Welcome to RainbowResource.com — Learning Tools for Homes and Schools Serving Home Educators Since 1989

The statistics are disturbing. Teens and young adults who have been raised in the church are leaving and not returning later. Lots of them! Europe is filled with empty church buildings. Is America following her example? Researchers trying to find the reasons have concluded that it isn’t enough to “just” take your child to church with you. It isn’t enough even to “just” homeschool. Parents must be actively involved in living/demonstrating/teaching the biblical Christian worldview. Worldview isn’t something mystical or unknowable – it’s simply the way your child (and you) looks at the world every day. Diverse beliefs about reality fill the world around us and in our emerging “global village” are coming ever closer. Christians are faced with critical questions such as: “How do we know what is true?” and “How must we live our lives in relation to the truth we come to know?”

This curriculum (ultimately a four-part series) is designed to address questions like these. It is based on the biblical Christian worldview, which affirms that truth is absolute and knowable through the revelation of God. It reiterates that knowledge of God is the beginning of wisdom and the key to understanding the world around us.

Apologia is providing a wonderful tool for Christian parents: user-friendly, colorful texts written in an engaging, conversational style directly to the student. A tool that can be customized to any individual child or family - encouraging Bible reading and memory work, thoughtful examination and consideration of ideas, notebooking as a means of gathering and processing information, prayer and personal application. It is both a Bible study and a doctrinal study; but it is much more. It presents students with the opportunity and necessity of turning the light inward and then turning toward the One who is the Light. As such it does not hesitate to take on some difficult questions such as: Where am I building my life? What is God like? If God created the world, why isn’t it perfect? Why did God create me?

Although this series is unique in many ways, there are also many points of overlap with the worldview materials that come from Summit Ministries – indeed, one of the writers is a Summit staff writer. That’s good, in my opinion, as Summit Ministries has been actively pursuing the idea of worldview education for years and has developed an orderly approach to its many facets. It also means that you can expect to see a thorough and age/grade -appropriate examination of all the major worldviews as well as the implications of each on different aspects of our culture.

To give you a bit of an idea how all of this works together within a lesson, let’s look at lesson 6 of Who is God? (V1) – If God Created the World, Why Isn’t It Perfect? The authors obviously understand how to “hook” an audience because the first thing you notice as you skim through the lesson is a story about a camping trip, a recipe for S’mores Clusters (yes, they sound wonderful), and a picture of a wide screen TV. Well, the camping story introduces a father-son discussion on creation while the rest of the chapter provides the biblical and theological background – The Four Relationships of Creation. And the TV? It serves as a reminder that TV shows, movies, music and internet sites are all produced by people with worldviews and that they are powerful tools that can shape what we believe.

The lessons in each course could be covered in about three days per week for two weeks. That timetable would probably work well for a middle school student working more or less independently. However, there’s lots of flexibility here and if you wanted to do the study as a family with multi-age children it could be slowed down considerably. Lessons follow a pattern: an overview called The Big Idea, a list of the learning objectives – What You Will Do, a short story, then Think About It (thought-provoking questions). Next is a vocabulary study – Words You Need to Know – and suggested Bible memory verses – Hide It in Your Heart. (Bible verses are primarily taken from the NIV although the ICB and NLT are sometimes used. Students are encouraged to read passages in whatever version they prefer.) The heart (and bulk) of the lesson is called “Integrated Learning” and consists of a clear presentation of the lesson contents interspersed with interesting articles (i.e. Where was the Garden of Eden? in Lesson 6, V1), biographical sketches (i.e. Fanny Crosby), illustrative artwork (often reproductions of masterpieces by Rembrandt, Velazquez, Dore, Michelangelo, and others), and Make a Note of It sections (suggestions for notebooking topics). Personal application is introduced in the What Should I Do? section along with a prayer. Each lesson concludes with Worldview in Focus – which is an ongoing study using a visual model – The House of Truth – developed by Summit Ministries.

Apologia has given us a valuable course of study – all packaged in beautifully done hardcover books. Each book and your Bible along with a notebook for each child is all you need. ~ Janice

Customer Review

 
Angie P. from Fredericktown, OH wrote the following on 11/30/2011:
We began using the “Who Is God?” study last school year and would definitely say that it was the best find of our year! My children are currently 13, 11, 9, and 6 and we have all equally enjoyed our Bible study time using this curriculum. Right off in Lesson 1 my kids were challenged to really think about whether or not they have built their lives on the rock and we had a fun time putting to memory the “Seven Ways To Build On The Rock” which were taught in the lesson. I bet I could still go around the table and have the kids recite these seven ways without any difficulty, even though we learned that eight months ago! Each lesson includes a short story (which builds with each lesson using the same characters and which we have all found to be very entertaining), vocabulary words, inscription memorization suggestions, prayer, a worldview study, and an illustration of the house of truth that you are building as you continue learning throughout this series. The “House of Truth” is a house built on the truths of the Bible. The truths that are learned in each lesson are displayed on the foundation, walls, and roof of the House of Truth. The Foundation is “Knowing, Loving, and Obeying God My Rock” and each Biblical Truth (such as #1 “God always tells me what is right and true”) is laid onto this foundation. We’ve tried to be creative in recording the information that we’ve learned in each of the lessons ~ my kids have typed up some of the prayers found at the end of each of the lessons to place in their notebooks, they have written out some of the “Hide It In Your Heart” verses for handwriting/copywork, we’ve completed some of the curriculum’s journal suggestions, they have each written out definitions and quotes, we once illustrated some of the lesson’s inscriptions, each of the children have drawn illustrations of the “House of Truth” and each stone laid, and we have sometimes typed up lists of different things we’ve learned (for example the “Nine Ways We Can Glorify God” which we learned in Lesson 7). This school year I also purchased the “Who Is God” coloring book and the kids have all enjoyed coloring pictures that coordinate with the lesson while I read aloud and then we also add these pictures to our notebooks. I really have found that my very mature 13 year old daughter reaps from this study as well as my 6 year old not-as-mature-baby-of-the-family. Obviously what my 13 year old walks away with is very different than her littlest sister, but there really is a lot for everyone to learn from this course. In fact, during my last home school assessment, my assessor who is also a Christian retired public school teacher stated that she was going to buy this book for herself! She stated that she had never learned how to be equipped to answer these kinds of questions herself and that neither her church nor obviously the public school system taught her to consider her worldview and how to answer questions regarding her faith. So, I kindly wrote down the title of this curriculum and the website for Rainbow Resource.