I then went on to offer two general ways a Christian school can engage in the discipleship of its students. The first way is what I deemed holistic discipleship. Holistic discipleship is the integration of faith into the thoughts and activities of everyday life: habits, meals, learning, and leisure, for example. Holistic discipleship in a Christian school can include Bible studies and prayer meetings, but more often, it occurs organically. One teacher may choose to end her literature class in prayer after an intense debate. Another teacher might catch a student after class to keep the conversation going about the relationship between science and faith. And so on. 

The second way I suggested a Christian school can engage in discipleship is through training students to think through a Christian grid, or worldview. We all approach knowledge and questions with particular assumptions and presuppositions about how the world works. Our students are no different. Likely formed through popular culture and social media, students have grown up within the milieu of a secular society and naturally see the world through this lens. Teachers can disciple their students to think Christianly about the world by drawing attention to secular worldview assumptions that often go unchallenged and going on to lay out a compelling biblical alternative. 

But are these two approaches to discipleship sufficient? Are there additional ways? What about the idea of spiritual formation and the impact it could have on the Christian school’s approach to discipleship? In this article, I will explore the use of spiritual disciplines in the context of discipleship and take a special look at the spiritual discipline of study.

Transformation Through the Disciplines

In his classic book Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster argues that spiritual disciplines are the gateway to spiritual transformation. Interestingly, in my first article on discipleship, I mentioned nothing of being transformed spiritually. And yet, is this not central to the aim of discipleship? If growing as a disciple is being conformed to the image of Christ, it will be nothing less than the utter transformation of a person into someone new.

Foster believes spiritual transformation happens first and foremost through receiving the free gift of righteousness. But he goes on to caution that this grace is received, not through passive antinomianism, but through active “sowing to the spirit” (Gal. 6:8). He writes, “Once we clearly understand that God’s grace is unearned and unearnable, and if we expect to grow, we must take up a consciously chosen course of action involving both individual and group life. That is the purpose of the spiritual disciplines” (7).

In a similar way, Dallas Willard begins his book Spirit of the Disciplines with the statement that modern Christianity has failed to take human transformation seriously. Therefore, the church must clarify and exemplify realistic methods of human transformation, thereby showing “how ordinary individuals…can become, through the grace of Christ, a love-filled, effective, and powerful community” (ix). Willard goes on to contend that the church today largely misunderstands how experiences and actions enable us to receive the grace of God. His solution: pursue a life of spiritual disciplines.

It seems to me that Foster and Willard are on to something. If the goal of discipleship is to help someone follow Jesus and grow in conformity to his image, we need to equip disciples with practical ways they can do that will lead to the transformation we desire. Just as a soccer coach has a collection of drills and exercises to strengthen the skill of his players and overtime to develop them into better soccer players, it seems that the would-be disciple-maker would possess a similar collection. And yet so often today, students growing up in Christian homes proceed through their young adult years without this training.

Types of Disciplines

So what are the disciplines that lead to spiritual transformation and which ones can be promoted in a Christian school context? Richard Foster divides the disciplines into three groups: inward disciplines, outward disciplines, and corporate disciplines. 

Inward disciplines focus on cultivating one’s inward life through prayerful contemplation and reflection. These practices include meditation, prayer, fasting, and study. Outward disciplines, on the contrary, are oriented toward one’s interaction with the external, often physical world. These practices include simplicity, solitude, submission, and service. Finally, the corporate disciplines underscore the practices that occur in community with others: confession, worship, guidance, and celebration. 

Interestingly, Dallas Willard groups the spiritual disciplines into only two categories: disciplines of abstinence and disciplines of engagement. Disciplines of abstinence are the practices we employ to gain control over “…the satisfaction of what we generally regard as normal and legitimate desires” (159). He is careful to point out that these desires are not necessarily sinful in and of themselves. But in our sinful human condition, it is these desires that often run “…a rebellious and harmful course.” The goal is to bring these desires back into coordination of a life aligned with Christ. Willard’s list of the disciplines of abstinence include solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy, and sacrifice. 

Conversely, the disciplines of engagement are those that realign our desires and practices with proper engagement with God. While disciplines of abstinence counteract tendencies of commission (the things we ought not do), disciplines of engagement counteract tendencies of omission (the things we ought to do). Willard’s list here includes study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession, and submission (158).

Whether you prefer Foster’s groupings or Willard’s, the upshot is that there is an arsenal of disciplines at the disciple’s disposal for growing in Christ. While these disciplines take effort and intentionality, when pursued in and through the power of the Holy Spirit, they contain the elements for real spiritual transformation. For those new to the topic, let me clarify that Foster and Willard do not necessarily recommend implementing a spiritual regimen of all these disciplines at once. Rather, they are providing a menu of strategies that encompass a fully-orbed view of a person, and how every facet of what it means to be human can be placed under the transformative lordship of Christ.

The Discipline of Study

It is worth exploring the different ways a Christian school can implement these disciplines for the spiritual growth of their students, but I do not want to be misinterpreted to suggest that all these disciplines should be implemented. Again, we need to draw distinctions between the discipleship approaches of the church and school, and the home as well.

But I do want to suggest that schools are uniquely able to facilitate the spiritual discipline of study. In education today, the act of study is associated with the preparation for an upcoming examination, usually with high-stakes consequences. Thus, study is a word infused with connotations of labor, stress, and deadlines.

But Foster encourages us to step back and think of study as a broader approach to engaging the objective world and, in doing so, to be transformed. It is a discipline that facilitates a state of rest and peacefulness as one contemplates truths that are unchanging, good, and often beautiful. This is quite the opposite of our modern view of study!

Foster frames his chapter on study with Paul’s words to the Philippian church: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8). In the Book of Romans, we see Paul’s vision for this discipline, namely, that believers will be “transformed by the renewal of their minds” (Rom. 12:2).

How does this happen? The idea is that as we focus on truth, we align our beliefs and belief processes to the objective structures of knowledge. The things we focus on conform our habits and thinking to the order of the thing studied. The more we fill our minds with God’s goodness, truth, and beauty, the more oriented toward him we become in our intellectual and cognitive disposition. Conversely, the more we saturate ourselves with the opposite, the more oriented we will be toward the cares of the world.

This is one reason why gaining control over one’s consumption of shows and social media is so important. It is temping to think that we can watch whatever we want to and it will have no effect on us. Or that endless scrolling of social media is a harmless activity. But the reality is that these behaviors can and will change us, literally rewiring our brains, as the science has shown, and changing us over time.

What to Study

So what should we study in order to experience spiritual formation for ourselves and for our students? Here are five suggestions:

The Bible: I am sure you saw this coming. The study of God’s Word should be the primary source we engage in this discipline. We want to teach students to study scriptural passages, not merely as a scholarly pursuit, but as an endeavor to connect personally with God. On this note, Willard writes, “Our prayer as we study meditatively is always that God would meet with us and speak specifically to us, for ultimately the Word of God is God speaking (177).

Experiential Classics: In our individualistic culture, we often assume that growing spiritually is a solo journey. We view spiritual growth as a single path that a traveler journeys down alone. But the better metaphor is not a path, but a pilgrimage. Pilgrims travel together. The reality is that there is a nearly endless list of Christ followers who have been transformed spiritually and have written about their experience. From Augustine’s Confessions to Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ to Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God, we can select texts to add to the curriculum that form our students spiritually as they study these works.

Nature: The intentional study of God’s creation is one of the most life-giving and peaceful experiences I have come across. In a world that champions the conquering of nature for pragmatic ends, we can help students reconnect the natural world with the spiritual through slowing down and observing the beauty and order of nature. The addition of Nature Study as a scheduled part of the school week is a strategic way to help students grow spiritually as they respond with wonder and worship.

Relationships: While the first three suggestions for study are rather conventional, Foster suggests we can grow spiritually by learning to study the relational interactions around us. How do we speak to one another? How do we use our words and interactions? Are we participating in healthy friendships or discouraging ones? By training students to study and reflect on their relationships, they can grow in their understanding of how these relationships are influencing their spiritual walks.

Culture: While it is true that the heart of the spiritual discipline of study is to align our beliefs and belief processes with objective reality, it is important to be reflective about one’s surrounding culture. We often inhabit our world like fish who are fully submersed in water, yet, if asked, haven’t the slightest clue what H20 is. As with worldview thinking, we can facilitate moments for our students to study the culture they live in and thereby grow in discernment of various cultural elements, from moral values to entertainment.

To conclude this article, Christian schools can contribute to the growth of their students as disciples of Christ by encouraging and, in some occasions, facilitating spiritual disciplines. A central component of being a disciple of Christ is being spiritually formed over time. But this sort of transformation does not happen by accident, even if it ultimately a gracious gift of God. As Paul writes, “For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life” (Gal. 6:8). May we help our students reap eternal life through providing daily opportunities for them to practice the sort of disciplines that are the pathways to real and lasting spiritual transformation.

The post Discipleship in the School, Part 2: Spiritual Formation appeared first on .

In this next article, we travel back to the Bible to make some observations about where the prophets went to school. Educational principles can be found throughout the Bible, so it is not surprising to find that prophets and prophecy were cultivated in specific schools in the Old Testament.

Previous articles in this series, Training the Prophetic Voice:

Part 1: The Educational Heart of God

Part 2: Speaking Truth to Power

The Schools of the Prophets

During Old Testament times there were many prophets in Israel. Both when Israel was a unified nation and after the nations divided into the northern and southern kingdoms, there were schools of the prophets. There were six locations where these prophetic schools or guilds existed: Ramah, Bethel, Gilgal, Jericho, Carmel and Samaria. Ira Price, in his article “The Schools of the Sons of the Prophets” (The Old Testament Student 8 [1889], 245-246), describes how at these locations new generations of prophets were trained up, usually under the guidance of a few seasoned prophets. It was very important to figure out who were authentic and false prophets, because these would be the people who not only spoke the words of the Lord, but also the people would lead these prophetic schools.

Unfortunately, we don’t know the curriculum they used. We don’t know the methods they used. But we do know that what made those schools special is a core principle. They were founded upon belief as a first principle. Belief in God’s active communication to his people and belief in the salvation God provides for his people. These prophetic schools were faith-based educational institutions.

It’s fun to imagine a prophet like Elijah as the head of school. What kind of uniforms would they have worn? What would their classrooms look like? What kinds of books would they read? Interestingly, we can guess at several of these. The prophets wore garb that indicated they were part of the prophetic guild. You would know a prophet from the distinct tunic and hood they wore. The classrooms, at least what we learn from Samuel, were associated with local centers of worship; either the tent of meeting in ancient Bethel, or later the temple built by Solomon in Jerusalem. We also know that they studied the revealed word, the written scrolls that existed in their times.

The Training of Samuel

In the early chapters of First Samuel, we learn about the mother of Samuel miraculously bearing him and then devoting him to the Lord by boarding him in the household of Eli (1 Sam. 1:25-28). This section of stories gives us a first glimpse into the early training of a prophet. Eli, unfortunately, wasn’t that great of a teacher or leader of the prophetic school at Shiloh. His own sons had gained a rather bad reputation (1 Sam. 2:12-17). There is a sense of irony, then, that Samuel would be apprenticed to Eli.

Samuel’s training occurred both in the tent of meeting at Shiloh as well as in Eli’s home. This was typical of apprenticeships where the novice craftsman would live with the family of the master. Samuel likely spent much time at the tent of meeting, indicated by the phrase, “Samuel was ministering before the Lord” (1 Sam. 2:18). Here he learned how to carry out the duties of priesthood. The most poignant moment in Samuel’s training, though, occurred in Eli’s house, when he learned how to hear the voice of the Lord and proclaim the Lord’s messages (1 Sam. 3:1-18). He learned the essentials of how to carry out the role of prophet.

Samuel heard a voice calling his name. He ran to Eli, assuming he heard Eli’s voice, only to discover that Eli had not called. It took three times before Eli becomes wise to what was occurring. The text provides the insight that Samuel had not yet learned the ways of the Lord (1 Sam. 3:7). Upon Samuel’s third arrival, Eli now taught Samuel how to respond to the Lord. He told him to return to bed and await the Lord’s voice.

“If he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.’ “

1 Samuel 3:9

Although very brief, Eli’s teaching not only conveys the knowledge Samuel needs, but also the proper disposition Samuel should have toward the Lord. The words are no mere formula. Viewing oneself as a servant of the Lord is essential for the individual who desires to truly be used by the Lord. With this training in hand, Samuel was finally able to listen to the Lord. The Lord communicated once more and Samuel received a message of judgement against Eli because his sons had blasphemed God.

The next morning contains another episode of teaching. Eli pressed Samuel to reveal the message he heard from the Lord. Samuel had received a message that the punishment against Eli’s household would soon be fulfilled. Not quite the message you want to share over breakfast. Eli then taught Samuel to be brave. He must share the message, no matter how difficult that may be. Eli’s response to the condemning message taught Samuel that the words of the Lord are good (3:18).

Samuel’s training as a prophet occurs only in two brief episodes. But from these we may gather a few insights about spiritual education. First, Samuel gained core knowledge about listening to the Lord: differentiating the Lord’s still small voice from other competing sounds, delivering a reverential response to the Lord, displaying the appropriate disposition toward the Lord, and conveying the message properly despite one’s own reticence.

Second, Samuel was guided toward mastery right from the outset. There is a right way to interact with the Lord, and there is a right way to share the Lord’s message with his people. Eli’s training of Samuel in this respect can be contrasted with the training of his own sons. For Samuel, only perfect execution of the task would be acceptable. We learn that Samuel continued to grow as a prophet, never letting the words he received from the Lord “fall to the ground” (3:19). Samuel’s reputation throughout Israel grew as well, being acknowledged as a true prophet. The Lord continued to reveal himself to Israel through Samuel from that point forward (3:21).

Finally, Samuel became the key leader for Israel in a time of great need. The Philistines utterly defeated Israel, taking the ark of the covenant. The upheaval in light of this decisive defeat promoted Samuel to a place of leadership drawing upon his skill both as prophet and priest. Samuel became the last judge of Israel before the monarchy, he himself being the prophet who identified and anointed Saul. We can trace Samuel’s mastery as a leader of Israel back to the personalized training he received from Eli. While Eli may have had his shortcomings in training up his own sons, the coaching he provided to Samuel guided him carefully along a path toward gaining a prophetic voice that guided Israel through many years of hardship.

The Training of Elisha

The story of Elisha’s training differs from that of Samuel in many respects. Elijah, the master prophet, found Elisha plowing his father’s fields (1 Kings 19:19). Elijah wraps his cloak around him, which Elisha seems to instinctively understand as his calling to be apprenticed to Elijah. He kisses his father and mother and follows Elijah, becoming his assistant (19:21). Elisha’s apprenticeship lasted roughly five years, the three final years of Ahab’s reign (22:1) and the almost two years of Ahaziah’s reign (22:51). In this interval, we only learn of two major events in Elijah’s prophetic career. In one instance, he challenges Ahab for acquiring the vineyard of Naboth by murder (21:1-29). Later Elijah denounces Ahaziah for sending messengers to inquire of Baal in Ekron (2 Kings 1:13-18). Throughout these events Elisha’s name never occurs, but we can assume Elijah’s assistant is there as a silent observer all along.

During these five years, we learn nothing of Elisha’s course of study. We can only assume and imagine long hours spent together. There are many details, though, in the transition narrative of 2 Kings 2 that provide insight into Elijah’s prophetic guild. Elijah was a master prophet, having delivered messages of challenge to two kings of the northern tribe. There seems to have been a thriving group of apprentices under his care. The transition narrative takes the master and his apprentice to several locations where the prophetic guilds resided. We can imagine that an element of the transition narrative was to complete Elisha’s training and establish him as the head over the prophetic guilds in place of Elijah.

Elisha’s call was geared towards taking up a leading role as someone who would oversee the established guilds and provide a guiding hand in its future direction. The transition narrative of 2 Kings 2 depicts the promotion of Elisha to this new leadership role. The “sons of the prophets” are first mentioned in 2 Kings 2:7 as Elisha accompanies Elijah across the Jordan. After Elijah is taken up, Elisha returns bearing Elijah’s cloak and the sons of the prophets exclaim, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.” They prostrated themselves before Elisha, indicating their submission to him as their new leader. From this point forward, Elisha carries out a prophetic program very similar to that of Elijah, with several of his prophetic acts echoing those of his predecessor.

Elisha’s apprenticeship to Elijah and his call to be a master prophet provides a couple important ideas for us to consider as educators. First, the relationship between Elijah and Elisha is that of a mentor and apprentice. The text shapes our understanding of the last five years of Elijah’s ministry as a time when Elisha was right there with him. They walked and talked together. One of the ways I see this playing out in our day is time spent with students outside the classroom. Having lunches together with your students can be more formative than the content delivered in class. My wife and I have intentionally opened our home to students for get togethers. Retreats and class trips are other times when we can share experiences. The students gain insight into how you live your life as a human being rather than just seeing you as a one-dimensional teacher.

Second, we can see how Elisha went through a rite of passage. Granted, he was taking up a significant role in actually replacing the departed Elijah, and I don’t imagine our students are regularly replacing us in such a manner. But I like how the text depicts Elisha literally taking up the mantle of responsibility and being recognized by a group of peers. Schools should develop traditions and roles that promote new levels of leadership, responsibility and privilege. One school that I visited in Pennsylvania had the grammar school on the first floor and the secondary school on the second floor. At the end of each year, a ceremony was performed where the sixth graders moved up to the second floor, being welcomed by the upper school students. These kinds of traditions can be so powerful in recognizing the new levels your students are achieving. At my school, there is a student leadership group that students can apply for. These leaders get to plan and implement events, they participate in a mentorship program and they coordinate service opportunities.

Educating the Prophetic Voice

We are developing a prophetic voice in our students, and the model of the Old Testament prophets is instructive. It is important to clarify that prophecy in its classical form had little to do with predicting the future. Even after the transition to apocalyptic, the role of futuristic visions had less to do with some kind of mystical prediction and more to do with addressing the then present concerns of the community. The classic prophets sought to maintain the fidelity of the nation’s adherence to their covenant with the one true God. Prophetic utterance was extremely relevant to the current events of their time and to the daily lives of the people of Israel. The prophets by challenging the community often came into conflict with the institutions of power, namely the monarchy and at times the priesthood. Yet, the centers of power could exist in harmony. Samuel exemplified this as he was simultaneously prophet, priest and judge. The national outcry for a king, though, amounted to an affront against Samuel and by extension God. Thus, a king was anointed who seemed to meet with approbation, but was ultimately rejected by God in favor of a man after God’s own heart. Both Saul and then David had prophets at their elbows evaluating their policies in light of God’s revealed covenant with his people. From this we can gather that the prophetic voice is one that aligns with God’s revealed will and addresses the institutions of culture to challenge and correct them so that God’s people are appropriately shepherded.

As we train our students, we are providing them not only with the information and knowledge they will need to secure a college acceptance, a good job and a decent wage. We are raising them up as heirs of a cultural tradition so that they can both protect and defend that which is true, good and beautiful, but also to speak out again the inevitable corruption of that crops up due to our fallen humanity. How does this occur today in our classrooms? First, we must see as one of our most compelling aims the training of our students as spiritual beings. We must help them to listen for the still, small voice of the Lord. In practical terms, we need to provide training in how to meditate on God’s word, how to pray, and how to articulate what it is they sense God is placing upon their hearts. There is no singular program we can follow to make this happen in a student’s heart. And we cannot expect that every student’s journey will look exactly the same. Yet we should trust the efficacy of God’s word, which means that our classrooms should be places steeped in scripture and prayer.

Second, we should be self-consciously modelling for our students this meditative and prayerful disposition. We must be careful here to avoid dogma and overt displays of piety. But if we are authentic in our own responsiveness to the message of scripture and demonstrate the role of prayer in our own lives, the students that are given into our care will see a pathway forward in their own lives. I want to clarify that training and mentoring is not about sermonizing or indoctrinating our students in our own views on religion, politics or culture. I myself almost never share my own views. Instead, we are trying to cultivate the skills in our students that will enable them to speak for themselves and engage the issues the Lord places upon their hearts. I find it much more helpful to allow them to speak their own viewpoints, to debate with one another, and for me to play devil’s advocate when it seems necessary.

Other articles in this series, Training the Prophetic Voice:

Part 1: The Educational Heart of God

Part 2: Speaking Truth to Power

Part 4: Jesus as Prophetic Trainer

Part 5: Internalizing the Prophetic Message

Part 6: Classical Rhetoric for the Modern World

The post Training the Prophetic Voice, Part 3: The Schools of the Prophets appeared first on .

The Human Capacity to Learn

First, when God looks upon humanity, what he sees in us is the capacity to learn. He has made us to crave knowledge and understanding. Our minds absorb information. While it is true that other animals think and learn, there resides in the human mind the capacity to think creatively and implicationally. We have the capacity to imagine abstract realities beyond our day-to-day material existence. We can contemplate our consciousness and existence in the world. We can take the information we receive and fit it into larger conceptual frameworks. We are able to consider a personal future and imagine how our present actions contribute to the future. By contrast, a squirrel can identify a nut, bury it for later use, and remember where he left it. That’s pretty complex as it is. But we can take our need for nuts and formulate a plan to cultivate nuts on a grand scale for the benefit of society. We can envision what it would take to deny ourselves the immediate nut for our future wellbeing. We can also take that nut and exchange it with others for goods or services. We might also reflect on what it means to be the kind of person who eats nuts. This example really only scratches the surface of our intellectual capacity. The point is that God validates the depth of our learning capacity in his act of communication to us.

Making the Incomprehensible Known

Second, God fits his divine knowledge to our capacity. In theology, this concept is called accommodation. Even though God is infinite and incomprehensible, he has chosen to express himself to us in language that meets us according to our natures as finite beings. We can comprehend God because he has communicated to us in ways we can understand. John Calvin expresses it this way:

“Thus such forms of speaking do not so much express clearly what God is like as accommodate the knowledge of him to our slight capacity. To do this he must descend far beneath his loftiness.”

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. J. T. McNeill, trans. F. L. Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1.13.1.

This idea of bringing divine knowledge down to our level is fundamentally an educational enterprise. This is similar to a mother cooing and using baby talk with her toddler. We are able to comprehend true things about God and about his plans because, to put it colloquially, God has put the cookies on the bottom shelf for us. God places in our hands that which he wants us to know about him, about ourselves, and about the nature of life. Much that we need to know can be understood at a very early age. Jesus tells his disciples to “let the little children come unto me.” From our earliest days, God sees in us such tremendous value as persons.

Teaching Salvation

Third, God has given us sufficient knowledge to understand him and his salvation plan. All nature reveals truth about God, such as his power, goodness, beauty or justice. Theologians refer to this as general revelation, in that it reveals truth in very general terms. The act of creation, therefore, can be deemed an educational enterprise. There are lessons all around us, whether looking to the stars or following a trail of ants. A different theological concept – special revelation – gets at the highly specific, direct revelation God provides to humanity. Salvation is only possible through this second kind of revelation. Through verbal communication and the incarnation, God specifies our bondage to sin, the impending judgement of our sins, the gift of eternal life, the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus, the appropriation of God’s saving grace through faith, and the sanctifying power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. God teaches us so that our lives can become reordered to conform to his gracious plan. There is much that we don’t know and will never know. Yet he has given us enough to comprehend all his work on our behalf. As an educator, God teaches us what we need to know in order to truly live, a point that leads to my next thought.

The Transformational Power of Truth

Fourth, God has educated in order for people to be transformed. His school is a formative environment. He teaches us not so that we remain the same, but that we are changed into the image of his Son. There is a forward-moving drive to God’s teaching. We are not just learning fun facts or jumping through institutional hoops. I suppose there is a standardized test inasmuch as all have fallen short of the glory of God. God as a teacher is deeply concerned about our life-long welfare. This means there are moments of brutal honesty that must pierce through our thick skulls and our hardened hearts so that we might know the truth, and it might set us free. You and I are the resistant kid in the back of the classroom. Yet God seeks us out because he fundamentally believes that all people are capable of being transformed, even though not all will ultimately receive the gift of salvific transformation.

The Delight of God’s Truth

Finally, God, having made us in his image, has made us teachers as well. We teach because he first taught us. There is this impulse we have to make known to one another what we have learned. Think of the three-year-old who runs to his mother to share his discovery of a bird’s nest. He wants to share what he has learned. We educators have merely formalized this impulse. In creating any educational system, the danger is always present of robbing truth of its transformative power. It is therefore important to maintain this connection to God as educator to vivify our own teaching. When our teaching is seasoned with wonder and awe, our students get drawn into the transcendent nature of truth, and then truth can have its transformative effect in their lives. I like how Charlotte Mason differentiates the stale lesson from something that becomes a sure foundation for the child:

“Therefore, let the minds of young children be well stored with the beautiful narratives of the Old Testament and of the gospels; but, in order that these stories may be always fresh and delightful to them, care must be taken lest Bible teaching stale upon their minds. Children are more capable of being bored than even we ourselves and many a revolt has been brought about by the undue rubbing-in of the Bible, in season and out of season, even in nursery days. But we are considering, not the religious life of children, but their education by lessons; and their Bible lessons should help them to realise in early days that the knowledge of God is the principal knowledge, and, therefore, that their Bible lessons are their chief lessons.”

Charlotte Mason, Home Education, 251.

Our charge as teachers is to present truth to the minds of our young charges so that they may delight in the truth and be transformed. This begins to get at what it means to teach with a prophetic voice.

The prophetic voice is first and foremost about speaking the truth. Truth spoken can correct error and it can redirect our paths. It can meet an individual in a moment of need, and it can alter the course of human events. As we delve deeper into the concept of the prophetic voice in this series, we’ll see how we as teachers can cultivate the prophetic voice in our students. We’ll see some biblical examples of how the prophets exemplified the prophetic voice. We will especially need to overcome a misunderstanding of prophecy as merely predicting the future. We will understand how we as teachers can view our task as something prophetic. And we will ultimately gain a perspective on how our students can become truth tellers to a world in desperate need.

Before we can develop any of these further thoughts, we must see how God himself is prophetic. God speaks the truth, and never speaks anything but the truth. God has spoken truth into the world, whether it was the initial creative logos that made all things or the divine utterances that have guided us. God’s prophetic voice is the theological bedrock from which the rest of this series builds. I conclude by quoting the Psalmist:

“Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth;

unite my heart to fear your name.”

Psalm 86:11, ESV

Other articles in this series, Training the Prophetic Voice:

Part 2: Speaking Truth to Power

Part 3: The Schools of the Prophets

Part 4: Jesus as Prophetic Trainer

Part 5: Internalizing the Prophetic Message

Part 6: Classical Rhetoric for the Modern World

The post Training the Prophetic Voice, Part 1: The Educational Heart of God appeared first on .

At Clapham School, where I serve as an administrator, we were able to hold a small, in-person ceremony for our graduates. As I composed my commencement address, I was struck by parallels with the class of 1919, which had graduation ceremonies cancelled or postponed in various locations due to the Spanish Influenza pandemic. In this message, I try to bring perspective to graduates this summer, that the challenges we face due to Covid-19 may go a long way toward shaping the outlook of this next generation, if one embraces the opportunity a catastrophe provides. In many ways, this speech is a sequel to my article on the Black Death in the 14th century.

Here I’ve shared my commencement address in the hope that perhaps this message will be meaningful to you as a teacher and leader in your school.

Commencement Address – Class of 2020

Good evening, class of 2020. I am so grateful that we can meet this evening with a small gathering of parents, siblings, teachers, relatives and friends. Little about the past several months has gone according to plan, so it is that much more satisfying to have planned this event, bringing a little order in the midst of chaos.

The “Greatest Generation” is a term used to describe the Americans who experienced both the Great Depression and World War 2. What characterizes these Americans is that they lived through some of the greatest hardships of the depression and exhibited the will to win on the battlefields of Africa, Europe and Asia. Of the 16 million who served in WW2, only about half a million remain today.

When we look back on the Greatest Generation, we can observe that such a generation is forged by the harshest of trials. You can’t engineer such a generation. There’s no recipe or lab manual. There were attempts to create great generations. Warren G. Harding called for a return to normalcy in 1920, a phrase that anticipated “Make America Great Again.” What is normalcy? And can normalcy be created through public policy?

The post-war 1950s represented another attempt at social fabrication of a great generation. The idea was social conformity. The picture of suburban docility was promoted on the covers of the Saturday Evening Post with weekly prints of Norman Rockwell paintings. What, though, are we striving for when we call for conformity? Can social pressure create a great generation? This is a highly relevant consideration in light of the dominant position social media has taken since the early 2000s.

My thesis, and the point that I want to make for our graduating seniors, is that great generations are forged through unexpected hardship, and cannot be made by the will of cultural engineers. And what has 2020 been, but a year of hardship after hardship. This pandemic gives me pause to ask whether we are experiencing the kinds of conditions that will contribute to the making of a new great generation. To assess this hunch of mine, I want to take us back to 1918 and 1919.

The Great War, or WW1, was drawing to a close after years of stagnation. The US was ultimately drawn into the conflict as the decisive force, bringing victory to the allied forces against the central powers. One of the unexpected consequences of American soldiers serving overseas was that they brought back the Spanish Influenza, which hit pandemic levels in the fall of 1918. Schools closed in September and October of 1918. Homecoming events, a fairly new annual celebration in the early 1900s, were cancelled that fall. We can empathize with some of the experiences from that pandemic that swept the nation. For instance, students in Los Angeles remained at home and were sent assignments by teachers through mail-in correspondence.

There were subsequent spikes of the Spanish Influenza in January of 1919 and then again in the April-May timeframe later that year. This meant that graduations were cancelled or delayed in various hotspots throughout America. The class of 2020 seems to have similarities with the class of 1919. There were no vaccines or treatments available, so the only protocols to follow were isolation, quarantine, washing hands, disinfecting surfaces, and canceling or limiting public gatherings. If nothing else, it’s good to know we are not alone. Mark Twain is reputed to have said that “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” Well, sometimes it sure seems like it does repeat itself.

For reasons we don’t particularly know, the Spanish Influenza just went away. It took researchers until 2008 to fully understand the genetic makeup of the H1N1 virus, colloquially termed the Spanish Flu. Side note: the Spanish Flu did not originate in Spain. Spain became associated with this virus simply because they remained neutral in WW1, and were therefore able to provide unbiased reporting about this new virus during the war, a service which ultimately associated their national identity with a virus. The Spanish, by the way, referred to the virus as the French Flu.

The parallels between the Spanish Flu and the Coronavirus interest me for this simple reason. The Spanish Flu is something we can regard as the first in a series of hardships that impacted the generation who would subsequently experience both the Great Depression and WW2. Yet, few ever associate that pandemic with the ensuing events. But could it be that the Influenza pandemic served as an initial crisis in a string of events creating the greatest generation?

And so I ask you now, our graduates, a compelling question. Will our pandemic serve as an initial crisis that will forge the next greatest generation? I don’t know what the future will hold. I can’t promise you that depressions and world wars will further galvanize your generation. But perhaps if the mantle is born with only this one catastrophic event, the work of making a next great generation is accomplished here and now.

The temptation will exist to dive deeply into social distractions. We could be on the verge of the next roaring 20s. But I trust that the books that you’ve read here at Clapham, the discussions about what it takes to live life with meaning and purpose, will have prepared you to fully embrace the opportunity now made available to you in our current traumatic experiences.

Let me be clear about my charge to you. I do not spell these things out to you to place a burden of expectations on you. It matters not whether you become labelled a great generation. Instead, what does matter is to notice that your class has had a bit of rubbish luck when it comes to your graduation. And I say, good for you! That’s now part of your story. That’s something that becomes part of your perspective on life. That’s something that marks your graduation as something unique and special. And if you can own that and truly embrace it, you will find joy and blessing.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plan for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11

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If Christianity is projected to increase globally, but decrease in the West, in what parts of the world is the religion on the rise? In short, practically everywhere in the majority world! Africa, Asia, South America–in each of these continents, Christianity is experiencing record-breaking growth. So much so that sociologists predict that sub-Saharan Africa will be the new global home of Christianity. By 2060, 40% of all Christians will live in this region of the world, making it the locale of the majority of Christians globally.[3]

Despite this bright future for Christianity in the global south, western Christians must wrestle with the fact that the faith may continue to decline in their own cities and neighborhoods. Parents must think prudently about how they will raise their children with confident faith in an age of religious uncertainty. More than anything, the present situation should lead parents to pray for their children…and remember that saving faith is ultimately in the hands of God alone.

Alongside prayer, however, there are some practical steps parents can take to help cultivate confident faith in their children in this socio-cultural moment. These steps begin in the home and will expand into school, church, and society. In this blog, I will offer some thoughts for how schools can support the efforts of parents by organizing their curricular approaches in a way that will nurture confident faith.

Arguments Can Wait

Apologetics is the academic field focused on defending the reasonableness and truth of the Christian faith. For many years now, I have enjoyed reading apologetics literature and have come to appreciate the numerous persuasive arguments for skeptical challenges pertaining to, for example, the existence of God, the reliability of scripture, the historicity of Christ’s resurrection, and the goodness of God.

However, over time, I have come to realize that apologetics is limited in its ability to sufficiently nurture confident faith…and that’s okay. Apologetics seeks to influence the rational part of a person, in particular, her belief-forming faculties. This is a worthy aim, but there are two problems with leaning too heavily on apologetics, especially in the early years.

The first problem is rather obvious. The rational capacity of a child is not yet fully developed. Consequently, a grammar school child isn’t typically asking the intellectual questions that apologetics is seeking to address. If the teacher isn’t careful, the mind of a child can be overwhelmed by the tedium. It’s not yet the right time to implement a curriculum focused on abstract ideas and argumentation.

But second, and more crucially, human beings, regardless of age, are simply not reducible to their rationality. As much as modernism, and the Enlightenment project that grew out of it, emphasizes the rational capabilities of humans, we are not simply brains on a popsicle stick, as James K.A. Smith likes to put it. Smith writes:

What if, instead of starting from the assumption that human beings are thinking things, we started from the conviction that human beings are first and foremost lovers? What if you are defined not by what you know but by what you desire? What if the center and seat of the human person is found not in the heady regions of the intellect but in the gut-level regions of the heart? How would that change our approach to discipleship and Christian formation?

You Are What You Love (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2016) by James K.A. Smith

Smith is right. We are driven, more than anything else, by the engine of our affections. This is not to say we are irrational, impulse-driven beasts. Humans have minds, and within these minds, moral compasses. But modernism has led us to overestimate how much our minds guide our decision-making, and as a corollary, belief formation. The reality is we often make decisions and form beliefs based on intuition, rather than evidence, and affection, rather than argument.

So while apologetics may be useful for targeting the rational part of a person, it cannot effectively influence the hopes, dreams, inclinations, and deep-seated affections of a person. To reach this subterranean level, we need the power of story.

The Power of Story

Our hearts are captured, more than anything, by story. Stories enrapture us. They draw us into a different world: a world of intrigue, imagination, and curiosity. The experience Lucy felt as she stepped through a dusty English wardrobe into a cold, snow-covered wood is a metaphor for our own experience each time we cautiously wade into the counterfactual world of a good story.

What’s more, stories (at least the good ones) tend to leave us wanting more. There is a certain hunger or longing one feels upon the conclusion of a good book. It’s often the feeling of “I’m so glad it ended that way, but I wish it could have continued.” There is a reason why the Pevensy children, of which Lucy was the youngest, kept returning (well, except for Susan). The more they experienced the land of Narnia and all the joy it brought them, the more they wanted to stay. Though they didn’t realize it, their hearts were being rewired for something else–something beyond the immanent frame of the material world–and this process took place through the stories they inhabited.

As we think about nurturing confident faith in our youngest children, we must not begin with lofty arguments, but instead, the very best stories. These stories will shape the moral imaginations of students, filling their souls with a rich feast of ideas, characters, stories, poems, and fables. They will introduce for perhaps the very first time the seedling ideas integral to Christianity: friendship, courage, forgiveness, sacrifice, grace, faith, hope, and love. Most importantly, these stories will develop a subterranean desire within a child for something else.

An Intellectual Training Ground

Having said all this, it is essential for the development of confident faith to train the mind for the religious contestation that will inevitably come. Man cannot live on story alone. Students will need tools–or perhaps weapons is a more fitting metaphor–to prepare for the intellectual battle for their faith in an age of religious uncertainty. But what kind of weapons?

It may be tempting at this point to transition to an apologetics curriculum. Students could be led to perform worldview analysis and memorize arguments for the Christian faith. I certainly see the merits of such a curriculum having taught versions of it myself, but I suggest this tactic puts the cart before the horse. Before students can effectively do apologetics, they must develop the intellectual weaponry they will need to enter the arena in the first place. These weapons have a name: the classical liberal arts. Gaining proficiency in these arts will function as the intellectual training ground for the student with confident faith.

The classical liberal arts are a set of complex skills that enable students to truly think and, therefore, know. Too often educators today equate memorization with learning and factual recall with knowing. But really, factual recall only scratches the surface of what it means to have a vibrant intellectual life. Real learning leads to thinking that is dynamic, agile, and creative. It equips students to develop reasoned opinions for themselves and be able to trace the path they took to arrive at a certain conclusion. True learning requires training in thinking.

Historically, the number of the liberal arts was seven: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. The first three arts focused on language while the last four focused on number. Together, the Trivium and Quadrivium made up the seven arts, or skills, for fashioning knowledge. 

Case Study: The Problem of Evil

Why should training in these arts come before the formal study of apologetics? Simple: Every apologetics argument is crafted using the liberal arts. Training in these arts can begin in various forms throughout grade levels and when the time is right (usually 8th grade or high school), they can be applied to the field of apologetics.

Let’s take the problem of evil, for example. It has long been doubted–yes, even before the dawn of the Enlightenment–that God could be good in light of the sheer amount of evil and suffering in the world. Surely a good God would put an end to such evil immediately. If he was able. Or knew the extent of it. So the problem of evil, as it is usually presented, raises a series of questions about God’s attitude toward it, his power to defeat it, and to some extent, his awareness of it. 

Now, in theory, one could simply pick up the latest apologetics book and commit to memory some of the ways Christian thinkers respond to this objection. (As an aside, I recently read Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019) by Rebecca McLaughlin, and found it superb. She addresses the problem of evil in Chapter 12 in a way that is nuanced and thought-provoking.) This would solve the quandary, at least temporarily.

But I submit it would not provide long-term satisfaction. Soon enough, another variation of the problem of evil would surface, thereby generating a need for a nuanced response. Or perhaps the same version of the problem would return, leaving the Christian straining to recall what she once knew. This is the problem with mere memorization. It eventually leaves the mind of a person entirely “…unless fixed by almost endless repetitions” as educator John Milton Gregory put it (The Seven Laws of Teaching, 103). But the prescribed repetition would take an unreasonable amount of time as well as constant effort.

In order to maintain a robust apologetic to the problem of evil, Christians need more than arguments. They need the tools to construct arguments of their own. The liberal art of grammar, for instance, enables a student to read and interpret a text with robust comprehension. The liberal art of dialectic prepares a student to dissect an argument in terms of presuppositions and logical relationships. And the liberal art of rhetoric equips a student to present the truth in an eloquent and persuasive manner.

The Arts in Action

The result is a student who is not dependent on one single defense, but instead has the intellectual training to “duck and weave,” to use an old boxing metaphor, and when necessary, strike. Regarding the problem of evil specifically, a response fueled by the liberal arts would consider all the available resources for thinking through the problem. An initial step might be to research ancient understandings of the gods, including what has been thought about the nature of good and evil. Then one might consider potential biblical theodicies (responses to the problem of evil) found in the Old and New Testaments. Additionally, one could examine the writings of the church fathers, who were first-rate apologists themselves. 

After this preliminary study, which leans on the art of grammar, one could begin to use dialectic to analyze the question further and construct potential responses. One could try out different ways of viewing the question, being sure to think through every presupposition or implication of the problem as it is stated. This step would also include cross-referencing these perspectives with what philosophers of religion are writing about on the topic. I suggest philosophers and not apologists because philosophers would be considered the experts on material related to the problem of evil. They are the knowledge workers, down in the mines, doing the heavy intellectual lifting on the metaphysical questions pertaining to ethical theory, good and evil, and God himself. Professional philosophical insights and ruminations, though more complex than the average popular apologetics work, will offer more fodder for dialectic.

Finally, after researching a reasonable amount of the relevant material, and then interacting with various arguments and logical formulations, one can move into the crafting of a response, which takes us to the art of rhetoric. This response would begin by thinking through all material one could include in a coherent defense. Cicero called this the rhetorical canon of invention. Then one would go about arranging this material and stating it in a way that is coherent and persuasive. These are the canons of arrangement and style. With the content of the response now complete, one could test one’s memory of the response and practice presenting it. Through this rigorous process of self-formulating and present one’s case for the goodness of God despite the amount of evil and suffering in the world, a confident faith can begin to germinate.

Humble Confidence

Although I am convinced that a liberal arts approach to teaching apologetics is the way to go, please don’t misunderstand: I greatly value the field of apologetics and all that have apologists have contributed over the years to provide answers to the questions skeptics ask. But to truly teach apologetics, from an educational standpoint, reading apologetics literature and memorizing arguments is not enough. One must begin with the power of story and then move into deliberate training of the liberal arts.

Let me close with two final thoughts on the topic of apologetics and educating for confident faith. 

The first is a warning. In my experience, there is a real hubris that can develop anytime one teaches apologetics to young people or new Christians. The legitimate study of defending the Christian faith can quickly deteriorate into mocking unbelievers or their doubts about Christian belief. The reality is that religious belief is far more complex than we might think. Despite one’s efforts, one cannot simply coerce oneself to belief. That’s not how belief formation works. Usually it takes time, experience, and exposure to new horizons.

Therefore we need to teach humility alongside confidence as we prepare young people, or new Christians, to engage the outside world. Let us remember the words of the Apostle Paul. Referring to the bondage of sin that enslaves all people, including Christians, Paul writes, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11, ESV; italics added).  As we remember who we were before Christ, we can have compassion on those who have not encountered him personally.

Second, as confident as Christians should be in the hope that they have, we must remember that there remains much we do not know. While there are compelling arguments for the goodness of God, the problem of evil can easily return in its old monstrous form at any moment. Therefore, we should embrace the truth that ultimately our faith is not in a certain subset of knowledge, but in a person: Jesus Christ. We must cling to him, especially during times of doubt, and trust that despite our lack of confident faith, his grace is sufficient. On that long-awaited day, when our Lord returns, all will be made right and we shall fix our eyes upon the object of our faith for the first time. What we once saw in a mirror dimly, we shall see face to face.

[1] https://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/

[2] https://www.pewforum.org/2018/05/29/being-christian-in-western-europe/

[3] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/19/sub-saharan-africa-will-be-home-to-growing-shares-of-the-worlds-christians-and-muslims/

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