Recently, I sat down with a young mom at our church who’s preparing to homeschool. She told me why she wanted to homeschool, and she was very missional and excited as she talked about it.
Though she was excited, there was some nervous energy in the room. When she pulled out her notebook I understood why. Her first questions were about curriculum, co-ops, and planning.
That’s so common. We know our mission—to disciple our children and follow God’s calling—but when it comes time to plan, we get pulled in by external expectations instead. These external expectations bring in all kinds of anxiety.
While my friend had the right mental focus on discipleship, she was not starting there when thinking about homeschooling her children. She kept swaying into concerns about curriculum and planning and co-ops, which is a problem many families struggle with.
As I talk to parents about Heart Schooling, I always tell them that realigning your thinking with your calling is critical to success, and it’s much more difficult than families realize. When you separate educational activities from your overall mission, you’ll eventually get frustrated or wonder if you’re even making the right decision.
For a Heart Schooling parent, decisions regarding academics are guided by the mission, not the other way around. Academics do not guide the mission. Academics are important, but they are not the top priority.
It’s easy to give lip service to the calling God has given you, but without the mindset shift that comes with truly aligning your thinking, goals, how you approach your days and everyday choices with that call that God has given you, you’ll never experience the joy and peace that comes with wholeheartedly following Him.
You will have chaos.
Once you realign the way you think with your mission, the friction and chaos you feel in your family will start to melt away. You’ll be able to confidently make decisions about the practical things based on your mission rather than trying to make them fit in with it later. You’ll enjoy ordering your days based on what works best for your family without worrying about how that compares to any other family’s set up.
We’ve all been told not to “recreate school at home,” but that impacts much more than we think. To be a missional homeschool parent—a Heart School parent—you have to allow your mission to inform your decisions and then rest in the decisions you make.
When thinking missionally,
- You’ll not worry about taking a detour from your lesson plan to address a heart problem or to dive deeper into a topic that particularly excites your child.
- You’ll understand that relational learning time is doing a lot more than drilling facts—it’s giving you great insight into how your children think and process information which will help you parent and disciple them even better in the days ahead.
- You’ll find that your lesson plans aren’t your master—they’re a great tool to help you stay on track and have structure to where you’re going for the day, but ultimately, they serve you, not control you. The needs of your child and your family are a higher priority than that day’s lesson.
- And, you’ll help your children develop the character to do hard things as you go back to catch up on things that you left because of behaviors, attitudes, or just fun opportunities.
Our family mission has been “to raise our children to know and love God and people, and to prepare them well to walk through whatever door God opens for them in the days ahead.”
That mission was incredibly helpful in ordering and designing the educational part of our heart schooling efforts and gave more structure to our days than I have time in this short email to detail.
With your mission as your guide, you and your children can experience more peace and confidence each day, because all will know what’s most important in any situation.
If your thinking isn’t currently aligned with your call, in what areas do you need to change how you think about things?
I created a simple worksheet to help you identify areas where your mindset might need realignment.
Click here to download that now.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and what realigning your thinking looks like for you.
