Baptist Mom Offers Home Schoolers a Voice, Christian Parents a Choice
by Jim Brown
September 3, 2004
(AgapePress) - A Christian woman in Texas has launched a home schooling organization for Southern Baptist families. Elizabeth Watkins says the organization is the answer to a prayer God put in her heart almost three years ago when she first began home schooling her daughters. After realizing there was little support for home schoolers in her denomination, she formed the Southern Baptist Church and Home Education Association. The home-schooling mom feels more Christian parents need to thoughtfully consider home education as an alternative to government schools that are so often the automatic choice. And although the Southern Baptist Convention recently turned down a resolution that urged Baptists to pull their kids out of public schools, she believes the resolution was successful in some ways.
"What it did was it brought awareness to the fact that the Southern Baptist home-schooling community does not have a voice within the convention," Watkins says, "and it brought that attention to home-schooling families. So, I believe that God can use the debate to bring something good out of it, such as our association."
Christians have the liberty to send their children to public schools, the Texas mom asserts, but as adults and parents accountable to God, they are not free from the consequences that will come as a result of putting stumbling blocks before their young people. Therefore, she says, the choice of how best to educate children must be made carefully and prayerfully.
"For several generations," Watkins says, "we have sent our children at the age of five and six to public schools by default. We don't even think about it; we just accept that it's what we are supposed to do. But that is not what God has ever intended for us to do -- we are never to do anything by default, especially when it comes to our children."
According to the group's founder, the Southern Baptist Church and Home Education Association has some ambitious and innovative networking ideas. For instance, the group hopes to establish a network for retired Christian educators, coaches, and musicians who are interested in providing tutoring services for home-schooling families. Also, Watkins says the association intends to serve as a liaison between Southern Baptist colleges and high school-age home schoolers.
