March Forth! Marssige Edasi!

The following is excerpted from http://www.sonlight.com/ten-goals.html

Our Top Ten Goals... Do They Match Yours?
What are your goals?
What are you looking for?
We want to tell you about some of the top goals we have had in mind.
Maybe you will adopt some of our goals. Maybe you will deliberately reject some. Either way, you will be better prepared to make wise decisions. Here are our top goals:
1. To teach students to seek God’s Kingdom above and beyond everything else.
We believe this is the primary goal Jesus set before all of us who claim to be His disciples. “Seek first His [God’s] kingdom and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).
We want to keep that goal in front of ourselves and our students . . . at all times.
2. To create a learner’s heart, enthusiasm and excitement for learning, a desire to discover.
What good does it do to fill children’s minds with all manner of information if they never learn how to learn, or if they never acquire a heartfelt desire for education?
We want our kids to grow up with the same attitude and conviction Solomon had: “[Wisdom] is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her” (Proverbs 3:13-15).
When students want to learn, nothing will stop them from achieving their goal. But if educating our children is solely our goal for our children, we have to wonder: will they continue to educate themselves after “school” is done?
3. To raise children with an international perspective and a godly heart for the world.
God’s plans are for all peoples. And we want never to forget what is foremost on God’s heart. Thus we are unwilling to focus solely, or even primarily, on the West and western history.
What most kids can’t imagine is that anyone lives differently than they do. Most have no idea that there is a big world around them filled with people who have completely different experiences from their own.
We also do what we can to help students understand history as it looks from the perspective of people who are outside the halls of power and who, for social or cultural reasons, just see things differently than we ourselves and “our own” people have always been taught to view them.
4. To inspire students to honor Christ boldly•in speech and conduct.
We believe that the Christian faith is not merely intended to grant us eternal personal comfort; it is meant to change the way we live and, through us, to alter the world around us.
We want children to find true heroes•people whose lives they can emulate, people whose lives they want to emulate.
We want them to read biographies that not only tell them about the good deeds that others have done and the wise habits these people have developed, but that help them see these people as they really were: people whom God used despite their shortcomings.
We want children to sense the excitement and challenge of following Jesus in big and little things•not only at home, at church, and in family relations, but also in the worlds of work and of cultural development.
We want children, through their reading, to see, know, understand, and be willing to make the sacrifices that they may be called upon to make if they are to fulfill God’s purposes in their lives.
5. To train children to become winsome and effective ambassadors for Christ.
The Apostle Paul speaks of ambassadors and soldiers for Christ. And ambassadors and soldiers don’t merely identify the enemy or identify what is alien then turn or run away. They engage the enemy; they interact with whatever is not part of “their own.”
And so, ambassadors must not only be intimately familiar with their authorized message. They must also know their audience. They must know what their audience thinks, believes, and values. They must know the places where their audience’s mental, emotional and spiritual defenses are strong...and where they are weak.
Using the Biblical military analogy: soldiers for Christ must be taught not only to recognize who the enemy is (what is false); they must be taught to discover the peculiar strengths and weaknesses of the enemy, what strategies the enemy will use, and what strategies they may use against the enemy. Soldiers must also acquire a minimal amount of (at least simulated) combat experience before going into the fray.
6. To teach students not only biblical content but how to listen.
Someone has said that God gave us two ears and one mouth and we ought to use them in approximately that ratio. Those of us who wish to be effective communicators for Christ should do two times as much listening as we do talking.
It makes sense. The act of listening communicates powerfully to another person that “I care.” After all, who would you believe really cared for you and to whom would you listen: someone who listens intently to what you have to say before giving a gracious and thoughtful reply, or someone who launches into a prepared monologue designed to “set you straight”?
Studies have shown, and we have seen it proven time and again: children whose parents read to them regularly and at length are far more capable of listening and understanding what they hear than are children whose parents read to them but little.
We seek to convey different sides to an argument.
Many people•both children and adults•are afraid of what “the opposition” may say. Our minds become so filled with worry about our possible inability to reply appropriately that we never hear what the other person has to say.
And so most of us are far more comfortable to remain ignorant of other people’s claims than• first• to become familiar with what they have to say and• second•to find quality answers or, possibly, to admit they have a point we had never thought about before.
7. To teach students, through experience, that God is faithful; they can listen to other perspectives without falling into sin or having their faith destroyed.
In other words, the tools, techniques, knowledge and skills of godly intellectual warfare.
We want students to be convinced, through experience, that there are legitimate answers to questions coming from “the other side.” Not only so, but even when they don’t happen to know the answers, they need not run in fear.
There is no need to fear because the truth• God’s truth•will prevail. He who is in us truly is greater than he who is in the world (cf. 1 John 4:4). And He who is by our side really will give us the right words to say when the time comes (cf. Matthew 10:18-20). Students come to know this not just in their heads, as an article of faith, but in their hearts, through experience.
8. To inspire students, to fulfill the work of true scholars.
Some people may question the value of quality scholarship. We believe it has a direct and valuable impact on a person’s ambassadorship. The person who has “done his homework” is in a far better position than he who has not to communicate effectively and winsomely with a person who is coming from a very different perspective.
9. To create within our students a love for quality literature•and prepare them for action in both social and ethical issues.
We believe quality literature, whether written by Christians or non-Christians, should cause us to search the Scriptures to find out how Jesus would respond in similar circumstances.
And as we seek these answers and think about these subjects, we prepare ourselves for the future when we will find ourselves very much involved in situations similar to those we’ve read about.
10. To raise “culturally literate” students.
As E.D. Hirsch, Jr., demonstrates in his bestselling work, Cultural Literacy, there is a certain basic set of background information every person must know if s/he is to get along in a culture• let alone to influence that culture.
A person must be aware of the key historical events, the significant persons, movements, groups and ideas that have shaped the culture.
We want to raise world-changers: people who will make a difference•for good.
And so we place a premium upon cultural literacy.
We believe our children must be prepared to respond to these cultural influences in a strong and Godly fashion.