The Why?

Has there ever been a more important moment in history to reevaluate the formation factors that are shaping the hearts, minds, attention and the affections of our children today?

By the sheer number of hours in a day, our children’s educational environment & social influences have a disproportionate bearing on who they do or do not become — and what they do or do not believe.

“Socialization” has been a high value for families when considering school environments for their children. However in recent years, many parents have begun to ask themselves what they’re actually socializing their children into at school and whether or not those influences are appropriate or acceptable anymore?

There are many factors of consideration that parents have been confronted with in recent years that hadn’t always been variables in public education. Many parents have had ongoing concerns about the standards of public education, especially here in Oregon as it is ranked so poorly compared to other states. Other parents have concerns about their children’s innocence being compromised at early ages. For others, in an increasingly politicized sphere, things taught in the classroom violate much of what parents teach their children at home, causing confusion for the child and frustration for the parents.

Others are witness to the myth of neutrality in the public school system as radical ideologies have explicitly trickled down into the classroom that are anything but neutral. All ideas have a worldview system undergirding them and all ideas have logical consequences. Unfortunately, children are often the victims of bad ideas that have gone viral, as adults assimilate and test out ideas wherever they have influence. As we know, politics is always downstream from culture, and “culture” is formed earliest in the institution of public education.

Many school boards have become complicit in compromising neutrality by assimilating policies that have politically-engineered roots, for the sake of maintaining the status quo and/or to be seen as politically correct. Others have altogether dismissed and/or deprioritized parental perspective & rights. Many teachers instruct through the lens of their own worldview and biases, depriving students of a true education that holds space for all angles of thought.

While there are many fabulous schools & instructors who do their jobs well, this combination of variables has created a widespread parental-distrust of the government’s ability to protect children’s innocence, to keep politics ideologies out of education and to administer neutrality in practice. As a result, parents have become much more involved and aware of what their children are learning or not learning at school, and have been seeking alternatives. If you’re here, you likely know this story well.

Facts & Statistics
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Hope & Renewal

When it comes to education in America, students may in fact graduate and become “successful,” according to test scores and according to the cultural metrics of the West. Achievement, performance, social status, education, and the building up of wealth & possessions are equated with happiness and are hailed as having “arrived” in America. Yet, social scientists and mental health experts are noticing something fascinating.

What they’re discovering is that despite the human capacity for “success” in the West, and regardless of social class, age, race or ethnicity, emotional and mental health rates are at pandemic levels, with deaths of despair occurring at young ages and at a horrifying frequency. Chronic anxiety, depression, loneliness and a lack of meaning & purpose have become commonplace feelings for a shocking number of average Americans, many of whom who are well-educated and otherwise “successful” individuals.

These things are not fringe - they are becoming the norm, especially in young people.

What are we to make of this? Perhaps more accurately asked, in what specific ways are we not meeting the central needs of young people? What are we not doing that we need to do start doing? How can we better address the interior-life of young people in order to produce a sense of purpose, to bring health and vibrance to their human experience?

We would argue that this social phenomena is due in-part to the fact that education in the West historically echoed what had been understood as fundamental truths, that applied to all people, at all times in history. In other words, there was an assumption that there was such a thing as objective truth that had bearing on all humans, and that human flourishing depended on living in alignment with that objective truth.

Generally speaking, what was taught in the home also mirrored what was taught in schools. Inherent to this education was an understanding that the human person is a holistic being - not a machine on legs. Therefore, the formation of the whole person mattered and was assumed: the heart, soul, mind, body & spirit were to be nurtured. Character development and virtue were well-defined and were intentionally formed - not left to chance or accident. Good character, virtue, and the possession of timeless wisdom & truths were assumed to be necessary for the happiness of the individual and for the overall good of society.

Now instead, the social institutions that had once been primarily responsible for the formation of good souls have been compromised and/or replaced by the state. Our social pathologies are beyond extreme and our environments are increasingly polarized, hostile, anxious & chaotic. What this cultural shift has translated to is that we may have kids who can take tests well, perform well and who can “achieve,” but who and what are forming their inner-worlds?

From their habits to their peers, to how to build & manage relationships, social media, the construction of a work ethic or lack thereof, identity politics, peer pressure, cancel culture, the critical theory mood, to their time management, how are our children actually fairing? Not well, according to nearly every major indicator.

If young people don’t understand at a core level that their lives were created on purpose, for a purpose, by a personal God who loves them, who wanted them, and that their lives are teeming with meaning, it should not surprise us that there is a culture-wide deficit of young people who live without purpose, meaning, or an understanding of their true value beyond what others think of them. It’s crucial that young people understand in their hearts that they are loved and accepted and that their lives were no accident.

Ask any counselor, therapist, or psychologist who works with young people in this cultural moment and they will tell you that the anxiety and depression within young people is, at a root system level, a result the fact that they do not believe that there’s any purpose or meaning to their life and they are struggling with any objective sense of identity. They want to be seen and to be loved unconditionally but are filling those desires and voids with things and people that cannot truly deliver. The statistics do not lie. A void exists and the problems are existential.


Here’s the point:

What we’ve been doing for decades is not working. We are failing our young people somehow.
We are missing something. Are we not?

We can no longer assume that these are fringe issues affecting someone else’s children. They are affecting the vast majority of youth today.

When it comes to the education of our children, good intentions and standard-practice are not good enough anymore in that even good intentions can lead to unintended destinations. That is where we are at: An unintended, cultural destination which disproportionately effects our youth. We have to do better. We have to do something different. That’s what this is all about.

Andy Stanley, author of The Principle of the Path says it this way:
"It’s Direction — not intention — that determines your destination.”

It’s time to recalibrate, to redirect, and to actually do something different for the sake of our children: to choose the path that leads to the desired destination.

There’s only so much that any one of us has control over but for a short time, we have control over what sort of inputs (education & influences) our children receive each day. There will come a time when they will choose all of that for themselves, but they are entrusted in our care until then. For us, the goal would be to shape & mold children who are self-governing and self-controlled, wise and able to discern complex issues for themselves because they’ve been trained to think through them critically. It’s our responsibility to be good stewards of our children and part of that is making the choice about where they will spend their time, and who & what gets to have the majority of the say in their lives.

For many parents, in a risk-benefit assessment, public school is no longer an option. One of those reasons has to do with the formation power of that system and parent’s widespread disagreement with how ideology-driven public education has become.

The Good News— The Hope & the Renewal

There is hope!

What if we return to the education of the whole person through the lens of a biblical worldview where virtue, character, purpose, and meaning are core assumptions & components of the education.

This generation is hungry for the real thing. They’ve seen & experienced the street-level effects of secularism being unable to deliver on its promises for utopia. It turns out that success, achievement, unlimited freedom and the pursuit of pleasure still leaves one empty inside, starving for something to fill the void. Pleasure and politics are fickle gods.

They are witness to the fallout of a post-christian, secular cultural moment which still demands the benefits of the Kingdom of God (justice, tolerance, diversity in unity, liberty etc.) but without the King. That is not working out very well for us.

Ironically, as the West has further secularized, our religious impulse has hit a fever pitch. Many have turned their faith to the political religions of our day which have their own versions of sin (definitions of right & wrong), evangelism (social media for example), tenets of the faith (party line doctrine), versions of worship, etc. Despite our best efforts, we can’t help but find some sort of god-substitute to locate meaning in and to derive authority from. It would appear that the god-void in each of us is inescapable in the human experience. As Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

What that means is that this generation is primed for revival —
The failures of the secularist life script have prepared an entire generation for personal renewal. What if a distinctly Christian education, dependent on the work of the Holy Spirit, is what paves that path to renewal and revival?

The young people of this generation are seeking spirituality in a sea of counterfeits. That process is part of their formation. Let us not miss this opportunity to meet them right where they are at — the intersection of failed promises and a desire for something better than this. After all, “progress” without the presence of God will always lead us back into ourselves and into our own striving and human strength. Our endeavors done in our own strength have shown their true colors. It’s our belief that we need a fresh awakening to the power and the presence of God in our young people’s lives so that all that they do is motivated and purposed in something beyond & bigger than themselves. This moment is ripe for the Spirit of God to activate a new generation with His presence, His power, perspective, and wisdom.

The School of Life is sounding the call for parents to recapture the priority & the responsibility of training up our children in the way of the Lord, understood as God’s Truth as Truth about all of reality. We believe that when our children’s minds and hearts and spirits are educated in alignment with reality as it exists from God’s perspective, they will flourish as God intended for them to flourish.

When children know who they are (origin story; identity), who they are (beloved children of God), what they were made for (calling, purpose), it gives weight and meaning to their lives.

When they understand the value of their body as “good” — that their body is not a mistake; when they capture the magnitude of being made in the image of God and that their body is a sacred temple where the Holy Spirit himself dwells within them; when they grasp what the source of the evil is in the world (and that it’s not their neighbor or the ‘other’ political party), it helps to explain what’s wrong within us and within others (sin); when they grasp the power of the redemption story and Jesus’s gift that he has given to us, teeming with grace & mercy, it offers hope and a future to a generation that is drowning in broken promises and half-truths (which are still lies).

That is a deeply compelling, comprehensive, beautiful way to be human, when we see ourselves in light of God’s bigger story:
Beloved. Chosen. Loved. Forgiven. Blessed.

Crafting a depth of knowledge in these areas, while being skilled and knowledgeable at comparing alternative worldviews, takes a very intentional education.

That’s what we want to recapture as parents —
That age-old story that is as relevant and as powerful today as it was back then.

In order to engage an increasingly complex world, we need to equip our children with the tools to effectively critique the dominant ideologies of our day, to confidently & fearlessly live out their faith in the public square, and to truly understand their identity and their calling in Christ.

We know this is a daunting task and yet, God chose you — [your name]— to be the father or mother of your child. You have what it takes to do what is within your conscience & conviction when it comes to your children.

Have you ever intentionally asked the Lord, in prayer, what sort of education is right for your individual child? If He’s put something on your heart about it but it feels impossible, too expensive, or as if it could never happen, pray diligently about it. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom when it comes to the education of your children, and for courage & strength if He asks you to make a change. He can make a way where there is no way!

“He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.” Phillippians 1:6

Our good God, who loves these children infinitely more than we do, will strengthen you, will equip you, and will give you wisdom as you step out in faith to do a new thing.

”You can do all things through Christ who gives you strength.”
Phillippians 4:13

”Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
Isaiah 43:19