Homeschoolers, big families and multigenerational impact

One of the statistics that caught my attention at the INCH conference had to do with the potential disparate influence of homeschooling families on the culture. Homeschool families on average have more than twice as many kids as non-homeschooling families. That is an enormous disparity and conferences like this one reinforce the idea of multigenerational vision with the youth and children being raised in these families. Properly done, these kids are being raised to rebel not against their parents or their faith but against the culture of mediocrity, of narcissism, of immorality and of death that surrounds them.

Make no mistake. The number one reason we homeschool and the reason that overrides all others and a reason that would be sufficient even if it were the only reason is obedience to God. Obedience to the mandate to raise our children in the fear and admonition, the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4), to speak to them of the Words of God morning and night and make them central in our homes (Deut 6: 7-9), to teach our sons to turn to us and the elders of the church to learn what has come before (Deut 32:7). But we also homeschool because we know that the children we raise now will someday be adults and go into the world. When they go we need to make sure that they are equipped for what they will find, that they will see all that is wrong and much that is right in that world and will be prepared to take Jesus Christ to the lost. Children in public schools are well-prepared to deal with the world on the world's terms. They are well-prepared to fit in with the culture and society, to become "productive members of society" and to do what is expected of them by the world. They may even "go to church" and be good people, but by and large a public school education is not going to prepare them for the enormous challenges that are ahead of us. When our vision for our kids only extends to the graduation ceremony of high school or the commencement ceremony at a college, we have failed them. Our vision as those entrusted with children must go beyond surviving the teen years and bloom into a multi-generation vision of the family that transcends the world's social structure and prepares children to become adults taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ from our homes and into the world.

The enormity of the task we face and the charge we have been given is far too great to compress into a few daily devotionals in the evening, youth groups, VBS and Sunday mornings spent rushing to and fro to fulfill our religious obligation. The task at hand demands our full attention and we cannot fulfill that mandate from God when our kids are being raised and taught for the most part by strangers and subcontractors.