By Dennis Rowan

"How many more bags do you think it will take?", I asked. After a brief pause, the man with trowel in hand said, "Two". I hurried to my pickup truck and made a fast trip into the town of Union 11 miles away. I rushed into the store and bought three bags of cement mix and then hurried back home. The three bags were barely enough to finish a small concrete job in the Psalm 23 Camp building. Once we completed the job, it looked very good, very substantial, and it will no doubt last a long time.

Mixing Concrete. These two campers are hand mixing concrete for a small project at Psalm 23 Camp.

Few things can be more critical that to be pouring concrete and learn as we near the end of the job that you will not have enough materials on hand to complete the job. If the concrete sets up too long before it all gets poured, the the outcome can prove disastrous. Concrete is permanent and after it sets it cannot be reset. It can be changed with a hammer or special saw, but that same material can no longer be molded.

The concrete project that day at Psalm 23 Camp had some interesting significance; we were pouring a small slab about three feet long by three feet wide in a doorway. The concrete in the doorway also served as a step up for those entering the building at that point. Few places get as much traffic as a doorway. In this particularly building many people will likely pass through as it is a group camping facility. Many who pass through will be unfamiliar with the building, the step up into the doorway, etc. Think for a moment about how importance of that concrete foundation step. Think about the young, the old, and the strangers who may pass through. Think about how an improperly constructed step could prove to be a place for people to stumble.

The next day following our concrete job I received a call from the school secretary at Seneca Trail Christian Academy. The school was having a special banquet that night, and part of the program was to include the testimony of some parents as to their views on the value of a Christian school. Glenda and I were happy to have our youngest son attend Seneca Trail where he began attending in the 7th grade. Our four older children had attended public schools, and both Glenda and I had worked in public schools. Part of my testimony at that school meeting dealt with the idea of being "two bags short" with improper education.

Christian brothers and sisters, think about the importance of the foundation for our children as we attempt to train them according to Biblical principles. Occasionally the Bible refers to governments, civil authorities and others we might deem as "outside the church". However you will never find a hint in the Bible implying that our children are to trained by a system that is not Christ centered. We have missed it if we think rearing a child according to God's plan includes sending him off each morning to be under the care of an ungodly system. We have missed it if we think the presence of some Christian teachers in a public school system can make up for a multitude of ungodly practices, policies, and the general ungodly manner in which public schools are now operated.

As a nation of people our eyes have gradually grown dim during the past 100 years or so. We have become snared by the idea that church and state are to be separate. For a few generations at least, we have come to believe the education of our children is the responsibility of our different levels of government. A parallel mind set of ours is that Christian training is something that is to be confined to home and church. Let's not debate that; just answer this question: "Have our current methods proved adequate?" Who will deny that our nation is in a backslid condition? Who shall we Christians blame, the U.S. government? Does a prayer at the supper table and one or two trips to church each week get the job done? A pastor who started a Christian school in a neighboring county told me this recently, "Our children need to be in the temple daily." How true. That is one of the most profound statements I have heard.

No fool is so great as the one who believes his own teaching. Anything we teach separated from the Word of God becomes man's teaching. There is no such thing as a good education without Christ at the center of it. All the fancy schools, elaborate curricula, and college degrees piled higher and deeper without the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ is much like adding up a long list of zeros; they ultimately equal zero. Reading, writing and arithmetic are important ingredients in training children, but they are not entities separate from the Almighty God who created the universe.

A child who spends at least seven hours a day in a place other than "the temple" (a place where Christ is put first) is apt to conform to the Scripture that says, "...always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. How sad to think one would learn, and learn, and learn in the absence of truth. Look at it this way; the truth, eternity with God; a lie, eternity separated from God.

What better way to describe a child's formative years than to say it is a time when a foundation step in the doorway of eternity is being formed. The hours spent in a classroom Monday through Friday are important. If they are spent without the mention of our God, don't you think it is safe to say what goes into the foundation step of that child is at least two bags short?