Tonya Gordon
“Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you.” (Hosea 10:12).
“Only a little while, sowing, and reaping,
Only a little while, our vigil keeping;
Then we shall gather home, no more to sever,
Clasped in eternal love, blest, blest forever.”
Fanny Crosby
The concept of unplowed or fallow ground can take on several meanings. Visually, it ushers in a picture of hardened soil suffering from a lack of close care. Weeds are crowding the space that once offered optimal conditions for harvest. The soil, no longer being bent back toward God’s original design, is sadly denied the fulfillment of its intended purpose.
Unplowed or fallow ground can be symbolic of a life woefully misguided due to the absence of biblical shepherding. Unwavering, unapologetic, scripturally-aligned shepherding ensures a God-glorifying, fulfilled life. Without such cultivation, there is a high likelihood that weeds such as purposelessness, despair, entitlement, and vengefulness will choke out one’s God-ordained, inherent potential.
God’s Word is unquestionably clear. From the beginning, God tasked parents, grandparents, and the family with this responsibility: “These are the commands, decrees, and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children, and their children, and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life” (Deut. 6:1-3).
We are to be steadily cultivating, through instruction and modeling, our children’s minds and hearts to follow, honor, and live for Him.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates” (Deut. 6: 5-9).
Parents, grandparents, and family, please take a moment to self-reflect. If you have been blessed and charged by God with children, ask the following critical questions. Is time with God a priority or an occasional preference? Is the time spent daily or a couple of times a week, month, or year? Are you equipping yourself well by praying, studying God’s Word, and growing in knowledge with other like-minded believers? Who are you trusting outside of your direct influence to come alongside you and pour God’s precepts and promises into your child’s mind and heart? How much concentrated time are you having with your child versus these outside influences?
Cultivation of the mind and heart is education. Today, the where, what, why, and how principles of educational philosophies and methodologies can create a great deal of contentious debate. Additionally, the educational choices society is afforded are numerous. To make wise decisions, we must prayerfully seek God’s will and recount His scriptural positions on instruction. Additionally, we must bear the charge He has entrusted and responsibly take ownership of the choice.
If a family chooses a public institution of learning, then a great deal of supervision, refutation of falsehoods, Christian legal advocacy, campus involvement, and intentional home and church-guided biblical instruction is imperative. When homeschooling, a family must recognize the criticality of their child’s biblical worldview instruction and well-rounded preparedness through curriculum choice, time management, and like-minded fellowship and collaboration. Choosing a private, Christian school must entail a thorough examination of whether its mission, vision, staff and student culture, leadership, curriculum, and classroom instruction are saturated in biblical worldview. This can only be discovered through tours, in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and textbook reviews.
No subject matter, textbook, literature, song, piece of art, play, sport, or lecture is neutral. Either it bears witness to God or directs a mind and heart subtly or openly away from Him. The how of education can be the most celebrated, sinister, or confusing aspect. It is the heartbeat of education. Currently, we are witnessing frequent reports of political and societal agendas being blatantly injected into public education’s how, yet a vast amount of Christian homeschool and private educators are lamenting that they are ill-equipped and lack training on biblical worldview contextualization.
Since its inception, Renewanation has been blessed with inspiring many Christian educators to the need for biblical worldview education. As God has connected us with phenomenal resources over the past few years, we have taken biblical worldview educator training to the next level with the launch of our REAP (Renewanation Educator Advancement Program) initiative. REAP’s heartbeat is to inspire and equip Christian educators by providing training and resources to cultivate biblical worldview immersed education in their homes, classrooms, and churches and provide testimony to the transformational work biblical worldview education is producing all across the world.
There is an intense battle being waged for the hearts and minds of our children. We must break up the educational fallow ground that has long yielded weedy worldviews and be unapologetically intent on cultivating and harvesting a mighty multitude living and working for the cause of Christ!
For more information about REAP, please contact Tonya Gordon at tgordon@renewanation.org.
Tonya Gordon has a passion for providing children with a biblical worldview foundation. With over twenty-six years of combined experience in public, private, and homeschool education, she has been blessed with an extensive and unique perspective on pedagogy. She has served in various educational roles: teacher, state SOL auditor, assistant principal, academic dean, and homeschool tutor/educator. Tonya serves as the Director of REAP and iLumenEd Academy’s Curriculum and Instruction Advisor. Tonya and her husband, Ron, live in Roanoke, Virginia, and are blessed with three children.