Practice Makes Parent

Guest (Female): If you are a pastor wanting to save and strengthen marriages in your congregation, we’ve got a great tool for you. Marriage 911 by Focus on the Family trains laypeople to mentor couples who may be on the verge of divorce or who want to strengthen what they already have. The kit includes two leader guides, four workbooks, and all the training necessary to meet with and mentor men and women who need help. Visit marriage911.com. That’s marriage, the numbers 911.com.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Well, hi and welcome to Practice Makes Parent, where we understand it's not about perfection but about transformation. I'm Dr. Danny Huerta.

Rebecca St. James: And I'm Rebecca St. James. We talk a lot about how the truest parenting begins with the heart. When we refer to the word worldview today in our conversation, that's what it'll all come down to in the end. Where is your heart? Where are your kids' hearts? Where are your core beliefs?

Our guest today will explain that term and help us understand how, in today's digital society, parents can have influence. We're going to help parents who have been surprised by what public schools are teaching their children, things that contradict the worldview that they are being taught in the home. We'll get advice on how to respond and where to go for support.

Dr. Danny Huerta: You have rights as parents and this is going to be an interesting conversation. Mom, Dad, we know you want to pass along your faith. It's the most important thing you can do for your child, but there's an art to it too. A lot of conversations that you have in various times, right? In the car, at the kitchen table, at bedtime.

Today we're going to speak with Billy Hutchinson, who is the director of Colson Educators at the Colson Center. He's spent over a decade in Christian education as both a classroom teacher and as an administrator. You'll soon understand that Billy is passionate about equipping others to engage and shape today's culture for Christ. I'm excited about this conversation.

Rebecca St. James: Absolutely. This is very, very needed. Billy, welcome to Practice Makes Parent. We're really glad you're here.

Billy Hutchinson: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited for our conversation today.

Rebecca St. James: Us too. Let's dive right in and get it super practical right off the top. For parents who've never heard of the term worldview, what is a worldview and why does it matter so practically, especially for us as Christian parents?

Billy Hutchinson: Thanks for asking that question because we always have to define terms to make sure that we understand exactly what we're talking about. If we think about a worldview, the simplest definition would be how you see the world, the view that you have of the world.

If you want to dive in a little deeper, I think Kepler said it best when he said, thinking God's thoughts after him. When we talk about a worldview, it's not just Christians that have a worldview. Everyone has a worldview, and that's going to be manifested in anything that we read or listen to or watch.

When we think about a worldview, we have to think about what is it saying about reality? What is it saying about truth? What does it say about ethics? What does it say about who we are as human beings? What does it say about God? A worldview is that system of beliefs that we have that interpret how we perceive and understand and judge reality.

That's the best definition I've heard. It's from one of the professors I had in seminary at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. His name is Mark Liederbach, and he really pressed in on this system of beliefs by which we perceive, interpret, and judge reality.

Dr. Danny Huerta: From a psychological perspective, perception and belief is a very important core piece to a human being. That's where our thoughts and emotions are brought from, and then we have behaviors that come after that. When we're thinking about behaviors within society and culture, you travel backwards to that perception and the core beliefs that a person forms.

That's a place where we get to dance with our kids. We get to have conversations in various times in the car, at the kitchen table, at bedtime. What research points to is that by the age of 13, we've established a lot of our worldview. We know that society now with social media and other forms, schools, and other places, there's been a blitz into our kids' worldview. Why is it so important for a parent to realize and be aware of this?

Billy Hutchinson: That's a really important question because most worldviews are caught and not taught. When you think about the age of 13, most students and children of that age are just putting the pieces together by what they're reading, what they're exposed to, what they're listening to, what they're watching, and the power of story to form an individual's worldview.

As we think through that, that puts a responsibility on us as parents to now intentionally teach what a worldview is so that as students are formed in these formative years, they're not just having their worldview formed by external sources from the home. They're formed by parents as they are intentionally leading them to understand these concepts of a Christian worldview and how that they all form together.

Chuck Colson in his book, How Now Shall We Live, said the single greatest failure of the church—and he wrote this in 1999—is the failure for us as individuals to see Christianity as a whole system that speaks to every area of life.

As I mentioned a minute ago, every other worldview is going to make a statement about every area of life. As students are continually exposed to this, and even more in a digital age, how many voices are they hearing on a daily basis by what's scrolling across their screens or what they're listening to or what they're hearing? If parents aren't following up on that, then they're not having a voice in that conversation and they should be the authoritative voice in that conversation.

Rebecca St. James: Billy, can you speak to what are some ideas that you have about how we can bring a Christian worldview and a biblical worldview into our family? What are some of the intentional practices that we can have as parents with our kids and be fostering right now that just become a part of our normal daily life rhythms? I know you have a five-year-old son, so you're probably thinking about all these things right now. If you could almost create a couple of things on a wish list for what you wish parents would be doing right now, what would those be?

Billy Hutchinson: I think we have a great example of that in scripture. If you look at Deuteronomy chapter six and you look at the instruction, there's really two pieces to it. There's the first piece which I would refer to as the catechism. You're going to teach these things with the frequency of that when you rise and when you sit and when you lay down and when you do all of those things.

Then there's the liturgy piece that comes after that of the binding on the frontlets and in your house and in your gates and all this. There are those two pieces that work together to form this worldview of what you're teaching and what you're doing.

As a parent, those are things that we have to think about. It's not just do we open scripture, because we certainly want to do that and teach our little boy about the truths of God's word, but if we don't follow that up with language that reinforces that, then we're missing half of the equation. We have to do both of those pieces together of what we teach and what we do. For both of those pieces to be in conjunction with one another, what we teach is shaped and it's reinforced by what we do, and what we do is shaped and reinforced by what we teach.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Those are great points. I think the number three to that would be the modeling in that Deuteronomy 6. It's loving the Lord your God with all of who you are, and that's where it begins as a parent. Where are you at in your worldview? What lens are you seeing the world through? How do you talk about male-female? How do you talk about sexuality? How do you talk about the things going on in the world?

Now we have so much news out there. It lends itself to lots of conversations and what's interesting and actually important for us as parents to consider is sometimes we're handing over this worldview conversation without knowing it. We're handing it over to other people. It may be school, it may be Sunday school teachers or pastors, and we are essential in that conversation. What are some ways that we are unknowingly or accidentally giving up this Deuteronomy 6 opportunity in the day-to-day?

Billy Hutchinson: Let me start by just reinforcing something you said, and I say this with any school that I work with, especially if I do a parent night. The parents are the primary disciple-makers. That is the call in scripture, that it's their responsibility.

Some of the things that I have seen happen at a larger level is that maybe because the parents don't understand a worldview or they just don't know where to begin, they rely on the Christian school or the church youth group to disciple their child. That's not what scripture calls us to do.

Again, if we're looking at ways that we unintentionally do this, it would be how do we talk about things? Let me give you an example. If I have an argument with someone and I talk about them in front of my child, who's now at five years old a sponge and he's hearing everything, and I use certain words that would not be bad words, but you don't want to use words like he's an idiot or he's stupid or something like that. When you say those things, I'm not honoring that person as an image bearer.

It's also that modeling piece to where as students are always watching us and children are always watching us and they're listening, they see the inconsistencies, whether they're intentional or whether they are unintentional. What we have to do is to make sure to the best of our ability that we are not just knowing what scripture says, but we're knowing how to live with wisdom and apply the truths of scripture to all of reality.

We just have to be intentional about our actions. Discipleship doesn't happen by accident. You don't just kind of fall forward over the finish line. You have to think through how do I understand my own worldview and then where are these areas where I can now disciple and mentor my own children?

The easiest way to do this is by looking at cultural artifacts. When we watch certain movies, we should be able to point out what this movie says is real or true or good. Now what does the Bible say about what's real or true or good? Or this is what this news story says is the problem in the relationship between two people. Is that what scripture says that the problem in the relationship with two people is?

Having a framework for us to understand how to engage is probably the first step because many of us didn't even think about worldviews until we were much older. I grew up in the church in the '80s and '90s and didn't think through intentionally how Christianity moves through every area of my life. It's not just about fall and redemption.

So many of us looked at a two-chapter story of the gospel and said, okay, here's fall and redemption. At that point, it becomes a privatized faith. How do we now begin to say, wait a minute, everything's from a worldview, Christianity speaks into all these things, what are these competing messages, and how do we engage with them? To act like they don't exist and never respond, well, that's probably the worst thing we could do.

Rebecca St. James: I love that both of you are hitting on taking just simple parts of our lives. Danny, you said the news. Even watching the news with our kids and there are some great news programs that condense things to a kids' level too about what's happening around the world. They're learning about geography. They're learning about what's happening that are kids' age-appropriate.

We can then jump off of that and start talking about how's that being handled? Was that wisdom? Is that honoring God? We can really unpack it. You were talking about movies. Exposing our kids to quality movies that have a great story arc or a redemptive story, we can really unpack that with our kids and promote a biblical worldview in that way.

Another way that we've been doing it lately is listening to books in the car on trips. We're listening to Little House on the Prairie right now and my kids ask for it as soon as we're in the car. They're learning about ethics and working hard and providing for your family and honoring God and community and relationships.

It's so wild. It's not often about it just being taught, although we do need to be intentional on that, but being caught. It's all the parts. Then I also think—and we talk about this a lot on the show—it's so important that we are careful too about what our kids are being exposed to. We're really putting limits on the amount of screen time, the amount of technology, what they're watching, what they're absorbing because for so many children this very immoral, anti-biblical worldview is coming through in a lot of media. We've got to be guardians of their hearts intentionally.

Dr. Danny Huerta: We do. I think a big component that I want us to talk about here is trust. What is it that we can trust? Who can we trust? Teaching our kids to be discerners. Romans 12:2 says do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. There is a war, a battle for our children's minds and our own minds right now.

I think what we need to look at is there's a question of meaning. Do we have meaningfulness in our lives? And then who is it that we can trust? We know in the garden, trust was brought up for question. Billy, where I want to go with this is thinking about school and how the education system brings truth or brings counterfeit or brings a variety of things and pieces of truth.

How do we handle that as parents? How can we step in there? How can we be aware of things and also advocate for our kids in a way that's life-giving, in a way that is empowered by our legal rights? Because right now our kids, some of the questions they're asking is who am I? And then where do I belong? Do I actually have a calling? What happens after death? There's big questions that our kids are asking and as they go into the teen years, they begin to seek answers from school, from peers. How do we step into that world as parents in a way that's purposeful?

Billy Hutchinson: One of the ways that I think we can do this is many of the stories, whether it be through a book or a movie, provide us some really interesting case studies. We could say here's this conflict and how was that handled and what assumptions are in this story? If you look at the relationship between two individuals, how is this going to work itself out?

Then we can compare that to say what does scripture say is really happening here? How do we look at what the relationship between scripture, how scripture is going to define the relationship between these individuals? Then we compare those and we have those conversations.

In the context of school, it's very important that parents—not in a helicopter manner—are paying attention to what's being brought home for homework or the assignments that are being asked of the students. I say, hey, what did you learn at school today? "Daddy, I don't want to talk about it." I'm like, well, number one, I'm paying for this, so I want to make sure that this is a good return on my investment, but it's good for them to see.

Again, it's going to taper off as they get older because you want to prepare them for when they go to college. As you're looking at how do I cultivate this idea of critical thinking and discernment and I begin to ask these questions of what's being said in this paragraph and how is that argument being formed and how is this evidence being presented in a way that's going to make this claim?

What we find a lot of times this question comes up is what do I do with a school that I'm having all these problems with? What happens when this comes home and I just disagree with that? I think there's a couple of things that we have to think about. First, is this an occasional conflict or is this a consistent pattern? Is this something that one teacher has done this or is this an institutional issue where this is happening over and over and over and over again? And are they dismissive of me saying why is this being taught or help me to understand what we're doing here?

The second question that they could ask is is this because they're exposing my student to an idea or is this because that they're actively trying to shape them in a certain direction? Because it's good in a Christian school, it's good that students are exposed to the theory of evolution so that they can understand how to engage with it.

When everything that happens on that campus is built out of a Marxist idea or an evolutionary mindset, that's not just exposing someone to an idea through the process of education where you can critique and engage with what is real, true, good, and beautiful. That is actively shaping to say here, this is who we're forming you to be. If they don't allow you as parents to have a discussion about that or if they don't allow you to have any sort of disagreement about that, then that's at the point to where you need to take some more serious actions to look at different alternatives.

To recap that, is this an occasional conflict? Is it a consistent pattern? And are they doing this to expose my student to ideas or are they doing this to actively shape them? Those are questions that we have to ask even within Christian schools as we look at teachers as well.

Rebecca St. James: Can you speak, Billy, to what parental rights Christian parents actually have when it comes to curriculum? I think a lot of parents don't really know how they can speak into that or if they can speak into that.

Billy Hutchinson: The school system is going to have a set of standards. Let me be clear about curriculum and the goal of curriculum first. Curriculum is the vehicle by which it takes you to the standards of the course. Curriculum itself should not set the standards, it's just the means by which that you get to the standards.

When you look at this from a parental rights standpoint, if your student is in the public school, then they have the right to set the outcomes and they have the right to say here's the direction that we're going. But you have the right as a parent to speak into that and say I don't agree with this, can I have alternative assignments for my students that would meet the same end? I think that's a valid question that you can ask.

What's really interesting is school choice vouchers. They're saying we're going to give you this money that you can now put that towards whatever we would put towards your student here. We're going to move that and allow you to choose where you're going to put your students. In many of these states that have those school choice vouchers, you as a parent, you have the right to move your student wherever you want to move them and Christian schools are bending over backwards to find ways to make that happen.

You just have to be wise in how you bring these issues to the school's attention and to the school board's attention. If you're going to come in and you're trying to make the statement and win the argument, the posture in which you take this to say I understand that you're trying to get to this standard of critical thinking or whatever this might be, we're requesting that you provide an alternate assessment for my student to do that. They do that for all sorts of other situations, whether it be for an individualized plan or a 504 plan or any of those. They can make multiple different ways for a student to demonstrate mastery of that standard or content.

Dr. Danny Huerta: That's creative, that's problem-solving. My book, the 7 Traits of Effective Parenting, began as an alternate assignment at a public university in my graduate program. That's how the framework began from the beginning.

One of the things that is important for parents to hear is that sometimes they just won't be confident with the delivery of worldview. How can a parent talk about living with clarity, confidence, and courage when they don't feel confident themselves within this space? We know there are big conversations happening within culture today and some parents avoid those conversations completely, yet maybe we're telling our kids to be bold in their faith and to be courageous in their faith and yet as parents, we don't feel that sense of confidence. Where can a parent begin modeling that? How can we begin to gain confidence within a culture that feels a bit oppositional to our faith?

Billy Hutchinson: I think there's multiple layers to this response. The first piece is I think that you have to have transparency with your students. To act like if you don't know something you act like you know the answer, they're going to see right through that. The posture of being a lifelong learner to say you know what, I want to think through how to gain a better understanding of this.

One of the ways that we do that at the Colson Center, there's multiple ways, but one of the ways is through our daily Breakpoint podcast. We talk about these different pieces to cultivate a worldview understanding of how people can have clarity on what really is the issue here. What is it that's at the bottom of this issue that we're seeing? Because a lot of times we respond to the waves and not the undercurrent of what's actually happening.

Or our Colson Educators courses on worldview formation to where you can go through those courses for free and it will talk about what is a worldview and what are the components of it and how do we begin to integrate that into conversations and life. Frankly many of us, we just don't know.

Again, when I grew up in the '80s and '90s, the issues that we're dealing with now are nowhere near what we were dealing with then. It might have been okay, what is true, how can we have confidence in what the Bible says is true? And now there's so many things that are happening and culture's moving so fast that honestly, sometimes we just want to put our head in the sand and say Jesus come quickly. That's not a faithful response.

What we have to do is position ourselves as lifelong learners. I heard somebody say this once and I'll never forget it. Christianity is not a graduation service when you come to Christ, that's the beginning of a discipleship pathway to which you will learn for eternity. Don't just think you've arrived, but how am I continually growing through that process of sanctification of renewing my mind until Jesus calls me home.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Billy, do you mind if we do a part two to this? If we continue the conversation?

Billy Hutchinson: No problem at all. Whatever you guys want to do, I'm here to serve you.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Okay, that's fantastic. We're excited to invite you to another show and to talk about some practical ways to live this out with the different stages in our home. The Colson Center, you talked about that, prison fellowship, there's so many people being touched by the life of Chuck Colson and you can help support their ministry and the podcast by diving deeper into this subject. Pick up the resource A Practical Guide to Culture by John Stonestreet. He's a colleague of Billy's.

Rebecca St. James: Absolutely. It's a great resource. Well, Billy, we have a listener question that we'd love to share with you and get your feedback if you're ready for that. Today's question comes from Amanda, who writes:

Hi there, I work at a public school in a small conservative district in Texas. We are working on a senate bill. We have a big library meeting coming up and want to bring information to the table about why it's harmful for our kids to be exposed to things that the other side has presented, mostly LGBTQ and gender issues. I'm having a hard time researching this topic because our search engines are sided with the left. Dr. Kathy Cook has spoken about that on your show. Do you know where I can find the data somewhere that tells me how kids are affected by woke ideologies? I want to be prepared. Thank you so much for your feedback. I value your opinions.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Do you have some ideas, Billy?

Billy Hutchinson: I would start with if you go to colsoncenter.org and you begin to just in our search bar, enter in any of those tags, whether it be LGBTQ or you could look at gender or education. There's going to be a number of Breakpoint articles that will come up that will talk about how these are manifested in very different ways.

Inside each one of those Breakpoint articles, it's going to link to specific research studies or news articles or anything like that where people have been talking about these things in general. I would start with just going to Colson Center and doing it in their search bar. That's probably the first place to get a lot of those resources.

Then just keep an eye on what's happening in the news. What we're seeing in the news right now is that the research is coming out to show, hey, these are bad ideas. You could look at people like Chloe Cole and you could read her story or you could listen to her story in the Truth Rising documentary that we did with you guys from Focus on the Family. She talks about her transition story where she transitioned from female to male at the age of 15 and now has transitioned back and then came to Christ and is showing here's all the research on why that this is really bad and harmful to young men and young women in those formative ages. I would look at again, the Truth Rising documentary, I would look at Breakpoint, colsoncenter.org. We have a lot of those resources that will be linked there that will guide you to trusted resources.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Those are wonderful resources. I would add some ministries has some great content as well. Be Broken Ministries is another one to look at, Amanda. And then Alliance Defending Freedom. Then we do have a back-to-school resource on this very topic and a variety of topics that you can be talking to your school about if the topic comes up. You can find that on our website. We'll have a link to it. It's our back-to-school resource. It's an educational download. It's free, it's a whole book. Then we do have downloads also on how to talk to your kids about transgenderism and homosexuality. As you're addressing this, Amanda, there, maybe you can also recommend to some parents the resources here at Focus on the Family as well so that hopefully that gives you a ton of resources to work with. We'll have all those links in the show notes for you to peruse.

Rebecca St. James: Thank you so much for your question, Amanda. We're going to send you Danny's awesome book, 7 Traits of Effective Parenting, as our way of saying thank you for participating in our show. If you have a situation that you would like us to speak into, reach out and send an email or a voicemail by clicking on the show notes. Next week, we are going to continue our conversation with Billy Hutchinson. This was just such an amazing episode and so helpful for all our parents and definitely helpful for me. Until next week, I'm Dr. Danny Huerta.

Rebecca St. James: And I'm Rebecca St. James. Join us next time for more tips for transforming your parenting on Practice Makes Parent.

Guest (Female): If you are a pastor wanting to save and strengthen marriages in your congregation, we’ve got a great tool for you. Marriage 911 by Focus on the Family trains laypeople to mentor couples who may be on the verge of divorce or who want to strengthen what they already have. The kit includes two leader guides, four workbooks, and all the training necessary to meet with and mentor men and women who need help. Visit marriage911.com. That’s marriage, the numbers 911.com.