Homeschool Summits: Encouragement for Your Christian Homeschool Journey

Homeschooling can be tough. Relationship building, discipling, child training, cooking, cleaning, organizing, and–oh, yeah–academics are all interwoven together in what can sometimes feel like an intricate, overwhelming tangle. It helps to be reminded of our focus: God. Yes, homeschooling is not as much about giving our children a better learning experience than what is possible with other kinds of schooling (though that’s certainly a huge part of it) as it is about giving our children a lasting foundation on Christ and His Word.

My Homeschool Goals

For example, my main goals as a homeschooling mother are:

1. To show my children how they can enter into a relationship with Christ by accepting God’s free gift of salvation (Eph. 2:8-9).
2. To teach my children to obey Jesus, though I make no assumption about their believing in Christ until they’ve made a positive declaration of conversion. However, even before that, I still train their character by helping them form the good habits which will aid them as future Christ-followers.
3. To form in my children a consistently biblical worldview so they can have a firm foundation of truth upon which to build their lives. One of my biggest goals, after the first two mentioned above, is to help my children develop the analytical skills necessary to dismantle the false thinking of the society around us.
4. To nurture a close relationship with my children involving humility, openness, trust, love, and respect.
5. To guide my children’s spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical growth. This is my responsibility as a mother because these are the children God saw fit to give to my husband and me, and I take my duty seriously. This sometimes involves protecting them from damaging influences which they are unprepared to wrestle with, at least not yet.

and finally

6. To help my children develop a love of learning so they can learn anything they are interested in, learn it well, and go on to be successful and blessed in whatever God calls them to do in this life.

Obviously, my goals are not so much academic in nature as they are whole-person oriented. And that is what homeschooling is really about: the whole person.

There are many things that help me keep my focus when life feels overwhelming. I take time alone to read God’s word, go on walks so I can think clearly, make sure we read the Bible and a devotional first before we do other subjects, take advantage of God-moments to teach my children valuable life lessons, read an encouraging book or blog, etc. One of those supporting influences has lately been something I just discovered which I would like to share with you!

Enter Homeschool Summits

During the week of April 5-9, 2021, I was richly blessed by the informationally-dense and inspiring experience organized by HomeschoolSummits.com. Throughout that week, I enjoyed their completely free, online summit titled, The God-Centered Homeschool. Since I was pretty busy, (as I always am, with eight children aged eight months to 17 years) I couldn’t watch every interview; but, I did make time to watch these:

• Kickoff Keynote with Steven Kendrick (one of the Kendrick Brothers and Co-Director of films Flywheel, Facing the Giants, Fireproof, Courageous, War Room, and Overcomer).

• Day One: God-Centered Parents
  • Joel Beeke (Reformation Heritage Books), “God-Centered Lessons My Parents Taught Me”
  • Steve Demme (Demme Learning), “Keeping the Refrigerator Full”
  • Nancy Campbell (Above Rubies), “The God-Centered Mom”
  • Bradley Pierce (Heritage Defense), “What Should I Do If CPS Shows Up At My Door?”
• Day Two: God-Centered Teaching
  • Tauna Meyer (Proverbial Homemaker), “A God-Centered Approach to Teaching… Anything!”
  • Jonathan Brush (Unbound), “Teaching Your Child to Nurture God-Centered Relationships”
• Day Three: God-Centered Curriculum
  • George Grant (Parish Presbyterian), “God-Centered History”
  • Renee Ellison (Homeschool How-To’s), “Six Ways to Pour the Love of God’s Word Into Your Children”
• Day Four: God-Centered Calling
  • Ken Ham (Answers in Genesis), “Will They Stand? Parenting Children to Face the Giants”)

I didn’t buy the viewing pass to be able to access all the videos forever (each video is available for free viewing, but only for a limited window of time); nevertheless, I think the videos I saw were a treasure I’ll remember for a long time to come.

If you missed The God-Centered Homeschool but would like to watch the videos, they are still available by purchasing the all-access pass. You can also view videos from previous summits, each summit requiring its own pass, if I understand correctly. Either that, or sign up to receive updates about future summits. I already did!

Here is the goal HomeschoolSummits.com hoped to accomplish by offering The God-Centered Homeschool online summit (it lines up with my own goals, how about yours?):

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Why this Summit?

The heat is turning up on followers of Jesus around the world — and we’re not about to hunker down in our homeschools, because our aim in homeschooling is…

Raising our kids to be smart & savvy world-changing leaders.

Whoops.

Cancel that!

Actually, here’s our aim —

Raising our kids to exalt Jesus Christ as Lord of the universe.

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:36)

But do our homeschools actually proclaim the King?

Or are we distracting ourselves with earth-focused plans and man-centered methods?

Well, we do know this:

Only if Jesus is our foundation and focus in everything will our homeschools stand firm through the storm.

So join us for the God-Centered Homeschool: An Online Summit, eliminate the burden of a thousand competing “priorities,” and reorient your everyday homeschooling around our great God.

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And here is a little more about Homeschool Summits, in case you’re interested in joining any of their future online conferences:

From America to Asia to wherever your family calls home, Homeschool Summits’ online events come right to you. Receive practical, biblical help and hope for Christ-centered home education and discipleship. We’ve helped thousands of families like yours since we launched in 2017, and we’d love to welcome you!

Homeschool Summits is a project of CHEC [Christian Home Educators of Colorado] and Generations [Kevin Swanson] to bring Christian families the resources and encouragement they need to homeschool with confidence and pass on the faith to their children. Both organizations are non-profit, funded by donations, and they exist to help parents raise their children to love and serve God. Together, they are working to bring Homeschool Summits to your home.

I hope this information was helpful to you! In sharing my own homeschool goals and this new homeschool resource I recently found, my aim is to encourage you in your very important work as mother and teacher of your children. Though it certainly can feel overwhelming at times, I’m so thankful for all the ways God comes alongside us to help; let’s keep our focus on Him!

What are your homeschool/parenting goals? Are there any inspiring resources you would like to share? If you have watched any of Homeschool Summits’ online conferences, how do you feel they benefited you?

~Jessica