Guiding Hearts: Shaping Tomorrow’s Faithful
January 23, 2024
Katherine Schultz
Importance of Early Formation
When we think about Christian education, we’re aware of the impact that we have on children. Most of us are familiar with Proverbs 22:6 – “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” And our hope is that those children will grow into mature followers of Jesus, and carry out their faith throughout their lives well beyond the time in our schools.
Research data supports early training in biblical worldview, and the Christian faith has a profound and far reaching impact. “According to the Barna Group, only 6% of adult Christians made their decision to follow God over the age of 18. That means 94% made decisions as children that follow with them throughout their life. Wow. That is encouraging. And scary. And then encouraging again. That means that there is no time like the present to be shepherding their little hearts” (Rachel Norman).
And in another study, “A survey from the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) found that 63% of individuals become a Christian between the age of 4-14, with the median age being 11. The same survey also found that 34% of individuals become a Christian between the age of 15-29. According to this study, 97% of individuals become a Christian before the age of 30. In case that didn’t register, that is 97%! That means, if you asked 100 people when they became a Christian, 63 became a Christian between the age of 4-14, 34 between the age of 15-29, and only 3 out of 100 after the age of 30”(Josh Mulvihill). Clearly, Jesus wants us to lead children to him: “Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these'” (Matthew 19:14).
As if that wasn’t hard enough, we recognize that many students question their faith at some point along the way. And as Russell Powell points out, “We know that a certain percentage of young people will choose to walk away from Christ at some point… this is part of the adolescent season. But the important finding is that there is no data that youth come back to church in their 30s.”
So it’s obviously very important that we capture our students heart, mind, and soul for the Lord Jesus, if we can possibly do it during their school years. Obviously, that requires the work of the Holy Spirit, but we do want to do our part as teachers in Christian schools to point our students toward Jesus, directly, clearly and effectively in our classrooms on a regular basis. We want them to develop mature biblical worldview, beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes. That will require that we make sure to have teachers who will teach and model what it means to know, love, and follow Jesus.
Exemplary Teachers
We know that teachers have a significant impact on student worldview development and spiritual formation. We stand in for their parents during the school day, and that responsibility is weighty (James 3:1). So how do we do it?
According to Philippians 3:17, we live out by example so that others can see how to live as followers of Jesus. Of course, we are also following Jesus directly, so when they become like us, they become like him. The apostle Paul encourages us: “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). It should be a continuous chain of people following others who follow others, all the way back to following Christ, though ultimately, we want that to be a direct follower of Jesus, not someone relying on humans to follow (since humans will let us down because of sin).
Research supports this, too. “The study also found that teaching a course from a biblical Christian worldview by an experienced faculty member increased biblical understanding on a number of worldview issues. Intentionally weaving biblical truth into instructional methodology and curriculum content seems to have a positive effect on the worldview of students. Despite the myriad factors that influence a student’s worldviews, the findings of this study seem to suggest that the worldview of the Christian school teacher has an effect on the worldview of students and is an important factor in formulating a biblical Christian worldview in students.” James Fyock
Since “the student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher” Luke 6:40, we should take that responsibility seriously and be devoted followers of Jesus in every aspect of our lives, demonstrating how our beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes are Christlike in every way.
In addition to teachers who help their students know love and follow Jesus, we also want love to be at the center of the classroom in other ways.
Teaching Through Love
In Matthew 22, Jesus tells us to love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, soul and mind. He tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39). So clearly, love is at the center of our classrooms. That love should play out in several ways.
First, we need to demonstrate a love for God. We need to love him with all our heart, soul, and mind. Loving him with our heart. That aligns beautifully with an understanding of a worldview that includes heart orientation: loving the Lord, with all our heart means, loving him with our will, our being, our desires, our wishes, our hopes, or attitudes. We love him in the daily activities and intentions that go with them. Not just with our words.
Of course, we do also love him with our words. Hopefully, that means we love what we teach. And loving what we teach helps students to see and value it too. So loving what we teach helps our students to understand a proper attitude toward God’s world and Word.
But Matthew 22 also tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. So does 1 John: “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7). So we love our students. We love them when they’re doing well, and when they’re not. We love them when they are doing good, and when they are not.
And the most important way that love shows up in our classrooms and teaching is to shape what the students love.
Shaping What the Student Loves
C.S. Lewis reminds us that “St Augustine defines virtue as I, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it. Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought. When the age for reflective thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in ordinate affections or ‘just sentiments’ will easily find the first principles in Ethics; but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he can make no progress in that science. Plato before him had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likable, disgusting and hateful.” (Abolition of Man)
We want our students to love what they should love. And that requires paying attention to it, and training toward it. We know as James K.A. Smith says that we are made to love, made to worship: “Christian education shapes us, forms us, molds us to be a certain kind of people whose hearts and passions and desires are aimed at the kingdom of God.”
We should be directing our students to love and worship the things worthy of that love and worship. And we should be directing them to love some things more than other things. They can love football, books, friends, and Jesus. But they should love them differently. Properly. In proper order.
When Jesus was answering the question about what was the greatest commandment in Matthew 22, it was really about what to do when we run into conflict between two of God’s commands. That law summary from Jesus made sense, because it made clear that the highest priority was loving God. And the next priority was loving people. Anything that gets in the way of those, even if it’s a good thing, is to be placed lower down on a list of priorities and loves. We long for something to love. Let’s give our students the right things to love.
“Humanists are searching for manners to introduce certain rituals in life changing events like birth and death, according to the website of the Humanist Association, Netherlands” (http://www.humanistischverbond.nl/english). It seems clear that when ardent non-believers recognize a need in the human spirit for something of significance, then the believers should be well equipped to provide the answers to that need for the students that are under our care daily throughout their education in our Christian schools and colleges. Let’s not let them leave missing something we know they will long for when we have the answer to that longing. “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17).
Now What?
Ultimately Christian education is about directing students to know God. To trust him. To lean on him. To love him. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6). And that should direct him or her in all their future life. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105).
What does that mean for teachers? Well it should include understanding where students are in their faith development now, so we can do a better job of reaching them with the full understanding of the gospel.
The 3-D Worldview Survey is designed to help you understand a person’s beliefs, behaviors and attitudes as part of their worldview.
- What Is the 3-D Worldview Survey?
- Take the 3-D Worldview for yourself
If you haven’t yet used the 3-D Worldview Survey with your class, check out the pdf below for some questions to get you started.
#3dworldview #biblicalworldview #teachingworldview
