What Is Family Times?
Our heading tells you that Family Times is a newsletter for people who are New Testament Christians and who are interested in home schooling. The newsletter is edited by Dave and Bev Hewitt and Dave and Karen Pratte, all of whom are members of the Lord’s church. Our families began home schooling in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, in 1982, at a time when we did not know any other home schoolers in the Lord’s church. As the years passed, we met other Christians who were home schooling or were interested in learning more about it. Communicating with such people has meant so much to us that we realized other Christians might want the same advantage. This is what we hope Family Times can accomplish.
Home schooling, in our judgment, has a special value to true Christians. Bible-believing parents strongly desire to educate their children to serve God faithfully. However, they are often frustrated by the Humanism, immorality, and inferior instruction they find in the public schools. On the other hand, they foresee spiritual conflict if they choose a private school, especially one operated by a denomination.
This should make home schooling an attractive alternative, but home schooling involves unique challenges of its own. To determine whether or not home schooling is for them, Christians need information and advice. If they decide to start home schooling, they need not only information but also support and encouragement.
Where do we find the help we need? State or local home-school support groups may give some help, but Christians often have religious conflict with home schoolers in these groups. On the other hand, Christians who do not home school often cannot give the information or support we need.
So where do Christians turn? We hope that Family Times may help meet this need. We seek to provide support, information, and encouragement regarding home schooling for the benefit of true New Testament Christians who believe the church should be kept pure from such innovations as instrumental music in worship, church support of institutions and sponsoring churches, etc.
What Can You Expect to Find in Family Times?
The newsletter is informal, almost like a letter written from one family to another. It is mailed out, Lord willing, four times per year. We keep it relatively short — just a few pages per issue.
What kind of material can you expect in a typical issue?
* Profiles of Home-Schooling Families — We invite faithful Christians who home school to write in and tell us about their families, how they home school, what they like and dislike about home schooling, etc.
* Book and Magazine Reviews — Subscribers may send us evaluations of textbooks, books about home schooling or family life, Bible teaching materials, good books for children to read, etc.
* Resources, Methods, Suggestions, Field Trip Ideas, Games, etc.
* Announcements of other services of interest to home schoolers. This might include announcements of meetings to encourage home schooling among Christians, etc.
* Any articles of interest to home schoolers and anything else that fits the intent of the newsletter. As a subscriber you are encouraged to submit any material you believe would benefit our readers.
What Other Materials Are Available from Family Times?
The following materials have been made available by Family Times editors. Prices change from time to time, so please follow the links below or on our home page for details.
* Reviews of Home-School Curricula and Teaching Materials - Family Times has arranged for members of churches of Christ who home school to send us reviews of hundreds of home-school materials. We have made these available on our web site. These reviews include complete curricula, curricula for specific subject areas, textbooks, and materials of all kinds. These reviews may be accessed on our web site. Subscribers to Family Times may access the reviews without charge. For more information, go to our home page and follow the links or see the link at the bottom of this page.
* Back issues of Family Times - All subscribers to Family Times can access many years of back issues on our web site without charge (see our home page for the link). The access code needed to view these issues is available to every subscriber in each issue.
* An Introduction to Home Schooling — This booklet compiles useful articles published in previous issues of Family Times. A few of the articles included are: "The Advantages and Challenges of Home Schooling"; "Family Times Book and Resource List" (a summary of useful sources of information about home schooling)"; "Bible Teaching Resources"; "Famous Home Schoolers in History"; "Home-Schoolers Test Results" (demonstrating the academic adequacy of home schooling).
* Audio Tape regarding Home Schooling — This is a presentation made by Karen and David Pratte to a meeting of Christians interested in home schooling. It discusses how to home school, advantages and disadvantages of home schooling, famous home schoolers, relationships between home schoolers and other Christians who do not home school, etc.
* "Family Reading Book List" — This list reviews hundreds of books that your family or your children may want to read for pleasure or as literature assignments. The moral content of each book is evaluated by Biblical standards to help parents decide whether they would like their children to read the books, either by purchasing them or by borrowing them from the library.
* Bible Study Workbooks — David Pratte, one of our editors, has published workbooks of Bible questions on the Gospel of John, the Book of Acts, 1 Corinthians, James through Jude, etc.. He also has workbooks on How to Study the Bible, Prayer, Church Attendance, Giving, Human Relationships, Abortion, and other subjects. All these are suitable for home study for Junior High ages and up. New workbooks are published from time to time and are announced in Family Times.
What Other Projects Does Family Times Sponsor?
Below is a description of several other projects that Family Times or our editors are currently involved in. Please understand that all of these projects are designed primarily for people who are members of non-institutional churches of Christ (see note below). Some projects might be of more general interest, but our primary intent is to serve this specific group of people.
Here are the projects we want to tell you about:
Free Online Bible Study Courses and Materials
Free Bible study courses, suitable for junior high ages and up, are available on the Internet. Most courses were written by David Pratte. Courses include: The Book of Mark, Jesus Is Lord (Bible evidences, authority of Jesus and the Bible, salvation from sin, and the church), The Book of Acts, and Following Jesus (studies in discipleship for growing Christians). Other courses are in the planning stages. All are computer graded online and are completely free. For more information, follow the links below or on our home page or go to www.biblestudylessons.com.
Many other free topical Bible study materials, written by David Pratte, are available at the Gospel Way web site. Available are free studies on dozens of Bible study topics. All are suitable for careful Bible study with young people of junior high ages and up. All are studies of just the Bible and are completely free. For more information, again see the links below or on our home page or go to www.gospelway.com.
An e-mail list for Christians interested in home schooling
Several years ago subscribers to Family Times set up an automatic e-mail list called HomeSchoolers List for Christians who are interested in home schooling and who can receive e-mail by computer. Any member of the list can communicate with all the other members simply by sending an e-mail message to the list address. The message is then automatically forwarded to everyone else on the list. This means that all subscribers can contact dozens of families of Christians who home school and receive their replies within a few days or hours.
For more information about HomeSchoolers List, again please follow the links on our home page or at the bottom of this page.
Legal Association discounts
Family Times has made a special arrangement with the Home School Legal Association to obtain discounts for our subscribers. HSLDA is the group for providing legal protection for home schoolers. Annual membership normally costs $100 per year and is well worth it. However, subscribers to Family Times can obtain HSLDA memberships for $85 per year. Note that you must be a Family Times subscriber to qualify for this discount. Again, for further information, again follow the links on our home page or at the end of this page.
Family Times WWW site for Christians
Family Times has opened a World Wide Web site (which you are now visiting) devoted specifically to faithful Christians who are interested in home schooling. Included is information about the advantages of home schooling, a list of books and other resources for home schoolers, reviews of curriculum and Bible class materials, etc. See our home page for more information.
Should You Subscribe to Family Times?
We hope that Family Times will appeal to many members of Jesus’ church. Christians who are already home schooling may want to subscribe, and so might people who are thinking about home schooling or who just want to know more. Maybe you could send gift subscriptions to relatives or parents whom you want to inform about home schooling.
We encourage you to subscribe and to help other people learn about the newsletter. If you send us names and addresses of interested people, we will send them information about the newsletter. Or you may tell friends about the newsletter, show them your copy, or point them to our web site at www.gospelway.com/familytimes/.
Final policy decisions regarding all aspects of the newsletter rest with Hewitts and Prattes. The newsletter is not copyrighted (except in the case of specific articles as noted). Subscribers are free to copy and circulate material we print, though we do ask that credit be given to the newsletter as being the source. All names and addresses on our mail list are confidential. We strive to give out no information regarding our subscribers without specific permission from the individuals involved.
Note: No matter when you subscribe to Family Times, you automatically receive all issues for the current school year (four issues published between September and the following August). This means that all renewals come due during the summer regardless of when you subscribe. Subscriptions are available in email format only.
Why not give Family Times a try?
To subscribe send a check with your name, address, and email address to:
Family Times
7846 St. Joe Road
Ft. Wayne, IN 46835
For further information about Family Times or other information of interest to home schoolers, please visit our home page - see link below.
Learn about Home School Legal Defense Association discounts
Free online Bible courses (suitable
for junior high and up)
Visit the Bible Study Online Library (the Gospel
Way)
Purchase Bible study tracts and workbooks
Return
to Family Times home page
