Chancellor Challenges: Preparing Children for a Futuristic World

When I was born, there were only 48 stars on the United States flag. Our telephone was a “party line,” meaning that more than one family shared the telephone line and you had to listen when picking up the receiver to hear if the neighbors were on a call. When my dad got our first television, the shows were only produced in black and white. Computers were not invented, so our formal papers for high school had to be typed on a manual typewriter. Errors were painstakingly covered with a fancy white-out paper that you backspaced to your mistake and inserted before typing the wrong letter again. It kind-of worked.

In March of 2020, IBM unveiled the “world’s smallest computer” that is dwarfed by a grain of

rice. 5G is reality. Japanese “robots” serve drinks in the Haneda airport. A nanotech patch that relieves pain without chemicals, medicine or drugs has been developed. If your car is newer than 1996, a small invention allows you to diagnose its problems when the “check engine” light comes on to see what is wrong. And a smart phone with a hologram screen is now reality.

So what kind of world are your children going to live in? Well, one thing is for sure. With the rapidity of change provided by technology advancements, it won’t be like the one we are in now. So how do you prepare them for that? ... By giving them a Christian education.

Why do I say that? Because what will matter in the futuristic world is the same thing that matters now– a good work ethic that sees a job well done as its own reward, honest dealings with others regardless of the “pay-off” to fudge data, humility to acknowledge when mistakes are made, genuine interest in and care for others, and a worldview (way of thinking) that is tied to objective reality rather than the subjectivity of one’s own feelings and interpretations. Christianity, for all it’s bad rap in today’s culture, promotes all of these as some of its basic tenets because it is built on a truth that you and I did not invent. God did.

So when children turn in sloppy work, we are individually talking to them about the way their work reflects who they are and whether they want to be known for that. When children don’t “feel” like doing work, we are having a conversation about living out of one’s own feelings vs. living out of what is true. When a child is at odds with a classmate, again, it is time to talk about not only the “golden rule” but what makes the “do unto others as you would have them do to you” make sense. It is because it is tied to the Son of God who did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped but ... took on the very nature of a servant (Philippians 2:6-7).

When your children realize that they are here in this world – today and in the future – as servants of the Most High God, it elevates them to a position that makes them “worth hiring.” What job will they be hired into? I don’t think it has been invented yet!