Thinking Like a Christian Worldview Curriculum (Worldviews in Focus)

by David Noebel and Chuck Edwards

Broadman & Holman Publishers

Summit Ministries has worked with Broadman & Holman Publishers to come up with this very affordable and flexible worldview course that can be used by homeschoolers, youth groups, college classes, or adult groups.

Derived from David Noebel’s book, Understanding the Times, this course studies worldviews under the same ten categories Noebel uses: theology, philosophy, biology, psychology, ethics, sociology, law, politics, economics, and history. There are other courses developed from that original book, but this is the most practical and affordable for most families.

The course includes a video, a teaching text and a student journal. The key to using all three components with each audience mentioned above is on the CD that comes packaged in the back of the teaching text. The CD has printable PDF files for very detailed courses specially designed for each audience. The PDF files include step-by-step lesson instructions, reproducible handouts, and tests. You might want to print out these files and put them in a binder for easy access. You will need a good size binder since there are more than twenty pages for each of the twelve lessons.

The courses for each audience direct the teacher when to use which components. The Teaching Textbook itself serves more as a background resource to educate the teacher. You do not teach directly from it but rather from the PDF lesson plans.

There are twelve lessons that should each take about a week to complete. The Student Journal has five days’ assignments for each lesson. These assignments are actually substantial three- to four-page lessons in themselves that require reading, thinking, and writing. PDF lesson plans also include a page of study questions to be given to students for completion as they work through the Student Journal.

Lessons can be used with a single student, but it would be much better if you can gather at least a few more students and do a group class so you can generate more discussion.

Teaching could be done in a once-a-week session if you are selective about which parts of the lessons you use. Students then work through the daily lesson assignments between meetings. More frequent meetings would be better. An end-of-the-week review session is built into each lesson plan, which would make twice-a-week “class meetings” a practical solution.

The 62-minute video has segments of about five minutes on each of the lesson themes. These are generally recommended for use as part of the review. Segments feature interviews with well-known authors, theologians, and specialists (e.g., Phillip Johnson, Ron Nash, J.P. Moreland) in their areas who address each topic in terms of worldview.

Lessons are designed with a mix of direct teaching, activity, discussion, Scripture investigation, writing, and video viewing plus independent assignments that might also include interviewing people in regard to the week’s topic, doing extended research, oral reports, family discussions, or other such activities.

Thinking Like a Christian, as is Understanding the Times, is based upon belief in Scripture as the source of our knowledge. The viewpoint is supportive of what most consider a conservative view of government and a capitalist approach to economics (as opposed to socialism).

This course is the best yet for the parent with little or no background in worldviews, since it provides sufficient background information with clear direction on how to present the material in a very appealing format.

Consider following this course with the follow-up course CounteringCulture: Arming Yourself to Confront Non-Biblical Worldviews.