In this message I want to go back to the foundations of L.E.D., defining just what is meant by Lifestyle Education through Discipleship. Defining terms is the first step to really studying a topic, and brings foundational understanding to it. I hope to follow up with some more of the Foundational Principles of Lifestyle Education through Discipleship, taken from our 8 Principles of L.E.D. seminar session. L.E.D. is an education built upon Wisdom & the Word – that is, a Biblical Worldview & great Real Books/Literature. My desire is for you to see the purpose and intention for the Wisdom’s 7 Pillars resource lists that I have been sending, and are available through our website – to see how and why to include the Recommended Resources we suggest. They are not just random booklists, but rather books we’ve found to be a real blessing to our lives as they fit into the Big Picture of what our goals for L.E.D. are.
Education is made up of primarily 3 things: philosophy, methods, and content. Our philosophy is Lifestyle Education through Discipleship. Our method is Freedom & Simplicity. And our content is Wisdom & the Word – that is divided into 7 Pillars of Wisdom, 7 areas of study. We hope that in defining these things you will gain clear understanding of the excellence, yet simplicity of Lifestyle Education through Discipleship.
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Lifestyle Education through Discipleship is a decidedly Christian philosophy of education, centered on Jesus and the work of His Spirit in our lives. It was developed through prayer and scripture study – not educational PhD’s. We are far more interested in pleasing God with the education we provide for our children, than following a man-made system. We believe God has a unique Destiny for each person, and that following the plans and goals of the One that made us will lead to far greater success than following the State’s one-size-fits-all design.
First, you’ll notice the initials of L.E.D. spell led. At the core of this
philosophy is being led by the Holy Spirit. Every family is unique and God has various unique callings for each family. Every child within each family is also unique. Therefore there can be no “cookie cutter”, “canned”, “one-size-fits-all” curriculum that is right for your family. The only right curriculum is the one tailor made for your family’s uniqueness and direction, and even tweaked for each child’s uniqueness. Only God knows this fully, so we must depend on seeking Him and following His direction as He leads, knowing that He knows best what your family, and each child needs for right now and for in their future, not some curriculum committee somewhere that doesn’t even know your family and did not take them into consideration when writing their curriculum. Therefore, what we share with you are universal Principles that you can apply to your own unique family’s education, and examples of how those Principles are applied in our family.
In defining the terms of L.E.D., let’s look at Discipleship first. I think the apostle Paul defined it best. “You follow me as I follow Christ.” It follows the premise that more is caught than taught, and that actions speak louder than words. Our children will long remember what we did, not what we told them to do. They will become lifelong learners not because we tell them they should, but because they see us continuing to learn and grow. Discipleship, just as parenthood, calls us to be Leaders, and Leaders must be Learners, constantly learning and growing themselves. In order to lead you must be going somewhere, and know where you are going, or it will be as the blind leading the blind, and you’ll both fall in the ditch. As Christians, we don’t have to have to have the whole course charted out on our own. We only have to be followers of the Someone who does. If we continue to seek diligently after the Way, Jesus, and follow Him, we will stay on the right course and lead our children in that too.
Next we’ll look at Education. Education consists of 2 avenues, teaching and training. Training a child involves shaping his desires and habits. In the Proverbs we’re told to “Train up a child in the way he should go.” The Hebrew word for “train up” means to “touch the palate” causing the child to develop tastes for the things Mama is eating. To educate through training is truly Discipleship, as our children desire the things that excite us and are learning from the habits we have. This can be a very scary thing, as we all have habits that we don’t want our children to learn. We have places in our lives that we don’t want to lead them to. This requires much humility and transparency as a parent, not in telling our kids to “do as I say, not as I do”. But in allowing them to see us repenting, seeking God’s help to overcome, and gaining victory.
Many parents are so focused on finding a child’s individual bents, interests, and desires that they forget that God put them in their family, to learn to have the desires, interests and bents of their parents. He put them in their family to learn what their family could teach them. This isn’t to say that individuals within the family won’t have varying desires and interests, or that they shouldn’t be allowed to follow those interests. We’ve all seen the tragedy that comes when parents try to force their kids into becoming what they always wanted to be, to live out their dreams for them. We do need to encourage our children’s uniqueness and individuality, but also not be afraid to be ourselves and encourage our children to follow us, and pass on our desires to our children. There is much that God is doing in our lives that He wants our children to learn through following us. There is also much for our society to learn about Family Legacy.
True teaching involves promoting growth of the framework of the mind. Relating what is known to what is not known. The best teaching is not trying to force someone to memorize the facts (real or supposed) and spit them back out on a test. True teaching causes growth. It makes lightbulbs go on in the brain. It is when we take a person from something they know, and lead them through the relationships and connections into something they didn’t know before. We provide “hooks” to hang the new information on, that makes it relational and remember-able. Jesus, the Master Teacher and our example taught in this way, through stories, parables, and analogies. “The Kingdom of Heaven is like….”
Lifestyle is our last term. Lifestyle relates to the atmosphere of our learning environment. Deut. 6:4 puts it, “as you rise up, as you lie down, as you sit in your homes, as you walk along the wayside.” Education is something that happens at all hours, in all places; not something that happens between certain hours, on certain days, in a certain place. Every worthwhile aspect of Life is a Learning experience, – not contrived to be so, but in and of itself, – if it causes you to grow in knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. This isn’t just living any old Lifestyle. If your Lifestyle is complacent “couch potato”, that is what you will Disciple your children in, know matter how much you tell them to study their textbooks. Living a Lifestyle that is enthusiastic about learning, and always looking for learning adventures and teachable moments, a Lifestyle that values Living Life will also be “catching” to our children, if we bring them along side of us in it.
Lifestyle Education through Discipleship takes place within a family setting based upon being together, bringing your children alongside you – as you rise up, as you lie down, as you sit in your homes, as you walk along the wayside. It’s most of all about building relationships, by spending time working, learning and growing together. God’s plan to place children within families is for this purpose, to build relationship and interdependence by working, learning, and growing together. Parents are designed to be the teachers of their children. No one else has been called to that purpose. All parents may not be thoroughly equipped to provide their child’s complete education. In fact, I would go as far as to say no parent (nor anyone else) is thoroughly equipped. But parents are called to do it, and therefore equipped to begin, and they will become more thoroughly equipped to complete it as they seek and wait on God, the Holy Spirit. This is exactly where He wants us; dependent upon Him, and growing ourselves. Along with our own growth, and our own dependency on God, Legacy, again, is another primary reason for parents as teachers.
The primary goals of LED are to bring the child to a dependent relationship on God and to a Biblical Worldview – to love Him, serve Him, and share Him with others. It focuses heavily on developing that relationship with God through prayer, worship, Scripture reading and meditation. As that relationship is developed, we move beyond just “loving Jesus” and come to know Him and His thoughts and ways. We develop the “mind of Christ” and we study His Word and its relation to our lives and the world around us. And we, and our children become the arms and legs, and love of Jesus to the world around us – including our family. Everything that we study is looked at through the lens of God’s Word. For “His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.”
Therefore, we rely heavily upon the Bible for our curriculum content, but it isn’t the only book we study. Lifestyle Education through Discipleship is an education of Wisdom & the Word. Wisdom being a Biblical Worldview, looking at all of Life – everything we study – from God’s perspective. The Word expands from a foundation in His Word, the Holy Bible, to the great words written by others that we can learn from – excellent, living books – literature. These Real Books form the core of our 4 Real Resources – but now were getting into other topics for another day.
To put it quite simply, Lifestyle Education through Discipleship is discipling our children (leading them as we follow God) by teaching and training them (in a Biblical Life & World-view with the Bible and Real Resources) as we rise up, lay down, sit, walk along the way (all the time, every where).
