SBCHEA: Southern Baptist Church & Home Education Association
900 Harrell Road
West Monroe, LA 71291
www.sbchea.org
ewatkins@sbchea.org
2007 Kingdom Education Summit Canceled
May 18, 2007
Summit Series to Resume in 2008
It is with deepest regret that we announce our 3rd Annual Kingdom Education Summit, to be held June 13th, 2007 at the Southern Baptist Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas has been canceled for this year.
Several factors have contributed to this unfortunate decision, but a significant share of the blame must fall on me. To be perfectly honest, I am exhausted. The first five months of 2007 have been very challenging for the Watkins Family. Carl's difficulty in finding a job that will support a one-income, homeschooling family in an extremely depressed Northeast Louisiana economy ushered in the new year. However, God faithfully continues to meet our needs, and blessed him with a new job in February. Through God's provision and Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover Plan, we are surviving, (and tithing!), on a salary half the size of his Texas income. One of the few blessings of moving back to our home state of Louisiana is that we are a $2000 van loan balance away from being absolutely debt free!
Emily's preparing for and taking the ACT exam has been the most stressful event in our homeschooling journey. I considered it as the moment of accountability for me, not her. Thankfully, she scored high enough to be accepted into a local (secular) collegiate dual enrollment program for the Spring 2007 semester, and just completed 9 hours of college credit, at age 16, with a 4.0 GPA! We are very proud of her, of course, but the semester was very emotional and stressful.
Carl and I would not recommend enrolling your children in a secular dual-enrollment program, unless the student has a solid foundation in the Biblical worldview. We are so appreciative to Mr. Dana Tillman, of World View Classes Academy in McKinney, Texas, and Mr. David Quine, author of the World Views of the Western World Curriculum for homeschooled high schoolers, for preparing Emily to face the challenges to her faith and Christian ethics. Through the strength of Christ and her academic preparation, she was able recognize, analyze, and confront opposing secular philosophies, and even presented speeches on "The Spiritual Reasons Parents Choose to Homeschool" and "Abortion is Murder". (No, I did not choose these topics, and actually tried to discourage her to avoid the conflict. She proved me wrong, and God used her as a mighty witness in a school where one student admitted ALOUD to having had NINE abortions!)
From this spiritual battleground, Emily will be fleeing back to the safety of a Christ-centered education next month, as she participates in the Rising High School Senior program offered by Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. This opportunity has been the "carrot dangled before her nose" all year, and she is very excited about her first dorm room experience. She will then return to the University of Louisiana-Monroe to complete her senior year of high school in the Collegiate Program, before entering Union University full time in the Fall of 2008.
On top of this Elise has completed 7th grade. This was the most difficult and emotionally driven time of my life, and for our baby as well. Her internal struggle between childhood and young womanhood is clearly evident, sometimes painful but many times beautiful to see. Several years ago I bought Elise the book, Beautiful Girlhood by Mabel Hale, and it has lately become a source of comfort and encouragement for her:
However, I think all female brains take a vacation at ages 12 and 45, and hormones rule! The two of us have just focused on being able to stay in the same house together, without killing each other and her older "perfect" sister. Thankfully, we have all survived the school year in one piece, and are ready for a vacation.
As you can see, my responsibilities as a wife, mother, and home educator have kept me very busy this spring, in addition to caring for elderly parents and performing double duty as administrator/teacher in our new homeschool co-op in West Monroe, Louisiana. Last spring, Dave and Suzanne Scarbrough, Jube Dankworth of Homeschooling Family-to-Family, Gena Suarez of The Old School House Magazine, and I spent MANY hours organizing the 2006 Kingdom Education Summit in Greensboro, North Carolina. We were so appreciative of all of our sponsors and incredible speakers, but we were all disappointed in the low attendance. Weather was a factor, as was the inconvenient summit location. It was a valuable lesson in what to and not to do.
Frankly, this year I am also tired of the materialism and politics of a certain segment of the Southern Baptist Convention, and this has further drained what little energy I have left over. Many homeschooling families have chosen to live near poverty level, in order to provide a Christ-centered home education for their children, while some in highly-influential SBC positions continue to squabble over trivial matters. This time last year, two weeks before the Greensboro convention, I received an absolutely blistering email over a theological issue from someone I had looked to as a role model. It broke my heart and I have yet to recover from it. I am so thankful to have such gentlemanly statesmen as Drs. David Dockery and Danny Akin to lead us in the turbulent waters of the Southern Baptist future.
I am praying that taking this time off from "begging for the leftover crumbs" on behalf of the children and our Southern Baptist homeschooling families, will allow us to focus on what God has planned for SBCHEA and future Kingdom Education Summits. The 2008 Southern Baptist Annual Meeting will be in Indianapolis, Indiana, and if there is enough interest we will resume our annual event.
Our ministry is non-profit, and we do not sell anything, nor yet charge any membership dues, and the Watkins and David Scarbrough families have paid all of the annual operating expenses so far. Mrs. Ladonna Beals and several homeschooling fathers on our SBCHEA Pastor's Council continue to minister to families on our e-group. God has blessed us with sponsors in the past to host the Kingdom Education Summit in Nashville and Greensboro, and if Indianapolis will be a possibility, He will let us know. The SBCHEA family wishes to be a ministry, not a further financial burden to the Southern Baptist homeschooling community. We will gratefully accept donations to be held "in escrow", but please give only after fulfilling your tithe at your local church.
Exodus Mandate and the 2007 Resolution
Voddie Baucham and Bruce Shortt of Exodus Mandate have indeed submitted another Kingdom Education resolution. I have seen the same question asked on several prominent Southern Baptist blogs and messages boards, "What's the point?" Resolutions are not mandates, and this is true. However, what is not clearly evident, but the leadership of Exodus Mandate understands is that these annual resolutions keep this critical issue on the forefront of debate, hearts are being changed, and both pastors and families are beginning to take action. SBCHEA would not have been possible without the media attention given the initial 2004 resolution.
Let me give you a very current, personal example. It has been almost one year exactly since I received an email from SBC Pastor Charles and Lydia Headrick, homeschooling parents of two sons, Connor and Cole. They were still serving in Hope, Arkansas, but were being considered as the new pastor of College Place Baptist Church here in Monroe, Louisiana. In 2004, they had met Bruce Shortt at a homeschool book fair in Searcy, Arkansas, and he had shared with them about our new Southern Baptist homeschooling ministry. Lydia joined our Deliberately Christian e-loop, and kept up to date with ministry events.
Last year, God did call Charles and Lydia back to their home state of Louisiana, as He did Carl and I in 2005. Immediately, they began to reach out to our Northeast Louisiana Christian Homeschool Association, to offer the church facilities for Kingdom Education use. We began the discussion of starting a second homeschool co-op at CPBC, to serve the families of Ouachita, Morehouse, Richland, and Caldwell parishes. The church is huge, with many of the classrooms never being used. In the mid-20th century, all of the Louisiana Baptist Children's Home would come there for church, including my grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Emmett Moody, serving as cottage parents!
Next week, Pastor Headrick is petioning the church for permission to use the wonderful facilities again for the children. We have already begun to form a tentative advisory council in hopes of a positive decision. Northeast Louisiana desperately needs this new co-op, in addition to the one in West Monroe we started last fall, and the Northeast Baptist School, in which our pastor, Bro. Skip Dean of Highland Baptist Church in West Monroe, played a key role in the founding the school in 1994. Just this spring, our area has made the national news twice, from Spearsville 5th graders having sex before classmates while left unattended by their teacher, and this week a Ouachita Parish School Board member, and a member of North Monroe Baptist Church, (which our Monroe newspaper graciously added), was arrested:
"Caddo Parish officers arrested ___ that
morning at his home in an operation that already had netted 15 people
in north Louisiana.____ is accused of indecent behavior with a
juvenile for chatting online with a detective posing as a 15-year-old
girl. Over a three-month period, ____ and the purported victim
discussed her sexual history, lesbian relationships, sex with older men
and masturbation, documents state." - The News Star.
Parents of Louisiana are finally beginning to realize something is desperately wrong, and as word of our homeschool co-ops continue to grow, we are seeing an increase of children fleeing the public schools. The passion of all associated with the mission of Exodus Mandate has made a significant impact on our community, both directly and indirectly. We will continue to pray for and support their efforts.
So, instead of trying to squeeze our way into the SBC Annual Meeting in San Antonio this summer, God has our family serving in the mission field of our state. We will also be praying and campaigning for a dear Christian gubernatorial, (possible future presidential) candidate, Bobby Jindal. Hopefully, God will lead Charles Headrick to victory next week at College Place Baptist Church, and Congressman Jindal next November in Baton Rouge, and we will see everyone again in Indianapolis.
Southern Baptist Summer School
If you are looking for some positive Southern Baptist resources, while waiting for news from the San Antonio convention, I have several educational resources for your family:
Inductive Bible Study - Greek - Apologetics - Christian Ethics - OT/NT Survey - and more by Southern Baptist university and seminary professors! A much needed resource for homeschooling high schoolers.
Well, this may not fall in the "positive" category, but it is a very educational, 16-part commentary compiled by Timmy Brister, a SBTS student. Nathan's writings have been an inspiration to our family since 2003, and last year he spoke on Southern Baptist history at our 2006 summit in North Carolina. I believe with all of my heart that the Southern Baptist homeschooling community needs to be aware of what is going on in the SBC, and prepare our children for Kingdom service, whether in the pulpit, pew, mission field or home.
***
"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
Posted by siviy