I am joyfully indebted to Rosealee Slater, Verna Hall, and the wonderful people at the Foundation for American Christian Education (F.A.C.E.). They have, through the Principle Approach, raised a standard of Christian Education that is unsurpassed by any others. Their philosophy of learning by Biblically seeking out the foundational principles of all you study produces students with a more solid Biblical Worldview than any other approach to Christian Education is currently doing.
In fact, their students are so good, the resources I use and love even more than F.A.C.E’s are those by their students. They are resources that we’ve owned and continually gone back to for many, many years. I won’t review each resource here, but I will list some of those all-time favorites that we have found most useful. Many of these we didn’t even know were “Principle Approach” books until we got into reading them. Marshall Foster’s The American Covenant was one of our first, and is now quite well worn, laying a foundation for where we’re at and where we’ve come from. I always meant to get the Study Course to go with it, but haven’t yet. K. Alan Snyder’s If the Foundations Are Destroyed is our newest pick and a must for Biblical governmental understanding. America’s Providential History by Stephen McDowell and Mark Beliles has been for a very long time among our very top picks – overall and in the category of HisStory. Liberating the Nations, also by McDowell is a more recent enjoyment on how a Biblical Worldview transforms everything about a culture. I consider all of these “required reading”.
As for actual PA curriculum type resources, the “other” big red book has remained my most used and most helpful resource – A Guide to American Christian Education by James Rose (full review coming soon). Judah Bible Curriculum by Bill Burtness was on my list for nearly 15 years before I bought it. I’d never seen it, and wasn’t sure I wanted to take the chance, but now that I have it I wish I would’ve gotten it years ago.
I’ll write more individually about these books another day. Some I’ve already written about – in past blogs or on our webpages. But check them out today. They are all worthy additions to your home library.
And THANKS F.A.C.E. for teaching your students well. They have gone on to do exactly what you have taught them, and what Christ desires of us all, to disciple others as they have been discipled. They are modeling the Biblical principle of Discipleship – “you follow me as I follow”, and for that I am ever grateful to you.
