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Have you been thinking about signing up for the 2012 Bible Bee? Maybe you are worried about whether your children will be able to memorize that many verses. Maybe you are short on money for registration right now. How about entering to win a Free Registration and Material for the Bible Bee? Registration ends May 31, so be sure to sign up today. If you don't have children age 7-18 or live near a local Bible Bee, no problem....use the material to study as a family and have a family Bible Bee at home.

Enter to Win a Free Registration and the following:

• 25 Bible Memory Cards. That works out to just over 2 cards per week during the summer, a "do-able" goal for your whole family!
• A Bible in one of five translations
• A "Sword Study" in-depth study on one book of the Bible leveled for three age groups, enabling the whole family to study the same book at the same pace. Sword Studies don't just teach the Bible, they teach a lifelong skill of how to study and apply the Bible, in just 20 minutes a day.
• An official participant Bible Bee T-shirt and button
• Gifts from our ministry partners that support the Sword Study learning
• A Parent Guidebook that gives a solid overview of the study and includes a Family Bonfire Guide, so that you can easily lead your family in fun times of learning and sharing what the Lord has taught you throughout the week.

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Read more about the Bible Bee.

Is Your Family Protected?

Recently our family received council in our adoption process and even more recently we have referred more than one family in need of legal council over to Heritage Legal Defense. I hear many families say they already have HSLDA, but as you will see below Heritage and HSLDA work together in differing areas of representation. Please consider joining Heritage Legal Defense and protect your family today!

Join Heritage Defense and Protect Your Family

Are you prepared to protect your children when social workers threaten their sanctity?

The battle against Christian home educators is expanding. As frustration has grown at our success in legalizing homeschooling in all fifty states, a new strategy has emerged by those with a socialist, anti-Christian vision for America.

This strategy has increasingly taken the form of government social workers who demand to come into our houses, inquire into every aspect of our parenting, and insist on interviewing our children outside the presence of parents, asking grossly inappropriate and permanently defiling questions. These social workers desire to dictate how we will disciple and discipline our children, threatening to take them away from us if we dare to question their authority. Many believe that parents who train their children according to the Bible are guilty of crimes.

Where then do we turn?

Many homeschooling families have made the wise choice to join Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), one of the most successful and God-blessed Christian organizations in America where I was privileged to serve as an attorney for six years. Through the leadership of HSLDA, a tide of anti-home education legislation has been thwarted, and hundreds of thousands of families have enjoyed the peace and comfort of knowing that they had competent representation, should their right to home educate ever be challenged. The very existence of HSLDA has positively changed the landscape for freedom and family reformation in America. Thankfully, families who have HSLDA membership have a staff of advocates to assist them when their right to home school is threatened.

But what happens if a social worker’s qualm is not related to home education?

What if it is an attack on the rights of parents to administer loving, biblical correction to their children through corporal punishment, or a challenge to medical choices like vaccinations and midwifery, and other practical applications of biblical standards within the family that a social worker deems “harmful”?

What is your recourse when you are singled out for scrutiny because of a premature birth or a special needs child — or if you become “profiled” and "targeted" because you have a large number of children and a unique family dynamic seen as “dangerous”?

The answer is that you may find yourself under attack and threatened by officials — without legal representation.

Until recently, your best option was to find a local attorney (remember HSLDA does not formally cover these non-homeschooling issues), and hope that he was competent to handle this type of defense.

Even if you were able to find such an attorney, the attorney’s fees and other expenses for your defense could easily cost tens of thousands of dollars, with many cases costing well into six figures to defend. Without outside assistance, this financial burden would bankrupt the typical American homeschool family. Worse yet, they could lose their children due to their financial inability to defend their parental rights.

But things have changed. The Lord has raised up a strong, competent, and important legal organization that complements the type of defense that HSLDA provides for home educators, but does so in the context of defending other parental rights that are fundamental to the peace of your household.

The organization is called Heritage Defense, and it is championed by my good friend, Don Hart.

Today I am recommending that all of the friends and supporters of Vision Forum carefully consider joining this crucial organization in the face of abusive and unlawful intervention into the sanctity of your home by officials who do not respect either your constitutional freedoms or your parental rights.

Become a Member — Join Heritage Defense Today!

Why You Should Join Heritage Defense

The creative strategies for controlling Christian family life go far beyond the right to homeschool and are more than a little chilling. Heritage Defense is prepared to come to the aid of families when they are challenged in these, among other, critical areas:

Medical Decisions

    Including decisions flowing from the belief that life is sacred and is to be protected.
    Vaccinations
    Midwifery
    Wellness Checks

Accidents

    In many states, any accident involving a child which requires emergency room care will automatically trigger a social services investigation.

Corporal Punishment

    Despite the fact that corporal punishment by parents is legal in every state, most social services agencies view the loving and biblical use of the rod as an illegal activity for which children are to be taken from their parents.

Nutritional Decisions

    A surprising number of referrals come because of a child's weight/growth and from differences over eating or other concerns relating to nutrition.
    Often, the first action taken by CPS upon gaining access to a home is to inspect the pantry and refrigerator.

Religious and moral convictions

    Referrals often flow from disagreeable neighbors and even church and family members who have philosophical differences or theological disagreements with parents.

Spite/Harassment

    Many have discovered the devastating tool for destruction available through an anonymous tip to social services.

Investigations in these areas are triggered by reports — often anonymous tips — that routinely proceed regardless of the credibility of such tips or the motivation behind them.

Today there are a host of “mandatory reporters” with whom families come in regular contact who have been ordered to act as social informants on behalf of the state — reporting on anything “suspicious” which they observe in any family. These may include doctors, nurses, dentists, child care providers, teachers, law enforcement, church staff, day care and nursery workers, and a host of others (perhaps even your own pastor) who risk losing their licenses and their livelihood — and even face fines and imprisonment — if they fail to divulge personal details about their fellow citizens. Because of the fear this naturally generates, unfounded reports are rampant — well over 75%.

An “anonymous tip” is all that separates your family from a social services investigation.

Thankfully, we are not alone in this fight, as Heritage Defense is prepared to meet such social worker challenges head on. After years of defending individual Christian families who were unjustly targeted by CPS for seeking to rear their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, my friend Don Hart felt compelled to address this growing crisis in a manner which would allow Christian families to stand together and defend each other from such abuses.

Since its launch two years ago, Heritage Defense has successfully resolved every social services issue which has arisen among its member families. No home has been entered. No child has been taken or even interviewed.

Heritage Defense is the only national member-based legal advocacy organization that is committed to defending families on such a broad range of fronts. While I often encourage families to join HSLDA to protect their parental right to educate their children at home, there are a host of other dangers which threaten your family which must be squarely and effectively dealt with. That’s what Heritage Defense does.

The average cost in America for one hour of an attorney’s time is $295. The cost for one year of membership with Heritage Defense is only $195. For less than the average cost of an hour of attorney time, families can stand together and be protected from social services abuses by Christian attorneys who understand the issues and are committed to protecting Christians from the terrifying and potentially devastating abuses of CPS.

Heritage Defense member families have access to experienced attorneys who are ready to assist you by answering questions, providing counsel, and defending your family against illegitimate and unconstitutional attacks on your parental rights. If you have a legal emergency, their attorneys may be contacted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All of this is included as part of your membership.

Join Heritage Defense today and encourage other Christian homeschooling families you know to do the same. Families who prefer to make monthly contributions may join for $19 a month.

Join Heritage Defense by visiting their web site at www.heritagedefense.org. If you have any questions after reviewing what’s on their site, call Heritage Defense at 1-800-515-5901.

Become a Member — Join Heritage Defense Today!

Titus Jackson Redman

In a recent Time Magazine cover the question is asked, “Are You Mom Enough?” The article states “Why attachment parenting drives some to extremes – and how Dr. Bill Sears became their guru”. According to Dr. Sears the definition of attachment parenting is “a style of parenting that brings out the best in the baby and the best in the parents”. The true question is who knows what is best for the baby and parents and is the same “style” of parenting right for all children?

Dr. Sears has 7 Baby B’s to explain what he calls the “tools of attachment parenting”.

1.  Birth Bonding – the way baby and parents get stated with one another helps the early attachment unfold.

2. Breastfeeding – breastmilk contains unique brain-building nutrients that cannot be manufactured or bought.

3. Babywearing – baby learns a lot in the arms of a busy caregiver.

4. Bedding close to baby – wherever family members get the best night’s sleep is the right arrangement for your individual family. Co-sleeping helps busy daytime parents reconnect with baby.  

5.  Belief in the language value of your baby’s cry – responding sensitively to your baby’s cries builds trust.

6. Beware of baby trainers – attachment parenting teaches you how to be discerning of advice.

7. Balance – In your zeal to give so much to your baby, it’s easy to neglect the needs of yourself and your marriage. Learn the key to putting balance in your parenting.

I want to share with you a better kind of attachment parenting….a Biblical approach.

Deuteronomy 6:7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…

Psalm 127:3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.

Colossians 3:21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

Proverbs 13:24 Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him. 

Proverbs 29:15 The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.