How it Works: Examples

For example, John Doe of Phoenix, Arizona enrolls in the Journalism College of the Family University Network. The first thing John’s dad notices is that tuition for the first term is only $499. “What am I going to do with all the extra money I’ve saved up for John’s college education?” he wonders. After an initial goal-setting consultation with Dr. Bartlett at the North Dakota office, John phones the Christian home schooling dad who leads the network Journalism curriculum in Adel, Georgia. Since John wants to launch a Christian newspaper in his suburb, John’s homework after the phone session is to work with his family to: (1) Draft a list of potential apprenticeship opportunities in Phoenix, Arizona. (2) Review the network journalism, computer science, theology, political science, and communications courses and list those of interest for his personalized curriculum. He can even recommend new courses for the network in his areas of interest. (3) Make a list of potential research topics that he would like to submit to the Family University Journal that demonstrate Biblical thinking in Journalism. (4) Report back next week for a prioritizing, scheduling, and worldviews in Journalism discussion session.

Since John’s dad is a pastor, he decides to teach John the theology courses. John’s uncle has a website development company, so he coaches John through the needed computer science knowledge and also learns the Christian view of technology from John, which later inspires the uncle to offer his computer science knowledge to others through the family university network as a Christian computing curriculum.

And so John has begun his college experience without disconnecting from his family and even involving his family in his personalized Biblically connected higher education. He has a path forward to implement his faith and fulfill the dominion mandate using his God given gifts. He earns income through an apprenticeship, freelance writing, and launch of a newspaper. Additionally, he learns how to think Biblical about each subject and even contributes insights to the Biblical view of journalism.

Later, John’s Biblical understanding of journalism inspires him and a few of the other family university network journalism students to write a series of news articles which lead to the development of a Christian newspaper that replaces tabloid newspapers at every grocery store in five counties.

By the way, John’s siblings helped him with both his studies and business and now work in various aspects of his business.