vision is to produce good prosperous citizens with some religion mixed in, I assure you we still do not have “discipleship-based Christian education.”

We have three primary challenges in defining and leading our educational programs to follow the Biblical goals.

First, our cultural context has well defined goals for education and it’s just too easy for us to go along with these goals. I would suggest that many if not most Christian schools and home school families have not carefully defined their goals for a Christ based, spiritually motivating, educational program. We tend to let the standard cultural outcomes set our goals and then we strive for academic excellence because, after all, we are Christians, so our kids should do better. We add some Bible teaching and challenge a few of the outstanding controversies like evolution and gay marriage, but, by in large, our goals are not significantly different than those of the culture around us.

Secondly, most of us involved in Christian education today did not receive a Christian based education when we grew up and this holds true for both home educators and traditional campus school teachers.  Nearly all of our teachers receive a secular education in our Universities which train them to meet the government’s goals and methods. There are very few Christian Universities and Colleges training teachers and if they do, in most cases, their goal is to prepare Christians to enter the public school system. A noble and important goal but it doesn’t help us in preparing teachers for our approach to education. Nearly all of the training and development for discipleship-based Christian education has to be done by the schools themselves.

Finally, most parents send their kids to our Christian schools or choose to home school for environmental reasons. They don’t want their kids to be bullied or drawn into bad behavior at public schools.  It is more about what they don’t want their kids exposed to than it is about what they want to accomplish in a Christian approach. This means that families often will have completely different expectations about Christian schooling. Some parents will expect the school to be a place where there are no difficulties on the playground and that every child is calm and controlled. They often look for administration to expel the bad kids as soon as two or three difficulties arise. Other parents expect that our school’s academic programs should exceed those of the public schools. They say: “After all this is a private school, we pay tuition and our kids are Christian, so we expect a higher GPA’s .” Home school families retreat from the public system but give little or no thought to their educational philosophy. We often see an over reliance on curriculum to do the educating. They often struggle to see the critical role they have chosen in their child’s development and discipleship. In most cases parents see what we are doing as an environmental solution to get their kids safely through school.

My primary job as Superintendent of our schools is to define and establish discipleship-based Christian schooling. Obviously we have to start with the one source that can define Christian discipleship, the Scriptures. Two particular passages stand out to me. The first is in Deuteronomy 6:1-9. This is probably one of the most important passages for the Hebrew believer. Jesus also quoted this passage giving us the first and greatest of all commandments. I want you to note how, in the midst of the scripture’s greatest commandment, God includes an educational mandate and methodology. Here is the New American Standard:

1 "Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the LORD your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it,
 2 so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.
 3 "O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
 4 "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!
 5 "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
 6 "These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.
7 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.
 8 "You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.
 9 "You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
 19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

We have a little saying around our church, “God has no grandchildren.” We believe that every child must, at some time in their Christian walk, begin to personally connect with God themselves. Each person will have to make their own commitment to God. This means that our first responsibility in disciple making must start with our own children. How and where we choose to educate our children is central to fulfilling this commission. We cannot leave this task to an hour and a half church meeting on Sunday. We cannot just have a strong academic program with a Bible class as an elective. We have to prayerfully and deliberately understand and establish the Biblical goals of education in order to lead our children into the great commandment. I am not suggesting that we don’t teach our children the three R’s, reading, writing and arithmetic. On the contrary, these disciplines are critical to them becoming disciples of Jesus in the context of this world. Are we saying you don’t want our kids to become good citizens in our culture and society? For the most part, we do want our kids to be good citizens in Canada, the US or where ever you are listening from. But would we have wanted our kids to be good citizens in 1939 Germany? Or in 1997 Serbia? Our commitment to citizenship is secondary to our responsibility to the greatest and first of all commandments! I have posted on www.theChristianEducator.org website the Christian Learning Outcomes for Heritage Christian School. We took months with our staff and school committee to develop this document. It gives us a picture of what we envision the student who has trained with us from Kindergarten to Grade 12.

As Christian educators we have a double challenge of, first making disciples of Christ out of our students and secondarily to prepare them for their participation in our culture and society.

 In my next individual podcast I want continue this dialog and introduce the concept that we are training duel citizens, first the citizens of kingdom of God and secondly, citizens of our respective countries.  This week I will be interviewing Phil Hills the Western Canadian Director for the Association of Christian Schools International. He is a very passionate Christian educator and I think you will enjoy our banter.

Finally, I mention a special opportunity. We would like to find out who is listening into our podcast. If you will send us an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and answer the following questions we will send you a copy of my book “Discipling this Generation for a Digital World” free of charge. Here is what we would like to know from you. What type of educator are you; School Principal, Math teacher, Home School parent, etc.?  How did you find out about our podcast? And, of course include your mailing address.

Thank you for joining our dialog as we reach for the noble goals of “discipleship-based Christian education.”