Pastor’s Post #16: “PREPARING FOR COLLEGE” (04/08’17)

I think that one of the biggest challenges facing Christian parents is preparing your sons and daughters for college. I know from experience – my wife and I did it with our six children. And each one was different. Frankly, I think it’s almost more challenging than preparing your son or daughter for marriage. That’s preparing them to leave father and mother and be joined to a spouse. Preparing your son or daughter for college is preparing them to leave father and mother and be joined to a whole new world. That’s really what college or university life is – especially if your son or daughter moves away from home to enter that whole new world (that’s sometimes also a Brave New World).

If you’ve never gone through this experience, let me tell you a little about it. I’m not talking about the actual experience of college or university life (that’s for another program!); but just working through the issues of attending school beyond the High School level. It’s a little like fighting a war on multiple fronts.

  • For starters, you need to honestly ask the question, “Should my son or daughter go to college (or university)?” Despite popular opinion, college is not for everyone. Or it may be the case that college is not for your son or daughter right now. Would it be better for my child to go to a technical school and learn a trade? Or would it be good to learn a trade before going to college and majoring in something that may not be particularly useful for getting a job? Is my child mature enough for the rigors and demands of college life? Can my child’s faith withstand the moral and intellectual challenges that college life typically bring?
  • And related to this is the purpose of your child going to college? What does he or she want to major in? (And that’s not easy to answer in a world in which spheres of service have broadened way, way, way beyond the professions of teaching, practicing law or medicine, or even business. Now there are virtually endless subdivisions of these traditional fields, and, add to that, the hundreds of new fields that have opened because of technological advances in the past half-century. What does your son or daughter want to do with his or her life? How will college – or a particular college – help prepare your child for that occupation or field of service.?
  • Then there’s the question of doing post High School work locally or in another area of the nation (or even the world!). Is your son or daughter ready to move away and, in a real sense, be on his or her own in a very new world? Why would he or she want to move away if there are equivalent (and probably less expensive) college opportunities nearby? (This is becoming even more of an issue as “On Line” college education is becoming more available and – for many reasons – quite attractive.)
  • And very high on the list of your concerns is whether your son or daughter should attend a secular institution or a Christian one. That’s a topic in itself; but is your son or daughter prepared to think under the Lordship of Jesus Christ in an environment that, in all too many cases, is overtly hostile to historic Christianity. Is having an “Ivy League Education” your goal for your child, even if that education and the environment in which it comes has the potential of destroying your child’s faith? (And I should add at this point: What church will your son or daughter attend if he or she is away from your home church, or away from a church of your Christian denomination?) And we’ve not even mentioned that many “Christian” colleges may not be as thoroughly committed to the Bible as the Word of God and to historic Christian doctrine as you may think.
  • Then, of course, there is the issue of the cost of college – whether the cost of a secular college or a Christian college. How will you pay what can easily become massive expenses for four or more years of college or university education? Loans for college are relatively easy to get; but is it wise for your child to be thousands and thousands of dollars in debt – keeping in mind that in many (if not most) cases a year or years of post-graduate work will be necessary for your son or daughter to get the required degrees for his or her field. (And I cannot overstate how serious this is. The Bible warns against debt in no uncertain terms: The borrower becomes a slave to the lender, says the writer of Proverbs. In a culture awash in debt [which will have serious implications in not too many years], is it wise to jeopardize your child’s freedom in Christ with what could well be life-long bondage to debt for something that was purchased decades before?)

And in preparing your child (or yourself) for college you must face all of these issues (and many more) even before getting to college and entering a whole new world that will either help a college student to renew his or her mind according to the word and will of God, or tempt the college student to renounce his or her faith by capitulating to the word and will of modern academia. How well-grounded is your son in daughter in knowing about God, God’s creation, the implications of the fall of humankind into sin, the necessity of redemption in Jesus Christ, the Christian life – and even in understanding himself or herself in living to God and his glory? The stakes are, quite literally, eternal ones.

That’s why we’re taking today’s program to consider all that’s meant by Preparing for College – whether you’re preparing for yourself or for your son or daughter. Jesus calls us to “count the cost” in anything we do as professed Christians; and, given the pivotal importance of education beyond the High School level, there are few areas of life in which we need to more carefully “count the cost”. How do you prepare for the experience of college or university life and training?

My guest for today’s Visit to the Pastor’s Study is Dr. David Innes, an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and Chairman of the Program in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at the King’s College – which is located in Manhattan in New York City. He’s been on the program to talk about a Christian view of politics – and I commend that program to you as one of the best brief presentations on the subject you can find. Today, though, he is talking more generally about Preparing for College. Dr. Innes, welcome once again to Visit to the Pastor’s Study…