Homeschooling our children...I have been thinking on this subject a lot lately and have come to some conclusions that I want to address on my blog. I will attempt to answer some of the questions as to why a family may choose to homeschool and why it seems like a better choice for some. First of all, I do not claim that homeschooling is the only choice for believing families, nor do I think scripture teaches that we should homeschool as the only means to raise up godly children. I want to make that clear up front. I know many families that homeschool and do it well. I also know many families that have chosen a reputable Christian school where some or all of their children attend and have a wonderful experience. I also know some families that have reasons for having their children in the public schools and it has gone well for them. I even know one family that has one child in public schools, one homeschooled, and one in a Christian school! Talk about variety! Thankfully, there are many options for families. I believe it is an area of Christian liberty and every family must prayerfully make that decision.

Of course, you know that we have chosen homeschooling as our preference. There are many reasons why we have made that decision and I would like to share with you what we believe to be some of the benefits of homeschooling. We have many reasons for choosing this route for our family. I have a feeling this is going to take more than one post so bear with me...if you want to, that is...I hope you will be encouraged through what I am going to state here. I will not be *bashing* the public schools, but I will be mentioning some negative things about it as it pertains to our decision. I am hoping to be positive as I state our reasons, but I realize there would have to be negative things to consider to not choose other avenues to educating our children.

First of all...these verses in Deuteronomy have been used many times to support homeschooling. I do not think these verses in context say that a family must homeschool to fulfill this command...but there are some principles to consider.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (ESV)

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

What are these verses saying to us? First of all, these verses emphasize that the teaching of our children about the Lord should come from us, the parents. It is our responsibility and we will be held accountable by God if and how we did this. It is serious and a command I do not take lightly. If you are a believing family and you depend on the church, children's ministries, and youth group to teach your child to love the Lord your God, then you are irresponsible in that area. It is not the church's responsibility. It is ours. I do believe that a Biblical church should should come along side a family and help equip the parents to teach their child about God...and even do some training and teaching for the benefit of the child's spiritual condition...but the final and most important responsibility belongs to the parents. The church should be, of course, teaching and equipping young people how to know God, love God, and live godly...but the parents should be doing more. The parent's main objective in raising children should be to teach them about the Lord.

These verses also say that we should speak about the Lord to your children as much as possible. They should be saturated with God's Word and taught to love Him above all....the supremacy of Christ in all things. This should be in our conversations ALL THE TIME. It should, first of all, be on our hearts and then from that outpouring of love for God, we should teach it diligently to our children. This takes time and lots of it. It doesn't say that we have to be with our kids all day long...but it does make the point that it takes a great deal of time and we should be doing it diligently. There are some Biblical principles here that does leave the *how to* up to parents. We have to decide how we can BEST do this. This is where we have been convicted, personally. The time was an issue for us in making this decision.

When our older girls were school age, we considered homeschooling. We decided to try a small Christian school first. The school was just beginning...we would be the first group to go to that school. We liked the school in theory, but we were concerned over some organizational things...anyway, we made a last minute decision to put our oldest daughter in public schools in our town. Both girls excelled and did fine in public schools those first few years. I was there a lot tutoring other students, being a homeroom mom and volunteering in other ways. We were very involved parents. We considered and prayed over homeschooling each year...and I think honestly, we lacked courage to actually do it. Finally, when our girls were just out of first and fourth grades we decided to make the appropriate steps to begin our journey of homeschooling. Here is why: TIME.
We found that we were not having adequate time with our young girls to really be teaching them much about God and His Word. We tried those first few years...we really did. We read devotionals together in the mornings before school, we prayed in the car on the way to school each morning--I kept my eyes open to drive! We would read from the Bible in the evenings...we had family prayer time before bed...but, all of this was lacking in depth. We did discuss lots of Biblical principles as time went on, but it seemed to always be on a rushed schedule. We were not having adequate time to really be instructing their hearts and emphasizing the things we wanted to emphasize in their hearts. Time was passing by and we saw the urgency of God's commands to be talking about the Lord and as parents we felt we were failing in that area. As they would get older, we knew they would become busier and have more homework, etc...we just felt as if we were compromising valuable things for less valuable things or even non valuable things at times.

We were seeing some areas of concern in our daughters attitudes at times...not all the time, but we could see how they were being influenced by attitudes they were witnessing at school...they began to use words and language that were not inappropriate or anything, but just simply expressing an attitude that we didn't think was best or godly. Would this only get worse as they got older? These were some of the things that went through our minds. We were not willing to find out.


To be continued...