Okay, I admit that I may be in a unique situation. A high percentage of the children in my ministry are homeschooled. Now, this isn’t a discourse on whether homeschool is good or bad, but rather how it affects our ministry and if we are connecting with these homeschooled children.
There was one time that I was teaching a lesson and referencing reaching out to the “kids at the lunch table”, or something similar, when one child mentioned, “We’re all homeschooled”. I paused and looked around and sure enough, all of the children in that setting were homeschooled and so none of them could relate to the “school setting”. That was an “eye-opener” for me. Yes, I knew there were homeschool families in our church, but I honestly never made the connection that I needed to remember them when I was teaching. I generally referenced “school settings” and I noticed that most curriculums also view children as “being in school” and seldom connect to the homeschooled child.
Needless to say that I am now very aware of references to “school settings”, the kid at the lunch table, or in the class, etc. and I gear my lessons to mainly homeschool children and their lives to connect with them. By doing so, I have seen a change in their response because to do so, you need to know more about them individually to really connect where they are and what they do.
So as you teach, know the children in your ministry and do your best to connect with them and not just the generalities that we so often use.
