Summer Update: Worldview Academy 2013

Readers of this blog likely know that I teach on the faculty of Worldview Academy, a Christian leadership camp for high school students. Every summer, my family and I get on the road and "do camp," teaching on seven campuses over seven weeks in June and July. It's a blast.

Last week, we spent the week with roughly 170 students on the campus of Northwestern College in St. Paul Minnesota, enjoying getting back into the swing of camp travel and regular lectures. While in the Twin Cities, it was my pleasure to visit with some local law student leaders and the local attorney chapter of the Christian Legal Society.

Yesterday, we wrapped up our second camp of the summer, this time at Trinity International University in Deerfield, just north of Chicago. We had 130 amazing students-- they sat through 25 hours of lectures, practiced engaging others with the claims of Jesus, and asked great questions of our faculty team at meals, after talks, and during free time.

Worldview Students at TIU

It's my privilege to serve on one of three faculty teams that serve more than 2000 students over the summer. My colleagues include Dr. Paul Jordan, a professor at Southern Wesleyan University, and Bill Jack, a favorite with our students, who has been developing "Simple Tools for Brain Surgery" for students for more than three decades. These men, along with our camp director and faculty colleague Mike Tiland, are great friends and traveling partners. Over the years, we have grown to love and trust one another, and the summer travel with them is one of my-- and my family's-- greatest joys.

My role on the faculty is to provide foundations for faithful thinking about law and government, and I do this with two central lectures, "Worldview in a Lifeboat," based on the famous criminal law case of Regina v. Dudley and Stephens, and "The Roots of Order," which focuses on fundamental truths flowing from the fact of God's ultimate and all-encompassing authority and his delegation to human institutions of governing functions in the family, church, and state. My lectures on law are based in large part on the work of my former dean at Regent University School of Law, Herb Titus, passed down gently to me through the mentoring of my friend and colleague Craig Stern. I am always amazed when I stop to reflect on my own knowledge and "expertise" and how much of it (thank goodness) is rooted in the wisdom of others.

Students and Parents

I round out my Worldview teaching repertoire with an introduction to epistemology, my standard address on vocation, and a talk on leisure and acedia, based on Josef Pieper's classic, Leisure, the Basis of Culture, one of my all-time favorites.

Tomorrow, we'll welcome students to camp at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, where we'll begin our third week of camp. It will be a much smaller and more intimate group, and I am looking forward to being with a smaller group that promises more interaction and discussion in the group dynamic.

In the coming weeks, I will be blogging my outlines on each of my lectures and giving some reports of the my work with the Christian Legal Society our ministry partners while I'm on the road.