The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Faithful Fathering In The Midst Of Trashworld

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00:00:27.500 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I'm your host, Pastor Joel

00:00:31.440 Webb, and this episode is different than anything we've done before. Okay, so I'm just going to

00:00:35.140 set some expectations right here at the beginning. This is different than anything we've done before.

00:00:39.420 We're experimenting a little bit. By God's grace, right response is expanding exponentially. God

00:00:45.800 has been gracious towards us. We're going to be going to multiple shows per week instead of just

00:00:50.460 a weekly show with Theology Applied. So there's a lot of exciting things happening. One of the

00:00:55.580 things that we're attempting to do is we're attempting to do less virtual with just guests

00:01:00.520 who are piping in, but actually having guys here on the ground in-house, in-person, in our studio.

00:01:07.260 And so today's episode is actually the first thing that we're releasing with a conversation with

00:01:12.420 myself and two guests who are going to be in-house in the studio. I think it looks pristine. I think

00:01:18.840 it makes for a more natural conversation. You're actually talking to guys flesh and blood who are

00:01:23.960 with you in the room. The quality of the video I think is phenomenal. I think you're really going

00:01:29.780 to enjoy the conversation. And I also thought, you know what, instead of just, you know, our

00:01:34.380 first episode being guys that you would recognize that I'm flying in, what if I showcased a little

00:01:39.220 bit of my personal local ministry? For those of you who are unaware, I am first and foremost a

00:01:45.660 local pastor of Covenant Bible Church in Central Texas. You can check out the website for our

00:01:50.220 church. If you're looking for a church in the area, Central Texas, about 45 minutes north of

00:01:54.180 Austin, Texas, you can go to covenantbible.org, covenantbible.org and check it out. So I wanted

00:02:00.080 to do something with two of the men that I greatly respect who are part of my day-to-day life in local

00:02:06.420 ministry in my local church setting. So I have Michael Belch and Brian Hensley joining me for

00:02:12.480 a conversation about parenting, about marriage, about family, about education, about school,

00:02:18.960 about classical education, all these kinds of things. These two men both have children older

00:02:24.960 than mine. I have four kids. By the grace of God, their ages are six, four, three, and one.

00:02:32.000 But the two men that I am doing local ministry with at Covenant Bible Church, they have

00:02:37.360 teenagers. They have older children. Brian has one child who's currently at New St. Andrews in

00:02:42.760 Moscow, Idaho. So he has one child that's made it all the way through their home. And so these men

00:02:48.300 have wisdom. They are at a different life stage. And we're talking about what it looks like to be

00:02:53.600 godly Christian fathers and what it looks like for a father to fulfill the scriptural commandment.

00:02:59.020 I'm thinking of Ephesians chapter six, verse four, fathers do not exasperate your children,

00:03:04.200 but train them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. That's what we're talking about in

00:03:10.400 this episode, our first ever episode in-house, multiple guys in person in the studio. I hope

00:03:16.520 you enjoy. Applying God's Word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:03:28.600 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. We're doing something a little

00:03:32.340 bit different in this episode. I am privileged to welcome to the show two of the most faithful

00:03:37.780 members in the church that I pastor in Central Texas. That's Covenant Bible Church. I've got

00:03:42.020 Brian Hensley, and I have Michael Belch. Thank you guys for joining us. So this is what we're

00:03:46.960 going to do. The three of us are actually on the board for a school, and by God's grace,

00:03:52.680 we're endeavoring by fall of 2024 to start St. George Classical Christian School in the

00:03:59.760 Georgetown-Williamson County, Central Texas area. We're located about 45 minutes, maybe an hour north

00:04:07.000 of Austin, Texas. And so we wanted to talk a little bit about the importance of classical

00:04:10.800 education, but we also are doing something a little bit unique. So I'll give you an outline

00:04:15.040 of the episode today. We're going to talk about why classical education matters, that it's not

00:04:19.080 just hip, but it actually matters. It's a conviction. We're also going to talk about

00:04:23.420 why a hybrid model is important. So we're not going to be doing five days a week,

00:04:29.200 but we do believe that children should spend an abundance of time with their fathers

00:04:33.480 and mothers as it comes to their education. And then we're also going to, beyond that,

00:04:37.960 talk about just the body of Christ as a whole and why community matters, why we don't just need to

00:04:43.520 be doing individual independent guerrilla warfare, but we need organized platoons, people who are

00:04:49.600 working together in a community, Christ-exalting, restoring Christendom. And the church is the tip

00:04:55.340 of the spear towards that end, but schools, I think, would take second place. So that's what

00:05:00.860 we're talking about today. So without further ado, Brian, why don't you kick us off? Brian

00:05:04.840 is going to be our headmaster. And so why don't you kick us off by just explaining a little bit

00:05:09.300 about classical education, why it matters. Yeah, so classical education, of course,

00:05:14.940 classical is somewhat of a relative term. You know, it is kind of like conservative in some

00:05:21.380 sorts. The education that occurred pretty much throughout the Western world prior to the late

00:05:29.340 1800s wouldn't necessarily have called itself classical, but it is a more of a liberal arts

00:05:35.960 education, which is primarily composed of the trivium and the quadrivium. It's the language

00:05:42.360 and the quantitative skills of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and then the quantitative math skills,

00:05:50.160 which would be arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. And those are the seven liberal arts.

00:05:56.860 they're the the arts of the the education of a free man they're they're designed to help you

00:06:02.680 learn to think um they're not so much uh like a manual art maybe like welding or a fine art like

00:06:10.680 dancing but they're arts of the mind and then so that's one component of it and the other component

00:06:16.940 of it is would be the great books so you've got the the books that have influenced the western

00:06:21.740 civilization throughout the ages and have stood the test of time. And between those two, it teaches

00:06:29.300 wisdom and virtue. Yep. That's really helpful. So a lot of people, we were talking offline as

00:06:34.560 we were getting ready, a lot of people, when they think classical, when I say a lot of people,

00:06:38.060 I might be one of these people until about 15 minutes ago when you set me straight.

00:06:41.940 But a lot of people do tend to think of the classical education as just a model or a method.

00:06:47.860 They think of Dorothy Sayers. I think of Doug Wilson and kind of dusting off her essays. And so he did the recovering of the lost tools of learning. And you think of, well, classical education is just taking pieces of education that everybody needs, but syncing it up with the development of a child.

00:07:05.740 So we're going to learn grammar when we're little because we can memorize, and then we're going to move to logic because now we're thinking about not just the what but the why, and then we're going to go to rhetoric when we're older.

00:07:14.560 That's kind of your high school age because now we're a little bit defiant and we want to argue.

00:07:19.280 And that's, you know, for a lot of people, I think that's the extent of their knowledge of classical education.

00:07:24.380 But you were talking a little bit offline, and Michael, I'd love to hear from you as well.

00:07:27.960 But Brian, you first, if you can, why is that very truncated?

00:07:32.600 And in a lot of ways, why does that miss the mark of what it means to be classical?

00:07:37.820 Yeah, so around the turn of the 19th century or 20th century, we had a lot of progressives

00:07:49.320 kind of step into education.

00:07:51.020 You've got some big names like Dewey.

00:07:53.920 And this was also at the same time whenever you had-

00:07:57.140 The Dewey Decimal System guy?

00:07:58.280 Same one.

00:07:59.100 The very same, okay.

00:08:00.860 I've heard that there were multiple Deweys, so, you know.

00:08:03.440 Okay, all right, all right.

00:08:05.460 But regardless, there was this, at about the same time,

00:08:11.240 child psychology or just psychology was really coming out.

00:08:16.040 You had a big influence by people like Freud.

00:08:19.820 And what you saw was this kind of marriage with education

00:08:24.560 where instead of conforming the student

00:08:28.140 to a transcendent, you know, wise and virtuous person,

00:08:33.040 it was more, okay, how can we conform the education

00:08:36.380 to the student that would make it the most effective?

00:08:40.180 Now, it isn't entirely misplaced.

00:08:44.760 You know, they didn't, there is some merit

00:08:50.200 to educating to you know in a particular method and Dorothy Sayers came across came in the 1940s

00:09:00.980 I believe she wrote an essay saying the lost tools of learning and she didn't exactly

00:09:07.940 it wasn't exactly a point to revive a classical movement but she suggested okay maybe taking some

00:09:15.600 of these lessons about the development of children and taking the classical trivium and transposing

00:09:21.040 it upon them. And that's where you kind of got this a little bit of a marriage of the trivium

00:09:27.460 and stages, which is not historically the way that a person would consider the liberal arts or the

00:09:34.460 classical education. So you do have some people nowadays, there have been many people that are

00:09:42.180 kind of giants in the movement. And Martin Cothran is one of those. And he wrote a very

00:09:49.660 good essay, which is entitled More Than a Method. And he takes a little bit of an issue with this

00:09:55.820 just reducing classical education down to the grammar, logic, and rhetoric stages. It's much,

00:10:01.860 much greater than that. Michael, you've been a teacher for a long time. Tell us a little bit

00:10:07.860 about, you know, your thoughts of why classical? And then I think, you know, you could even lead

00:10:12.940 us into why hybrid? Sure. Well, Brian is absolutely right with the methodology. And

00:10:20.160 just to be clear, I do think that the classical methodology does align closely with how God has

00:10:28.000 built us as humans, right? It does align with the fact that children at a young age are sponges,

00:10:33.420 and they can just absorb like nothing else, right? Like you said, Joel, by the time we're

00:10:37.060 teenagers who are ready to argue, right? So there is a sense where I believe that the classical

00:10:41.540 methodology does align very closely with the stages of development that God created within us.

00:10:48.020 However, if I were to talk why I think classical education is the superior method and philosophy,

00:10:56.240 it's what Brian briefly alluded to. It's the stated goals of classical education, which are to produce

00:11:02.400 adults, really, who are equipped and capable of living wise and virtuous lives. And when I look

00:11:10.840 at the world that we live in now, I remember hearing a story of some students at an Ivy League

00:11:19.080 school, I want to say Princeton, who were in an ethics class. And they were constantly harassing

00:11:26.580 this girl uh who was in their class and she could she was poor she was um there basically through

00:11:34.440 a scholarship that hadn't gifted to her they were very wealthy and they were getting a's in their

00:11:39.880 ethics classes and then coming out and utterly mistreating her right and she just was she could

00:11:45.800 not resolve the tension there of these young men who apparently were the cream of the crop according

00:11:52.320 to the education system, and yet had no ability to discern proper behavior, proper living,

00:11:58.480 but could write correct answers on the tests.

00:12:02.120 And so the stated goals for me of classical education to produce effective and capable

00:12:07.300 adults who can live in a wise and virtuous manner, and that means distinguishing, right?

00:12:13.780 Knowing what is wise, knowing what is virtuous, but not just knowing like those boys, but

00:12:19.380 also then with the self-discipline and the, the, the, the kind of the, the way that life has been

00:12:25.920 formulated, right? And, and in a school setting we, we can control kind of the catechesis of

00:12:34.140 students, right? And everything that we do, whether we realize it or not as parents, and this is

00:12:39.100 something we need to think about, everything that we do catechizes our children in one direction

00:12:43.960 or another. And everything that a school does catechizes children too. If we start the morning

00:12:49.660 with prayer, if we start a class with prayer, if there is recitation, singing, exuberance of joy

00:12:57.400 and dance and thankfulness to God, all of these things, the way we set up a school day will be

00:13:05.680 in some ways as instructive, as formational to students as the actual curriculum and text that

00:13:13.400 they're reading right and that's why when you mentioned the hybrid model what we mean there

00:13:17.440 is we're pursuing a model where students the younger students will attend school two days a

00:13:24.840 week and then the teachers will send work home it's not just three days off right it's they're

00:13:31.180 preparing work that the parents the mom the dad the younger kids maybe the mom um are actually

00:13:38.140 doing with them teaching them those are instructional days they're just not in the school

00:13:42.080 For the slightly older grades, it'll be three days a week.

00:13:46.420 And so when I think about catechesis and preparation for virtue and wisdom, I think this hits the best of both worlds.

00:13:53.500 Because you have the structure of a school where everyone is together acknowledging transcendent truth and joy and catechisms and recitations and all of those things.

00:14:04.860 And there's an excitement and also just a naturalness to the schedule when everyone around you is doing the same thing.

00:14:12.080 But then also going home and still being under the catechesis of parents, right? And so in my mind, I have a couple other things to say about the hybrid model, but I'll say those later on. But in my mind, the stated goals of wisdom and virtue are best met with classical education, and in particular, the hybrid model of classical education.

00:14:32.940 All right, I trust that you're enjoying this conversation,

00:14:35.380 but real quick before we continue,

00:14:36.860 there are three primary action points

00:14:39.040 that you need to consider.

00:14:40.760 Number one is this,

00:14:42.000 and I'm gonna be frank with this first one.

00:14:43.580 Some of you, you're called to move to Georgetown, Texas.

00:14:46.460 Not all of you, not even most of you, but some of you.

00:14:50.600 Now, for the record,

00:14:51.680 missionary is a perfectly biblical, legitimate category.

00:14:55.040 Some people are called to be missionaries

00:14:56.560 in deep, dark places,

00:14:58.880 shining the light of Christ in a difficult context.

00:15:02.300 but a lot of Christians are not called to be a missionary in that capital M missionary sense.

00:15:08.300 We're all called to do the work of an evangelist. We're all called to be missionaries

00:15:11.320 in organic daily life capacity, but not all of us are called to be behind enemy lines. Some of you,

00:15:17.700 you need to consider a tactical, temporary, momentary retreat so that you can link arms

00:15:24.760 with other Christians and form what we're attempting to do in Georgetown, Texas,

00:15:29.060 a juggernaut for the kingdom of God. Something that is pushing back against trash world and

00:15:34.920 clown world, causing the progressives and those who hate God to shriek. We don't want to just 0.98

00:15:41.360 survive. We want to win. Now, we have a three-prong approach, right? The beachhead, the tip of the

00:15:47.580 spear, is the church. Covenant Bible Church. Well on the way, in just a little over two years,

00:15:53.100 we've gone from 20 people in my living room to well over 200 people. We're hoping that this

00:15:57.700 church continues to grow by the grace of God and that it becomes a formidable opponent to the

00:16:02.520 kingdom of darkness. Secondly, media, entertainment, right response ministries continues to grow

00:16:10.500 exponentially. Third, not only do we need a church, not only do we need media, but we need

00:16:16.540 a school. That's St. George classical school. That's what we're working on right now. And by

00:16:21.600 God's grace, our goal is to start in the fall of 2024. We need students, right? A little, you know,

00:16:28.860 unknown secret, right? Keep it on the DL, but one of the main things that a school needs is students.

00:16:35.740 We have people in our church who plan on their children going to the school, my children included,

00:16:40.360 but we want to see more families, if God be so gracious, if he would be so kind, move here to be

00:16:46.260 a part of this church, to be a part of this endeavor, and for their children to be a part

00:16:50.120 of this school, St. George Classical. So one, some of you need to prayerfully, seriously consider

00:16:56.880 moving here. Number two, some of you are called simply to partner with us in prayer. And I don't

00:17:01.860 mean just saying, hey, I'm praying for you, but seriously praying. I mean, write it down, keep a

00:17:06.040 list daily. We need people praying that this Georgetown project, what we're doing with the

00:17:10.860 church and with Right Response and with the school, that it would be successful and especially

00:17:15.120 praying for the school. This is the latest addition, the third prong in this three-prong

00:17:20.120 approach to taking over a town for King Jesus. We need prayers for St. George Classical School.

00:17:27.360 So please pray. Lastly, money. Yeah, I know it's not comfortable. I know it's not. But we do need

00:17:35.300 donations. We want the school to be self-funded. We want it to be viable. We have a plan, a fiscal

00:17:40.160 plan to be viable within our second or at latest our third year. However, every single venture

00:17:47.780 requires certain initial capital. And so we're praying that God would move on the hearts of

00:17:53.240 some of you Christians who believe in the importance of raising up our children in the

00:17:57.720 fear and nurture of the Lord to contribute to that end. If you want to do so, if you feel called to

00:18:04.320 do so, number one, we're incredibly grateful and practically the way to carry that out is to go to

00:18:09.220 our website, stgeorgeclassical.org. Saint is not spelled out, so don't do S-A-I-N-T. Instead,

00:18:18.020 the abbreviation S-T, stgeorgeclassical.org. Right there on the homepage, click the button,

00:18:26.600 donate. You can't miss it. And from the bottom of my heart, I'm grateful, incredibly grateful

00:18:33.080 for your generosity. Okay, back to the show. I'm going to talk about the pros. Why don't we

00:18:38.940 contrasted to other yeah yeah contrasted to the five days a week and then also to to zero days

00:18:45.160 a week homeschooling yeah sure yeah sure i think that that's helpful so let's start with homeschooling

00:18:48.800 so i'll go on record right now uh saying that i would love to not have 80 of everyone who follows

00:18:57.340 me online uh unsubscribe and hate me so that's actually not my my chief motivation uh first and

00:19:04.700 foremost, I would love to honor the Word of God. And in honoring the Word of God, but also not

00:19:09.700 aggravating and offending unnecessarily a bunch of people who follow me who are

00:19:14.460 truly wonderful saints, I'll start by saying this. If you homeschool your child and they go to school

00:19:21.620 in a formal setting zero days a week, you are not doing anything that is sinful.

00:19:27.140 We would all affirm that. Homeschool is wonderful. Now, it can be like anything. It can be done

00:19:32.060 poorly, but it can also be done very well for the good of the children and for the glory of God.

00:19:37.800 And we know this from Scripture. And we know this from, you know, for instance, Ephesians 6. I think,

00:19:42.300 you know, fathers, I think it's Ephesians 6, 4. Fathers, do not exasperate your sons. And, you

00:19:48.120 know, children is there, but there's a particular emphasis on sons. And I don't think that that's

00:19:55.120 a coincidence. Fathers, do not exasperate your sons, but rather train them up in the nurture and

00:20:01.720 And the fear and the nurture of the Lord, the paideia, the curriculum, it's something that

00:20:07.040 you're swimming in. It's like an ocean. It's your environment. It's all-encompassing. You're

00:20:13.380 emerged in this paideia, this curriculum, this sea of the Lord, the things of the Lord,

00:20:20.280 all truth being God's truth. And it doesn't just mean Bible verses, but truth about the stars and

00:20:25.980 truth about mathematics and all these different things that ultimately all truth is God's truth

00:20:31.340 that belongs to the Lord. So fathers have this chief obligation to do this. But here's the thing.

00:20:38.340 You know, I remember wrestling with that and thinking, well, you know, I'll just say,

00:20:43.360 Vodibachum. Love Vodibachum. I mean, really love Vodibachum. Like I was actually talking to

00:20:49.160 one of the guys who works with Vodibachum's ministries last night and trying to get Vodibachum

00:20:55.200 to speak at one of our future conferences. So do not hear me saying anything negative about

00:21:00.460 Vodibakam, but he is very adamant about homeschool and homeschool only. And he would, you know,

00:21:07.400 he would hang his hat on Ephesians 6, 4 and other verses. I'm not saying that he only has one verse

00:21:13.320 to back up his claims, but that would be a pinnacle verse. And it's fathers, it's fathers,

00:21:19.840 it's fathers. But the reality is at the end of the day, there's so much. So a father, the chief,

00:21:25.720 two chief roles of a father's protection and provision. And then when you think of mothers,

00:21:31.160 there's nurturing and child rearing and these kinds of things, taking a house and making it a 0.79

00:21:36.900 home, you know, and both fathers and mothers, they work, but the mother primarily is working

00:21:41.100 in the home. It's work and the father's working out of the home and those kinds of things.

00:21:45.480 But if we're honest, there's so much that we outsource. There's so much that we outsource.

00:21:52.320 So if a father is, you know, he's like, well, it's my obligation, my moral obligation under

00:21:58.800 God.

00:21:59.500 Well, but at the end of the day, how many fathers are spending eight hours Monday through

00:22:04.320 Friday teaching their kids that they can't, they're working.

00:22:07.500 And rightfully so, that is honoring to the Lord.

00:22:10.640 They're out of the home for the most part, working a job in order to provide financially

00:22:15.200 for the household.

00:22:16.580 So who's really homeschooling? 0.97

00:22:18.360 It's mom.

00:22:19.160 So the father's already outsourcing to mom.

00:22:21.100 And you might say, well, yeah, but it's outsourcing, but it's still keeping it in the family.

00:22:24.940 I'm outsourcing to mom, not to, you know, somebody else who's outside of our household.

00:22:29.400 Okay, but now let's talk about mom. 0.95

00:22:31.360 What curriculum is she using? 0.85

00:22:33.360 What books are she using?

00:22:34.480 Did she write them?

00:22:35.860 Did he write them?

00:22:37.160 Or are they trusting the minds of someone else who wrote this curriculum that they're

00:22:41.500 using on a daily basis with, I mean, let's just be honest, you know, and even when it

00:22:46.040 comes to cooking and those kinds of things and providing a meal, is mom out in the forest

00:22:50.920 picking berries, you know, or like, is everything grown on your homestead, you know, or are you like

00:22:56.380 most homesteaders, you're supplementing your grocery bill by about 50 to $75 a month and the

00:23:01.720 rest you're buying at HEB. Let's just, you know, let's just be honest. Like we don't live on farms.

00:23:06.120 We just don't. And we don't live in the woods and we're not hunter gatherers. We are outsourcing

00:23:10.340 these things. So we're outsourcing our food, you know, and we need to be careful and wise about

00:23:15.220 that. There are foolish ways to do it. And we're outsourcing our clothing. Very few people are 0.82

00:23:19.420 sewing all their clothes, or very few of us are cobblers and making our own shoes. And we look

00:23:24.660 at the old days, and yes, we live in trash world, clown world, the regime, all these things. The 0.98

00:23:29.800 world hates us, and Jesus said it would. And we look at that, and sometimes I think we're tempted

00:23:34.740 to say, oh, I wish we could go back to the good old days. But Ecclesiastes literally addresses

00:23:38.780 that explicitly. It says, do not say that the days of old were better than these. We want to

00:23:44.920 be generalist, and that gets back to the classical education, but to an extent. I think we have to

00:23:49.820 recognize that we want a wide breadth of virtue and knowledge when it comes to our education,

00:23:55.160 our formation, but we don't want to be generalist necessarily in the sense that we make our own

00:24:01.000 shoes, we sew our own pants, we grow our own food, that every single thing, and that's how people

00:24:06.020 live for a very, very long time, but division of labor is a blessing of Christendom. It is actually

00:24:12.760 a post-millennial implementation. It's the fruit of the gospel of Jesus Christ taking root

00:24:20.060 and bursting forth. This idea that specialization, what I'm saying is specializing, there's such a

00:24:27.760 thing as crony capitalism. There is such a thing as just you do one piece of the widget on the

00:24:31.780 conveyor belt and it's meaningless and it can go wrong. But to demonize specialization and

00:24:38.500 you know, this division of labor entirely, I think, is naive and misplaced. We all do that,

00:24:45.880 and it's not detrimental. That's inherently, it's not sinful. Inherently, that is, I think,

00:24:51.740 a blessing of Christ and the gospel going forth, the church growing, Christendom being firmly

00:24:57.500 established. It is a blessing that I can go to somebody who makes clothes well, and that I don't

00:25:03.120 have to make them myself. It's a blessing that we can go to a store and purchase our food,

00:25:07.700 And it likewise is a blessing that my children will learn first and foremost from me, but

00:25:14.600 also from other brilliant minds who love Christ, and that my children hopefully will stand

00:25:20.560 on my shoulders and be better than me.

00:25:23.880 Amen.

00:25:25.280 Yeah, we were, God built us to live in community.

00:25:28.020 And in community, we benefit from one another's unique talents and specialties and education.

00:25:36.460 we were never meant to

00:25:38.600 for us to kind of go back to the basics

00:25:40.920 where we're fully homesteading

00:25:43.120 and providing all of our stuff

00:25:44.220 is making us slaves to survival

00:25:46.100 we don't have any

00:25:47.740 we wouldn't have any time

00:25:48.960 we would do things terribly inefficiently

00:25:51.360 and God never intended for that

00:25:54.480 so yeah

00:25:56.840 I mean I completely agree

00:25:59.080 and that naturally bears itself out

00:26:01.340 in education

00:26:02.100 particularly as you get to

00:26:03.600 the higher and higher subjects

00:26:05.080 it's more and more complicated

00:26:06.240 subjects where, uh, where it becomes obvious that, you know, we're surpassing, you know,

00:26:12.040 maybe if the parent was exposed to this kind of education, it was two decades ago and they

00:26:17.260 can't remember it. So, um, there's even just a natural, uh, deferral to X, you know, more and

00:26:25.800 more experts as time goes on. So it just bears itself out. A terrible thing happened when I

00:26:30.700 finished the 10th grade, I was informed reliably that I did not have to take any more math classes

00:26:37.480 to graduate. And so I didn't. I did a one act play theater as a whole class all year long,

00:26:47.020 marching band, and also jazz band. And then I had to take English. That was it. That was my

00:26:53.620 high school year was those four classes. And then I would break for lunch. And then I did

00:26:57.480 deca is what it was called at the time in texas i don't even know if it's still a thing it makes

00:27:01.480 me think of like 4h and those kind of but deca and it was basically um you could spend the second

00:27:07.100 half of the day working and it wasn't the worst thing in the world i think for a lot of people

00:27:11.980 that made sense because not everybody's going to be an engineer you know not everybody's going to 1.00

00:27:16.540 be a rocket surgeon right that's that's the phrase a rocket wait a second he's as dumb as a bag of 0.98

00:27:22.880 rocks, you know, but like not everybody's going to do this. So not everybody's going to do those 0.98

00:27:27.980 things. And I think that it actually, you know, could be really great for a lot of people,

00:27:32.800 but for myself, and I'm not trying to boast here or anything like that, because I'm not the

00:27:38.380 sharpest tool in the shed. But I think even for me, as someone who's relatively average and a lot

00:27:44.320 of, you know, intellectual capacity and those kinds of things, there are a lot of guys who are

00:27:47.640 more gifted and intelligent than me. But even for me, I think it was selling out. I think I probably

00:27:53.820 should have been taking more classes, learning more things. For instance, never took trigonometry.

00:27:58.900 So when my kids get to that point, I would really like them to learn from someone else.

00:28:05.880 Now, again, that's not a cop-out because do I believe that a father has it in him as a human

00:28:12.540 being made in the image of God who loves his children, loves the Lord, to work his nine-to-five

00:28:17.440 and over time and all these kinds of things, be faithful in the local church, be a good husband,

00:28:21.500 a good father, and stay up late and learn trigonometry so that he can teach his 15,

00:28:26.920 16-year-old. Yeah, I think that's possible. But not everybody can do that. Use Votie Bauckham

00:28:33.860 again as an example. Even he personally, he says, and we're going to get into this in a moment,

00:28:38.360 but with the sons, with his sons in particular, once I think it's age 13, but by the time they

00:28:44.620 get to age 13, they're no longer going to be just learning at home with mom because

00:28:49.860 a 13-year-old boy who has gone through puberty, who's now in many ways, a young man, not an adult

00:28:55.320 man, he still needs shaping and formation, but a young man, he doesn't need to spend 24 hours a

00:29:01.520 day with mom. He just doesn't. So what Voti does is his sons, they now fall underneath his purview.

00:29:07.960 he is their primary educator. Now, here's the thing. That's great. That's a great model.

00:29:12.860 But not everybody's Vodibakum. One, in regards to his brilliance and intellectual capacity,

00:29:19.680 he's a really genuinely intelligent man. But beyond that, in terms of the flexibility of

00:29:25.100 his schedule, and that's not to say that he's sitting around all day, the guy's a busy guy,

00:29:28.720 but not everybody can take their kid into Tesla to work with him if that happens to be their

00:29:35.320 vocation. Whereas Vodibakam, he can take that child on the plane, his older son, to fly with

00:29:40.880 him to go speak at a conference or to do this or to do that. He can actually include his sons in

00:29:46.280 his nine to five daily vocation in a way that a lot of other men with their vocations can't,

00:29:51.860 they just can't. And so we would like to think that whatever method and also curriculum,

00:29:58.320 that the larger picture of education, part of our heart in this with a hybrid model,

00:30:02.680 with it being classical and Christian,

00:30:07.280 but not only Christian, the classical Christian.

00:30:10.340 Our thought in this is we want to have education

00:30:12.560 that we believe across the board

00:30:15.000 would be universally beneficial for any student,

00:30:18.920 that any student would thrive in that context.

00:30:22.980 Right, Brian?

00:30:24.660 Yeah, I think that, you know, you kind of said it.

00:30:28.520 It goes to the idea-

00:30:30.080 And any parent would thrive too, I guess is my point.

00:30:31.800 Yes, so there are pros and cons to each situation, and it isn't a one-size-fits-all.

00:30:38.640 Homeschooling is the best option for some families.

00:30:43.140 Even five-day-a-week is the best option for some families.

00:30:48.060 But we believe that the collaborative model, the hybrid model, is a very—and there are even—oops, I'm knocking the mic.

00:30:57.820 uh there's even one day even local one day classical conversation there's just everything

00:31:03.200 all over the spectrum uh but but i really do believe in the collaborative model because of

00:31:10.200 the it has a lot of the strengths of the homeschooling where the parents can influence

00:31:14.580 the children uh where the whole family is really lifted up in education because

00:31:19.140 very few of us had a classical education had exposure to this this kind of education and

00:31:25.940 it's not too late. You know, it is not something that's too late. You can even start now. And

00:31:31.980 just one kind of side point that I should have said earlier, you'll see some, maybe some people,

00:31:40.140 Christian, well-meaning Christian educators, you know, with this challenge of, okay, how do you

00:31:46.280 make math Christian? Well, maybe you say there were 300 Israelites against 400 Philistines,

00:31:53.360 How many more? And that's not quite the correct worldview. Math is the language by which God

00:32:02.680 created the universe. And so it's everywhere. Everything, all truth is God's truth. It reveals

00:32:10.060 to us about God. That's what it says in Romans. That's why the Gentiles are without excuse,

00:32:15.460 because the entire universe tells us about God. 1.00

00:32:19.340 And even what's happened with much of the Christian world 0.95

00:32:25.520 is that they've taken maybe a little bit,

00:32:29.800 they've unfortunately been a little bit too influenced

00:32:31.700 by the sacred-secular divide,

00:32:33.780 and they look at maybe more heavily

00:32:36.820 upon the special revelation, divine revelation,

00:32:41.740 and miss the natural revelation,

00:32:44.980 which is all around us, which tells you about God. You know, you learn about math, you learn

00:32:49.980 about physics, and you learn something about God. And that is missed by far many to Christians,

00:32:55.740 tragically. Yep, absolutely. Michael, thoughts? Well, this might lead us into the discussion

00:33:03.060 about boys, but... Yeah, let's go there. One of the things, Joel, as you were talking,

00:33:08.020 that i was thinking about is um there is an appropriateness to being in a classroom with

00:33:17.200 other kids and just kind of seeing how you measure up right right kind of seeing especially for boys

00:33:24.300 that's why it's going to take us into the boys there is a good sense where a boy will look around

00:33:29.940 at the other boys and say that guy's a lot better at latin or math or you know wrestling or whatever

00:33:37.580 than i am and then that boy has to make a choice am i okay being a little lower on the totem pole

00:33:44.380 and that kind of sorting is actually not bad either right you're gonna be in a church with

00:33:48.760 elders over you you're gonna be in a job with a boss over you have to know how to not have to be

00:33:52.640 the top dog not everybody's gonna be first place in everything but also there's a sense where some

00:33:57.140 boys are gonna say no way i'm i'm gonna hit the top there right right and there's a certain ambition

00:34:03.380 that is brought out when students study together

00:34:07.320 and especially boys study together.

00:34:09.620 And it's kind of the pecking order or the pack

00:34:12.660 and encouraging boys to be able to say,

00:34:15.900 look, you feel like you're at the middle

00:34:18.440 or at the bottom of the wrong. 0.97

00:34:19.620 And maybe that's objectively true.

00:34:21.400 Parents are coming alongside and hopefully not saying, 0.76

00:34:25.020 oh yeah, it's just your lot to be a doormat 0.51

00:34:26.760 the whole rest of your life.

00:34:27.720 No, like if you want to excel, put in the work.

00:34:31.780 Right. I can't tell you how many times in my career as a teacher I've seen students who are motivated by the fact that I look around my classroom and everyone else seems to get it.

00:34:44.420 And I'm not objectively dumber than they are. Right. What do I need to do? And they put in the work and maybe it does require more work for them than the kid sitting next to them. Right. Right. 0.54

00:34:55.200 But that's also fantastic to put in the necessary work to achieve a goal.

00:35:01.000 And some people will say, well, no, we're supposed to be trained in humility, and everyone

00:35:06.040 is better than me.

00:35:07.060 Consider other people's needs is more important than my own. 0.85

00:35:10.440 And that's true, right?

00:35:12.420 But that does not mean that God does not call us to excel.

00:35:15.680 And I think of the verse, I quote this to my students at least once a week and sometimes

00:35:19.900 more whatever in ecclesiastes whatever your hand finds to do do with all your might amen right and

00:35:26.900 so there's a sense where being in a classroom in the hybrid model will facilitate that sense of

00:35:32.580 godly competition godly competition yeah that's but also they're still coming the on to the

00:35:36.960 oversight of parents parents are really monitoring that closely and and hopefully speaking into that

00:35:42.060 no that's really good and with that that better versus you know considering other people's needs

00:35:47.380 is more important. So you said like, well, everybody's just better than me. That I think

00:35:51.980 is often so misinterpreted and misunderstood, but it's Philippians, I believe it's Philippians 2,

00:35:59.020 3, do nothing from selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, count others as more,

00:36:05.280 and here's the word, significant, which doesn't mean ontologically superior. It doesn't mean

00:36:12.060 in the objective sense that you're better or faster or smarter, but more significant.

00:36:17.720 A mother would do this with their toddler. It's not because-

00:36:20.660 Christ did this with us.

00:36:21.420 That's right.

00:36:22.000 We are not ontologically superior.

00:36:23.220 Exactly. We're not superior to Christ. And a toddler is not superior to, it's full-grown

00:36:29.220 mother. It's not like, oh, well, you know, the toddler, I'm going to take care of the

00:36:32.820 toddler because the toddler is smarter than me and works harder than me. And no, the toddler

00:36:37.220 contributes nothing, nothing to the household, but the toddler is ours. And we love the toddler.

00:36:42.960 And because of their status in life and our duties before God, we're counting the toddler

00:36:48.120 not better than me, but more significant than me. And so all that being said, we can count others

00:36:54.620 more significant than ourselves in terms of our preference of others when it comes to their needs,

00:37:00.360 our compassion, our consideration. And none of that flies in the face or directly contradicts

00:37:06.100 at all godly competition you can do like those i i just i've come to believe that those two things

00:37:12.400 are not at odds that a young man can truly consider others as more significant than himself

00:37:17.880 and then in his heart of hearts with humility before god and man say i'm gonna beat you yes

00:37:24.960 and that's great i've got a anecdote or well go for it um that maybe is a little less noble

00:37:33.080 reflection of what you're saying. But yeah, my wife, Stephanie, and actually it's, it's hard to

00:37:38.860 even talk about this without talking about her because she's been looking at this, this mission

00:37:43.400 field of education for so many years. And, uh, you know, it was really her, um, just steadfastness

00:37:52.760 and just saying, this is so important. This mission field of education. How many years has

00:37:57.440 she's been involved in classical education uh since our oldest went to kindergarten so

00:38:03.140 oh i don't know 16 16 years and she's about maybe 15 years but she's also been on staff

00:38:10.880 with certain schools yes yeah she spent uh in various capacities curriculum coordinator

00:38:16.900 um yeah she's designed uh curriculum or put together curriculum she's taught latin she's

00:38:23.400 taught other just um grammar school grades and we plan on hiring her as our latin teacher right

00:38:28.960 she's going to do what she can to try and uh just get the just get the beginning going but and then

00:38:37.700 real quick i i do want to come back to you but michael i you know and this is my fault because

00:38:41.520 i you know i didn't give you guys a chance to introduce yourself and i insisted that it was

00:38:45.460 not necessary in the beginning because i wanted people to listen and not you know let's get right

00:38:48.740 to the meet. But real quick, you said that when you teach earlier, just in passing, you said,

00:38:54.080 now when I teach my students. So real quick, just so our audience knows, where do you teach right

00:38:58.160 now? I teach for Logos Online School. And Logos is? It's an online school associated with the

00:39:05.460 Moscow crew. Right. That's the school that Doug started, right? It is. Yep. Now the online school

00:39:10.960 is technically a separate legal entity than the brick and mortar school that was formed. But yeah,

00:39:16.800 I teach for Logos Online School, so.

00:39:19.520 Yeah, and I think it's worth mentioning,

00:39:21.680 you know, just with both of you guys,

00:39:23.760 with Stephanie, your wife, with you, Brian,

00:39:25.560 and then with you, Michael,

00:39:26.860 just so that people know,

00:39:28.640 it's not just because, hey, classical education,

00:39:32.220 it's hip, it's up and coming, you know,

00:39:33.780 people are doing it, it's the cool thing to do,

00:39:35.440 you know, but the reason why we're doing this

00:39:37.920 is because I didn't, just for the record,

00:39:40.480 I didn't want to do this.

00:39:41.760 It's true.

00:39:42.420 Because it's a lot of work.

00:39:43.660 My thought was, I'm gonna plant a church,

00:39:45.340 you know, I'm going to be doing podcasts and preaching sermons and counseling people and

00:39:49.220 shepherding. And, you know, there's, there's already, there's not a lot, but there are a

00:39:53.240 couple classical schools, you know, in our general area. And we could just do that. But the reason

00:40:00.100 why I surrendered is because the Lord and his providence brought people to our church that

00:40:06.680 had this profound passion and say, no, like we, we want to start something because not to

00:40:12.500 disparage these other schools. They're doing some really great things, but we do actually have

00:40:16.340 a unique vision that we think is missing and needed. And that's, you know, Brian and Stephanie,

00:40:22.840 Michael, your wife, Rebecca, you guys came. Yeah, but we have to put the credit where it's due. And

00:40:28.400 Brian, you might not appreciate this, but I have not seen passion for starting a classical,

00:40:34.780 an intentional classical school, not even just a school, but trying to create a community that's

00:40:40.660 unique and wholesome for students, like I've seen with the Hensleys. I mean, this is literally

00:40:45.720 the project of almost a decade for them, if I remember the history correctly. And so while

00:40:51.800 we've come along and I'm involved in the world, there is so much passion in that household for

00:40:58.660 this mission. And it's supernatural in the sense that, you guys don't know this, but Brian,

00:41:04.700 when he first came to our church, he had completely black beard and hair. And then he was like,

00:41:10.660 I feel called to start a classical school.

00:41:12.920 And God was like, boom, here's the gray hair.

00:41:15.440 At the end of the day, what qualifies you, you know, we talked about background.

00:41:18.600 So I paused it to say, let's talk about background and, you know, those kinds of things as credentials.

00:41:22.280 Why are you qualified to do what you're doing?

00:41:24.180 But the real reason that Brian is qualified to be the headmaster is because between the three of us, I'm getting there a little bit with the beard.

00:41:30.900 Michael, you've got a little bit of gray, but Brian, you have the most gray.

00:41:33.800 Therefore, it's kind of like a Dumbledore kind of situation.

00:41:36.860 You are rightfully the headmaster.

00:41:38.520 I think that's how it works.

00:41:39.600 Well, and just a minor point, there is a distinction between head of school and headmaster.

00:41:48.060 Headmaster typically will teach and typically will be very involved in the operations side.

00:41:55.000 Whereas my involvement in operations will be limited.

00:41:59.080 It would be more strategic outside of my normal profession and vocation.

00:42:05.900 So I really want to see it get off the ground.

00:42:07.780 I really want to be involved or, you know, like we all do in the design and making sure

00:42:13.360 that it's successful, but we're going to have people like Stephanie and Lord willing, God

00:42:20.580 will bring to us a good, capable principle that can be just kind of the boots on the

00:42:27.540 ground.

00:42:28.180 I mean, I will be there, but it won't be my nine to five, nine to five vocation.

00:42:36.460 You plan to be there on site because your vocation allows you to do remote. So for the most part, you'll be on site and offering guidance to those kinds of things. But that kind of brings back the, you know, the Brian Stephanie team, you know, that, that I think is a great benefit that Brian would be so head of school, not headmaster. That's what you're saying.

00:42:52.300 so brian would be head of school and offering that male like back to the whole boys thing and

00:42:57.480 boys needing men and those offering you know that male guidance leadership influence but then 0.99

00:43:03.380 stephanie thriving where she thrives with curriculum and those kinds of things and then

00:43:07.100 eventually kind of a three-prong approach with the head of school with brian stephanie would be

00:43:12.600 the director director of classical uh director okay director of classical education and then

00:43:18.160 addition to that hopefully by year two or three we're looking at maybe a principal in addition

00:43:23.580 is that what you're saying maybe maybe even year one we'll see what the lord because a lot of this

00:43:27.820 depends on how many students we get and enrollment is going to drive some of these uh this internal

00:43:33.360 structure and so we just don't quite know yet so you never know i'm i'm much more optimistic

00:43:38.700 than stephan you are very optimistic i'm thinking you know who wouldn't want this who wouldn't and

00:43:43.220 we're going to have 7,000 students. We're going to have so much fun too. It's going to be

00:43:46.880 really good academics and a lot of fun. We're going to, a lot of joy. We should talk about

00:43:51.900 the fun. Let's talk about it. But real quick, just so you know, my involvement. So pastoring,

00:43:56.720 you know, Brian and Michael and families in the church, and many of those families would probably

00:44:01.040 be the first, you know, their children, the first students that enroll in the school.

00:44:05.440 But then also we do plan for the men in our church, primarily the elders. And so me being,

00:44:10.920 you know, one of those participating in addition with Brian for chapel and things like that. We

00:44:17.200 would like to have primarily a male-led chapel in the mornings with catechisms and songs. And so,

00:44:24.960 you know, we've talked a little bit about the quadrivium and the trivium and those kinds of

00:44:28.840 things. And there's obviously just mountains more that could be said, but getting to some of the

00:44:33.900 fun stuff brian has some really cool vision of like being a singing school a dancing school a

00:44:41.420 horse riding school maybe like you want to talk about some of that uh sure well we we've been

00:44:47.020 pretty inspired we've seen other schools and how other schools this is one benefit to coming uh

00:44:51.800 along a little bit later because really these these there were three schools that started about

00:44:57.000 1980 or 1981 if memory serves me correctly and uh log i have such a hard time calling it

00:45:03.820 i agree i'm gonna go logo i agree they pronounce it incorrectly yeah they do no i don't know that's

00:45:09.260 great i'm like whatever kind of it's a little embarrassing that's incorrectly isn't this a

00:45:15.260 classical school yeah so um anyway it's it's now what since we're about 40 years in four decades in

00:45:24.080 and there there's so many lessons learned uh that now it's kind of like uh we we've if you've ever

00:45:30.900 designed a home or just toured model homes. You can tour all of these schools and see what works

00:45:36.820 and what doesn't work. And you can kind of pick various elements. Well, there is a Geneva school,

00:45:42.060 which is one of the oldest schools in Monroe or West Monroe, Louisiana. And they put on a singing

00:45:48.000 camp every summer, Jubilate Deo. I don't get any promotion for this. No, it's a really

00:45:57.040 really incredible program what they have there. And they actually have some people coming even

00:46:01.820 down from Moscow to help. But it's just so impressive. And they really emphasize the

00:46:09.180 singing aspect. It's one of the main things that we're called to do. We're called to sing to the

00:46:15.020 Lord. So it's not just a school thing. It is a life thing. It's a Christian thing. It's a worship

00:46:20.300 thing. And so it needs to be natural to all of us. And it really brings together and enriches

00:46:26.440 the culture it lifts up our you know our spirits it has us bonded to one another so you know we

00:46:33.340 really really believe in that there will be singing in the morning singing at lunch you know

00:46:38.800 singing just every every excuse that we can we can have and you also you learn a lot and we're

00:46:44.820 not singing kumbaya no no no so let's talk like real quick with the singing we're talking about

00:46:49.360 psalms put to meter. We're talking about old, timeless hymns, and we're talking about ideally

00:46:56.640 learning to sing in parts. Yes, definitely. But there is something to be said for just the

00:47:04.260 typical songs, the typical kid songs. It is not exclusively complicated or liturgical. You do

00:47:13.180 learn in steps and in phases. So, uh, there is reason to it and there's nothing wrong with the

00:47:20.240 joys of a simple child tune. So we're, you know, we're going to, we're going to have it all.

00:47:25.680 Cool. That's awesome. Real quick. We should talk about the horses and then, you know what? We

00:47:31.460 probably should have kicked off with this, but we should just talk about the name and the meaning

00:47:37.660 of the name of the school. Cause that's really valuable. But first, you know, cause it kind of

00:47:42.540 works towards the name, you know, I, I picture a knight riding on a horse. So this is not a

00:47:48.440 guarantee, but we're hoping that perhaps, and we actually have a little bit of a, well, you have a

00:47:54.940 bit of a connection. Yeah. I happen to know some people that have 60 acres and numerous Andalusian

00:48:03.560 horses and they are willing they're uh i may be related to them they're uh willing to to have us

00:48:14.300 have school functions and some kind of program or we may have uh riding clinics and these are

00:48:21.920 top shell i mean i don't know what you would necessarily call it but these are these are

00:48:27.120 the fancier yeah yeah you said illusion horse and illusion and illusion and illusion horses

00:48:32.960 now they're not all andalusian but yeah but they're spanish horses wow uh actually my

00:48:38.940 youngest daughter emily is um competing in the nationals this weekend on an andalusian show

00:48:48.460 so we're gonna i asked if we could put a saint george blazer on her during the competition

00:48:53.740 and they said no you can't have any you know you can't have any um advertising but she can wear it 0.86

00:49:00.640 while she's walking around so as soon as she gets off that horse we're going to put the saint george 0.99

00:49:04.900 classical blazer on her see if we can't get some um a little bit of a little bit of advertising but

00:49:09.940 that's in fort worth um so it's not as though we're it'll be more for promotional material than

00:49:15.980 than actually you know finding right students yeah yeah so okay so singing and we'll have chapel

00:49:22.920 and I feel like, you know,

00:49:24.880 you really don't need to be sold any more

00:49:26.580 than just to know that Joel Webb

00:49:28.360 and we'll be doing some chapels

00:49:29.700 and, you know, just yelling at your kids,

00:49:32.020 the word of God, I won't be.

00:49:34.680 You know, but then the horses,

00:49:36.360 you know, that's a cherry on top.

00:49:38.060 And, but that does lead us to,

00:49:39.580 you know, you've already said,

00:49:41.220 you know, that the name of the school

00:49:42.680 would be St. George.

00:49:44.420 Can you talk, you and Michael both,

00:49:46.700 but a little bit about the meaning.

00:49:47.400 Are we Protestants, Brian?

00:49:49.540 Yeah, it just seems so Catholic.

00:49:51.300 Yeah.

00:49:51.500 Well, the word saint, it starts to scare the Protestant a little bit.

00:49:55.700 This may need to go on our Frequently Asked Questions page. 0.53

00:49:57.840 Yeah, it might.

00:49:58.660 Why St. George? Are you Catholic?

00:50:01.300 No, we're not Catholic.

00:50:03.500 St. George, I mean, I can tell the history.

00:50:06.120 Yeah, go for it.

00:50:07.560 Well, maybe not to the date, but he was a Roman in the army,

00:50:15.240 I think a Diocletian, I believe, who ultimately was martyred for his faith.

00:50:23.160 Now, the legend of St. George and the Dragon is a little bit separate.

00:50:27.320 There's some question as to how historical it is, but the known history is that he was

00:50:33.480 a, I think, fourth century martyr.

00:50:37.060 And I didn't know anything or very little about St. George and certainly how ubiquitous

00:50:45.220 that he is in our society until I just started learning.

00:50:50.580 You know, we have this St. George and the Dragon book.

00:50:52.800 There's, you can, if you just Google it, you can just, so much comes up.

00:50:57.120 But there's a nice kid's book.

00:50:59.440 There are multiple versions of it, which kind of tells the story.

00:51:02.480 I do recommend it.

00:51:04.840 But he was martyred.

00:51:09.500 And in doing so, at some point in the Middle Ages, I believe, numerous European countries adopted him as the patron saint.

00:51:18.840 And anywhere where you pretty much see a red cross on a white flag or any variation of that, even the flag of England, it's got two crosses on it, transposed, one kind of in an X form and one the St. George cross.

00:51:33.920 It's everywhere.

00:51:34.840 so anywhere where you see either a white flag with a red cross or a red flag with a white cross

00:51:40.040 it's probably a reference to saint george now the legend of saint george is that uh it's somewhat

00:51:47.900 similar to the perseus and andromeda story but uh saint george which everyone knows yeah yeah of

00:51:54.220 course just watch class of the titans okay okay then i do i do know it yeah there you go so uh he

00:52:01.740 was traveling along well there was there was a city a village that was tormented by a dragon

00:52:07.000 and uh i believe at first and there there are other very you know whenever you get into these

00:52:11.920 myths and fables there are all sorts of variations to it but i think the most common one was they

00:52:17.460 they were sacrificing uh grain and livestock and after some time the dragon wasn't satisfied with

00:52:23.260 that he wanted human sacrifices they started drawing lots and they would uh sacrifice their

00:52:29.400 their townspeople to this dragon that would suffice for a while. Eventually, the princess,

00:52:37.620 her lot came up and she was going to be sacrificed. And about this time, St. George comes across

00:52:45.280 this crying maiden and this townspeople that are in distraught of this situation.

00:52:50.720 and to make a long story short, he challenges the, well, he goes and pursues the dragon

00:52:59.240 and some variations have just multiple, multiple encounters with the dragon, but his eventual

00:53:07.200 persistence and through the sovereignty of God, he does defeat the dragon. And in doing so,

00:53:14.460 He basically, he not only frees the townspeople of this beast, this terror, but all the townspeople actually convert after this to Christianity.

00:53:24.780 They were pagan before then.

00:53:26.340 So it's a very timely, it's a very timely character.

00:53:31.580 And what we see with the lot, you know, again, this is not to disparage any other school names, but many names are abstract and they're a little bit harder to get behind.

00:53:41.020 But, you know, you put a knight out there and a princess out there, and people can really visualize it.

00:53:46.500 Kids can get behind it.

00:53:48.180 You know, you see this imagery of courage, which we just so desperately need now in this age.

00:53:55.160 One of the things that sold me on the name is when I, you know, started, you know, you said, hey, I think this is the name that we would like to have.

00:54:01.720 And so, you know, I got a book, or I think you actually might have given it to me.

00:54:06.200 I can't remember.

00:54:06.860 I think you gave it to me.

00:54:07.820 And so we started reading it to our girls.

00:54:09.460 and um you know my son is one so he's you know you try to do books with it he loves absolutely

00:54:15.640 loves it he can recite it from memory uh in latin no but uh no but our girls they they love the book

00:54:22.940 um our girls we have six four and three yeah that's right six four and three are their ages

00:54:29.060 and so reading the book and one of the things that struck me you know you said in the sovereignty of

00:54:33.160 god and just to to just flesh that out a little bit more um the beauty of it is it's it's not

00:54:39.060 just your you know your cookie cutter simple knight goes up and beats a dragon story it's uh

00:54:47.020 knight goes up against one of the fiercest and largest dragons in all the land and he gets his

00:54:52.460 butt kicked that's like that's the beauty of the story is that this dragon is insurmountable uh to

00:54:59.140 all knights and it's not because saint george is puny he is he is a well you know equipped knight

00:55:04.620 But he's far outmatched by this dragon, and the dragon deals to, you know, St. George

00:55:12.200 a mortal wound, and he falls, you know, and there's, like you said, many variations where

00:55:16.720 there's multiple different battles, like not just some have like two battles and some have

00:55:20.760 even more, but I think on one occasion he falls into this river, and the river in the

00:55:26.600 providence of God, the water in this particular river, in this particular place has healing

00:55:30.920 properties that work towards his reviving.

00:55:33.680 And then, you know, he falls underneath this tree and the tree, you know, has a certain

00:55:37.500 fruit, you know, or sap or something that, you know, again, is able to revive.

00:55:41.280 And then not only that, but the damsel that he's seeking to save, she's integral also.

00:55:45.980 So she's not fighting the dragon.

00:55:47.460 This isn't Marvel where we make a woman, you know, you know, able to bench 300 pounds. 1.00

00:55:51.340 And no, she is a woman and rightfully so in a God fearing way. 1.00

00:55:55.900 But she's not sitting on the sidelines. 0.74

00:55:58.220 She's involved.

00:55:58.960 She's not picking up the sword and slaying the dragon herself, but she's coming alongside

00:56:02.580 And it's the persistent, her nursing the night back to health, she would find him in her prayers, praying and interceding and caring for him and nurturing.

00:56:11.420 And every time the night is miraculously, providentially and nurturing by the damsel and her accompaniment brought back to health, instead of taking his life and saying, I should be dead and praise God I'm alive and I'm going to go live the life that I now have.

00:56:30.140 instead of that he gets back and he goes and faces the dragon again and eventually he kills

00:56:36.220 the dragon but even before he lays the death blow that the dragon I imagine you know this isn't

00:56:41.020 necessarily spelled out but the dragon has this this sense this awareness that even though the

00:56:46.200 man is puny by comparison he has finally met the immortal man this is the man that that will never

00:56:52.720 truly die and that he will always keep coming he will never stop coming and that's what we're doing

00:56:59.800 in raising children is we're saying, look, you're going up against Leviathan. You're going up against

00:57:05.700 the global homo jihad. You're going up against a monster that is not just decades, but centuries 1.00

00:57:13.840 in the making. You look at history, you look at the rebellion against God, you look at the global

00:57:20.220 economic forum, you look at George Soros, you look at this and that and all. I mean, this is

00:57:26.840 a dragon and you, you're outmatched. You are not, you are not the contemporary or the equal of this

00:57:36.260 dragon. But the one thing that you have is the providence of God. His sovereignty is on your

00:57:41.440 side and you will just get back up and keep coming. You'll never stop coming. And eventually

00:57:48.560 that dragon, as big as he may be, George Soros or whoever is going to say, we can't beat those 1.00

00:57:53.680 Christians, because they never stop. Joel, this reminds me of, I'm not going to get the quote 1.00

00:57:59.060 directly, but this idea of finding courage in the great myths and the great stories and training

00:58:09.000 our children for battle, not just theoretically, but even inspiring them. One of the reasons why

00:58:15.680 the great books are so important to classical education, this is not a new idea that the

00:58:21.060 non-christian and the pagan world is trying to eradicate noble stories from our common reading.

00:58:30.300 This was something that C.S. Lewis faced as well. And, you know, he wrote even a book on education

00:58:36.120 and just the ridiculousness of what was going on in his time. But one of the things that he said

00:58:40.000 was something to the effect of, we keep trying to remove the fairy tales from the school reading.

00:58:46.340 and so boys never read about the knight who killed the dragon he said that specifically

00:58:52.620 he said what is going to happen when they go out into real life and actually find real dragons

00:58:58.540 right actually encounter the real dragons and that's to me it goes back to what i said earlier

00:59:05.120 with training for virtue right we we are we are realists we are we believe in god's sovereignty

00:59:12.300 and we believe in the power of the gospel

00:59:14.600 and the power of the Holy Spirit through the church.

00:59:16.420 The church is Christ's body, but we're also realists.

00:59:18.900 There are formidable forces out there.

00:59:21.680 Well, our response is not just to turtle up, right?

00:59:25.700 It's to equip ourselves and our children

00:59:28.220 for the task and the dragons that God will put ahead of them.

00:59:33.460 Right.

00:59:34.020 Yeah.

00:59:35.280 I mean, this kind of comes into, okay,

00:59:38.020 what does a full education look like for a girl versus a boy?

00:59:44.720 And I know I never followed up on it,

00:59:48.300 but I had wondered about what debate class would look like

00:59:53.480 for the older students.

00:59:54.940 So that's still out.

00:59:56.980 That's an outstanding question.

00:59:59.240 But there's a principle here.

01:00:01.880 If we just take physical fighting,

01:00:04.220 like we would i would like my daughters to be able to defend themselves from an attacker

01:00:11.580 defend in order to be able to get away right you know like defend yourself enough so that you can

01:00:17.720 get away from somebody who's you know trying to grab you or whatever the case on the other hand

01:00:23.240 i would like my son whenever he sees a woman who's trying to get away to rush to help her right so

01:00:31.080 it's different you know and it's not that you're raising up um little antagonists right like we

01:00:38.500 don't we don't want to raise up and train troublemakers right but we want to raise up

01:00:43.980 capable people so that when the problems do come and it's not even just necessarily physical

01:00:49.200 they're mental spiritual like we even there's a war raging inside your your um body with your

01:00:57.420 your immune system. Like we're, there's just, there's strife everywhere. And even whenever

01:01:02.240 we're not waging war against other living things, we're waging war against nature, right? We build

01:01:08.620 houses to withstand for when a tornado may come, you know? So there are all of these situations

01:01:16.220 all over where we prepare for an attacker or an onslaught, which has not yet come. And so it's

01:01:23.000 very, very important, and we pray for peaceful lives, but we know that we are going to face

01:01:32.060 adversity in some form or fashion, and we ought to be trained and strengthened in order to be able

01:01:38.280 to face that. Amen. All right. Well, I feel like that's, we've covered a lot. Michael, real quick,

01:01:45.240 do you have any final thoughts that you want to add to it? You don't have to, but... No, only that

01:01:53.000 this is very much a work in progress right we have vision and passion and excitement

01:02:01.680 but you know if you're if you're watching this podcast um you're interested in the topic already

01:02:08.480 and you know presumably a lot of your listeners joel are believers and right we still have some

01:02:13.920 major hurdles to overcome we're still we think we have the building secured but all that to say is

01:02:19.140 if you're listening, we would love your prayer.

01:02:22.820 This is something—actually, Joel, this is something I did want to say.

01:02:26.100 This is an attempt to live out the Christian belief that despair is not the only option.

01:02:34.520 Yeah.

01:02:34.800 Right?

01:02:35.000 The optimism of the post-millennial hope, the confidence in Christ.

01:02:39.560 And so we're asking for people to get involved.

01:02:42.660 That's one of the reasons for this video.

01:02:44.400 Right.

01:02:44.560 But even if you cannot get involved, we hope to also inspire.

01:02:48.660 We've been inspired by other schools, right?

01:02:51.000 We've been inspired by other people in different parts of America who have said, we want to

01:02:55.040 do this, right?

01:02:55.740 We want to make, not just make a difference, that's a bit cheesy, but we want to do something

01:02:59.240 substantial for building the kingdom.

01:03:01.900 So we're just starting that, right?

01:03:04.400 But we hope that our enthusiasm and our passion will inspire you as well.

01:03:08.460 So we need your support.

01:03:10.200 We need your prayer.

01:03:10.980 We also hope to encourage and motivate your viewers, Joel.

01:03:13.480 That's good, yeah.

01:03:14.620 Yeah, we want your support.

01:03:16.000 We'd like for you to get involved.

01:03:17.060 We'd like for you to, some of you, if you're called to do so, to even support us in terms of

01:03:22.920 generosity. But we also, I think that's a really good thing to add is we also want to inspire

01:03:28.420 because we need lots and lots and lots of schools training and educating lots and lots and lots of

01:03:35.820 children in a full orbed Christian worldview. And so all that being said is in terms of some action

01:03:41.400 points, that the two big things, well, three, the three big things that I was hoping, you know,

01:03:46.800 that people could take away is one, we are asking that you would consider praying for us. Two,

01:03:53.040 we are also encouraging, not necessarily asking, but encouraging those of you who feel called to

01:03:58.380 do so, that you would consider moving here. If you are one of those kind of atomized,

01:04:05.040 isolated, you know, rogue Christians, and not necessarily because you wanted to be, but 1.00

01:04:09.300 you know over the past few years the veil has been lifted and you found that you know your church 1.00

01:04:14.800 sadly was not as faithful as you once thought it was and and you just kind of are alone and you

01:04:20.960 you're looking for like-minded people and watching this you know this particular episode you're like

01:04:25.480 it's a breath of fresh air you're like those are my people that's what I want to be a part of

01:04:29.800 we're praying that that you know that people would be saved in our area and join our community we're

01:04:35.160 praying that other people who are already Christians would join our community, our church,

01:04:39.120 and our school, but then also that God would, for some, won't apply to everyone, but that some would

01:04:44.200 consider relocating and joining Covenant Bible Church and joining St. George Classical School,

01:04:50.900 Classical Christian School. And so that may be some of you. So consider that, maybe moving to

01:04:55.520 this area. Again, we're about 45 minutes north of Austin, Texas, in the Georgetown, Williamson

01:05:01.800 county area of Texas. And so some of you may be called to do that. But then lastly,

01:05:06.780 some of you may be called to give, to give financially. And so ultimately, we want the

01:05:12.680 school to become self-funded. We want it to be viable and sustainable, that through the tuition

01:05:18.700 of the families involved, those students, that we would be able to meet all of our budget to do

01:05:23.640 things with excellence, and that we wouldn't be indefinitely and utterly dependent on the

01:05:28.960 generosity to people outside of the school. But in the beginning, in this first phase, especially

01:05:34.880 for the first couple of years, donations really matter. They matter. And it helps us to be able

01:05:40.380 to get the school off the ground, like securing a location, a facility, and those kinds of things.

01:05:45.180 So in terms of giving, Brian, I'll leave that to you to give the final word. Where can they go to

01:05:50.600 give? And is there anything else you want to add to that? We're a registered nonprofit too,

01:05:54.340 which is worth mentioning.

01:05:55.760 Yeah, we're a registered nonprofit.

01:05:57.340 We have the 501c3 in progress.

01:06:00.480 So for most people that,

01:06:02.960 most people don't exceed the standard deduction.

01:06:06.780 For people who would exceed the standard deduction

01:06:09.120 and do need that tax deduction,

01:06:11.360 then we could either potentially get your information

01:06:16.200 and then come back after, Lord willing,

01:06:19.120 the 501c3 gets approved,

01:06:20.760 or perhaps at least reach out, make contact,

01:06:25.180 because maybe we could go through another organization.

01:06:30.220 Yeah, that's possible.

01:06:31.600 In most cases, though, I'm almost certain

01:06:34.860 that as long as you get the 501c3 in that calendar year,

01:06:38.640 that it could retroactively apply.

01:06:40.940 So all that being said,

01:06:42.500 you wouldn't necessarily have to wait for a very long time,

01:06:45.240 but even if somebody gave,

01:06:47.500 as long as it was January 1st of 2024,

01:06:50.220 I think that we would, you know, the 501c3 will be completed next year.

01:06:54.600 And so you wouldn't even have to hold off for, you know, six months or a year.

01:06:58.900 But just, you know, waiting until the first of the year to be able to give.

01:07:02.500 So where would they go to give?

01:07:04.380 I think for the best thing to do would be just to go to our website, which is www.stgeorgeclassical.org.

01:07:12.720 And that is www.stgeorgeclassical.org.

01:07:19.440 There is a stgeorgeclassical.com.

01:07:21.940 This would not be the same site.

01:07:23.380 They're doing fine.

01:07:24.500 Yeah, they're doing fine.

01:07:25.480 They don't need your help.

01:07:26.740 Yeah, help us.

01:07:28.340 Yeah, so we've got the-

01:07:29.340 Not.com, dot org.

01:07:30.900 Org.

01:07:31.380 Org.

01:07:31.860 Yeah, we've got the burgundy colors.

01:07:32.840 And don't spell Saint out, but just the S-T.

01:07:34.800 S-T.

01:07:35.460 Yeah, we've got the burgundy colors.

01:07:36.940 Great.

01:07:37.560 So what we'll have is we'll have a,

01:07:40.960 because our donation form may change in the coming weeks,

01:07:46.100 potentially even before this video is released.

01:07:50.480 That's the best place to reference.

01:07:51.940 We're going to have a donate link

01:07:53.420 and then you'll be able to donate there.

01:07:55.340 Great.

01:07:55.980 All right.

01:07:56.420 Well, thank you guys so much for tuning in.

01:07:57.940 And Michael and Brian,

01:07:58.800 thanks for joining me for this episode.

01:08:00.820 It's, you know, it's, I like what I do.

01:08:03.660 It's a blessing, but you know what?

01:08:05.060 It's kind of nice to not sit in a room by yourself.

01:08:08.860 Thanks.

01:08:09.620 Yep.

01:08:10.060 You're welcome.

01:08:10.360 All right.

01:08:10.900 God bless.

01:08:16.100 Thank you.

The NXR Podcast - November 21, 2023

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Faithful Fathering In The Midst Of Trashworld

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