Hash Green Fritters

I used an amazing recipe I found in my Facebook feed called Zucchini Crust Pizza last week when my garden was exploding (again) with zukes. My family raved about it.

The secret was in salting and squeezing out the moisture in the zukes. Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that before! The hot oven-stone idea was also very helpful, though I used a 13-inch ceramic tile left over from our kitchen remodel and turned it upside down. My pizza was square. Tasted great anyway.

Well, I had some uncooked dough left over, and the next morning my daughter fried pancakes out of it. Also brilliant! It was delicious! The only drawback was, the high oregano content required that it be smothered in more tomato-y salsa to even out the flavors. Not my idea of breakfast, but hey, I'm eating greens three meals a day, and that isn't your typical breakfast food either, so I could live with it. Once.

Today I made what I have dubbed Hash Green Fritters. I took out the oregano and basil from the aforementioned recipe and increased the protein content by adding chia seeds along with a bit of water. Worked like a charm! Here's a single-dish meal for your family that is low-carb and higher protein than potato hash browns, and just as yummy.   

HASH GREEN FRITTERS

• 8 cups shredded zucchini
• 1 cup shredded cheddar or pepper jack cheese
• 2/3 cup flour of choice
• 2T chia or flax seed
• 1T water
• 2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 T coconut oil
• optional: extra shredded cheese to sprinkle on top 

1. In a large bowl, toss the zucchini with 1 teaspoon coarse salt and set aside for 15 minutes. Squeeze the excess moisture out of the squash by wrapping it up in a clean tea towel or piece of cheese cloth and wringing it out, discarding the water. (You may wish to do step one the night before and refrigerate. I did.)
2. Once all of the excess moisture has been wrung out and discarded, place the shredded zucchini back into the bowl and add the cheese, flour, garlic, seeds, water, eggs, and salt.
3. With your hands, incorporate all of the ingredients together.
4. Place coconut oil into a frying pan on high and heat until just beginning to smoke. Very important that it be HOT, or the mixture will not sear, may stick to pan and give you a big headache!
5. Spread mixture in hot pan thinly, about a quarter of an inch. After 3 minutes, flip with a spatula (yes, it will break apart) and press down flat. After 2 minutes, flip and press down again. Continue flipping as outer crust browns and inside dries and cooks until no moisture oozes up. Keep pan hot, but not too hot. Don't walk away and burn your precious meal :).
6. You may offer a bowl of extra shredded cheese for hand-sprinkling on top of the hot cakes. Enjoy!

Prep time: 15 minutes   Cooking time: 15 minutes  Servings: 6

See my new Facebook page at Arden's Garden

A Response to Thomas Sumstattd Article on Courtship

Lately a lot of talk has been circulating among my Christian friends about an article entitled, "Why Courtship is Fundamentally Flawed."  Doug Wilson has posted his always-poignant response, "Why Courtship is Fundamentally Awed." Read them both before you read my response.

SO MUCH of this article is based on the author's personal experience. My experience is the opposite. My husband and I were raised in public school and are products of the cultural failings of the dating system of the 70s and 80s. We were burned; yet God in His grace brought us together and we have been married 30 years. We now have five children, and the biblical courtship model has been very helpful to us in raising them.

We also started a Christian ministry offering families opportunities to mix and mingle with other like-minded families so our young people would be exposed to a healthy community of prospective future marriage partners.  We did not isolate our children from their peers, but we did set up an atmosphere of selectivity which allowed for a good-quality peer environment with a parental presence. This article woefully ignores the social environment that should be provided for by families in their home.

I'm sorry to hear of so many fathers being rude to those suitors. That should not be. Fathers should allow these potential-suitor young men to come hang out with the family in low-pressure situations (dinner, coffee, music-making, games, etc.) where siblings of all ages are allowed into the circle of fellowship. These young men ought to be allowed the same polite company as anyone else. They are younger brothers and disciples for the fathers in the long haul, regardless of their future marriage potential with their daughters. But alas, this again has not been our practice, nor have we observed others acting in this way. (Except perhaps in one case :P.)

Any system has its flaws because mankind is flawed. We have married off our three eldest children and our fourth is now in a courtship. We have made mistakes with each courtship, learned from our mistakes, and honed our skills with each one. We have acted on a case-by-case basis, keeping in mind the age of the children. An 18yo daughter is treated slightly differently from a 21yo daughter. An 18yo suitor likewise would be treated differently than a 24yo. We take them where they are and go from there, allowing various levels of autonomy based on their readiness and spiritual condition. I still think this is a more biblical model than dating, however way you define it.

My parents dated in the 40s and married in 1950. They did not have this no-exclusivity rule imposed on them, so it was not universal in those days, at this article seems to suggest.  My mother did not listen to her mother's warnings, and her father said nothing in criticism until after the marriage, which by then was too late. My parents' marriage was dysfunctional from the beginning until my father's death two years ago.

If you build your case and doctrine on personal experience alone, you won't be able to stand very long on such a sandy foundation. Courtship is not fundamentally flawed, it is biblical. The devil is in the details. Yes, some folks can go overboard with the principles and be unbalanced. That does not mean one should throw out the baby with the bathwater. I'm glad the suitors who came to ask permission to court our daughters did not take offense at the father's involvement. The key is the attitude and behavior of the father, who in every case is human. Cut the father some slack. He's still trying to figure this out too.

This article is disrespectful and presumptuous regarding the father's motives--an attitude you will NOT find supported by scripture!

Kicking the New Age Out of Old Age Healing

This article is written by guest Stacy McDonald, The Common Scents Mom. Stacy has been my mentor via her book, Raising Young Ladies of Virtue, and her articles in Homeschooling Today magazine. She is a pastor's wife and well-versed in scriptural principles and doctrine. I am privileged to be on her team.  Heere's Stacy!

Just in case you wondered, you are not God. If you don’t believe me, ask your husband. Neither are there little pieces of God scattered throughout the universe.

Splendor. Beauty. Expanse.  As amazing as that rock formation is, God created it; He doesn’t reside in it.

Magical. Breathtaking. Spectacular. As rightly awed as you may be by the beauty of the night sky, remember, God spoke the stars and planets into existence; and when He did so, He didn’t leave a part of Himself behind. God isn’t there. Though, if you watch carefully, you may find His glory being proclaimed (Psalm 19:1).

Healing. Amazing. Soothing. Yes. But, regardless of what the latest health guru tells you, the God of the Universe does not mystically linger in your little bottle of essential oil or supplement. I don’t care what the catchy name on the label says.

God spoke herbs and essential oils into existence at Creation when He formed the plants, trees, flowers, and shrubs and gave them to man (Genesis 1:29), but they are gifts given for our service (Psalm 104:14) and healing (Ezekiel 47:12). Good gifts. Just, don’t look for God there. Instead, open your Bible.

And know your heresies.

Pantheism: “God is everything”

Panentheism: “God is in everything”

You alone are the Lord; You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them, and You preserve them all… (Nehemiah 9:6)

Christians have inadvertently relinquished their rights to God’s good gift of natural health and healing, a gift that encourages the body to do what it was intended to do, which is to heal. Many false religions embrace the gift, but reject the Gift-Giver. Or, they try to turn the gift into the Gift-Giver. Christians, on the other hand, rightly embrace the Gift-Giver; but, ironically, they too often devalue His gifts by placing them below man’s wisdom in worth and authority. In other words, they snub the Gift-Giver’s gifts. Both are wrong.

Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. (Jeremiah 17:5)

Arrogant. Futile. Anemic. The gift of natural foods and medicine was given to us by God for an ultimate purpose, therefore they are good and useful, and will serve us well when used properly and with thanksgiving. But, if we don’t reclaim this territory for Jesus—if we continue to eat empty, toxic foods and blindly trust in physicians to be our “miracle makers,” we will become weaker and sicker and find ourselves utterly unable to fulfill our calling.

Asa became diseased in his feet, and his malady was severe; yet in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but the physicians. So Asa rested with his fathers; he died in the forty-first year of his reign. (2 Chronicles 16:12–13)

Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen; let them deliver you in your time of distress.” (Judges 10:14)

We must remember that all healing comes from the Great Physician, so that is where we should first turn. This is one reason that, when we apply our essential oils, we pray and ask God to use them to heal our bodies. Anointing the sick and downcast with oil is found throughout Scripture. Unfortunately, it is the tendency of our sinful and idolatrous hearts to put our trust in anything but God. We often trust in doctors, pharmaceuticals, chemo, and even created things—gifts intended for our healing (Ezekiel 47:12), but used in a sinful way.

So it came to pass, through her casual harlotry, that she defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. (Jeremiah 3:9)

God is our ultimate provider. In Genesis 22:14, He is called Jehovah Jireh, which is Hebrew for “the Lord will provide.” He is also called Jehovah Rapha, which means God is our healer. When we sing the doxology, we “praise God from whom all blessings flow.” In James 1:17 we’re reminded that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights.”

We need to stop living like we believe that New Agers, Eastern Mystics, and other false religions “own” the Creator’s gifts. Praise God for what He has given us; live like you believe in God’s graciousness; study and learn how to make His gifts useful for yourself and your family; and glorify Him by using them with thanksgiving, in an effort to strengthen and heal His people, and to further the Gospel.

If Christians would do this, the world would stop associating God’s natural gifts with mysticism, and they would begin to see the power and graciousness of a loving and creative God.

I’m here to help.

If you are interested in using essential oils to care for your own family, I would recommend buying them wholesale. Why pay retail when you don’t have to? It’s kind of like being a Costco member, but without the yearly fee. In fact, there isn’t a fee to becoming a wholesale customer at all. The only requirement is the purchase of a starter kit. Find out more HERE or sign up HERE.

To get started using therapeutic grade essential oils with your family, I recommend purchasing our Premium Starter Kit! This way, you’ll enjoy wholesale prices all the time! It includes eleven of Young Living’s most popular essential oil singles and blends, an ultrasonic diffuser (worth $100.00!), essential oil samples for sharing, and 2 NingXia Red immune boosting drinks! In addition, I’ll send you a free essential oil reference book to help you learn how to start using your essential oils! Get started now!

By the way, I am not a doctor – just a mom who uses essential oils in her own family. Please know that any information provided on The Common Scents Mom is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to prescribe, diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. It is your responsibility to educate yourself and address any health or medical needs you may have with your physician. Please seek professional help. 

I Still Thank God for Doug Phillips; The Messenger Fell, but the Message Stands

Several years ago my husband John made the statement, "I thank God for Doug Phillips." He had impacted us in so many positive ways. This was before the scandal. Today I can still say I thank God for Doug Phillips. He has a long road ahead of him to repair the ruins. For the sake of his reputation, his precious children and wife, and the cause of Christ, I wish him success. May the good that he has done for the kingdom not be lost. 

We were just heading out for a family jaunt on November 1, 2013 when John sadly relayed to us the news that left us all stunned: Douglas Phillips had announced his resignation from Vision Forum, Inc. and Vision Forum Ministries. He had confessed to an inappropriately affectionate relationship with another woman, not his wife. 

The announcement caused us much sorrow. My daughter Alexa felt physically ill. (She had befriended the Phillips family at an economics conference a year before.) My immediate comment was, "How could he do that to Beall? How could he do that to his children?" My husband said, "I'm not surprised by these things anymore. I only wonder who's next?" (The "next" one turned out to be Bill Gothard.)

I can only imagine the tears and agony that the whole Phillips family has gone through as the knowledge of Doug's dalliance has sunk in.

I have searched the internet for updates on the situation, only to find articles by those who have personal vendettas and harsh criticisms, circling like vultures, feasting on the opportunity to further malign the man and his ministry.

I am not here to defend what Mr. Phillips did. It is in violation to his own Biblical beliefs that he acted against God's will, law and word by involving himself with another woman (to what extent, I know not, nor pretend to know). He has threatened to destroy the future destiny and heritage of his entire family, inexorably and immeasurably. He has in my opinion lost all legitimate right to future positions of leadership in any Christian church or ministry. He has stated that his intention is to remain "a foot soldier" in future endeavors and lead a quiet life. I hope he keeps to that path.

Yet in a sense his fall is very much in line with the doctrine of man's sinfulness, a tenet he also held. If anything, his life illustrates the plight and vulnerability of men in every station and state of faith, as also illustrated in many Bible stories of leaders gone wrong. It could happen to any of us. We should take heed lest we fall.

I also do not overlook the untold pain and emotional damage felt by the unnamed woman he has been involved with. I do not know the circumstances of the involvement, though rumors abound that it was with an underaged nanny in the Phillips' home. If this is true, Mr. Phillips is all the more culpable. Every effort should be made to minister to and restore the young woman, and if applicable to prosecute to the full extent of the law. Justice must be done--after all, it's Doug's second son's name. He has publicly espoused justice, and taught it to his children; now he must live it.

However, I am here to say that much of the ministry and products provided through the years by Vision Forum have been very helpful to our family and to others in our community of homeschool Christian families.

Mr. Phillips' intellectual acuity, historical research, team-building ability, and strong communication skills produced a voluminous repetoire of top-notched resources. They were well-researched, thorough, and visually appealing for all ages. I purchased a large segment of Vision Forum's materials through the years, including books and toys for my children and audiovisual lectures from several conferences. My husband and I incorporated much of his parenting approach and philosophy into our home life, and it has served us well. The materials on courtship, manhood/womanhood, family life and parenting were very helpful to us. Today our children all profess a Christian faith, are generally happy, productive members of society and are raising our grandchildren to be likewise. We haven't done everything right, and would tweak a lot of things if we had it to do over again, but with God's grace we have been blessed with good results.

We started a local family ministry several years ago, which led to starting a family-integrated church, and we sold or gave away much of Vision Forum's materials. We are not sorry we did that. We are only sorry that the picture of Doug Phillip's face on the packaging and his voice in the audio now makes it awkward to continue using and sharing them. Perhaps with time he will live down his current reputation, people will forgive and forget, and the materials will remain useful for future generations. 

Many of the books do not bear his authorship or picture, and remain treasures in our library. I especially like the R. M. Ballantyne fiction series which VF reprinted. They are beautifully bound and very engaging reading for young people, employing history from an overtly Christian worldview. Another favorite is Verses of Virtue, compiled by Beall Phillips. I could go on. I love good books, and so do the Phillips. 

One of the common attacks made on Mr. Phillips' ministry has been that he was legalistic--that is to say, he raised man's laws (which he had created himself) to the same level or higher than God's laws. I would have to argue that he was not legalistic. His core teaching was the sufficiency of scripture--that all the guidance we need for making moral decisions regarding personal, family and church life can be found in the Bible. He taught (if I understood him correctly) that the Bible transcends culture, and that when culture leads us away from Biblical principles, we should not follow the culture blindly, but choose the Bible's standards. This would apply to decisions regarding dress, diet, education, science, family, finances, business, marriage, medical choices, government, authority structures, and--is there anything else? Cultural trends may come and go, but the Word of God will stand forever. The nature of man never changes, and God's guidebook for man will always apply. Mr. Phillips and his fellow associates stood by this concept, as do I. It is not a popular stand to take, even among professing Christians.

Mr. Phillips is an advocate of theonomy and patriarchy--two other hot-button concepts that cause feminists and liberals to foam at the mouth. They also bring out the worst in some Christians. I observe a new generation of homeschool advocates who are rising up in opposition to these concepts as they were embraced by those of us in the first generation. Some of the opposition is probably well-deserved. We may have given the impression that dressing like "retro prairie muffins" (to borrow a term from Douglas Wilson) was the only Christian way to dress and anything "contemporary" is less than Christian, and if so, we were wrong. But theonomy and its founder Rushdoony remains a viable interpretive framework of the Bible and history. Doug propounded this view evenhandedly and persuasively. 

It is also true that some modern patriarchs take their role too far and abuse their privilege of authority. As we all know, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Mankind is notorious for this in every position of church, state, and family. The concept of check-and-balance and accountability is inherent in God's law, including the realm of the family. A woman has the right of appeal to her family, church and government if her husband is overstepping his bounds of authority through abuse, threats, etc. No man has a right to absolute authority; only God does. It does not argue against the patriarchal authority structure itself to point out abusers of that authority, any more than does abusive government officials give cause for dissolving all government structures and having anarchy. The structure should remain intact, while the individual abusers removed from their place of authority and/or the victims vindicated.

One homeschool blogger claimed that Doug Phillips had been "telling us women how to dress". I beg to differ. He did sell materials written by others that addressed the issue of modesty, a Biblical concept and virtue, in a historical context. His little girls were pictured in lovely feminine dresses in their catalogues, and in this way certainly he was intending to model femininity. He also carried a book by the Botkin sisters called So Much More, and one by Stacy McDonald called Raising Daughters of Virtue, which advocated for wearing feminine, modest clothing: in particular, skirts versus pants. While I didn't conclude from reading them that the female members of our family had to wear skirts 24/7, I nevertheless appreciated the attempt made by these godly Christians to stand up against a culture that systematically demeans and exploits women and trains them to sell their bodies. The emphasis on femininity was a breath of fresh air at a time when it's no longer cool to be feminine, or distinguishable from men.

Several years ago my husband made the statement, "I thank God for Doug Phillips." He had impacted us in so many positive ways. This was before the scandal. Today I can still say I thank God for Doug Phillips. He has a long road ahead of him to repair the ruins. For the sake of his reputation, his precious children and wife, and the cause of Christ, I wish him success. May the good that he has done for the kingdom not be lost. 

In Adam's Fall, we sinned all;    

There but for the grace of God go I.

Just wanted to share this link: Not Just a Stay-at-Home Mom

A good read from MOPS: Not Just a Stay-At-Home Mom

Should You Send Your Child to College?

"Am I preparing my child for college adequately? Are they going to be ready for life "out there"? What do I do about the cost of college? Do they really NEED college? If not, what else is there for them to do? And how do I prepare them for the moral atmosphere they will be faced with?" Are these questions hovering over you as you make decisions for your homeschool curriculum? Arden Sleadd, homeschool mother of five and grandmother of five, will address these questions and share her own foibles and mistakes as she launched her grown children into the world. She will present arguments both for and against college and offer other alternatives for equipping your high school graduate for life.

My Story

Raised in a nominally Christian home, I attended church regularly. I performed well academically in public school, earning straight A's. Though I became a Christian at age 13, I was influenced by the worldly atmosphere and was romantically involved with a young man who, I concluded eventually, was not a Christian. But I was determined to marry a Christian, so I broke up with him and attended Seattle Pacific University, a Christian college; there I thought I would meet a nice Christian young man.  Unfortunately, there were a lot of other girls with the same idea; the ratio of girls to guys on campus was 3:1!  Nevertheless, I loved college, both the academics and the social atmosphere. However, I still compromised morally. I didn't drink or party hardy, but I got involved romantically--again--with another young man who, it turned out, wasn't walking the Christian walk. I attained a teaching degree in music education, secondary. I taught music for two years in Alaska, then returned to college, this time to a state university in Washington, for their master's program in music education. I met John there. We married and started a family, soon learning about homeschooling through a radio interview of Dr. Raymond Moore. I decided I could teach my own children better than the public schools. I started when Naomi my oldest was four, Nathan was two and Aaron was new. Just a few months into it I became very ill, and have been chronically so, through two more births, for the last  21 years. 

I continued to homeschool even as my health spiraled downward, until in 2000 John placed them in the public schools. However, we weren't pleased with the spiritual fruit we were seeing in our children, so John brought them back home in 2004, telling them that if their mother couldn't teach them, he would when he got home from work. At that time we were influenced further by Vision Forum and the teachings of Doug Phillips and Phil Lancaster, from which we caught a multigenerational vision. Doug Phillips has a two-CD lecture on How to Prepare your Son or Daughter for College. That lecture radically changed our plans for our children's future. 

We looked at the scripture together and observed what appeared to be the model for launching our young into world: "A man shall leave his mother and father, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh". There is no mention of the man leaving to go to college; there is no mention of the woman leaving at all before she marries.  In Proverbs it does say, a man prepares his field before he builds a house. This means, he develops his means of providing for his bride before he builds a house to live in. And Jesus, when describing himself as the Bridegroom, said, "I go to prepare a place for you, that there you (the Bride, his church) may be also." This was how God had designed for families to transition their young people into the world. We realized that sending our daughters, particularly, into the college setting was to leave them unprotected and vulnerable without their father's covering. 

So we decided to make some radical changes regarding college. Here is how our children are doing today.

Naomi, 25, was married to a fellow homeschool grad) at age 19. She has always had a gift with children since she was little herself; she loves to cook and be a mother. She has three boys and a baby girl, and is homeschooling them with  a co-op. Naomi has a lovely alto voice; she recorded with our family when we made an a cappella Christmas carol CD; she also played piano and electric bass with our family band, Homemade Jam. When she married, it rather broke up the band, but John and the younger kids still lead worship in church. Nathan Phillips, my son-in-law works for Nathan Sleadd, my son, as his warehouse manager for Ziplinegear.com.

Nathan is 23. At age 15 he went to a resort in Cave Junction where he rode a zipline for the first time; he came home and built a few ziplines to connect with his treehouses on our acre, and decided he could build them for other people. Before he could legally drive he was marketing them on eBay, and I had to drive him to the p.o. to ship out his kits. He was involved in competitive speech his sophomore and junior years, and went to nationals twice. Then as a senior he attended the community college to take Calculus and Gen. Chemistry, spending the rest of his time running his business out of our garage. He married his duo interpretive partner and has two children. He has developed the Sleadd Adventure Gear brand with a half-dozen employees, and is grossing a million or so each year. He was named Oregon's Young Entrepreneur of the Year, shaking Gov. Kitzhaber's hand to receive the award. They are walking with the Lord, as are all my children thus far.

Aaron, 21, became a true speech beast by earning the Iron Man title at regional competition; he became a pianist and drum player and recorded his own CD on piano with compositions of his own. When Aaron was a senior, we approached a Christian computer programmer named Stephen to ask him if he would train and apprentice Aaron in his field. Stephen  agreed to do so, and after about 18 months Aaron was ready to enter the workforce. He then worked for Nathan for about a year as his marketing director until Stephen offered to hire him as a partner in his business. He is now very well paid as a computer programmer, ready to embark on being a provider. He is currently engaged to Emily, another homeschool graduate and speech beast. They will be married June 8th.

Alexa, 19, is living at home. Alexa has multiple interests and talents. She has been a speech and debate beast, winning many medals, and won the Oregon Right to Life Oratory Contest for two years, the maximum allowed. She then won second and third place at the National Right to Life contests. She has become a professional photographer, actress, artist and graphic designer. Alexa initially started earning college credit by taking CLEP and DSST tests, and had a College Plus counselor helping her. She had earned 21 credits when she went to the Chicago Family Economics conference in 2012 and came home with a new vision, yet needing direction. Her father helped her launch a company called Gabrielle Imagery, through which she marketed her graphic-arts and drawing skills. I helped her by putting up a Facebook page, and she got a client right away. Now she is working as an intern for a marketing company called Define Your Edge where they are training AND paying her, in Grants Pass. She also babysits at the homeschool coop and tutors three homeschool children who are neighbors. She has been doing pro life activism on college campuses and at public rallies--she prefers to call herself an abortion abolitionist now--and has started the Abolitionist Society of Southern Oregon. She is welcome to stay living with us under her father's covering until she marries.

Caleb, 16, is a sophomore in high school. He is taking Chemistry online through Apologia Academy. He is competing for his third year in speech in apologetics. He is in Algebra II this year in Saxon Math, and he is considering computer programming or engineering as a career. With that in mind, I anticipate that his high school years will include math all the way through calculus, just as Nathan and Alexa have done, and some sort of apprenticeship and project during his senior year that will earn him dual credit for both high school and college. We are considering funding his building a solar power system for our house. Eventually I hope to have several panels in place to reduce our power bill. I have purchased some tutorial videos for building solar panels so he could learn how and do it at home.

If I seem to be opposed to attending the traditional brick and mortar college, it is not because I devalue academic rigor. On the contrary, I believe in holding to a very high standard of both academic mastery and moral integrity. It is not good enough to merely score 10-20 percentile points above most public schools. We have no room to be smug about a relative measurement against an abysmally low standard. Our standards should be more objective, which align with God's.

Why should we pursue high academic standards? 

1. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1:8) Knowledge is a highly-held value in scripture. 

2. Our children, especially our sons, need the "intellectual capital" to give them an edge in the economy. By intellectual capital, I mean a specialized skill or high level of knowledge that a majority of people do not have, for which they are willing to pay a goodly sum to receive benefit. If your sons are to compete well enough and earn a high enough income to support a family and let their wives stay home to homeschool your grandchildren, they need to keep high academic standards their goal. Only 9% of American high school grads are pursuing science in college. This represents an opportunity; if your children pursue the sciences, they will be in high demand. This is another way we can take dominion for the Lord.

It does not necessarily follow that one must go to college to attain high academic proficiency. A good high school education should be the equivalent to the first two years of college. Colleges have had to dumb-down their programs for the sake of their low-achieving entering-freshmen classes to such a degree that the first two years is largely a waste of time for those who got a good high school education. (My college allowed me to be exempted from general requirements for my degree because of my high GPA and test scores--and my high school education was unremarkable.)

What should high school look like for our children to be prepared for life?  There are a lot of options, but academically I believe these are the priorities:

  a. 4 years of English 

      i. speech   ii. logic/debate  iii. Latin/Greek roots  iv. writing/grammar

  b. 4 years of science 

      i. biology ii. chemistry  iii. physics iv. applied science/computer science/graphic arts

  c. 4 years of math--as high as they can go and at whatever speed they can go

  d. Electives of your choice: music/art/pe

  e. mentorship/apprenticeship of 3-6 months (girls: can be homemaking or tutoring; boys: career/business)

I strenuously advocate mathematics as essential for training the young brain to think. It also is the language through which we can explain and understand science--it is the language with which God speaks to us regarding the laws of nature. If your child is unable to make it all the way through calculus, at least keep him going through math at the speed he can handle, while gaining mastery and confidence.

(Caveat: Bible should be first and last the most important source of all study at all ages, incorporated into all disciplines and discussions. I am focusing for the purpose of this article on the academics.)

REASONS TO ATTEND A BRICK-AND-MORTAR COLLEGE

Why go to college? 

For one thing, it is NOT for the purpose of finding a spouse--yet how many of us went there for that unspoken reason? 

Is it for high academic pursuits? Well, I would hope so--yet (according to the newest stats) the average college student today spends more time partying and playing sports than studying. But maybe your child will be different. 

There are indeed a few highly specialized fields where you really need to pursue a college degree: medical doctors, nurses, nuclear physicists, veterinarians, science researchers, post-graduate study, etc. Those in what Dr. Art Robinson calls the hard-science fields may find they need the on-campus experience with access to the laboratories and expensive equipment. 

HOW YOU CAN BEAT THE SYSTEM

However, it is getting easier all the time to gain that knowledge from your own home, or out in  the "real world" with a laptop and internet access. MIT now has all of its course content available for free online, and many colleges are following suit. It only requires that you be motivated enough to read and work your way through it without a professor to hold you accountable. You can teach yourself most of what you need to know, and then take the requisite tests necessary to get college credit or certification in your field. 

There is a very good company started by a homeschool graduate named Brad Voeller that has systematized this approach, called College Plus. This program provides your student with a personal counselor who will coach him biweekly through the process. They utilize the CLEP and other standardized tests that are accepted by most colleges for credit. There really is no reason you can't earn at least a Bachelor's degree for a fraction of the cost of a brick-and-mortar college.

Help is also available through the CollegePrep program now offered by CollegePlus, wherein your high school student will learn how to earn dual credit for both high school and college while still at home. They will be assisted in attaining study skills necessary to become a good college-level student, critical thinking skills, memory and speed-reading skills, etc. It is a half-year to one-year program depending on what pace you choose to go through it. You also get biweekly coaching from a homeschool mother through this process.

You can beat the system even further and save $1000s more without using C+ and doing it on your own. Keep your own schedule, figure out your own course of study, etc. You have to be highly motivated. Just buy the book Accelerated Long-Distance Learning by Brad Voeller. Buy other books from the C+ Bookstore and go at it on your own.  

If engineering is your field of interest, there is a former engineering prof that offers a course of study for engineer majors that will charge $1000/yr to coach you through becoming an engineer without needing a degree. He knows which tests you have to take, he has the books you need, and you can save even more going that way. His website is called biblicalconcourse.com. It has a great bookstore with college textbooks and hands-on project-oriented materials for at-home study.

REASONS NOT TO DO COLLEGE

Why not go to a traditional brick-and-mortar college?

1. There is no such Biblical model.

Jesus was homeschooled. He learned at home, and perhaps under the tutelage of rabbis in His local synagogue in Galilee, though it is not mentioned in scripture. His home study was sufficient to cause the learned men of Jerusalem to be amazed at his abilities at age 12. He stayed subject to his parents until age 30. His father Joseph taught him his trade as a carpenter, and Jesus worked for him until he was ready to start his ministry. That was the Jewish way, and Jesus implicitly endorsed that way by following it himself.

2. Moral debauchery and compromise

Nathan Harden is a 2009 graduate of Yale and author of the recently published book, Sex and God at Yale: Porn, Political Correctness, and a Good Education Gone Bad.  His book documents the events of Sex Week at his alma mater, including the screening in classrooms of hard-core pornography. The details of what occurs, not in the dorms, but in the classrooms with the consent and endorsement of professors, are too sordid for me to print here.

Harden says, "Unfortunately, what’s happening at Yale is indicative of what is occurring at colleges and universities across the country. Sex Week, for example, is being replicated at Harvard, Brown, Duke, Northwestern, the University of Illinois, and the University of Wisconsin. Nor would it suffice to demand an end to Sex Weeks on America’s college campuses. Those events are, after all, only symptoms of a deeper emptiness in modern academia. Our universities have lost touch with the purpose of liberal arts education, the pursuit of truth. In abandoning that mission—indeed, by denying its possibility—our institutions of higher learning are afflicted to the core."

This is the case on secular campuses, but don't think you're going to avoid compromise on the Christian campuses. They may not have Sex Week, but there is nonetheless plenty of romance and couplings going on. At SPU even 3 decades ago, there were drug parties, drinking parties, and hetero- and homosexual sex among students, very close to campus if not on campus. The reason is that even among the most devoted Christian young people, when they are placed into a 24/7 environment without the biblically-instituted covering of the father, the daughters are unprotected from the advances of young men, and foolishness and sin abounds.

Now I have friends whose son is attending Patrick Henry College, a Christian college started by Michael Farris of Home School Legal Defense Association, for homeschool graduates in particular. I have great respect for my friends, but they will admit to you that there is moral compromise going on there as well. If you take seriously the biblical requirement of fathers to protect the virginity of their daughters, you have an uphill battle to do it long distance. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it will take great effort, constant communication, etc. I have seen how the girls dress at the Patrick Henry dances, and in my estimation it's not only slightly more modest than the rest of the world.

3. Money

To attend a brick-and-mortar college you have to either save the equivalent of what you would pay for a house, ($22,000/yr for a state college and $29,000 for a private school), go into debt, or get a very generous scholarship. Most scholarships will only get you through the first year or two, and then once the college has you committed, the scholarships dry up. I think it is a huge mistake for a young person to start out life as a college grad with tens of thousands of dollars in debt. The data shows that the wages they will be making in most fields no longer adequately compensate them for the debt they incur to prepare for those fields.  It is fiscal insanity. 

MORE ALTERNATIVES TO THE TRADITIONAL ROUTE

1. Take certifying exams, get work experience in your field of interest/expertise. Example given: biblicalconcourse.com

2. Internships, apprenticeships. Example: Aaron 

3. Teach yourself online; tutorials abound.

4. Start a business of your own. Example: Nathan

5. Vocational training at local junior college. 

6. Find a friend who can help you learn. Use Skype or similar social networks. Alexa did this with a friend she met at the Family Economics conference from out of state who helped her with learning to use PhotoShop, via Skype.

7. Be a servant; offer to help in the office of a ministry or business or political candidate. Make yourself useful as a volunteer and show yourself worthy of compensation.

8. Buy the software program that is considered required for the field you are interested in, and learn how to use it. Go on Craigslist and see what computer skills employers want you to have, and teach yourself. 

9. Read. Read. Read. And then read some more. I have always told my kids, "Everything you ever want to know you can find in a book." Now I tell them if it's not in a book, it's on the internet.

If you must go to a brick-and-mortar college, consider these alternatives:

1. Live at home while going to college. This helps avoid the morally-compromising 24/7 coed or bachelor-pad lifestyle. 

2. Live with a godly family who will help maintain accountability while going to college. 

3. Get married while going to college. (This has its financial and marital drawbacks too.)

4. Keep in touch daily with parents. My mother-friend mentioned above texts her son daily, and he tells her everything. They are in a good relationship, and that after all is the most important part.

Let us be very clear: we are not preparing our children for college; we are preparing them for life. College is only a means to an end.  We should, in fact, be raising up "life-long learners" and kingdom-builders. They should have a love for learning that extends throughout their whole lives, regardless of age and stage.

What does Contentment Look Like? Some Common Myths

Am I content at home? I can say, irrevocably, YES. How did I arrive there? It wasn't easy. But you may have a different notion of what I mean by the word content, so let me elucidate further. Here are some myths about what contentment looks and feels like.

Myth #1: Contentment means I feel like I've died and gone to heaven.

NO, sorry, that won't happen until, well, I've died and gone to heaven. It doesn't mean everything in my life is the way I want it. Contentment consists of knowing the parameters of real life in an imperfect world where I will live imperfectly, with circumstances likewise imperfect, and accepting them. Peace comes when you know you are doing the right thing, brightening the corner where you are, and pleasing your Lord and Savior.

Paul speaks here. Philippians 4:11-1(ESV)

11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Myth #2: Contentment at home means no conflicts.

My daughter recently said to me, "Sometimes it feels like our home is a battle ground." We had had an especially tough period with conflict and relational difficulties. I rubbed her back and said, "Well, hopefully most of the time it is a refuge. But there will be battles to be fought, and if we don't fight them, then problems can fester and get worse."

Myth #3: Contentment means I'm just waiting through this temporary season of my life until I can leave.

If you have little children in your home and you are salving yourself with the comforting thought that your present situation is only temporary, then you haven't really given you heart to your children. You are still looking for an escape plan. With true contentment comes an abiding joy, a desire to be home indefinitely, even after the children are grown and you have grandchildren to visit you. It doesn't mean you can't someday take a job or volunteer outside your home. But that shouldn't be a pie-in-the-sky vision for you as if then--and only then--you will get to fulfill your true potential and be happy. The grass is always greener on the other side. But, like the Three Billy Goats Gruff, you may find on your way to that green pasture on the other side,  an ogre lurking under the bridge, or poisonous weeds mingled in that luscious grass you so coveted.

Myth #4: Contentment means I'll settle for this season at home until I can finally follow MY real calling, to pursue MY gifts.

I think there is too much emphasis among some Christians about the need to identify one's spiritual gifts in order to pursue them. It can quickly become a poorly-veiled attempt at self-actualization. God doesn't give you gifts in order to feel more fulfilled. He gives them to you to serve others. Your calling IS to serve your family. Put your family first, serve them well, and your gifts will automatically be employed in the process, without any effort of your own. You will also find out what weaknesses you need to work on and strengthen. Family life is intended to be a sanctifying experience. It's not easy. Do hard things.

This may be hard teaching for you. There are times when we need to hear some hard teaching. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it in your life to mould you into His likeness.

³ Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, ⁴ and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. -Titus 2 ESV