Christianity in Germany: An Interview with the Staff of EBTC

And welcome to The Dividing Line, early on a Wednesday morning here in Phoenix, Arizona, but it is not early on a Wednesday morning, it is afternoon over in Deutschland, ja? And today on the program, we are going to be talking with some good friends of mine from EBTC, the Evangelical Biblical Training Center in, well, I understand, I think I can already hear Christian there, also Martin is in Switzerland, I'm not sure how that works, but anyways, as some of you know, we had the opportunity, I guess I shouldn't use the plural there, I had the opportunity of going to Berlin twice now, and this past June had the opportunity of teaching a class on textual criticism there in Berlin, and at the time I said, you know, we really need to get you guys on the program, we need to introduce folks to the work there, and we have more and more people who are listening in Europe, and so if there's anything I can do to help get word out to the European audience that EBTC is there, and all the folks that are associated there with, then we need to do that.

So that's what we're doing today, it took us long enough, mainly because, oh, I don't know, they have these things called holidays back there, and we kept trying to schedule things, and I dropped the ball, and so hopefully, the noise I hear in the background there is at least Christian Andresen.

Christian, are you with me? Hello Christian. Okay, we're trying to work this out because he's telling me in chat here that he's not able to hear us, even though we can hear him. Okay, so you're working on that.

I'm working on that. Okay, they can hear me now. Coming back through. Yes, yes, oh,.

I love technology. Yes, but I can't hear you on my Skype. All right, well, I guess you're going to.

Have to fill for a little bit while I work on this. You keep working on it, brother. I'll be happy to fill as much as I possibly can here. Once you get an idea that we're actually talking, I can give a little more information on the background story here.

I was connected with Christian through my good friend Doug McMasters, who at the time was pastoring in London, and Doug and I flew over to Berlin from London, which is a nice easy hop. It's pretty easy to get everywhere in that way.

I had the opportunity of giving a lecture on the subject. Also, during that particular trip, I had the opportunity of, and it's the first time I'd been to Germany, of visiting Sachsenhausen, which was Adolf Hitler's concentration camp, a very sobering place to go, obviously, any of the World War II concentration camps are, but to walk up to a gate that has the Arbeit macht frei right there in the gate, work makes freedom, which was really, obviously, a mockery for millions of people, was a very sobering thing, but also at that time had the opportunity of visiting Wittenberg for the first time, and standing in front of the Wittenberg door, and visiting the Luther house, and the place where Luther burned the people.

You got it there? We are there. Hello, Christian. Yes, hello. Ah, there we go. Hey, excellent, wonderful.

I'm here with Theo, Matthias, and Thomas.

All right, Theo, Matthias, and Thomas. Good to see you, gentlemen. I hope you all haven't gotten into too much trouble since I was there, because when I'm there, I keep you all in line, but when I leave, I don't know what happens.

No, that's fine, yeah. Well, no, we are doing fine.

Now, I need to let you know, Christian, I don't know if you're aware that we do, the Dividing Line is on YouTube now, so I doubt you can see that, but if you go back and look, I am in uniform today. I am wearing an EBTC sweater vest, so I just wanted to let you know that I'm keeping things up here in the U .S. for you.

That's cool. Did you get the new shirt, the gray one?

No, no. Did you send one?

I think we sent one. I'm going to make sure. Oh, yeah, you can have it on. Come on.

Well, now I'm excited. I'm looking forward to that. You all said you're going to be doing some more, so that's exciting. Now, gentlemen, feel free to each one of you to pop in. I don't want to just be aiming everything at Christian, but he's the boss, so I suppose we'll start with the boss man.

Now, I was just giving some information about the first time I had a chance to go over to Berlin and some of the places that we've been able to see and things like that, but I want to focus first and foremost upon what you guys are doing and the ministry of EBTC there, and then later on, I'd like to talk a little bit about basically living as a Christian in Europe.

I think that a lot of Americans, and of course, a number of you, I know, Christian, you've studied over here in the United States, so you sort of have a dual way of understanding both the American and European way, and you can help us to understand, but I want to look at that a little bit later on in our time together.

But first, for the people, and we're getting more and more people who are listening to The Dividing Line in Europe, talk to us a little bit about what your mission is there, what you're trying to accomplish, what is the major goal of.

EBTC’s Mission and Bi-Vocational Training Model

EBTC? Well, we basically, we would love to, we want to train men and women for the ministry, but obviously men for the preaching and leading ministry in the churches in Germany and German speaking countries, but also all over Europe.

And we started in Berlin, in the east of Berlin in 2001, and then we, since then we, this training center has grown into other areas of Germany, as well as Switzerland, and now we see, we have now contacts, we started something, helping starting something in the Czech Republic, we're working with the ministry in France, in Croatia, and also in Italy, and there are other ministries on the way, and there are some thoughts to start something even in Austria.

But our training is bi-vocational, and that's the goal, because it fits to the church situation we are in, in Germany, and in Europe, where the most of the churches are smaller, and the pastors are not full-time, and so they would be, have to be working on the site, and then they would lead the church, and then training would be always to be in a full-time situation, where they would go for a few years away for training, is, would really destroy to most parts the ministry, and pull them out of the church, and then they end up not being that what they wanted to be, influential in the church, and helping the church along.

So all our ministry is bi-vocational. We start with a one class, Bible survey class, this is one year long, it's about once a month, for a day and a half, about 12 hours of teaching the Bible survey class over one year, and then we build it up with a preacher's institute, biblical counseling classes, then now we're going to start a music ministry class, and then we have our master's classes, which will be on top of that.

They will go another three years, New Testament, Old Testament, Masters of Theology, and yeah, that's basically it. It's a pretty broad program, and we have presently quite a few students, I think we have in all the locations around 240.

Students. So the class is, since obviously many of these men are bi-vocational, the vast majority are primarily over an intensive period of time, so they're, like when we did the text criticism class, it was many hours crammed into a short period of time, because they can't be gone for.

All that long a period of time. Right, and we did a survey and asked what would they like, and if that would be better to extend it to two weeks, or do it in one week, and they all said intensive one week, so we don't have to be away from so long from our ministries, and then a lot is also done with their own studies, obviously, and online feedback through a website.

Correction system, and so on. Now you mentioned that most of the churches there in Germany and elsewhere are smaller churches. Obviously we're talking about a focused ministry to people who really have a high view of Scripture and a deep commitment to the Word of God, the Bible as the Word of God, which is what tends to make churches smaller anywhere, actually.

So obviously you're looking at a particular spectrum, you're not trying to water things down so as to have a super broad appeal outside of that realm, right? Right. We are focused very much on the.

Independent Bible churches that have grown up in the last 25 to 30 years. In Germany, and you have about, I assume about 1 ,000, anyway 1 ,100 churches that have grown up in the last 20 -25 years, which some of them have grown to be larger churches, but in general you're talking.

About a church around anywhere between 30 and 100. Right, right. Well, my church here in Phoenix, we have somewhere over 50 members, maybe 100 people attending on a Sunday morning, so that's certainly not an unusual size.

Now talk to me a little bit about the gentleman you have there with you. What range of teaching and classes do you all offer? Maybe, oh, now let me back up just a second. Now when I taught, we had people from all over Europe there, we had Poland and the Czech Republic, and had a whole group from Ukraine.

Yes, you're right,.

International Master’s Classes and Partnership with Ukraine

That's our master's classes. They come from all over Europe, and that's an exciting thing, there are pastors and leaders already in their fields who come together for further studies, and that is so, it's just a great time together, they grow close together.

They have small groups usually, and they, over the three years, they spend a lot of time together. For instance, in 10 days, they're going to travel to Israel with 16 guys, and that will be an exciting time for them when they visit the Holy Land, so to speak, for 10 days, intensively talking about Scripture, study for it in the locations, and then seeing it on site, and then putting that back into the ministry as they preach and teach, where they have a better understanding of what the land looked like.

So yes, you've seen all the European guys, they came together for this intensive class at the master's level, that's true. They are from all over Europe.

Yeah. Now, what's the relationship with the guys in Ukraine?

Well, I'm working, we are working together with the European Seminary, and we conduct classes together. Some of them are in Ukraine, some of them are here. We might even have some somewhere else, depending where the students are, because the teachers are coming from different sites, and we can model it that way, and we have a very good relationship.

We have actually two teachers who are coming, came until recently, every month, to teach a Russian curriculum here in Berlin, since we have a few, three Russian-German churches, or four Russian-German churches, and they train those men for those churches, and that has gone on for the last four or five years, and has been very successful.

But at this time, we have trained our guys, so now we have on-site guys who know Russian enough, so that they can teach the basic classes. But otherwise, that's what our relationship, we help each other with the training centers, and that's another fairly large training center.

As you know, the Evangelical Church in Ukraine is one of the biggest, besides Romania, and they have, I think, about 350 students alone in that facility, but so we work well together. It's a great partnership.

Well, I'll be finding out in a.

Matter of weeks. I'll be teaching Church History in Kyiv, starting, what, I think the 22nd, 23rd, something like that, of February. And that's all your fault, because you had all those great guys, and it still, to me, is one of the most amazing experiences, was to be teaching a class.

Now, textual criticism is not an easy class to teach, and keep people's attention, and things like that, but to have the whole front row populated by brothers from Ukraine who, the majority, the vast majority of them, do not speak English.

And so I'm speaking English, we're in a German context, and then you've got that amazing young man in the other room, who for hours and hours on end is live translating me for those guys who are wearing whatever you call the translational head gear or whatever it is.

I'm tired by the end of the day. As you may recall, it was a little bit warm that week. In fact, it was downright hot that week. And I could not imagine what it would be like to try to listen to someone speaking, translating them into another language, for the number of hours on end.

And that poor young man is going to be having to do that for me again in just a matter of weeks. So I'm not sure if he's just going to all of a sudden turn up missing or what. If I were him, I would think about it.

But he's actually looking forward to it, from what I've heard. So that was an amazing experience, it really was. Yeah, it was. Well, let me tell.

You something about the men who are next to me. Theo Friesen is my right-hand man here in Berlin. He's basically administrating the whole training center here in Berlin. He's also teaching, expository preaching, as well as homiletics.

And he's a key guy. He's also a pastor-preacher here at the church. So that's exciting. And all of our guys are in ministry, very much involved, and that's one of the requirements. Well, wait a minute.

You actually let him out of that little office down there? Yeah, we just gave him... we made another key now.

Because he's always... every time I'm there, he's just... I thought he was just chained there, and you just brought him food every once in a while, and that's just...

Yeah, you're trying to make me look bad. No, no, they have freedom here. Oh, okay, okay, all right, all right. They can go home and sleep. Well, actually, yeah, that's true. It's a small office. But anyway, that's Theo.

Matthias next to me, he is overseeing theology here in Berlin, and also teaches homiletics, also is very involved in preaching here in the church, and is overseeing the extension in the Rhineland near Cologne, and administrates, definitely does all that, which is really exciting.

And that's growing, too. I mean, I think we have now 60 students there or something, or even more. We will have more, but it's really an exciting thing. Then next to me, then, also is Thomas Hochstetter.

He is overseeing, right now, doing hermeneutics and is setting up a whole website online program for the New Testament survey class, and he will oversee the whole music ministry, which we start this fall.

And that's a lot, a lot of work, and he has done a lot of work on that, too, and is leading the music ministry here at the church, plus many.

Other things I can't even talk about. Which I appreciated while I was there. It really is enjoyable for me to get to sing praise choruses in German when I'm there. It really does sort of expand your horizons a bit.

However, when I preached for the Russian church, I was completely lost. I was just sort of staying there, humming and smiling, because I was trying to figure out a few of the Russian words up there, but it wasn't going anywhere very well.

Of course, some of you might have probably wished I wasn't trying to sing the German words as well, but you all were kind enough not to say anything about that to me, if that's what you were thinking.

Now, Matthias, um, let me drag you in here just simply because I've actually mentioned you on the air before. You had the unfortunate duties, normally have the unfortunate duties of doing, when we're doing live translation, and there's two different kinds.

We did live translation into Russian, but that was somebody in the other room, so it's sort of like the UN, you know, the headphones thing, and I don't have to stop and start. But when we do the German translation in the service, or like that first lecture we did, or whatever else, I'm sorry?

The seminar. Oh, and the seminar, exactly. We did Mormonism, and Jehovah's Witnesses, and all sorts of stuff like that. You have been the one, primarily. Now, who else, who spelled you last time? Was that Tomas?

Yes, I think Tomas translated. Yeah, I think so too, yeah, I think so too. So all of you guys have had to put up with me along those lines, but it's, for those, for people who have never experienced that kind of work, I'm going to tell you right now, it's tough on the translator, and it's tough on the one speaking.

It completely interrupts your normal cadence of speech. That's right. You just feel so discombobulated. It's amazing how you get into a flow, especially as a preacher. You get into a flow, you have a certain cadence, you have a certain rhythm, and to have to stop and start, the older you get, I think, the faster you forget what you were going to say anyways.

So it really becomes extremely frustrating. So you really need to have a good translator, and of course, that's always been the case. But I told people recently that it was a lot easier for me to speak at the Russian church there, because I had no earthly idea what the Russian translator was saying.

So he could have been coming up with stuff that had nothing to do with what I was saying, I wouldn't have known. And Russian audiences are extremely difficult to read, too. They just sort of look at you.

I mean, there's not much in the way of response to what you're saying, so it's difficult to gauge them. But when you're translating for me, it's extremely distracting, because I understand most of what you're saying.

And last time, I even caught you sort of fixing something I had said, and I stopped right in the middle and said, that's not what I said! And you just sort of laughed. I'm a translator. Yeah, you're translating into something that actually made sense, probably.

You're probably cleaning things up for me. But you didn't just come out of high school and go into theology. You took quite an interesting route to get where you are, didn't you?

Yes, I did. Well, actually, I was pretty bad in English. I almost failed classes. But, well, that's where I come from. So my interest grew, because we didn't have good resources in German, and I tried to study theology, and I bought all these English books.

And so my interest grew more and more, and that's how I learned English.

Now, but you're training. You have training in some widely diverse fields, don't you?

Oh, yeah. Well, you mean my background as a nurse? Oh, yeah. Actually, I come from this background. I studied being a nurse for five years in total. Worked in the hospital, in the emergency room, mainly.

So what made You interested in theology during that time, or...?

Yes, I was. I was serving in a church in a youth group, and I worked as a nurse in a hospital, and did youth ministry in our church. So that's how I learned English, and my interest grew.

Ah, I see. Okay, all right. I wondered what the connection was there, because you've done a lot, and yet you're not exactly advanced in age yet. So you've been a busy man. There's no two ways about it.

Now, Thomas, you are the musical man over there. Does the German church sort of develop its own music, or is a lot of that taking what's produced in the U .S. and things like that and making it fit over there, or is it a mixture, or what?

Because I recognized a lot of the music. It was just simply translated into German. Is that predominant, or is there a lot of specifically German material as well?

Well, at our church, you find a lot of English hymns translated into German because of the lack of any good material that's come out in the last number of years. There are some churches that have created some songs, but they're to a large degree unsatisfactory when you compare them with the rich English hymns.

So we try and take over the best that we can find on the English side. And recently, there has been a lot of effort also put into translating Sovereign Grace music stuff. There's a big church in Hamburg who does that.

But apart from that, there's not really much going on in that field, and part of the hope of what we're doing is that we will get this kind of drive going in as well, that churches will write theologically correct and deep songs for.

The church. That's obviously an important aspect, is to have the solid music. I mean, at my church, we have the Trinity Hymnal, and I don't think there's anything in there past about 1910, I think, probably.

But obviously the content is the important issue, and it's extremely rich. Of course, now I don't think, and I'm a little disappointed by this. We're going to have to fix this next time I'm over there, which is right now, Lord willing, going to be in 2015.

But I've not had the opportunity. Well, let me take this back. You all did. Christian will probably remind me of this. We did play with the idea of singing Ein Feste Berg in the back of the church when we were in Wittenberg.

They even had hymnals there, so I guess I would have had my opportunity. But there's some rich, older hymnology from the days of Luther onward. Is that sort of not brought into the modern context because of an association with state churchism, or just what?

Yeah, there is very little brought over from that age. Some of the more famous ones, like Ein Feste Berg, that would be one. But even that is largely forgotten. I think the people who are most busy at this point in time in the German section creating new music is Charismatics, as they would be in probably many other places, too.

And they just don't fall back to that kind.

Of material. Right, right, I see. Now, Theo, you're doing theology, a lot of teaching in that area. All of you, I'd like to have your comment on this. Look, looking from over here, over that direction, the heritage of German theology, in our minds, is extremely liberal and extremely destructive.

We think of Tübingen, and we think of the whole school there, and just what has come out of Germany over the past 150 years has very rarely been conservative. So you guys are going against the flow, shall we say.

What does that mean, as far as, when you're teaching, are the people coming in deeply impacted by that kind of liberal background, or because of the churches they're in, have they already sort of been separated from that anyways, or is it a mixture?

What are you facing there theologically in Germany? I answer for Theo, because I teach theology,.

James. Okay. Well, the problem is, in most of the churches, they are pretty conservative, and historical criticism is mainly taught at the university. It's not taught in churches. So most students who come, normally, the problem is they have no clue about all this bad theology, about historical criticism, and all the stuff which is going on.

And my main goal in teaching this is that they have a clue what is going on, and that they understand why it is wrong, why it is a false hermeneutical method, and how to give an answer to that. Because normally, if students, well, if younger guys from the youth group, if they go out and study for being a teacher, or even teaching religion at the school, they become confronted with liberal theology, with both mine and historical theology, and so on.

And there is a big danger, because normally, pastors are not involved in this. They don't know how to refuse it, they don't know what's.

The danger, they don't know how to answer all these questions. That is obviously something that is heavy upon my heart, would be the interface of the Christian faith with the culture, and of course the apologetic issues that come up as a result.

Now, the first thing that I remember sitting down at a little cafe with Christian and Doug McMasters, whom we've managed to rescue from Europe and drag back here to the United States, by the way, was a discussion on the secular nature of the society that you live in there, and the pressures that that places upon the Church.

And interestingly enough, as we were driving even there, there was comments about, well, now we're passing through into what was East Berlin, and so the years of Communism, and Christian took me to the Stasi prison the last time I was there, and that was a—you know, Christian, when you think about it, other than Wittenberg, you keep taking me to very depressing.

Places. I just thought I'd mention that in passing. I'm sorry, but this is real life.

This is real life. I know, the Stasi prison in Sachsenhausen, what's next? But obviously that harkens back to a time when Christianity was, well, it was very, very difficult times indeed. And so, talk a little bit about what it's like to be a Christian, and a Christian leader in an extremely secular society.

What are the challenges?

Christianity in a Secular and Atheistic Germany

Well, the challenge at first is, people can't even understand that we would have any interest in anything that has to do with the Bible. And people, I mean, for them it's just totally foreign, except you are in your church circle, they understand it, but if you go outside of the church circle, Germany, East Germany in particular, and where we live, and going to the Polish border, that is the most secular society, according to some research done, where there are more atheists than anywhere else, and where more than 50 percent do not believe that there is a God.

So, when we talk about the God, they basically think, you know, you don't mean that, really. You know, are you crazy? I mean, no clear-thinking person believes in a God. You just try to find something that helps you along, because you have difficulties, you have problems in your life.

I mean, that's basically how they probably view ourselves. And we had some of the situations where we had recently a wedding a year ago, actually, with a missionary daughter who has married a young man who comes out of his family, who are totally atheists.

And on the wedding, it was such an extreme situation, where you saw both parties, and you thought, well, they just, they didn't want to fit together. They couldn't believe that we even, I mean, they saw that it was all a show, what we do.

They couldn't imagine that somebody believes that. So, being in that situation, you really have to explain what the Bible is. Some people have never heard about Genesis, about Noah's Ark, about the floods, about Adam and Eve.

I mean, they don't know. I mean, I just, it's amazing. You start with, basically, from the beginning, everything new, and you try to explain them. And they will admit, they will admit that they have never heard about it, and they didn't even think that somebody even believes in it.

They would absolutely go along with evolution and science, and that's it.

Right. And so, how do you, I mean, obviously, that worldview impacts everything. It impacts education, it impacts morality, ethics. We hear, for example, I just heard recently that there is a ongoing court action in Germany relating to two brothers who want to marry.

I mean, so obviously, bringing the whole counsel of God to bear upon the entirety of one's life, for someone who comes from a secular background, it must seem rather radical. I mean, are you.

Looked at as being pretty radical people? Yes, we are seen as radical, not obviously in everybody's eyes. People who know us personally wouldn't say that, obviously. They say, well, we're just normal.

We are nice, hopefully, and we are loving people and caring for each other. But when they come down to our beliefs, they would put us in the same group with radicals, with Islamists and others, which is interesting.

Even politicians have started to do that now, because they would call us definitely fundamentalists, because we believe the.

Bible is true, and we want to live by it. Right. Well, what does that mean as far as the plans you have for the future? I mean, what kind of challenges does that raise? I mean, here in the United States, we still have freedom of speech.

It's eroding quickly, and the people in charge aren't overly concerned about the Christian freedom to speak. But you're farther down the road. In other words, a lot of us over here are looking at you guys and going, is that where we're going to be in just a matter of years?

And what can we learn from you as to how we can find the line of remaining faithful and functional all at the same time? Because that's what you're doing. You're trying to get as wide an audience as you can as far as training men for ministry and things like that, but the wider you cast the net, the more you're exposing yourself to those people who would wish to suppress the proclamation of the Gospel.

That's true. I mean, we can just thank God that He has protected us so far. Of course we were attacked, and we will be always attacked, and there are always people who question us and and talk behind our backs.

But the greatest problems are usually not from the world, interestingly. It's usually other Christian groups. That's something which you probably have experienced too. But the world is really, they don't, you know, they laugh about us.

As long as we don't get too big and too influential, then probably that's going to happen. And so our really hope is we are not, you know, we are not making big propaganda who, you know, how big and whatever we are.

We really want to reach the individuals and train the individual people that they, again, strengthen the churches and the churches then reach out. And, you know, of course the Gospel has always a positive and a negative side.

The negative side, it obviously shows the sin of other people's life and their fallacy and all that. But the positive side is that they see that people live a life that is caring, loving, and how they treat each other if we are seen by the love of one another, which we should.

And that's what we hope for, that's what we are striving for, to not only talk, but also to live it. And it's a challenge. And we will, I mean, I'm waiting for the time when they're going to push on us not only laws.

I mean, the laws exist already. Now the question is when they reinforce the laws that you have to be so open with all different other social groups and bring them into the church and into the training ministries that we basically have to close it down.

Yeah, yeah. That's happening here, and we hear about it happening there as well. In fact, our friend who audited the class from Dresden sent me some links to some proposed EU ordinances just a couple days ago that looked very, very troubling.

And we obviously need to pray for all the faithful there in Europe, because clearly that is where the pressure is, and here in the United States we're just sort of following along like a puppy dog, unfortunately, with those things.

But as far as, that's one thing as far as the ministry goes, as far as teaching and things like that. What about just basic evangelism? I mean, I just got a note, I just saw on Twitter, that Tony Maiano was arrested in Dundee, Scotland, for street preaching.

Is that pretty much the way it is all across Europe, or what kind of, where is the level of freedom? How much resistance do you feel in openly proclaiming to someone in a public context.

The Gospel in these days? That's the interesting part is we are still allowed to do that here, but as long as nobody complains, as soon as there's a complaint from anybody, we are always going to have to basically leave or shut down, or they will find something.

We had recently something with the Bibelgemeinde Berlin. Maybe, Thomas, you can explain that. Yeah, well, we have a number of sources you can go to, and basically you say to the police, you know, we're going to spread some things about the church.

And that's what they did, and they were allowed to do that by the government. And then some people started complaining about it, and so badly, so that the police came and said, yeah, you know, although we did say that it's okay, that you should better not do that, because people start complaining about it.

So it's a lot in that direction. They're fine with it until it causes.

A stir, and then you're out. Right. So keep as many people as possible happy, and even if it's a small minority that complains, then you shut down everyone at that point, and just go on from there. I guess most people realize that Christians are going to be less likely to whine and complain about things, and hence they'll go that direction, but it's a sad thing to observe.

Now, what about educationally? I mean, what about, we've been told anyways, there's a very strong statism as far as what you're taught in the schools. That, obviously, you know, I've used the illustration, I may have used it over there, it would be nice if we could install some type of device around the door of the church that would automatically, electronically remove the influence of a non-Christian worldview from the people who are walking into our churches.

That would make preaching and teaching so much easier, and of course we'd need to run the pastor through it about 30 times, especially before preaching. But no such devices exist, though. If anyone comes up with it, it'll probably be a German anyways.

But since no such device exists, that's one of the biggest challenges we have, is that the message of the Bible is going to produce a Christian worldview which is going to clash rather strongly with a secular worldview, which is what your people are surrounded by 24 -7 in the culture.

So I would imagine that there has to be a very strong emphasis in your education over there amongst the Christians of building a Christian worldview, and then having to repair that Christian worldview on a daily basis in light of what we're spiritually experiencing from the society around us.

Well, as a grandfather now,.

Christian Worldview, Parenting, and Daily Discipleship

We experience it with our children. They go to public school, and that's the norm. There are some Christian private schools, but generally everybody goes to public school, and then the kids come home, you basically re-teach what they just heard from a biblical view.

And our young men here, they have fathers and they have children, they go now to school. I think that's exactly what you experience. They come home, the kids with some influence they had from a non-Christian background and very strong influence, and you basically have to give them the perspective of what we know from the Bible.

And so the kids, our children, are in the war zone much more sometimes than we are. I just have to admit that. And I mean, I remember that with my oldest daughter, that she had to, she was supposed to write an article about some diverse situation, and she was, it was on homosexuality, interestingly, and she presented it, and from a biblical view, which was, she was supposed to do that, but when she did it, basically the teachers, even the teachers were so strong against it, even so she explained it well, and she was like totally pushed aside in a school of a thousand people.