This Is Our City

We homeschool and won't have it any other way. My daughter is a computer class at our local college and has to write a paper on Homeschooling and electronics. How it helps or hurts. Does anyone have a story they would like to share? randallboggess@integrity.com. Thank you.

Years ago the school district told my brother and sister-in-law their preschool child needed to be in special education - something about being developmentally delayed. My brother fumed, called the school district to complain and demanded to see the test. The school district, conveniently, had lost the test. That convinced them to homeschool their two boys. The "special ed" son scored a 31 on the ACT and graduated from La Tourneau College about 3 years ago. Now I have spent a career in the public schools as a teacher and administrator, and I sent my own children through the public schools. And if I had to do it all over again, I would homeschool them - without a moment's hesitation. Parents in this day and age should not entrust their impressionable children to a rabidly secularistic institution and expect any good to come of it.

John, you raise a great question. But in our family's case, I'm not trying to shield my kids from human fallibility such as in the examples you raise. I'm not trying to "escape" the so-called evils of public school, although I know there are many in the Christian homeschooling community motivated in that way. In our case, I'm simply trying to be obedient to a calling (not of my own choosing initially!). I'm not trying to make a blanket statement that all Christians should homeschool. Some of us will be called to seek the welfare of our local schools. Some will feel called to homeschool, to private school, or to some combination of all these depending on their child/children. And while there is no biblical mandate to choose a particular school context, church is different. Church is intended to be the place in which we live out the gospel of grace in how we treat each other, demonstrating compassion and extending forgiveness even to the image-centered pastor or sex-crazed high schoolers

John, you make some good points for the reasons to home church. I think it is better for families to worship together and not split children into their own services. The family can discuss the service at home. Church should not be about entertainment nor is it a more individualized experience. It's a time for the church community to get together, receive the sacraments and worship God in a special way.

Should some parents, also, home-church their kids? Almost every church I've been to has had red flags, i.e., the image-centered senior pastor, the conflict-ridden choir director, the sex-obsessed high school students, etc. Would it be better for the parents to pull their kids from churches and teach their kids at homes on Sundays, as well?