bbcovert@juno.com

Occasionally you will come across a well-meaning Christian who questions your decision to educate your children in the safe and loving environment of your own home. This person feels quite strongly that your children should be out "in the real world" of public school, leading all their little friends to salvation through Christ Jesus. Here you are, doing what you feel is best for your family, hopefully what you felt the Lord Himself call you to do, and someone is telling you that you’ve made the wrong choice. How do you respond to such criticism?

If you are walking in the Spirit rather than the flesh, you will respond with grace and kindness. Don’t allow this person, whether it is a close relative or someone from your church family, to put you on the defensive. Might I suggest responding with a question of your own? Ask this person, "Do mission boards send untrained missionaries out into the world?" The answer is, of course not. Real-life missionaries are adults who have spent years in training, being grounded in their faith, developing personal maturity, learning about the culture of their chosen mission field and learning how to communicate successfully, etc. They don’t do it with just a Sunday school and Wednesday night education. Plus, they have a calling from God! How can anyone assume, then, that a child of 7--or even 12, for that matter--can successfully minister to his peers? What guarantee is there that his peers won’t wield an unwholesome influence over him instead?

Another positive response is to explain that you are raising your children to serve the Lord, and if it is His will that they become missionaries, what better training could they receive than to be homeschooled? You have more time to work on Bible studies, memorization, Christlike character traits, obedience, purpose, and all that goes into raising godly children. You can also protect them from peer pressure and unhealthy trends (both spiritual and physical) during their tender years.

Certainly, some Christian youth can be good witnesses to their peers; I won’t deny that. Their love for the Lord and their strong desire to do right keeps them on that narrow path of righteousness. However, many others just want to fit in and be accepted (or at least avoid being rejected), even if it means taking a detour onto the crowded path that leads to destruction. They are immature, but what do you expect -- they’re children! Maturity develops at different times for different kids, and having your children at home is a great way to monitor their maturity and their ability to withstand peer pressure. Watching them with the neighborhood children or on the playground will reveal the stuff of which they are made, and whether they will stand up to wrongdoers, or go along with them in an effort to be "liked."

While some Christian children seem to be equipped to serve as "missionaries" in school, others aren’t. I grew up in public school, so I speak from personal experience. Someone close to me was introduced to alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs at our public school; he enjoyed being popular and being the center of attention; it led him to do whatever the in-crowd was doing. Rather than influencing his peers for Christ, his peers influenced him for the devil. As for me, I accepted Jesus as my Savior as a young child, but as a shy teen I kept my beliefs to myself and stayed away from the "bad" kids. They didn’t have a bad influence on me, no, but then I didn’t have any influence on them, either. I had one good Christian friend all through school and was very lonely. (So much for the "socialization" issue--but that’s another column.) It took going to a Christian university and feeling accepted and "free to be myself" to finally overcome some of that shyness and joyfully embrace my Christianity. Perhaps I would have been "missionary material" at an earlier age had I been homeschooled or placed in a small Christian school during those formative years. The point I’m trying to make is that there are more opportunities for things to go wrong than to go right when a young Christian is placed in a setting that has grown increasingly hostile to our Christian values -- where tolerance of everything EXCEPT Christianity is taught.

Now you know one of the reasons why my children are at home with me instead of spending the better part of the week away at public school. The next time someone questions your commitment to the Lord’s work in connection with your decision to homeschool, you can explain your reasons for training your children at home. You can quote scripture. Or you can simply tell them that you are doing the very thing that the Lord called you to do, and gently remind them that God doesn’t make mistakes. Who would argue with that?

Happy homeschooling!

Copyright 2004 by Brenda B. Covert