In his message of the same title at the Family Economics Conference 2011, Doug Phillips shared a full-orbed vision for the modern home school movement.
When the modern homeschool movement started several decades ago, it had some maturing to do. First, moms took the initiative. Then, dads became more involved. What began as a reaction to public schools began to take on a direction of its own, as families embraced Christian worldview training and distinct methods of pedagogy (teaching style). People within and without the homeschool movement realized that it was successful in raising young people with exceptional academic abilities. This encouraging statistic reinforced people’s commitment to homeschooling, since homeschooled students were getting great jobs and doing well in their careers.
Our speaker, Doug Phillips, used the example of colonial America to explain that, for as far as the homeschool movement has come, academic excellence is not enough. Early American families and dynasties did not define themselves in terms of their careers, but rather in terms of their family legacies. Many of the founders of our country had a wide variety of talents such that their work was not defined by their predominant job (if there was such a thing) but by the vibrancy and diversity of their often-multigenerational family economies. Extended family members and hired servants were all involved in working together on the family estate, which was a place of multi-faceted production, real-life education, and enriching traditions. Even work that was done abroad, such as delegating to the Constitutional Convention, was done as an extension of the greater family economy and with close ties maintained.
This example was used to make the point that families will not have the same type of powerful legacies as our nation’s founders did, unless we change our infrastructure and our purpose now. The paradigm where one or two parents work in order to make money, and where children are educated in order to make money, is neither purposeful nor fulfilling. A better system, instead of seeing homeschooling as a means to economic stability, is to see it as part of the whole lifestyle which integrates faith, family, education, and industry.
The Christian home, as Doug Phillips presented, should be a place where all of our pursuits are interdependent on the others, and where children are discipled “when you lie down, when you rise up, and when you walk by the way.” Deliberate home life should communicate culture to children; it should be a place of productivity, of worship, and of ministry. While it is not always immediately possible in our current situations, business and money-making should be seen as an extension of the household activities and the household economy. Our goal should be that every family member contributes in some way to the family’s work—work which has a unified purpose.
The Christian family’s mission and vision should be much larger than a single career or occupation. Having a family economy—and best of all, family business—most facilitates the realization of family mission and family vision. Vision is important, after all, because we are not on earth to get a paycheck, but to advance God’s Kingdom and leave a valuable legacy for the next generation.
