Practices to Direct Students at K-12 Schools Toward a Biblical Worldview
There is a battle raging for the hearts and minds of the next generation. While similar sentiments have been echoed over the years,[1] the battle today is not being fought in local school board meetings or legislative buildings, but in the cubicles of social media companies and marketing firms.[2] When students are being catechized in a secular worldview around the clock, schools, churches, and homes must be working together in a counter-formation to shape students’ worldview.[3] Because they are saturated in a world that wants to direct their hearts away from God, Christians must create an environment in which students will be immersed in a biblical worldview. To do that, teachers first need to understand what a worldview is and then intentionally create an environment in which students can capture a biblical view of the world.
Definition of a Worldview
Much has been written regarding the definition of the concept worldview.[4] Most of these definitions coalesce around the idea that a worldview is the lens through which one interprets all of life.[5] Many definitions address the related actions and behaviors that result from that interpretation. The weakness of many, however, is the overemphasis on the cognitive element of worldview. Josh Mulvihill, for example, defines a worldview as a “set of beliefs about life that determine how we live.”[6] Focus on the Family’s definition in The Truth Project likewise emphasizes the mental assent to certain truths as the essence of a worldview.[7]
James K.A. Smith pushes back on the cognitive worldview perspective, arguing that worldviews are less about information and more about the orientation of the heart and desires towards something.[8] Rodger Erdvig agrees: “we can’t shape a person’s worldview by transmitting information alone.”[9] Along the same lines, James Sire incorporated a multi-dimensional approach to his 2004 definition of worldview including truth claims, heart orientation, a narrative, and behaviors.[10] Likewise, Schultz and Swezey in their literature review argue for a three-dimensional framework for worldview including the cognitive, behavioral, and heart-orientation dimensions.[11]
Worldview, then, is the set of values and beliefs anchored in a story by which a person charts their course through life. Each of these aspects will be handled in turn, but it is important to note that no aspect rises above the others. They are all interdependent; therefore, a change in one aspect will result in a change in others. They cannot be separated so that one is formed in isolation from the others. Worldview, just like humans themselves, is a multi-dimensional concept that must be approached as an integrated whole.[12]
Values
The first aspect of this definition is a person’s values. Values simply refer to one’s heart orientation or the things around which one orders their life.[13] While many organizations will state their values in propositional statements, their values are not primarily matters of the cognitive realm but that of the affections. The heart is the center of the intellect, emotions, and will.[14] It is the deepest part of the person. The biblical term captures this well as it literally refers to the “gut.”[15] When a person’s heart is captured by a value, their whole being is directed towards that thing or concept.
Therefore, one’s values are the things toward which one orients their life. They are the desires one longs for. Values inform the way life should be.[16] Stated differently, values are the ultimate goal in life. As the Apostle Paul wrote his final letter to Timothy, he remarked that Timothy had learned his “aim in life” from following his ministry (2 Tim 3:10). Timothy had learned what life is all about from observing and participating with Paul in ministry. It is this aim in life that led Paul and Timothy to do the things that they did. Values are not simply the end goal, but the controlling factor in the behavior one appropriates to reach that goal. As James Smith argues, humans first orient their lives through their heart desires before engaging the rational portion of their person.[17] Instead of thinking their way through life’s circumstances, they feel their way through it with their heart.[18] Different worldviews, then, are not just opposing perspectives on life but completely different ways of orienting one’s life direction.
Beliefs
Beliefs are propositional truth claims. They are the cognitive, rational elements that complement the heart-orienting values. These truths form the basic foundation of knowledge upon which the rest of learning is built.[19] Ultimately, an individual holds a set of beliefs about how the world works and those beliefs in turn affect how one views the world.
These beliefs, however, may or may not be intentionally formed.[20] Many people go through life having acquired their beliefs about the world by default.[21] While the Scriptures should be the final authority by which all truth claims are judged, it is often a person’s experience that determines what they believe to be true. This is why examining one’s core beliefs is vitally important. An error in one’s beliefs will lead to error in one’s worldview.[22]
Story
The anchor point for these beliefs is the overarching story that gives context to a person’s values and beliefs. A person only makes sense of the world when they see the bigger story and how they fit in. This meta-narrative will answer those life questions such as “Where did we come from?” “Why are things the way they are?” and “how can we fix the things that are wrong?”[23] The biblical meta-narrative is what God is doing in the world starting with creation (how He made it to be), continuing through the fall (how our sin broke the system), redemption (how He is making things right), and ending in restoration (how things ultimately will be put back to the way they were).[24]
Other worldviews have varying narratives that are their own twisted, fallen attempts at answering the big questions of life. Some are based on violent action on the part of humanity to make themselves better and cleanse the world of perceived evil. Others fall back to the evolutionary narrative of continual self-improvement. Related to this is the “American Dream” of self-improvement and climbing the ladder of social success through education and entrepreneurship. One can see how the varying narratives function as the integrating factor of one’s values and beliefs and together serve as the filter through which one interprets life.[25] Based on this interpretation, an individual charts their course and acts.
Behavior
In this final component a person’s worldview becomes visible.[26] Their behaviors are the observable actions that reflect their values, beliefs, and accepted story. An individual filters all of life through the lens of their values, beliefs, and narrative of the world and then, based upon this interpretation, behaves in a certain way. For this reason, a person’s observable behaviors are an indicator of their worldview.[27] This sentiment has been echoed by scholars such as James Sire and Dallas Willard who note that while others may not know what is in a person’s heart, they can see that heart orientation and overarching worldview play out in their actions.[28] Jesus’s statement to the Pharisees in Matthew 12:34 aligns with this thought declaring “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”
While it is true that behavior emanates from the heart and one’s worldview, it is also the case that behaviors work backward in shaping one’s worldview and orienting an individual’s heart towards something. Smith argues for this in Desiring the Kingdom, stating that it is the routines and practices in which one participates that direct the heart through the body.[29] The activities in which one participates and the actions one repeatedly does, teach a person who they are and desire to become. Therefore, behavior can have the effect of shaping their worldview. It has been said that experience is the best teacher. While truth remains truth whether it is experienced or not, truth that is experienced is more deeply ingrained in the heart.[30]
Shaping a Worldview
The various elements of a person’s worldview are tightly integrated and cannot be easily separated.[31] One’s values, beliefs, story, and behavior all interact with and control each of the other elements so that one cannot modify beliefs without also modifying behavior. Nor can one change their heart orientation without changing the story that is told about the world. When attempting to shape a student’s worldview, a teacher cannot expect to simply dispense information. They should strategically create a complete learning environment in which a student can develop a biblical worldview including a heart oriented towards God and behaviors that are pleasing to Him.
With this in mind, teachers must expend as much effort on designing the environment in which learning will take place as they do on the information they plan to transmit.[32] This can be the physical environment of the classroom but should also include the relational component of learning[33] as well as the orientation of the entire school towards biblical worldview shaping.[34] As detailed below, teachers should focus on three practices that align with the three primary elements of worldview.
Celebration
Behaviors serve as an indicator of one’s worldview, but they also can be used to orient the heart through routines and practices.[35] Teachers can use routines in their classrooms to intentionally redirect the hearts of their students. James Smith argued for the formative nature of routines or “liturgies” in his book Desiring the Kingdom. He and several colleagues in Christian higher education put these concepts to the test in their own classrooms. They concluded that the Christian practices in which we engage “can reshape and redirect our classroom choices and strategies in surprising yet fruitful ways.”[36]
Erdvig suggests that a key to integrating heart-shaping routines into the classroom is through “repeated, engaging, and celebrated exposure” to the desired values.[37] These exposures must be repeated because a single exposure to a desired value will not have the desired effect. Establishing certain routines in the classroom on a daily and seasonal basis lays the foundation for desired values in the hearts of the students. An example would be greeting students at the door, emphasizing the value of seeing people as individuals.[38]
Exposure to the desired values must also be engaging because students can easily dismiss unengaging activities as simply another task in a string of schoolwork. Students must participate in the activity to fully appropriate the values.[39] Simply exposing students to a concept or idea is not enough to reach their hearts. They must be holistically involved in the activity as full participants and not simply spectators.[40]
Finally, routines must be celebrated. Engaging with a practice that is not celebrated as a worthy pursuit will not spur the student to repeat that practice again. The overall experience must be positively reinforced as a desired behavior.[41] This does not mean that every practice must have a reward tied to it, but that the overall disposition of the teacher toward the practice must be positive. Those people who demonstrate aptitude in the desired value should be held up as worthy models to imitate.
It is here that Christian educators must be careful about what is repeatedly celebrated in the halls of their schools. Too often in Christian schools, grades are held aloft as the goal worthy of pursuit. Students are primarily celebrated for their academic achievement, and therefore having the right answers on a test is seen as an end in and of itself. Similarly, student-athletes are celebrated for winning games and signing scholarship commitments, so younger students frame athletic achievement as a pursuit worthy of their highest effort. Smith questions these examples, asking “could we offer a Christian education that is loaded with all sorts of Christian ideas and information- and yet be offering a formation that runs counter to that vision?”[42]
Christian educators should take their cue from the structure of Hebrew society under the Torah. All the daily, weekly, and yearly rhythms of that society worked together to point individuals to the Lord and made it impossible to comprehend life apart from God. Peter Berger referred to the totality of these rhythms as a “plausibility structure.”[43] Everything in the culture made it so individuals could not help but order their lives according to a biblical worldview. For those wishing to shape the worldview of the next generation, especially their heart-deep values, this idea of the plausibility structure means that we cannot primarily go after the cognitive disposition of our students when they are being bombarded at the heart level. Their plausibility structure directs their heart away from God and towards the god of self-autonomy and entrepreneurial self-achievement.[44] To affect real change in the heart-orienting values of their students, teachers, in partnership with families and churches, must set up an opposing plausibility structure in which students are catechized towards a different way of viewing the world and ordering their lives.
Processing
Along with the repeated exposure to desired values, teachers must integrate processing activities into their lesson plans. Part of being made in the image of God is the ability to creatively express learning in new and engaging ways.[45] Teachers take this opportunity away from students when they do not allow them time to process the new information and express that knowledge in new ways.[46] As students manipulate their newfound knowledge, the learning sinks deeper into their hearts and is more likely to affect their worldview.
Processing activities take time to be effective, but the loss of time covering new information is made up for by deeper learning on the part of the student.[47] Teachers must push students to grapple deeply and understand what is being taught as well as how it affects their hearts and desires.[48] This means breaking up lessons, with time for students to discuss and process what was just taught.[49] It also means asking good questions. Jesus Himself taught not only by telling but by asking questions and drawing information out of his students. In the gospel accounts, Jesus asked two questions for every one answer he gave.[50] Teachers should seek to reflect this in their classrooms.
All of this serves to engage students in the learning process so that they eventually take ownership of their own learning and worldview development.[51] The ultimate outcome for a teacher is that students’ curiosity is piqued so that they go on to study and explore on their own.[52] This type of learning is a departure from the typical goal of documenting desired outcomes by recording canned answers on worksheets and tests.[53] This type of activity integrates directly with academically rigorous, research-based best practices in the classroom. Processing new information promotes the development of critical thinking which most curricula and standards state as a major student outcome.[54]
Integration
Finally, teachers must pay careful attention to integrate their worldview formation into the whole of the curriculum. The use of integrating principles has been employed for years in both public and private educational institutions, and much has been written on biblical worldview integration, but confusion still exists due to the great swings in curricular integration throughout the last century.[55] Many Christian educators talk of biblical integration as if it is the work of integrating biblical truth into the subject at hand.[56] However, true integration is not taking separate topics and integrating them into the subject, but, rather, choosing an integrating principle and then connecting all subjects back to that integrating core.[57] There are many private and charter schools that seek to do this today with STEM and the arts, where all subjects are expected to connect in some way to the development of these core skills. In the same way, a Christian school seeking to shape students’ worldview must connect all subject matter back to the integrating core of biblical truth.
The most explicit way of doing this is by helping students see how the subject at hand fits within the story of the Bible. This story, as the anchor for the values and beliefs that make up a worldview, also serves as the anchor for integrating everything the school does. Every subject helps students see where they fit in the grand narrative of Scripture. This could be in drawing out the creative elements God placed within the subject. It could be exposing the fallen, broken nature of the world. Or it could be the redemption of good things for the work God is doing within the world. All subjects, and even extra-curricular activities, must be integrated into the intentional worldview formation of students.[58]
To help teachers practically do this in the classroom, Stonestreet & Smith recommend asking four questions that connect back to each element of the biblical big story.[59] First, teachers can ask what is good in their subject that students can cultivate.[60] This question helps students and teachers recognize that there is still good in the creation God made and that humans, as image-bearers, can still cultivate goodness as they were designed to do. Second, teachers can ask what is missing in the subject that students can create?[61] Again, this question brings teachers and students into a proactive stance, creating good and beautiful things that will help them love their neighbor.[62] Next, teachers should ask what is broken in their subject that students can cure?[63] This question begins to acknowledge both the fallenness of the world, and the redemptive posture of believers because of the future restoration of all things. It allows students to put into practice their critical thinking skills, not simply accepting things the way they are, but actively working to redeem and restore things that are broken. Finally, teachers can ask what is evil in the subject that students can curb?[64] Where the previous question looks at the brokenness of society and works to cure it, this question acknowledges the existence of evil and the noble work of resisting the encroachment of that evil upon the rest of the world.
Together, these questions serve both to connect students and teachers to the integrating core of worldview formation and to cause them to work out their worldview in their behaviors.[65] Just as the practice of integrating processing activities into lesson plans develops critical thinking skills, utilizing these questions, and then acting on them aligns with research-based best practices for the classroom. Project-based learning has been on the rise in recent years, but Christians can take this process even further with service-learning.[66] Instead of simply completing projects to demonstrate the real-world efficacy of the new knowledge being acquired, students are challenged to put these newfound skills to work loving their neighbor.[67] Teaching for Transformation, an initiative for worldview-shaping of the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education, describes their Formational Learning Experiences as “opportunities for the learner to engage in ‘real work that meets a real need for real people’—opportunities to practice living the kingdom story.”[68]
It is these types of experiences, connected to the integrating principle of the big story of Scripture, that can be extremely powerful in shaping a student’s worldview. They are engaging in learning with their whole being and seeing real results from their effort. Service-learning projects bring together the best of all three practices, providing processing opportunities, and moments to celebrate good work that orients the students’ hearts towards the values inherent in a biblical worldview.
Conclusion
Worldview is multi-dimensional: the various elements of a person’s worldview interact with each other so tightly that they cannot be analyzed fully apart from one another. Worldview is not simply a person’s cognitive view of the world but a whole system of heart-orienting values and beliefs anchored in a story through which an individual determines their behavior. As such, students today are absorbing the values, beliefs, and the story of the world in which they are saturated. Their worldview is being determined by default; parents, churches, and schools must intentionally create an equally persuasive environment in which students can form a biblical worldview. These environments must celebrate biblical values, allow for the processing of experiences according to the biblical standard, and provide opportunities to connect through real work to the story of God’s redemption. This is no doubt an overwhelming task, but in partnership with the Body of Christ, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, it is a battle that can be won.
[1] Josh Mulvihill, Biblical Worldview: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Shape the Worldview of the next Generation (Roanoke, VA: Renewnation, 2019), 13.
[2] John Dyer, From the Garden to the City: The Place of Technology in the Story of God, Second edition. (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2022), 86.
[3] James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, Volume 1 of Cultural liturgies (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2009).
[4] Schultz and Swezey have written an excellent review summarizing the progression of the definition of the term Worldview in recent years. Katherineg. Schultz and Jamesa. Swezey, “A Three-Dimensional Concept of Worldview,” Journal of Research on Christian Education 22, no. 3 (September 2013): 227–243.
[5] Mark Ward, Basics for a Biblical Worldview, 1st ed. (Greenville, SC: BJU Press, 2021), 4.
[6] Mulvihill, Biblical Worldview, 14.
[7] Schultz and Swezey, “A Three-Dimensional Concept of Worldview,” 229.
[8] Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 18.
[9] Roger C.S. Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration: Immersing You and Your Students in a Biblical Worldview (Colorado: Summit Ministries, 2020), 38.
[10] Schultz and Swezey, “A Three-Dimensional Concept of Worldview,” 231.
[11] Schultz and Swezey, “A Three-Dimensional Concept of Worldview.”
[12] Martha E. MacCullough, Undivided: Developing a Worldview Approach to Biblical Integration (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Purposeful Design Publications, 2016), 38.
[13] Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration, 40.
[14] Gary C. Newton, Heart-Deep Teaching: Engaging Students for Transformed Lives (Nashville, Tenn.: B & H Academic, 2012), 26.
[15] Newton, Heart-Deep Teaching, 18.
[16] Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration, 36.
[17] Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 51.
[18] Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 50.
[19] Newton, Heart-Deep Teaching, 47.
[20] MacCullough, Undivided, 5.
[21] Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration, 85.
[22] Mulvihill, Biblical Worldview, 75.
[23] Ward, Basics for a Biblical Worldview, 10.
[24] Ward, Basics for a Biblical Worldview, 15.
[25] Schultz and Swezey, “A Three-Dimensional Concept of Worldview,” 232.
[26] Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration, 43.
[27] Schultz and Swezey, “A Three-Dimensional Concept of Worldview,” 236.
[28] Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration, 43.
[29] Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 26.
[30] Newton, Heart-Deep Teaching, 60.
[31] MacCullough, Undivided, 38.
[32] Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration, 30.
[33] Newton, Heart-Deep Teaching, 153.
[34] Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration, 205.
[35] Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 26.
[36] David Smith and James K. A. Smith, eds., Teaching and Christian Practices: Reshaping Faith and Learning (Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2011), 6.
[37] Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration, 119.
[38] This is a practice utilized in many circles. I first became aware of this as an intentional classroom practice through the Capturing Kids Hearts process. “Capturing Kid’s Hearts,” n.d., accessed November 21, 2023, iheartckh.org.
[39] Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration, 120.
[40] Newton, Heart-Deep Teaching, 107.
[41] Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration, 120.
[42] Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 31.
[43] Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Academic, 2022), 280.
[44] Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory, 284.
[45] MacCullough, Undivided, 115.
[46] Newton, Heart-Deep Teaching, 98.
[47] D. P. Johnson, Truth Weaving: Biblical Integration for God’s Glory and Their Abundant Living (Waking Elms Press, 2015), 85.
[48] Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration, 94.
[49] MacCullough, Undivided, 126.
[50] Johnson, Truth Weaving, 74.
[51] Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration, 97.
[52] Johnson, Truth Weaving, 31.
[53] Newton, Heart-Deep Teaching, 98.
[54] MacCullough, Undivided, 135.
[55] MacCullough, Undivided, 13.
[56] Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration, 10.
[57] MacCullough, Undivided, 29.
[58] Johnson, Truth Weaving, 35.
[59] John Stonestreet and Warren Cole Smith, Restoring All Things: God’s Audacious Plan to Save the World through Everyday People (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2015), 22.
[60] Stonestreet and Smith, Restoring All Things, 25.
[61] Stonestreet and Smith, Restoring All Things, 26.
[62] Rachel Vanden Hull, “Teaching for Transformation: A Tool for Christian Teachers,” n.d., 10.
[63] Stonestreet and Smith, Restoring All Things, 26.
[64] Stonestreet and Smith, Restoring All Things, 26.
[65] Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration, 95.
[66] Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration, 176.
[67] Hull, “Teaching for Transformation: A Tool for Christian Teachers,” 19.
[68] “Teaching For Transformation- Formational Learning Experiences,” n.d., accessed November 25, 2023, https://www.teachingfortransformation.org/our-approach/core-practices/flex.
nathan deck
Principal, Middle Grades | Wayne Christian School | Goldsboro, North Carolina