This semester at our homeschool co-op, I’m teaching an Apologetics class to the teen group. This class came about as a special request from 2 of my daughters, which are now taking the class with me. (In a co-op, the classes are parent-taught. I’ve often taught classes that my kids recommended, or that coordinated with the curriculum we were using at home that semester.)
About a year ago, these daughters said, “Hey, we should do a Jonathan Park class!” Jonathan Park is an audio adventure series that we listened to as they were growing up, featuring the Park family as they learn about creation, science, and grow in their faith. I didn’t instantly say yes, because as my kids grew, I stuck to the younger art classes that I was familiar with. Teaching teens and teaching apologetics were both new to me, and I admit I was a little nervous about making the jump.
But here I am.
I thought perhaps there might be others out there that would find this information useful or at least interesting.
They do have a study guide available on their website, but I found that it seemed to be for a younger audience. My kids were also younger when we started listening to the series. The character, Jonathan, starts as a 10-year old. I was concerned that the series might be to “little kid-ish” for our 12-18 year-old teen group at co-op, but my own kids (age 17 & 12) assured me that it would be fine with our group.
The Secret of the Hidden Cave, Part 1 & 2
To introduce the class to the story and characters, we’ve gone back to Season 1 of Jonathan Park, and started with The Secret of the Hidden Cave, Episodes 1 and 2. Instead of using the study guide pages, I created a simple worksheet with the prompts below. I also told them that if doodling helped them concentrate on listening, they were welcome to doodle. Otherwise, listen for the prompts.
Most of the nine teenagers in my class have been homeschooled their whole lives, but to see where they were coming from, I started with a few discussion questions/prompts:
- What is apologetics?
- Tell me what you know, think or believe about dinosaurs
- Tell me what you know, think or believe about evolution
- What explanations have you heard that reconcile Biblical creation with millions of years?
This was really to give me an idea of what they knew or had been taught before. I discovered that they were already ahead of where I was until much later in life!
Webster’s definition states that generally speaking, apologetics is a systematic argumentative discourse in the defense of a doctrine; but specifically speaking, apologetics is a branch of theology devoted to the defense of the divine origin and authority of Christianity. Yikes, that was a mouthful, and I could see the looks on their faces. So we broke it down into simpler language: Apologetics is defending the idea that God created the world, the way the Bible says he did, and showing that there is historical and scientific evidence that can be used to support that defense.
I also went one step further and stated that apologetics is presenting the evidence that the Bible is true.
Then we listened to Episode 1: The Secret of the Hidden Cave, Part 1. As they followed along, the worksheet had the following prompts to get us set up with the series:
- Title of this week’s episode
- Main characters & setting
- Truths about God that were mentioned (because this series is also rich with these!)
- Apologetics concepts you noticed (aka what evidence was presented that the Bible is true)
With much relief, what I learned from my first week in class with these teens is that they ARE interested in learning these things! Whew!
With all of our preliminary information out of the way, we were able to jump into the class much quicker this week! I found this video, which I thought was interesting, that talks about the location (Ghost Ranch, New Mexico) and the specific type of dinosaur covered in these first two episodes. (This video is from a secular, evolutionist worldview.)
We don’t shelter our homeschooled children from everything, as some people assume, so the class already had an understanding of evolution and young earth creationism that they’d received in their homes. As we’ve taught our own children foundations, we’ve been open to opposing ideas, but explain why that isn’t the position we personally stand on.
If you would be interested in hearing more about how we covered the Jonathan Park series in a homeschool co-op setting, please comment and let me know! As of the publishing of this article, we’re just over halfway through our semester, and the conversations have been amazing! I am so impressed with the depth and understanding of God our creator that these young people have!
This week’s main topic was how the Fibonnaci numbers and patterns found throughout creation, and often used in artwork, architecture and marketing, are even more evidence pointing to the truth found in the Bible!
The Growing Hale 
I would love to hear more about this! I’m teaching a similar co-op class.
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