A while back on BreakPoint, I talked about a teenager who attended a worldview training camp run by Summit Ministries. The young man complained, tongue in cheek, that worldview training had “ruined” movie watching for him. He could not longer watch films without automatically searching for the worldview messages.
That’s great news: The whole point of worldview training is to “ruin” attempts to convince teenagers that any worldview conforms to reality better than Christianity does. But we can’t wait until the teen years to start talking to kids about worldview—and parents know it. Many times I’ve had moms and dads come up to me and say, “What do you have for younger kids?”
Well, it’s a critical need. Because the studies show us that a person’s basic views about life are formed during the morally formative years between five and eleven. I’ve seen this first hand in the prisons over the years as the prison populations have exploded with inmates who have no parents that can teach them right and wrong at the ages when they can be really, morally shaped.
My colleague John Stonestreet is a speaker and writer for Summit Ministries. He’s also now joined me here at BreakPoint, where in March, he will launch a new one-minute radio program called The Point.
John told me he and his colleagues were frustrated over the quality of Christian books for kids. Most of them contained Bible lessons with a moral at the end. But’s that not teaching worldview. So Summit joined with Apologia educational ministries to write a worldview series for kids.
I’ve seen these books, and I can tell you this: They will ruin the efforts of secular teachers, journalists, and sex educators to brainwash our kids—because they instruct even young children how to think.
The first volume in the planned four-part series is titled, Who Is God and Can I Really Know Him? The second volume is Who Am I And What Am I Doing Here? The curriculum is intended for children as young as six, and contains “big ideas,” vocabulary, discussion questions, exercises, stories, and activities.
The books, written by John Hay and David Webb, introduce kids to the concept of differing worldviews and how they shape our perceptions of the world around us. They also teach kids that conflicting worldviews cannot all be true. When they face contradictory worldview claims, the authors invite kids to ask themselves two critical questions: How do I know what is true? And how must we live our lives in relation to the truth we come to know? Just the right questions!
Given how much our culture now influences even the youngest children through school, television, films, advertising, and video games, it’s never too early to begin worldview lessons.
You can order copies of these two excellent textbooks by going to our website bookstore, www.breakpoint.org. These books are great not only for Sunday School, but for parents to use with their children at home.
At a time when Christian teachings are subject to increasing hostility, and other worldviews are gaining popularity, children must learn early what they believe, why they believe it, and how to boldly defend those beliefs. They must be taught, not only how to share their faith, but how to explain to their friends why it conforms to reality better than any other belief system.
Once they’ve learned how to defend their beliefs on the playground, they’ll have no problem defending them a few years later in the public square.
From BreakPoint, January 27, 2011, Copyright 2011, Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with the permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or distributed without the express written permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. “BreakPoint®” and “Prison Fellowship Ministries®” are registered trademarks of Prison Fellowship
