A Life Changing Moment: Following God's Call - Part 2

In a previous blog post, I mentioned how we came to know about the Home Educators Association of Virginia (HEAV). I shared how attending a convention HEAV hosted was a life changing moment for Colleen and I. In this blog post I plan to share some of the ways HEAV has been instrumental in helping us experience a revival like none other in our walk of faith.

Conviction
The first time we attended HEAV was in June 2012. The first day of the convention scheduled on Thursday afternoon/evening time included sessions about homeschooling in general and the legality of homeschooling in Virginia. Colleen and I attended all these sessions with open minds and hearts. I recall the speaker for these sessions was Yvonne Bunn, a Godly woman that had homeschooled her children. She shared her story and relayed other's stories about their journey as homeschooling families, even when it was illegal in the state of Virginia to do so. I encountered the conviction these early homeschool pioneers had to raise up Godly children. They were willing to risk jail and even their children being taken from them by the Department of Social Services in order to obey God and His Word with respect to the discipleship of their children.

As I sat there listening to why one should homeschool, the Holy Spirit began to convict my heart. My conviction wasn't so much that I needed to homeschool, but that my responsibility to God as a father and disciple of Jesus Christ was much more than I realized. As a Christian father I was to be the one leading my children spiritually, not the "church" or "Sunday school teachers" or the "youth group leaders". As a Christian father, I was to value my children as the heritage of the Lord which is a blessing, not as a burden or looking forward to the day when they were grown up and I could have "my life" back. I was to be their spiritual leader for their whole life, not just parts of it.

Therefore, I began to see for the first time my Biblical responsibility to my children and to my wife and the fact that I was not living up to it well. Even though we "went to church" and checked all the typical boxes of American Christianity, I was not truly living out my Biblical responsibility to my family. So the Holy Spirit convicted me right in the middle of those sessions and my eyes began to tear up. I had to share with Colleen what I was experiencing and so I did that evening when we arrived to our hotel.

When I shared with Colleen what the Holy Spirit had convicted me of, she also was dealing with the same conviction. We both cried in repentance to God that first night of the HEAV convention and asked that God would forgive us for not living up to His expectation of us as Christian mother and father. Once we submitted to God for the light He had shown us at this point, God began to flood us for even more light to walk in.

Marriage
The Bible says for husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church and gave himself for it (Ephesians 5:25). Now don't get me wrong, I loved Colleen then as I do now. However as we started to attend different workshops on Christian living at the HEAV convention, the topic of marriage and what it is supposed to look like Biblically on a daily basis was communicated. Again I was convicted by the Holy Spirit. It was through the HEAV convention workshops that showed me what loving my wife as Christ loved the church looked like. Sacrificing self was a major point that I realized needed improvement. Listening more to my wife's concerns and what is on her heart was essential. Being the protector of the her heart and mind through guidance of the Holy Spirit. Scheduling special time we could spend by ourselves to focus on our marriage (which to this day can still be improved). Ensuring our relationship is strong in the Lord takes first priority, even over our children (since after our children are grown it will just be Colleen and I).

For Colleen, it was an analogy that Heidi St John has stated. The analogy goes like this: "Say you're on an airplane and the oxygen masks drop down due to loss in cabin pressure. The rule always is for the adult to first help themselves by putting on their mask before helping their children. Married couples need to prioritize their marriage first and children second so that family unit remains strong and survives the ups and downs of life. Also, Colleen learned to think of me as a spiritual leader responsible for our family, where prior to HEAV and the associated workshops, she hadn't even considered that before. Growing together in Christ has been (and continues to be) a blessing.

Worldview
Prior to attending HEAV, we didn't even know what a worldview was. We had heard of it through the years but only in passing. This word and concept however has been foundational to the reformation that has occurred in our lives. It would through the workshops that HEAV provided that really anchored the concept of how important a proper worldview is. For example, through HEAV, we realized we had a very humanistic/secularist worldview even though we were Christians. We were not thinking Biblically on many topics. Whether it was marriage, parenting, education, history of the church, history of our government, abortion, dinosaurs, age of the earth ... anything really. We needed to change my viewpoint and instead of thinking from man's opinion, we needed to think from God's truth through His Word.

We were also introduced to very special couple, Israel Wayne and his wife Brook. They help people to have a Biblical worldview through their ministry Family Renewal. I (Michael) recall hearing Israel speak the first time through the audio recordings I purchased of all the workshops from HEAV. From that point Colleen and I have followed Israel and Brook's ministry and even have come to meet them personally which includes having them stay at our home during their travels. Israel writes about worldview topics on his website http://www.christianworldview.net/ as well as their ministry website http://www.familyrenewal.org/. I highly encourage every Christian to visit Israel's website to learn more, however below captures just a snippet of what a worldview is according to Israel's website:

Everyone has a worldview. Whether or not we realize it, we all have certain presuppositions and biases that affect the way we view all of life and reality. A worldview is like a set of lenses which taint our vision or alter the way we perceive the world around us. Our worldview is formed by our education, our upbringing, the culture we live in, the books we read, the media and movies we absorb, etc. For many people their worldview is simply something they have absorbed by osmosis from their surrounding cultural influences. They have never thought strategically about what they believe and wouldn’t be able to give a rational defense of their beliefs to others.

Parenting
When we attended HEAV back in 2012, we attended all three days. First thing Friday morning HEAV schedules a keynote speaker to kick the day off for all the workshops. The keynote that morning was provided by Mr. Ted Tripp. It was one of the most convicting messages we had ever heard. It was titled Shepherding a Child's Heart and it was based on Ted Tripp's book with the same title. This message further confirmed our conviction from the night before: we were not parenting from a Biblical worldview. Many of the methods and techniques we were using were based on secular ideas, not Biblical ones. One primary mistake we were making was that we were focusing on the outward behavior of our children and not the root of the issue causing the outward behavior. The root of the issue was their heart. A verse from scripture became foundational to our parenting techniques from that day forward and it was: "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23).

Many more scriptures have come to our attention to properly shepherd our children's hearts covering a myriad of character topics and these came through a wonderful couple Rick and Marilyn Boyer. These two operate the ministry Character Concepts and it has been instrumental in helping us address the issues of our hearts as well as our children's hearts. We have read almost every book Rick and Marilyn have written which discuss their own parenting techniques (they have 14 children so I think they have some experience in this area), however a few notable books that have been critical to addressing the issues of our hearts are the following:

• Kids of Character Bible Study
• Crossroads of Character
• Character Trails
• Parenting from the Heart
• Hands on Character Building
• The Hands On Dad

Furthermore, as mentioned before Israel and Brook Wayne have been very helpful to us as well in parenting from a Biblical worldview. One great book we believe every Christian parent should own as a resource is: Full-time Parenting - A Guide to Family-Based Discipleship. 

Through these resources and several others, we continually are reforming our parenting methods so they align more Biblically everyday. Without HEAV though, we would have probably never met this people personally or been influenced by how the Holy Spirit has worked through them to teach parents the truth about parenting from a Biblical Worldview.

Education
One may think that education would have been the first thing we would have realized we needed to reform our thinking on since we attended the HEAV "Homeschool" convention. However this came later believe it or not. It wasn't until after our conviction described earlier and the soon to follow revival and reformation of our worldview that we finally saw the truth about education. Many people, Christians included, get very passionate and even defensive when the topic of education is discussed. We can't for sure explain why people respond in such a way, however we can speak for why we do.

We used to view education as something that wasn't our primary responsibility. It was the responsibility of the government school system (or so we thought). This is a natural expectation because we as a society have known nothing different in our lifetime. Government education as we know it has only been around in since the mid- to late 1800s. It is actually a pretty new concept with respect to the history of the world. Even with that though, our lifetime has only known government education as the assumed way to educate children and therefore anything outside of that thought is assumed incorrect for the most part. Also, since we were products of the education system and thought we had a "good" experience, we assumed it was ok for our children. Furthermore, we assumed that "school" was about reading, writing, and arithmetic and it was neutral. We also assumed that as long as we taught our children Bible "stories" and went to church on Sunday and Wednesday, this was enough and even what God expected of us.

Through people and ministries HEAV provided through the years, we realized that we had thought of education all wrong! Some key points we will highlight since there is not enough space (nor the intent) in this blog to discuss this topic in depth.

1. Education is the parents primary responsibility and specifically, the father's responsibility overall. Ephesians 6:4 states, "And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." So father's are specifically called out here as the leader of nurturing and admonishing their children of the Lord. What's interesting is the Greek word for nurture is "paideia" which means education or training. The Encyclopedia Britannica in part states the definition of paideia is a, "system of education and training in classical Greek and Hellenistic (Greco-Roman) cultures that included such subjects as gymnastics, grammar, rhetoric, music, mathematics, geography, natural history, and philosophy." Therefore, the father is responsible to ensure the entire education of their children in every subject is "of the Lord", not "of the world."
2. Education is the foundation of one's worldview. We have learned that our educational upbringing has significantly impacted, fostered, and influenced our view of the world, to a detriment. Worldview plays a significant role in living for Jesus Christ in the culture. Any educational system that does not promote a Biblical Worldview is a significant hindrance to a Christian's life and the proper upbringing of children according to God's Word.
3. Education is a form of discipleship. It is the parents responsibility, with the father leading, to disciple their children in the way of the Lord. This is at odds with the government education system where it is the state's responsibility at the core. The concern exists that if the government disciples children they will be conditioned to think like the government wants them to think and live (humanistically). God however has called parents to disciple their children in the way of the Master (Jesus Christ). One cannot have it both ways. One must choose.
4. Education is different from school. One can go to school but never receive an education, yet one can receive an education and never attend a school. In other words, one does not require an institution to properly receive an education.
5. Education is not neutral. We used to think that government education was neutral since religion is not permitted in the schools. We were sadly mistaken. Education is never neutral. The government education system is also not neutral and they do permit religion in the schools. The religion permitted is humanism. Humanism is a set of religious beliefs based on man's word. Also, we were convicted from the standpoint that a person or organization or system is either for Jesus Christ or not. There is no neutral ground. We either magnify His name and include Him in everything, or we don't. The government education system does not allow Jesus Christ in the schools and therefore is anti-Christian. This is far from neutral.

Much more can be discussed about this topic and actually has been both through HEAV workshops as well other resources HEAV has provided in the past. Please consider the ministries previously mentioned (Israel and Brook Wayne, Rick and Marilyn Boyer) but also the ministries of Heidi St. John (https://www.heidistjohn.com), Voddie Baucham (http://voddiebaucham.org/), and Kevin Swanson (https://www.generations.org/).

Servant-hood
One area that was severely lacking in our Christian walk was servanthood. Through HEAV and the workshops provided, we have grown to understand and appreciate the importance of serving/ministering to others. Neither Colleen or I were directly mentored or taught how to serve others in Jesus' name, so this has been a struggle. However HEAV has provided many different workshops that have provided insight into how to serve from various perspectives. Two areas that a seed was planted for our family is taking care of the poor and orphans. God has shown us ways we can serve the community in these two areas and include our children in order to train them in the way they should go. These servant opportunities have brought us close together as a family and permits us to show God's love to others!

Furthermore,  HEAV workshops have enabled us to use everyday chores as opportunities to practice serving. From setting the table at dinner, to clearing the table, and to getting a napkin for someone who needs it. Serving can be practiced from the largest to the smallest task and helps build a desire and an awareness of other people's needs right inside our own home.

Many Other Things...PLUS
HEAV has been a gift from God for us. It has been the avenue God has used for teaching us so many things about life, our family, and ourselves. From being hospitable as a form of ministry, to better financial management, to better understanding governments, to better appreciating the wonderful creation of God, to better loving each other and our children and even to a major spiritual revival. Every year we have attended HEAV, we have been inspired, enlightened, encouraged, and strengthened in the Lord Jesus Christ. No, it's not perfect, but it has been perfect for us and has been just what we needed to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ!