Applications For The WRAP Are Now Accepted

In school, there is no shortage of what to learn. 
The shortage is why.

Followers of Christ in the United States are coming to the sober realization that the biblical foundations for law, civil government, economics, and family that once provided commonly accepted harbor lights for society have been replaced. An incessant move toward the secularization of society and the privatization of Christianity that took place in the 20th Century was enormously successful, being expedited through elementary and secondary schools.

My biggest concern about young Christians being indoctrinated through secularized education is not that they will become atheists. My biggest concern is that they will become Christian dualists. Even inadvertently through unwary Christian schools.  

A Christian dualist is one who sees the Bible as relevant to one's personal life, or to the affairs of the church, but not relevant to what goes on in the Monday-through-Friday workplace. Christian dualists don't mix the biblical world-and-life view with driving a truck, painting a house, or managing a bank, because they didn't mix it with biology, art, or math. Regrettably, the reason many Christian schools don't practice this is because the teachers have not been taught how. It is a learned skill that is not included in the teacher training programs of universities today. 

Worldview Matters is on a mission to restore a biblical view of work and human flourishing to the Christian school curriculum, from preschool through high school, so students are equipped to engage in something grand, beyond themselves, yet in the here-and-now, by engaging in work of all kinds, both present and future, as the very work of God.

The Worklife Restoration and Advancement Project, or as we like to call it, the "WRAP," is a vigorous program for whole schools, not just individual teachers. Applications for the WRAP are now accepted for the 2016-17 school year. The number of schools we are able to accept into the WRAP is limited. Early applicants have a better chance of receiving funding. Applications are due May 1.

For more details, and to obtain a WRAP Application Form, click here.

If the links in the above document do not work for you, request another version directly from info@worldviewmatters.com.

For a short video clip about the vision and purpose of the WRAP, click here.

Feel free to pass this information on. We are accepting applications from any nation, but currently the training is only available in English. [A Spanish edition is in process, but not ready yet.]

Can the Ten Commandments Be Put Back Up?

Is it possible for the Bible to be taken seriously once again in places where it has been rejected? Once they have been removed from the schoolroom walls, can the Ten Commandments be put back up? Could a place that has swallowed secularism ever spit it out? 

If things get bad enough, the unthinkable can happen.

During seven decades, Ukraine was ruled by the Soviet Union, and atheism was the law of the land. Persecution of Christians was the order of the day. Yet after Ukraine gained independence in 1991, some extraordinary things took place.

Thirteen years after Ukraine gained independence, I was invited by a Ukrainian public school superintendent to teach his staff how to integrate the biblical worldview into the regular curriculum of their schools. Yes, a public school superintendent, overseeing 16,000 students and teachers in a city of 125,000, invited me to provide training in biblical worldview integration for leaders of the city's 21 public schools.

Was I dreaming?

When I first received this invitation, I did not believe the superintendent understood what he was asking. I figured he would be fired from his position. To make sure he understood what he was asking, I spent three hours in the superintendent's downtown office, going over the basic content of the course I teach on biblical worldview and how to embed it into academic instruction.

To my amazement, here I discovered a man on a mission to restore Christianity to the next generation. He told me: "Teaching Christianity is more important than academics."

Why? Because he saw Christianity as necessary for restoring Ukraine's moral compass. He understood the consequences of such a loss, and he knew how those bearings could be restored.

I invite you to take a look at what I witnessed in the city of Uzhgorod, in the far western reaches of Ukraine. Take a short video tour of one of these schools with me here. 

This photo was taken the day I spent several hours in the office of the Superintendent of the Uzhgorod School District going over the content of the training course in biblical worldview integration I would be providing for the administrators of his 21 schools.

The Real Deal

The United States is not the first State to experience decay mixed with hope.

Our good friend, Pastor Richard Vicknair, recently wrote:

"I have never seen a time when our nation was more divided.  All of us are aware of the current political divide, racial divide and economic divide. On all sides we are witnessing the handiwork of an unseen enemy. 'We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and spiritual forces in the unseen realm.' I sense many of us are slowly losing hope, because the situation seems utterly hopeless.  

What can you and I do about any of this?  

The Lord gave me a strong word of encouragement recently.  His word had nothing to do with 'doing' anything. Rather, 'the most you can do to change the world is to be the real deal in your walk with Me.'

If I am the real deal as a follower of Christ, I will do my part, wherever my walk takes me in this world.  If others are the real deal in their walk with Christ, they will do their parts, wherever their walks take them, being living examples of the right thing to say and do.  

Let me encourage you to turn your gaze away from the current distress of the world and focus on being the real deal in your walk with the Lord."  

Richard's exhortation reminded me of Athenagoras' description of Christians to Marcus Aurelius, in decedent Rome: 

"With us...you will find unlettered people, tradesmen and old women, who though unable to express in words the advantages of our teaching, demonstrate by acts the value of their principles. For they do not rehearse speeches, but evidence good deeds. When struck they do not strike back; when robbed, they do not sue; to those who ask, they give, and they love their neighbors as themselves."

Those believers, in another difficult place, took Paul's words to heart, and in due time changed history: "...make it your ambition to lead a quiet life. You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders..." (I Thessalonians 4:11-12).

This is our challenge today, just as it was for believers in Rome. It appears to me that rising to this challenge will be more critical in the immediate years to come than anyone in the United States could have imagined just one long decade ago.

Onward and upward.

The Most Pressing Need For Reform

Nancy Pearcey

Last week I said there is no secular subject taught at the University of Washington. This may be a "far out" idea for some. If you're wondering about the biblical basis for such thinking, I recommend Nancy Pearcey's book, Total Truth.

Several years ago, I did a telephone interview with Dr. Pearcey, in which she elaborated on the problem of what she calls the "sacred-secular distinction." This "distinction" is commonly held among Christians and non-Christians, and it is a distinction worth deeply re-thinking.

Holding on to the sacred-secular distinction derails God's full intention for believers in this world. Getting rid of this distinction may be the most pressing need for reform in the Church today. I say this because if this human-centered perspective can be exchanged for a wholistic biblical view, it would go a long way toward addressing a host of other problems plaguing the Church today.  

Click here to watch an edited video version of this interview: 3-minutes with Nancy Pearcey