- [Juan Sanchez] As we think about separating our congregations in, Sam,
you recently been a pastor, new parents come up to you and they're thinking about
education trying to be responsible, how are you going to be guiding them
to think about educational choices?
- [Sam Allberry] Yeah, I think I'd want to say two things. I think I'd want to say
that Christian parents should be committed to Christian formation for their children
and that we have freedom as believers as to what educational route we take in order
to do that. So we may use state education and put that alongside our own Christian
parenting and teaching the kids in that way. We may go down the route of Christian
schooling or homeschooling. But I think the principle has got to be
that we are responsible for how our children are spiritually formed and that
may be...it may vary from place to place and family to family how best to do that.
- That's right. Afshin, here in the United States, homeschooling seems to be
a pretty strong movement, lots of strong opinions about education in general.
How do you help your congregations think through and how have you all thought
through that as a family?
- [Afshin Ziafat] Yeah, I think similarly I would say the thing that I want to
stress as a pastor is that the parents are the primary disciple-makers, so regardless
of which route you take. Deuteronomy 6 says that you are to love God with all
your heart, soul, and mind and that you are to have that on your heart and
diligently teach it to your children as you go throughout the day. And so,
that's got to be the first and foremost thing because I think the fear is that
sometimes people put their children in a private Christian school and just think,
"Well, that's taken care of now," and that's actually not true.
First of all, you have to also look and see just because it has Christian in the
title, I mean, are they getting a real biblical, sound Christian training and
worldview, and so ultimately, I'd say, "Parents, that's your role."
And then yeah, I agree, I think from there, you have freedom.
You just have to know it's going to look different in the different routes
that you take. So I think there's other factors that we have to think about,
finances is one, honestly. I would not say that, you know,
going in a severe debt and working four jobs, let's say, so that you send your kid
to a Christian school but then you are never with your children.
I would not say that that's a good move. They're getting Christian formal education
but they're not getting the most important thing which is their dad discipling them.
So there's other factors I think we got to put into that.
- Yeah. You know it's interesting in our congregation, we had this family,
they have three daughters, we have five daughters.
And so we saw how they raised their daughters. They were both public school
teachers and we just invited them over to church...to our home after church and we
just asked them, you know, "What did you do? How did you raise
your daughters?" And it was that intentionality of every moment,
every waking moment, how you helped them to get to bed,
how they wake up, how you're reading scripture together, how they're watching
your life, that was really significant but it was fascinating to me.
You know one of the things that they did is they just played board games around the
table as a family which, you know, nowadays, sometimes you go to a restaurant
and mom and dad and two kids are all on their devices and no one's interacting.
But just the engagement interaction, I think, that everyday Deuteronomy 6
kind of discipleship is helpful. What are some of the dangers you've
alluded to Christian education as far as private education? What are some of the
dangers that homeschoolers can fall into in that kind of deception that, "Hey,
I'm homeschooling my kids. They'll be okay."?
- I think the key thing is that there are going to be dangers and drawbacks
with any route. So it's not like one route is always problem-free. And that's why
we have to not only have freedom but allow each other to have freedom.
I'm discouraged when I see Christians falling out with each other on this issue.
So we've got to allow each other to have freedom. But I think with the
homeschooling route, a potential danger is I've seen this play out
a number of times where Christian parents think, "If we homeschool our kids,
they will be protected from any kind of sinful influence." And Jesus says that it
is what comes out of our heart that defiles us. So if our goal is to provide a
good education from within a Christian worldview, that's laudable and good.
If our goal is we want our kids to not be sinners, homeschooling is not going
to achieve that. And it will either mean that they turn into little Pharisees or
that they feel crushed by their sin that they then do discover and now feel
like they are beyond the pale.
- To me, I don't know if this is an appropriate parable, but to me, a powerful
parable is M Night Shyamalan,
"The Village." You know that is such a powerful parable to me of the deception
of if we just protect our children from the world, they'll turn out okay, and then
there's an actual murder within the compound. And so it's just a powerful
parable of, you know, you can take the kids out of the world
but you can't take the world out of the kids because they're born of Adam. And so,
how would you have this conversation, Afshin, with parents who are strongly
opinionated and trying to shepherd an entire congregation of people that might
have strong opinions?
- Yeah, I think that's right is to hold up the idea that the goal is that we are
to make disciples of our children, you know, and so the routes may look
different and as Sam said, there's setbacks, potential ones in each one.
So if you send them to a Christian school, as I mentioned earlier, the tendency could
be that you just back off and think that that's taken care of. Well, no.
You have to come around and still disciple your child and still train them
and the setback on, let's say, going the public school route is obviously,
potentially, they're not going to get a Christian worldview and they're not
going to get a Biblical worldview.
Setback on homeschool or the private school could be that they don't realise
that we have a mission, you know, and you know in the public school, they're may be
the minority as a Christian and understanding that we are aliens and
strangers in a world that's against Christianity. So I think each one of them
has their answer. You just, as a parent, I would just say, have to you know fill in
where that weakness is and be intentional.
- Yeah, I think, you know, having five daughters and realising each of them is
uniquely and wonderfully made individually, they have different needs
and so I think sometimes a decision is even an individual decision base
upon each child and their specific needs. And I think, you know, like you have said,
we will be responsible for discipling our children. That's our mission to raise our
children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, you know, to help them get
an education however best they can do that and understand there's... Some of my
daughters I might not ever would want to put in a public school setting and then
others, I could say, "Yeah, they would do fine," and so we've done public school,
homeschool, and now our two youngest are in a public charter school and
flourishing by God's grace. But interesting enough, it was because
my now 17-year-old said, "Dad, I need more structure."
Because of her specific educational needs, she was enough self-aware and we were able
to work with that. And so in our experience, it has been fruitful and
encouraging with our girls. So each child is different but we have the
same job of raising our children in discipline and instruction of the Lord.
- Love it.
- Thank you, brothers.