What We Did This Summer

The Homeschool Group continued to meet weekly over the summer months.  In June, July, and August, we spent our group time doing various team building activities that challenged the kids to work together to build various items out of a variety of different materials. Soccer, baseball and basketball kept us exercising, even during the hot, sweaty days of summer. 

Despite being on summer break, we were able to sneak in some science lessons with Kayla teaching physics and Laura teaching on creation science (thanks Kayla and Laura). In addition to our regular meetings, we had fun camping and canoeing (thank you to Bryan and Laura) together, as well as taking a field trip to Winona, MN to visit a lock and dam and an art museum.

More Recent Activities

We officially started “Back to School” Season with School Picture Day. Area homeschoolers were invited to have a picture taken (thanks Elissa).  Beach day was a blast and we had a good turnout of new families, sand some have kept coming on Thursdays.  

Throughout September and October, we went back to rotating between drawing lessons and book reading for our Thursday meetings together.  We had fun playing volleyball and football during the last warm(er) days of the year.  

October’s field trip took us to a Scouting Facility called Basecamp near St. Paul.  The kids had a great time working together on team building skills, as well as learning archery and rock climbing.  Even the moms got to take a turn!  

What’s Coming Up

In November and December, we will keep on with our Thursday activities, but also add in practicing for the Christmas program in late December.  The kids had such a great time performing for everyone last year that they wanted to do it again!  Thank you for being a fabulous audience and encouraging them to perform on stage.  

Having conversations with our kids is a crucial part of their discipleship. We should be instructing them, and part of this instruction is talking to them to know how they are doing and finding out what they believe. This is not something that is happening amongst a lot of proclaimed Christian families. Read the following quote from the below linked article. The quote is in reference to a survey done with 600 American parents in January of this year.

“While 67 percent of parents with children younger than 13 identified as Christians, just 2 percent of those surveyed subscribed to a biblical worldview as defined by the researchers. According to the report, a biblical worldview ‘emerges from accepting the Bible as a relevant and authoritative guide for life.”

T. A. McMahon

2% is a small number. While I am sure there are more statics that could be looked at and this was just one study done, there is no doubt that a small number of kids today are being raised to look at the world around us through the lens of the Bible. (I recall some teaching recently on Biblical paradigms…)  Certainly, there is a lot that goes into raising our kids, but the article below referenced the need for asking good questions to our kids and pointed out that grandparents can play a role in this as well.  With that in mind, the below article from the Berean Call is a good resource for the parents to read on this issue, but also for anyone that would like to be part of raising kids to know Jesus and live as a Christian in the world around us. The article ends with some examples of questions that could be asked to kids to see how they respond.

Conversations with Our Children – The Berean Call

So next time you talk to one of the kids of the church ask them some good questions!

By Nick Samens

A month ago, our homeschool group was able to attend the MACHE Homeschool Convention together in Arden Hills, MN. It was not only informational, but also inspirational. The sessions covered a broad group of topics with titles like “Parents are Uniquely Qualified to Teach and Disciple Their Children” and “Fear Not, You and Your Children Can Learn Math Together.”

The conference was held in a large church that had many rooms. The mornings started with an introduction and worship, then we all split to the sessions of our choice. At any given hour there were 8 different talks going. In the gymnasium there were vendors selling curriculum, books, helpful materials, and yes, essential oils. Despite my lack of interest in expanding my lavender inventory, I took personal inventory of what would benefit my own heart, my children’s education, and the flourishing of my family the most.

In one such session the speaker pointed out the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset when it comes to teaching our kids. The simplest way to sum it up is that someone with a growth mindset views intelligence, abilities, and talents as learnable and capable of improvement through effort. On the other hand, someone with a fixed mindset views those same traits as inherently stable and unchangeable over time. I think this provides a special opportunity as parents to teach (and often times learn with) our kids about how often God provides the means and we have to provide effort in our growth and discipleship. Things don’t always happen “just because”, somethings always being formed, molded, carried out one way or another.

Finishing off the second day I attended a session regarding the “legal” process of how homeschool came to be, where it is now, and where it’s heading. I actually listened to this speaker the day before and wasn’t thrilled to say the least. Maybe my patience regarding anything politics has warn as thin as frog hair but I sat through another one of his sessions with a different heart and attitude. I realized that despite his “fire” for law, without guys like him we would not have the fundamental right to choose how we educate our kids. I left his session with a different attitude and a reason to pray and support the people behind the scenes who really do play a large role in why we get to live/parent the way we do.

One thing that has been of the upmost importance to my wife and I since we started homeschooling was to do it for very “offensive” reasons. Such as seeing your child’s education as more of a lifestyle, an opportunity to spend more time with them, and to essentially, by God’s grace, cultivate an atmosphere where they are properly equipped to love those in a lost and dying world and bring life to it. All and all it was a special time of learning and fellowship with the other parents from our group who attended.

The homeschool group does parenting discussions on a quarterly basis at Believers City Church. This year we began a new series that has been based on the series by Gary Thomas titled Sacred Parenting.

One of the methods that God seems to use in His followers’ lives is using us to serve Him in some way and also changing us through that service. Going on a mission’s trip is a good example of this. We may look at the trip as an opportunity to go and serve God, which it is. But at the same time, God uses the trip to change our own hearts in some way. 

As parents, we often find that God does the same with us through parenting.  God is using us as parents to raise the kids but He is also using the process of parenting to change us.

A secondary aspect of this is that raising children will make or break the kids and the parents.  When a parent is unwilling to rear their children in the way God has called them to, its often a reflection on other areas of their lives. If we are failing in our role as parents, then we are likely also failing in other parts of our relationship with God.  God not only uses our role as parents to shape us, He also uses our relationship with Him to help shape our kids.

God is merciful and He covers our weaknesses. As we move forward as parents, we need to remember that parenting well has a lot to do with how close we are to God. God uses the calling of parenthood to bring us close to Him.

Check out the promo for the current series we have been working through.

The Homeschool Group has continued to meet weekly over these past winter months for a time of shared work and fitness.  In November and December, we spent our group time practicing lines and songs for the Christmas Program.  The kids put in a lot of hard work and had a blast performing!  In addition, we also were able to have a movie night with Kindred in the coffeehouse watching The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. 

Throughout January and February, we went back to rotating between drawing lessons and book reading.  While the younger children learn about Christian men and women in history, the older ones take turns reading The Hobbit together.  As for the drawing lessons, we are going through a workbook and video series with Thomas Kinkade.    We’ve had a lot of fun ice skating and sledding together after the drawing lessons and reading. 

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In February, we were fortunate have Matt teach us a lesson on human anatomy, particularly, about the heart and brain.  In March, we are headed to the cities to visit the Emergency Medical Program where Tavis works.  We are also looking forward to a Creation Science Lesson with Laura soon. 

Over the past three years, the homeschool group has hosted parenting discussions for all of the parents that are in the church.  The discussion are held quarterly and include a discussion that aims to help us do a better job of discipling our kids. This past quarter, we finished the most recent series that we had spent the last year and half covering. Below is a summary of that series.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 states: “”Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.  And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.  You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

A person who is driven to follow Jesus does not become a disciple by showing up to church once, or even twice a week. It is a process that needs to occur every day as we get out of bed, as we go about our day and as we end each day. Raising our kids to know Jesus will also happen in the same way. It is an ongoing, day to day, moment by moment process. As parents, we first need to have that day-to-day relationship with Jesus that will spread to our kids through our day-to-day interactions with them. During our parenting discussions, we talked about how we can best promote faith discussions with our kids by looking at the T.E.A.C.H. acronym.

Travel Time – We discussed how to use the time we spend traveling to talk to our kids or listen to Bible programs or perhaps praise music on the radio.

Eating Time – How can we make the best use of our family meals together through family devotions or mealtime discussions.

Arising Time – What can we do each morning as we start our day together.

Closing Time – What does the end of the day look like? Do we pray together or read the Bible as the kids go to bed?

Holiday Time – Are there family traditions that point us to Jesus that we can make the best use of? This month we talked a bit about the idea of taking trips or “adventures” together as a family.

All these areas included practical discussion that allowed each family to decide what they can incorporate into their schedule to make the best use of their time together. Throughout all the discussions we had, it seemed that the main point that we often came back to is that a disciple builds other disciples and discipled parents will build discipled kids. All the discussions had some good practical steps to give us ideas of things we should be doing as families but in the end, we can only give to our kids what we first have ourselves.

In Deuteronomy 6, it tells us to diligently teach our kids as we sit in our house, as we walk, as we rise, and as we eat.  We must always remember that as parents, or non-parents that are looking to disciple others,  before we are given such an instruction, we are first told to love our God with all our heart, soul, and strength. Only then we can pass anything of value on to our kids.