The Battle for Christian Education: Why Parents Must Act Now

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Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.
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This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content, or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.
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Hi I'm Andrew Rappaport from The Wrap Report. I'm with Dominic Grimaldi from Street Talk Theology.
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We're doing a cross -promoted podcast, so this will be on both of our podcasts.
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So what we wanted to do is talk about, well, Dominic's life, which is part of Lagos Bible Institute.
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He got nervous there for a moment. So Dominic, let folks know,
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I know people may know even on your podcast, your role in Lagos Bible Institute.
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And we want to talk about the importance of Christian education. So what role do you have over there?
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Okay, so we wanted, just to be clear, it's Lagos Christian Academy, which is okay,
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Institute is fine. But it's Lagos Christian Academy, and it's here in Casa Grande, Arizona.
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It's actually a, let me see, so it goes from kindergarten to right now 10th grade.
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So my role at Lagos Christian Academy right now is twofold.
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I am a teacher in the higher grades, 8th, 9th, and 10th grade.
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I teach spiritual formation and doctrine, biblical doctrine. I'm also vice president of the school board at Lagos Christian Academy.
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So that's my dual role there at the Christian podcast, at the
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Christian podcast community. You can see where my head's at. That's my role there at Lagos Christian Academy.
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So when we talk about Christian education, a lot of people think of maybe homeschooling, which is something that I don't think every parent can do.
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And so we think about public education, well,
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I would make a case that at any cost, that any way to afford at least
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Christian education or homeschooling, do that first, I would actually put public school as a last resort, personally, for Christians.
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But when we talk about Christian education and Christian schools, the
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Lagos Academy is a bit different, right, because you're a classical academy.
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Help folks understand what the distinction is there, because I think when most people think about Christian schools, they're thinking, well, basically you have
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Christian teachers giving more of a Christian worldview. But other than that, it's no different than public school.
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Yeah, that's not true. I mean, obviously there's your regular school, I mean, your regular classes of science and math and things of that nature.
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I mean, obviously it is a Christian school, but it's a Christian school. And they have classes like Bible.
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They have biblical doctrine that I teach. They have spiritual formation. You know, so everything is governed by a
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Christian perspective. Obviously, when you're doing math and stuff like that, I mean, that's got to be obviously just regular schoolwork.
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But the teachers, by God's grace, claim and are, from what
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I see, Christians. But again, the problem I see in any
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Christian education is the students, not as far as the problem. We love the kids.
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I love the kids that I teach. Is all they getting the proper, and again, I'm kind of switching gears here because I think it's important.
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Are they getting the proper training at home? Because we can't be their parents, and I'm not their pastors, because none of them really come to the church that I teach in the school.
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So my struggle is, are they getting the proper biblical teaching at home? Because even as a
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Christian school, all we can do is build on what the parents are giving them at home. Just like the church.
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I mean, as a pastor in a church, especially here in Desert Sky Baptist Church, we have children in the church, but unless they're getting governed and brought up in the fear and admonition of the
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Lord, it's a hard play, Andrew, because it just is. Does that make sense?
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Yeah. I mean, if you think about the classical education, though, this is where I think there is differences, right?
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So when we talk Christian schooling, you have, and this is a mistake
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I think a lot of parents make is think that Christian schooling is just like public school with a
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Christian influence. You can have that. You also have where you might get more of a homeschool type environment where a bunch of parents that are good in certain fields are all getting together.
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So yeah, it's kind of a classroom type setting, but the teachers are the parents of those same children.
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So that's kind of where you can get a benefit of homeschooling a little bit, but not be overwhelmed, especially toward the high school years, because it's hard to be an expert in each of those fields in the high school years.
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And so a lot of parents will do where it's more of a co -op because of the fact that you're getting the expertise of different people that maybe you have someone that's good in, you know,
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English or math. But when we talk about the classical,
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I mean, this is going to the idea of saying, let's go back to really the way education used to be.
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This is somewhat shocking for people to think back. For those in the audience, did you realize that it wasn't until like John Dewey that you had different grades and segregation?
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Like people don't realize that John Dewey, his idea of separation by grades and age was because he had a long -term goal of bringing
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Marxism in. Wow. Yeah. And the idea was that if you could divide, see what happened in the schools, you know, back before Dewey in America, you had all the kids together.
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And so the older kids had a responsibility to help the younger kids with their schooling, which helps them learn as well.
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And so they also learned a responsibility for others in their school because it wasn't just you had responsibility growing up to take care of younger children.
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And I really think that we've lost some of that, but the classical education brings in some of the more classical training on areas like critical thinking.
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That's kind of lost. And Dominic, you know why I think they can't teach critical thinking in public school?
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Why is that? Because you can't teach that in evolution because once you learn about critical thinking, you realize evolution doesn't make sense.
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Exactly. Well said. You know, the issue too, Andrew, is, and I know this is hard.
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I mean, sometimes we don't know the, we don't know the culture.
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We know the culture, but we don't know the, when you're teaching in a school, you don't really know who the kid's friends are, where their influence is coming.
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If their influence is not coming from, if they're not getting a biblical perspective home, are they getting any biblical perspective, hopefully in church?
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A lot of them do go to church. I, I, I, not all of them, but, but most of them do.
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But a lot of times I'll ask them about church and, you know, they, they, they have young minds and, and their, their minds can sometimes go all over the map.
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My concern, I guess my main concern with this is, are they getting the right training at home?
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Now you were talking about homeschooling for a second. What we do here in Desert Sky Baptist Church, just although there's a homeschooling community here and every
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Tuesdays, every Tuesday here at the church, they'll meet. So at least the kids interact with each other, but no, it's not like a
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Christian school, but they do at least interact with their, not just with their parents and not just homeschooling.
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They all get together on a Tuesday once a week and they, they try to interact. So the kids get some interaction and that's just a side note, just answering that kind of going off that question, statement about homeschooling.
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So that's my thing. I, my thing is I pray that the parents are given these kids what they need at home.
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I think, cause that's important. That's the, that's the grounding they're going to have.
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And sometimes I, you know, sometimes I'd like to see more maybe training at home for the children, but, but again, you know,
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I do what I'm called to do and I enjoy what I do. I love being on the board. I love teaching in the school.
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So yeah, so that's, that's where I'm at. That's what I do. So in, as you're very involved with the school, why do you think
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Christian education is so important? I mean, I'm, I've kind of voiced a strong view against public education.
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Why do you think that Christian education is important and what can parents do to help educate their own children?
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Yeah, so, so here's something I wanted to say.
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In these schools, you would like these schools obviously to be more, and I'll get to that question in a second, you like these schools to be more of a discipleship school, but that's not the case.
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It's more missional and discipleship. So there are some kids in the Christian school that need the gospel and they may not be saved.
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And there are that are saved and they need to be disciples. So you got to be able to mix that up in your, in your teaching, especially when you're teaching biblical doctrine and soul formation or things of that nature, whether it's, and there's also some
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Bible classes that go on. I wish more pastors were involved in teaching these kids, but you know, pastors are busy and I'm busy too as being a pastor, but I try to carve out that time to do that.
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Why I think classical education is better for sure than public education is because one thing about Christian education is if the parents are interested, which
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I believe they are, all the curriculum is available to them. They're not going to be, there's not going to be so no supplemental material where sometimes the public schools could sneak in without the parents knowing and things of that nature.
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And we are teaching, I teach the doctrines of grace and in the classrooms and I give the gospel every time.
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I think that's important because I think it's again, missional and you don't get a chance to do that in public school.
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You ain't giving nobody no gospel, you can't even, you can't even, I don't even think you mentioned the word of God, the name of God in schools today.
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And years ago, I mean, I remember when I was a kid, I went to Catholic school, but I also went to public school and we used to say the, at least the pledge of allegiance and things like that.
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But today that's gone with the 1619 project and all that other stuff that's creeping into the school.
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So yeah, Andrew, it's tough. I mean, the better alternative is that there is a
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Christian foundation that we teach in Lagos Christian Academy and we try to, you know, oh, so let me give you an example.
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This is amazing. This is something I think you would like in that school. In fact, tomorrow, this will air much later than that.
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But tomorrow I got to give the, in the morning that they, the encouragement and it's about 20 minutes.
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So what they do is when you get into the first thing you do in the school, they have praise and worship for the, from a quarter to eight to like 830.
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So you have praise and worship, right? And then you have a speaker, an outside speaker that comes in.
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They do that every Tuesday and tomorrow's my day before Thanksgiving. So I'll give them a little message on Thanksgiving.
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During the week, before they go to class, they have praise and worship and prayer and things of that nature.
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So that's how they start their day. And I think that's a blessing. I think
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Dr. Ross, who is the original principal there, there might have been one before him,
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I'm not sure. But the one that I worked under was Dr.
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Ross and he's not there anymore, but that's what they implemented. So the first thing you do in the morning when you go to school is you praise and worship the
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Lord. And that, I think, is going to totally change compared to public school where,
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I mean, for parents to think about, if you're listening and you're thinking, yeah, but I can't afford
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Christian school, right, my question for you as a parent is, how important are your children?
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Because when you're giving your kids to public school, yes, it's easy because they make it, you're paying for it in your taxes, and so it makes it seem like it's free for you.
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And yet the reality is that it's costing your kids their soul.
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Andrew, here in Arizona, they have, I want to be careful here, but I do know, I want to make sure
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I get these letters right. In Arizona, they have an ESA, and I think that's what it is. So in Arizona, a lot of people will send their kids to Christian schools out here because they do get a funding for that.
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I think it was because of Ducey, I'm not sure, when he was governor. I want to be careful there. But most of the students are on that where they get, they actually get the funding from the government to pay for the schooling.
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And so, and you might be able to look that up on the computer, what they do in Arizona, but it is,
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I know people that have moved here for that reason, so they can be able to get the funding to help their kids to send them to Christian school.
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And again, I think that, you know, Christian, and here's another thing, our budgets, because we don't get no money from the government,
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Andrew. The government, I mean, the, you know, the, the, you know, we don't have a budget like public schooling and stuff like that.
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So we run on basically donations and things of that nature. So, yeah, so Arizona, there is a, you can get help going to these schools and get your children paid for.
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And I think that was something, like I said, that Governor Ducey had put in when he was in, when he was the governor here.
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Well, and I think that what you're referring to is the school choice. And this is something that, you know, many are trying to get for Trump to, to really push as he's looking to change up government and Board of Education, that would be a major thing is if people can use their tax dollars that go toward the, you know, go toward the public school system to be able to choose to say, no,
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I want it to go to this Christian school, because that's where I'm going to send my children. Or maybe you don't even have children, but you want it to go to the
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Christian, the local Christian school. And if you think about it, parent, your children are being indoctrinated by the world system, by the
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Marxists that are taking, have taken over education, and they are indoctrinating them with their thinking for hours, six hours a day.
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Now you get home after work and you got to cook and take care of, make sure the kids are doing homework.
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How much time are you having training up your children? Yeah, it's a great point.
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I mean, before, you know, really the government is bringing up your children, the school system, the culture.
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It's a great point. I mean, because like you said, if you got parents that are working, they're going to school, they come home.
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Their time with their parents, their interaction with their parents are not, it's just not enough time to be able to infiltrate their lives.
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And yeah, it's a great point. And that's why the parents have to be involved, especially in a
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Christian school. The parents need to be involved. They need to be involved with Bible study, with their kids, with praying with their kids, and they need to piggyback off what the school does.
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They need to piggyback off what the church does. And that's why I want to, I don't want to be repetitive.
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That's why the Bible says to bring up your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. And I pray the parents are doing that.
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I mean, I really do. I think it's important. I know we talk about, you know, this is Street Talk. For me, it's
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Street Talk Theology. For you, it's Striving for Eternity. But I know we talk a lot of theology on these shows, as well as we should.
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I think it's important. But the practical part about this is that these kids need to be trained up in the fear and admonition of the
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Lord. It's so important. And I wonder if that's missing today. I pray it's not. You know, and for parents, it's, look, it is hard.
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I went through it myself. We were head to kids in public school. We realized the problems with that.
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We then were homeschooling them. We just felt that that was not good for our children.
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And people can dispute that. We could get into a discussion. But then I ended up going and having my kids in a
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Christian school, you know, high school. And they did well.
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But it was a struggle, no doubt. It was hard to come up with the finances to do that.
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However, how important are my children to me? I mean, I get one shot at training my children. And I see far too many people who have kids that are, you know, they let them in the public school, and then they can't figure out what happened to my kids.
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Why have they gone so awry? Because you let the world indoctrinate them.
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And they've been given over to that. I mean, look, you— No, I'm just saying, this is, you know, when we were talking, kind of in the back room before we got on, we were talking about what we were actually going to say.
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And, you know, we didn't rehearse nothing, obviously. Two guys from New York don't have to really rehearse. Hey, I'm from Jersey.
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You New Yorkers already ruined enough of my statement. There's only two kind of people in the world, people from New York and people who wish they were from New York.
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But anyway— Yeah, no. But this is really, you know, as I'm listening to you, and hopefully even listening to myself, which is scary sometimes, but I think this is really a serious subject.
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Because, you know, one of the monikers, so to speak, of Logos Christian Academy is, we train kids for this world and the world to come.
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You know, and basically, I'm looking at your moniker here,
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Striving for Eternity, right? I mean, we have to bring these kids up in Striving for Eternity.
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And I think that's, you know, I was thinking about that, just thinking about your podcast. And I don't know, and I think you need to, as you've been doing, putting these parents on notice, because in a loving way, obviously, as Andrew Rappaport only knows how to do, in a loving way, to really challenge these parents, the seriousness of having these kids indoctrinated with the world system.
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And, you know, the supplemental material that may be taught in the schools.
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Yeah, because, look, this is something that I really want to stress for parents.
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You can get a school like Logos Academy, hey, that is great, but it's going to be a sacrifice.
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But that is what, you know, raising children is. It takes a sacrifice.
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I mean, look, you're planning to, there at the school, you're planning to retire wealthy with a, you know, huge mansion, a limousine service, and a private jet, right?
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Isn't that what you're going to? When he was saying that, what the heck is he talking about?
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No, I mean, you better check. No, but, you know, people think like, you know, when you think of the public school system,
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I remember when I was in high school and the teachers went on strike, they felt they weren't making enough.
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Now, back then, they were making, when I was in high school, this is back in Noah's day, $60 ,000 a year, and they only worked, what, nine, 10 months a year.
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And so they went on strike because it wasn't enough. They wanted 80.
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Now, think about this back in the day. I mean, $60 ,000 in today's dollars, probably close to $120 ,000,
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I'm guessing. And so, but that's, but public school. Was that the guy, remember they went on strike?
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Who was the head of the school board? I remember that in New York when I was, when they went on strike. This was in New York.
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See, New Yorkers only think everything revolves around New York. Folks, do you hear this? This is the problem with New Yorkers.
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They think everything revolves around New York. But the thing is that you think of the
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Christian school teacher at Lagos Academy, for example. The average salary is not going to be anywhere near what a public school salary is going to be because they're on a very tight budget, typically.
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Because of the fact that most parents can't afford to put their kids in school, in a private school.
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And I'm telling you, you talk about sacrifice, Andrew. Now, I'm not going to give the figures, but the figures are way below what the, if you have a master's degree in Lagos Christian Academy, you'd be astonished at what them teachers make.
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And it's probably be equal to minimum wage. If, you know, that's probably around it.
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It's got to be minimum wage. So if it's anything, it's maybe a smidgen over that. Maybe not.
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But, you know, and these teachers do it because they have a love for the
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Lord and they want to do something as part of their, you know,
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Christian faith. And again, it's a huge sacrifice.
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Some of them, I remember we had one teacher that had worked two jobs, but their other job wouldn't allow them to work in the second job at the
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Christian school. So they had to give that up because there's no way those teachers, you can't live on that salary.
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It's, you just can't live without, you know, obviously if you're a teacher, maybe a husband works or vice versa.
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It's not easy on the salary. They don't do it for the money, Andrew, believe me. And that's the point is that these schools are trying to keep a low budget.
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Most of them, not all, but most Christian schools. And so I realize it's a sacrifice for parents.
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If you feel that you can't homeschool, and I'll be honest, there are some people that shouldn't be homeschooling.
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There's some people who feel it's important to homeschool, and yet they're not really doing right by their children because they're not giving their kids a good education.
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Not everyone is equipped to be able to homeschool. So you got to ask yourself and recognize, am
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I a person who can homeschool my children? I personally think that is best if possible.
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You know, some will do the, like I said, the co -ops where they get together and it's the homeschool moms and they try to teach areas that they are better in than others.
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And so that could be helpful. But for, I think a lot of people, they don't want to put their kids in public school, but they know they can't homeschool.
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That's why I think an academy like Lagos becomes very good.
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It's a good option to think about. Does it mean you might have to pick up a second job or both parents work or something like that?
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That may be, but it's much better than waking up one day to find out that your child has been secretly being told by the school teachers that their gender is wrong and they shouldn't be listening to the parents.
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Because this is what's happening in public school is that they are going after children, especially in those in the
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Christian homes, to get them to convert to their views on things like gender.
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And so they're going to do that. Let's give some examples.
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You have a case in point. You have an example of some people from Germany that really made an issue where they felt very strongly about homeschooling.
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How about you share that? Yeah. So it was France. Oh, sorry.
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France. You know, these New Yorkers, they always got to correct people, you know? Well, Germany, France doesn't matter.
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I mean, listen, if you lived in France and I said you lived in Germany, it'd be a big difference.
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But no, all joking aside, and I just related this story to Andrew, and he's usually got a good memory.
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But yes, we have a missionary couple that have been attending the church and great people.
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I don't want to give their names without them knowing, but they were homeschooling their kids in France.
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And the French government said, basically, if you continue to homeschool your kids, we're going to take them.
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And you think, I mean, that's, I don't know nothing. I really don't know nothing about France. You probably know more about maybe the
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French government than I do. But they actually threatened to take their children.
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And these missionary parents with their five children had to kind of flee the night, you know, because they were not going to stop homeschooling their kids.
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And it was just by God's grace that they, believe it or not, the
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Christian podcast community indirectly has to do with, well,
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I shouldn't say that. Let me say this again. I want to be careful here, because I'm not the Christian podcast community, but I want to be careful.
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See my memory when you get my age, Andrew? But I belong to FIRE, and I know
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Andrew's interested in that. It's a group of churches that are like -minded churches, reformed churches, but actually they reached out.
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And that's why you give the acronym what it stands for so people would know for FIRE.
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Yeah, Evangelical Christians, Reformed Evangelical Christians. It's what the, I forget what the
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I is, fellowship. Yeah, Fellowship of Reformed Evangelical Christians. And what happened was these missionaries contacted somebody in FIRE.
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They contacted me because they wanted to come to Casa Grande because of the schooling, because they wanted to homeschool their kids and they can get a stipend for that.
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Just like if they go to a Christian school, they can get a stipend for that. So they wind up coming to Casa Grande.
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They called me up. We were able to, the church was so kind to them, was able to get them a job and get them a place to live and help furnish the home and things of that nature.
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And that's the way the Christian community worked. And it happened fast. You know it was the Lord, Andrew. I mean, and our brother's got a decent job.
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He's got a good job. His family's here and coming to the church, and their apartment is well -furnished and they're doing well.
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But anyway, praise God for that. And I hope maybe we can get the brother on sometime.
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I'll hook him up with you and we'll get him on Striving for Eternity, you know? Yeah, maybe we'll have him here on the rap for it.
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That'd be good. So let's, I mean, this is someone who we're talking about sacrifice.
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Folks, can you picture being told by your government that your choice is we're either going to take your children from you so we can indoctrinate them, or you have to send them to us so we can indoctrinate them?
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Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, basically, they're in France, and I don't think we're too far behind here in America.
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This is the whole thing. They want to indoctrinate your children. They want to have control.
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And this is something we need to realize. Just as you're thinking about the issue of education, of your children, are you willing to flee your country?
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I mean, if you are faced with that, I mean, could you picture what that's like? You know, think about all the people you connect with in your day.
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All the people who are, you know, your friends, your church, your family, and being told that if you don't give your children over to the government education, they will take them away from you because they think their education is far better than yours.
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Picture being in that situation and being faced with the fact of we have to flee our country, flee the jobs we have, the family we have, the friends we have, the church we have, and go somewhere new.
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You know, Andrew, you're the political guy. I'm not. But I was wondering, just think if the
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Democrats remained in office, you know, what kind of implement, you know, what kind of things like, because they, one thing they want is they were targeting the children, obviously in the public schools, and the transgender and all that stuff.
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And I'm not saying that stuff is going to go away. But, you know, you think about, you know, elections have consequences, right?
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That's right. I mean, you're the more of an expert on that. So, yeah, we're living in, you never know.
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I mean, you never know where this is going. But like you said, I mean, you can go to a public school today and tell them that you want to be a girl when you're a guy.
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And from what I understand, they can actually keep that from the parents. You know, that don't happen in Lagos.
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We are, one thing about Lagos, we are in the interaction with the parents. Like I gave a, there was one boy that was just a lazy, lazy kid.
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I mean, he's a good boy. He's a good kid. And I pray for my students. I really do.
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But if there's a problem, the parents can actually go on to the website and see how their kids are doing.
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And I actually, you know, you'll get emails from the parents and stuff like that. And they'll tell you, listen, I'm sorry for my son.
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I'll try to, you know, work with him at home and stuff. You do get that. You know, that's good interaction that you get from parents.
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I get that all the time. And most of the students that I teach are really good kids.
35:16
You know, I just think that kids today,
35:22
Andrew, at 14 years old and 15 years old, they got a lot more stuff to do than we did when we were 14 and 15 with the computers and the phones.
35:32
And these things are huge distractions. I mean, the iPads and, you know, we never had that stuff,
35:42
Andrew. No. I mean, you know, back in your day, when
35:49
P .L. talked about a tablet, they meant about a piece of stone that you'd chisel. But...
36:00
I was just using the scroll, you know, where they'd put it on a parchment and scroll it. But no,
36:07
I think that you're making a good point that we have to recognize as parents, as educators, you're in the place of it as an educator.
36:18
My kids have grown up, but the sacrifice that some have to make,
36:26
I really wonder, in American Christianity, maybe someone is listening.
36:34
And maybe they're getting a little convicted. They're saying, you know, I really don't think much of it. I just put my kids in public school and I let the public school have them.
36:42
And, you know, they'll be good and they'll be fine. Well, maybe they're starting to get a little convicted.
36:50
Maybe realizing this is important. And you look at someone that's willing to leave their country of France because the government wants control of the children.
37:04
I mean, you wait and see. If Trump does right by his promise to shut down the
37:13
Federal Board of Education and make it a state issue, you're going to watch people lose their minds.
37:22
Because what he's basically saying is it won't be under federal control, but it's going to be closer to the control that the parents would have, because now it's more of a state issue that's more local, that they'll have more control.
37:36
Hey, Andrew, I heard, I mean, I seen people, that's crazy. And you would know better than me. I seen people actually, well, my wife listens to a lot of that stuff.
37:45
People actually want to like flee the country because Trump won president. I mean, what? I mean.
37:52
Well, look, look, the celebrities have been promising that, the celebrities have been promising that for years.
37:59
And I just wish they'd make good on their promise for once. I mean, Andrew, these were regular, like, not teenagers, but these were young adults.
38:09
Yeah, but the reason they're leaving the country because Trump won the president. Well, because think about it.
38:14
The media has been lying to them over and over and over saying that Trump is Hitler. Which, by the way, just so you understand some history, every
38:24
Republican that has run for office, for office of president, since Barry Goldwater has been called
38:35
Hitler or referred to as Hitler, except for George H. Bush. Every single
38:41
Republican has been referred to as Hitler, but they've done it. Wait a minute, Andrew.
38:46
I was thinking to myself, where did I, I know that. Where did I hear it? I heard it from you. I think you said it on your last.
38:55
Theology throwdown that we did. Yeah, I'm saying I heard that from somewhere and it was
39:00
Andrew. Yeah, it's something that we have to realize. The rhetoric has been such that for many people that only heard one side of the news, they're really believing that Trump is going to end all democracy.
39:14
He's just going to, the military is going to come in and take over. And they're afraid for their life.
39:20
And now you sit there and go, well, why would they be that way with Trump? Probably the same reason many of us were that way with Harris, because we understood she's a
39:30
Marxist. And had she won? Yeah, but where would we go? There's no country better, you know, more free right now in the world than America.
39:41
And then this goes into the, here we are with back to this. And I think it's important. This goes into the sovereignty of God, because I, we know
39:48
Trump is not a Christian, but God used Cyrus, I mean, obviously from Persia.
39:55
And this is and, you know, and this is where my passion is, because this is the sovereignty of God in the nation.
40:04
He will raise up leaders, though they may not be Christians. And we pray, we obviously pray for our government.
40:09
We want them to be Christians. But even though God is sovereign and he, by God's grace, because God didn't have to have
40:19
Trump win, he could if he wanted to bring this thing to parts.
40:25
And he still may. I mean, I'm not trying to stand instead of God. But thank God he's sovereign, because who knows?
40:33
I mean, there, we would have probably, we could have been really close to a
40:39
Marxist country over the next four years if it wasn't that case. So so I praise
40:44
God that for that. And I know I'm not a political guy. Andrew will tell you. I mean, he
40:49
I listen, he's my political pundit. What I'm saying, right,
40:56
Andrew, I mean, the sovereignty of God. I mean, he'll use Cyrus and I believe maybe
41:01
Nebuchadnezzar got saved when he was in the. Yeah, I think he might have. Yeah, me too.
41:06
But he does use ruthless leaders to bring about his to bring about his what he wants to be done.
41:16
Yeah. And one of the things we have to recognize is, I mean, just just think about the fact that.
41:23
You know, we have a reprieve. But I like that. I like that.
41:29
But the left is not they're going to get right now they're stumbling and divided, but eventually they'll get their footings and they're going to come back and they're going to come back strong to try to indoctrinate children to try to push their agenda for a very simple reason, folks.
41:46
These people are they hate God. I mean, it's something you just have to realize.
41:53
It's Romans chapter one. And that's what we're living in a Roman chapter one world.
41:59
And with that, we have people who they hate God and they don't want anything to do with them.
42:07
And so when we look at this, this is they're not going to just go, oh, well, we lost an election.
42:14
Let's give up. No, they're going to double down. And the thing they hate most is
42:20
Christianity. And that's what they want to put a stop to. And that's where we need to look at this and say, okay, what are we as Christians going to do?
42:29
Are we going to train up a next generation to understand that we are in a battle for the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ?
42:40
This is where the battle is. Do you want to let the world indoctrinate children or do you want to train them in truth?
42:51
I think back to Richard Dawkins always referring to taking children to school as child abuse because it's indoctrination.
43:02
What do you think they're doing in the public school? We used to teach, right, this is what classical
43:11
Christian schools do is teach things like this is going to be crazy. Dominic, I know you're going to be blown away that schools would do this, but in classical
43:19
Christian schools, we teach things like math, English, like real history, not like world history.
43:28
Not the 1619 project. Yeah, critical thinking. They read classic books.
43:38
Nowadays, you look at the public school, what are they learning? Well, we're learning what a boy and a girl are and the 52 other genders that they make up.
43:47
We're learning, we've got to learn about the different drugs and all these things of how to have sex.
43:57
That has nothing to do with education. That's stuff that sex education should be discussed at home.
44:07
This is the problem is they want to indoctrinate the children with things that are not helping them get a better education.
44:12
I think that Donald Trump actually said this right when he said, you know, Carter had created the
44:19
Board of Education and ever since then, we've gone from being one of the best educated countries to the worst.
44:27
Yeah, man, you know, it was funny you say that about classical reading. I was looking at some of the,
44:32
I was in my classroom today because I only teach on Mondays. I don't have the time pastoring a church and stuff, but I'm glad to go there for a couple hours once a week and try to infiltrate the gospel and get to know these kids and get to interact with them and love on them and pray for them.
44:49
But, you know, you were saying about classical stuff. I went on the, I was looking at some of the books in there,
44:55
Huckleberry Finn, right? I seen like things of that nature and, you know, things, you know, good reads and stuff like that, not the stuff they want to give you today.
45:08
Yeah, it's just... Yeah, I mean, the crazy thing, and folks, if you haven't paid attention, if you have your kids in public school, find out what they're reading.
45:18
I remember there was a book that was kind of all the rage in the world, and I forget the name of the book, and so I always want to, you know, see what people are saying.
45:33
I try to read a breadth of things, but this book was so perverted that I had to put it down, and I ended up finding out...
45:43
Now you're saying... No, this was about 10, 12 years ago, and my nephew, it was a signed reading in his high school or junior high,
45:56
I forget, and I ended up going, I got the book. It took me a while to find where it was that I just was like, okay,
46:02
I can't read anymore, but I gave it to my sister -in -law and said, here, read this.
46:09
She hadn't read the book. One of the things I did when my kids were in school is I read every book that they had to read in school, okay?
46:16
I admit, I never read Moby Dick as a kid. Boy, was that a boring book, but it's a classic, and my kids had to read it in their
46:25
Christian school, but this book I gave to my sister -in -law, she read it and freaked out. It was so graphic in its basically pornographic description, and that pales in comparison to what people...
46:40
There are people, parents, who are getting their kids to bring books home from the school library, and the parents are going to the boardroom, the board meetings, and reading the books out loud, and they're having to cut it off because they're recording the meetings, and it's violations for adults to read this stuff out loud in public.
47:07
That violates the law, but these are the books that are being given to elementary school kids, so you think about this.
47:17
This is what's going on in some of the schools. I think that what really woke people up was during COVID, all of a sudden, parents were working from home with their kids at home, and listening to what was being taught in the schools, and what was being read, and went, wait a minute.
47:32
I mean, there were actually classes or schools like in New York, where...
47:37
Because all bad things are in New York, but... You see how to get that in. I had to get that in, but there was a school where the students were told they have to be in a room by themselves.
47:50
Their parents could not be in the same room with them while being taught. Why in the world would you not want the parents to be knowing what you're teaching their children?
48:01
I, for a long time, Dominic, felt that with public school, the left always feels that the police have to wear body cameras because of the abuses of police.
48:12
I think that every classroom should be mandated to have cameras with audio so that every parent can watch and listen to what goes on in school.
48:23
I bet you if that happened, there would be a change in what is taught in schools, because parents would be outraged.
48:30
That's what happened with COVID. They were outraged. People started seeing, and this is the thing. So many people just don't know what's really going on in the school systems.
48:39
And this is why, you know, we thought, you know, Dominic is an educator.
48:44
He works on the board of a school, and this is why
48:49
I wanted to have him on The Wrap Report, and, you know, he's having me here on Street Talk Theology, but we wanted to cross -promote this podcast because it's important to understand the importance of educating our children as Christians, and—
49:08
You're from New York, man. How could I like you? Yeah, you know,
49:15
I think the one passage I think is a mistranslation in the Bible is, I think what
49:20
Jesus said when Nathanael comes over to him, he said, can anything good come out of New York?
49:25
Yeah, I figured that. Yeah, yeah. See, now he's misinterpreting strictly. Nazareth, New York, they sound kind of close, you know?
49:35
You know what I try to tell the kids, too? I challenge them on this. I don't think they—well, some of them,
49:41
I tell them, listen, I says, I tell them, what do you guys do when you first get up in the morning?
49:48
And, you know, people brush their teeth, all that stuff. I says, why don't you guys try to get up 10 minutes early just to spend some time with the
49:57
Lord, even if you read a couple of Psalms, even if you just thank the Lord for giving you another day, before you get started with your day.
50:06
I think it's really important. I try to explain to the kids the importance of that, of, you know, just—it's almost like, you know, because every day you wake up as a gift.
50:17
And, you know, Andrew, I love these kids. I want them to do well. I want them to understand.
50:25
But there's so much stuff coming against them. We've got to pray for them. There is a lot of stuff that, you know, even the parents, it's hard for the parents to control.
50:37
I mean, you can, you know, everybody's got a phone. Everybody's got a tablet. Everybody's got access to a computer.
50:44
You know, you've got to limit those things. And the kids, you know, I mean, they like their phones and the
50:52
TikTok and all that stuff. And it's definitely a work of the enemy.
50:58
I'm not sure. I know these things can be good. I know we need computers and we need our phones. But, you know, they're time stealers,
51:09
Andrew. They really are, especially with these young children. Well, I think they're a big reason why that so much of the youth nowadays have so many mental health issues is because they're not training to be—social media makes people antisocial.
51:26
You know, you see all these kids and they're all in a group and they're on their phones talking to people who aren't there.
51:32
You know, these devices don't help the children to learn how to deal with reality because they create a fantasy world or they think that if I just have this, life would be better.
51:44
If it's just—this is the thing that they're dealing with. And so many of the children do not know how to deal with life because they've—they use the devices to avoid life, to live in fantasy, whether it's video games, whether it's movies.
52:02
They're trying to avoid having to deal with life and problem solving.
52:07
You know, one of the things I do, Dominic, when I would have people come to me for counseling and I can see they're struggling with just basic problem -solving skills.
52:18
And they usually have some background where they've—drugs, alcohol, whatever it may be.
52:25
I usually ask this question, Dominic. I say, you know, when did you start—whether it's drugs, alcohol, whatever it is—when did you start that?
52:32
And they say, well, 16. Okay. I now know I'm dealing with a person who only has the problem -solving skills of a 16 -year -old or a 12 -year -old.
52:42
Now what we have to ask is, you know, when did you start getting, you know, a phone—a smartphone?
52:49
When did you start engaging with video games and fantasy and movies?
52:57
Because that's when they stopped problem -solving. We have a lot of people who have the problem -solving skills of six -year -olds because they don't have to problem -solve.
53:06
They just avoid. And the schools are indoctrinating them to think, hey, you're entitled. You should—no one should tell you, you should be the center of the universe.
53:16
And they go, yes, yes, I think I should be. The reality is, is that we have to realize that it is our job as Christians, Christian parents,
53:28
Christian educators, we have a stewardship of those that God has given to us to train up in the ways of the
53:37
Lord. Now, it's not just in the Bible, but it is also giving them the skills, the tools they need for life and godliness.
53:46
And this is lacking in the world. And I think it's something that, you know, an institution like Lagos Academy takes serious and realizes, hey, this is—this is our responsibility.
54:03
So, find—find—hey, you say, well, I'm not—I don't have kids. Dominic, do you have any kids?
54:11
No, sir. No. Because you spent a lot of time hanging out in a small little room.
54:17
For folks from the Rappaport that don't know, you spent the majority of, you know, 20 years of your life in prison, right?
54:24
That's where you got saved. So, you came out, you didn't have children, but you—you're educating children.
54:30
Why? It's your—it's your job as an educator, it's your job as someone who takes serious the training of the
54:37
Word of God to children. So, if you're—if you're older, guess what? You may be someone that could teach in a local
54:45
Christian school. You have a background where you'd be able to do that.
54:50
You don't have the same difficulties as families that are trying to, you know, raise the kids and do the schooling.
55:00
Maybe that's something you could do. Go and train children. Go find a subject that you know well and find the right age that you could teach and help that.
55:11
I'm sorry, Andrew. Yeah. No, I was just saying it's hard because in Lagos, it's—like, you know,
55:23
I'm a pastor and I—like, I can give that one day. You know, I can't give no more than that.
55:30
But we do lack in Lagos and probably in a lot of Christian schools, it's hard.
55:36
I'd like to see more pastors get involved, especially in the upper grades.
55:42
One day a week. One day a week like you do. Yeah. And you know,
55:47
Andrew, you know, I mean, you as a—you know, you—you as a pastor for many years, there's sermon prep and sometimes you're a little—like today, between classes,
55:58
I was trying to grade papers because, you know, I—you know, I don't—I'm—you know,
56:04
I'm not—I'm an educator for that one day by God's grace, but I'm a pastor here and that's the majority of my time.
56:13
And what I love to do is just preach and teach God's Word. And I do it the best in the school.
56:18
And it's a challenge in the school because, you know, the kids, you know, I—you know, they're not—you know, they have a lot of stuff going on at one time, so it's hard sometimes to keep them focused and things like that.
56:33
So it's a different challenge than when you're behind the pulpit and, you know, people are in church.
56:40
And so there's challenges and stuff, but, you know, by God's grace, you—for that one day, and even though I'm on the board, even though I'm on the board of directors of that school, when
56:52
I walk in that school, I am under the principal. Yeah. Even though when I'm on the board,
56:58
I direct it, you know, we direct the principal, but when I walk in that school, I am under the principal and he is the guy
57:05
I submit to. I go in there and try to teach those students as best as I can. But again, it's—we don't—we'd like to have—I'd like to have more pastors in there.
57:19
Let me give that challenge out to pastors. You know, there's a lot of pastors who are in a small church, maybe it's a dying church, mostly older people, and they're like, how do we get kids?
57:32
And they try to think of kids' programs. You want to know something? How about you start training the children that are in your local
57:39
Christian school and just say, you know, even volunteer. Volunteer as a teacher, because they'll take the volunteers, because they need the teachers, and they don't have the money.
57:49
So you volunteer a day to teach Bible, teach maybe there's some subjects you know, history, and you work with those students, work with those parents, and you may find some of them—you don't do it for the purpose of growing your church, but you may end up finding out, hey, there's some things our church is doing that isn't going to be helpful to bring young people into the church, or maybe some of the people would say they like what you're teaching in school, they like how you're working with their children, and they go check out your school, your church.
58:23
That may be. So it's something, you know, is a good way to end, Dominic, is to encourage the pastors to consider how they can help, maybe volunteer at their local
58:32
Christian school to be a blessing to the school, and then maybe it'll work its way back to be a blessing to the church.
58:41
Andrew, we're at 56 minutes. I do have four minutes, but I'd like to ask you a question, is can you let—I don't know what you got coming up, but Andrew's a—he's gonna hate me saying this—he's a renowned speaker.
58:56
He's a good theologian. I don't know what you got coming up. You got anything coming up and something you want to tell the audience?
59:02
Or suppose if they wanted to have you—and let me tell you something. Andrew spoke at our church, and I'm telling you, for two, three weeks after he spoke, people were still talking about it.
59:14
I'm dead serious. I'm not—people really enjoyed
59:19
Andrew's talk. He spoke for an hour. It was like 20 minutes people were saying. So, Andrew, suppose somebody—and
59:28
I'm serious about this, you know, we're good friends, but he's a delight to have, him and his wife.
59:34
Andrew, if they needed a speaker, even on Christian education, because obviously you're well -versed in that, how can they contact you,
59:42
Andrew, if they want somebody to come to the local church? I appreciate that. Yeah, if anyone goes to strivingforeternity .org,
59:51
that's strivingforeternity .org. If that's too much, you know, it's too many letters to type for Dominic, so for Dominic we created the—it's just sfe .bible.
01:00:01
It takes you to the same place. So sfe stands for striving fraternity, but sfe .bible
01:00:07
gets you there. There's a thing there for all of our speakers, actually, because I'm not the only one that speaks at Striving Fraternity.
01:00:14
You can look at our team and see the different topics that we speak on.
01:00:20
The difference—we go to small churches. We don't have a speaking fee.
01:00:26
We'll go to a church of 25 people. We'll fly across the country to go there. That's what our monthly donors help us support, to help local churches.
01:00:33
We do weekend seminars, come out and preach, and really try to help the local church.
01:00:40
So you could just check out strivingfraternity .org and see what we have going on there.
01:00:46
As far as you asked where I'll be next, my next event that I have is coming up in February. It's the
01:00:51
Open Air Theology Conference. That's in Tullahoma, Tennessee. You could just search for Open Air Theology Conference.
01:00:59
It's going to be—it's called the War Conference, the battle against the flesh, that sanctification where it's our spirit versus against the flesh.
01:01:10
We're going to be having a lot of great speakers talk about it. The thing I love about this conference is the amount of fellowship time.
01:01:16
And Dominic, you and I did a conference together in Arizona, and I modeled it after the
01:01:21
Open Air Theology Conference because the pastor was asking me for a lot of help, and I said, I'll give you a model of a conference
01:01:27
I love. The reason I loved it is you had some preaching, and then you had a lot of fellowship time, so people can hang out and get to know one another.
01:01:35
And that's really the neat thing about a conference. And so Open Air Theology Conference is coming up soon.
01:01:40
So if you go search for Open Air Theology Conference, you'll get the details and where you can get tickets. That'll be my next event coming up.
01:01:47
Is that—would you say next year, Andrew? That is in February. Yep, February 20 to 22.
01:01:54
Wow, I'll be 68 years old by then. Oh, what are you going to do? Really? Only 68.
01:02:00
Yeah. What do you know? You look a lot older than that. I thought at least—I thought you and Joe Biden were like the same age, man.
01:02:08
Who's Joe Biden? I don't think— Yeah, yeah, he kind of—he did a debate and then vanished from the scene.
01:02:16
But hey, let's just, you know, whether you're listening to Street Talk Theology or the
01:02:23
Wrap Report, I hope that this has been helpful, educational, maybe even a little bit convicting.
01:02:30
But we both would ask you this. If you got something out of this, share it with others.
01:02:36
Just maybe, hey, grab the link and tag five friends. You know, just share it, you know, in a text message to five friends.
01:02:45
It might be a blessing to someone you don't even realize that they needed to listen. So if you got something out of it, if you liked it, please go and share it.
01:02:56
And Dominic, with that, as I end my show, that's a wrap. And I'm going to end my show with that's a wrap, too.