The Dr. Jeff Show Ep. 49 – Roger Erdvig

Episode 49: Summary & Transcript

Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Episode Summary

In this episode of the Dr. Jeff Show, host Dr. Jeff interviews Dr. Roger Erdvig, head of school at Wilmington Christian Schools in Delaware, about applying biblical worldview through biblical immersion rather than traditional biblical integration. The conversation covers how Christian schools can create environments where biblical worldview saturates every aspect of education, from mathematics to sports coaching.

Dr. Erdvig explains that biblical immersion goes beyond simply adding Bible verses to secular subjects, instead creating holistic environments where students are immersed into a total environment that is completely saturated with a biblical worldview. He also offers encouragement for young people growing up in challenging cultural contexts, noting that like biblical figures such as Daniel and Esther, they have opportunities to make a significant impact.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:02):
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show. This show is available on Apple, on Google, on Spotify, Edifi, Liftable. So tell your friends they have no excuse for not finding a place where they can see it or listen to it. We really want more and more people to have the opportunity to hear it because this is the show where I interview major thought leaders from many fields of influence to show how our worldview changes everything.

My guest today is a great voice on worldview formation in our educational system and in every other area of life. And he’s going to encourage us to think in ways that help us be more effective ministers of the gospel of Christ in the world, whether it’s in math class, whether it’s on the sports field, or whether it’s in the business world. Please welcome Roger Erdvig to the show. Dr. Roger Erdvig, welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (00:55):
Great to be here with you today.

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:56):
And we’ve known one another for a long time, and so it’s great to have this opportunity to have a conversation with you. There’s so many things we get to talk about today.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (01:05):
Yes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:05):
But we’re going to really dig in. Can you still say dig in? Somebody told me the other day, drill down. That’s one of the band phrases for 2022. Drill down.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (01:14):
Okay.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:16):
Drill down. Yeah. So we’re going to dig into what it means to immerse ourselves in a biblical worldview, thinking biblically about everything. And this is the subject of a book that you wrote on behalf of Summit Ministries on Biblical Immersion. So we’ll talk about that a little bit and see if we can come up with some ways that all of us in our everyday lives can take our biblical convictions into science and music and the arts and sports and all of the different areas of our lives. How’s that sound?

Dr. Roger Erdvig (01:47):
Love it. Let’s do it.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:48):
Good. Okay. Before we dive into all of that, let me give a little bit of background. You have a doctorate in leadership. You’re the head of school at the Wilmington Christian Schools in Wilmington, Delaware. And I just want to ask you, how is school going in the midst of COVID? We haven’t gotten to talk to many educational leaders since all of this began.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (02:12):
Yeah. It’s a series of ups and downs, probably like it’s for everyone. But I distinctly remember, and this will just give you a little of the contrast. I remember back in March of 2020, when literally the day before our biggest fundraising event of the year, the governor shut everything down in our state. And in those first couple weeks, that was a very uncertain time.

In fact, I remember kind of, I told a close friend of mine, “Do I need to get my resume ready? Are there even going to be schools in the fall of 2020?” We downgraded our budget. We downgraded enrollment projections. I mean, we were bracing in those first couple months for the Armageddon of Christian school world, just thinking we’re really heading towards the end, or I should say the apocalypse of the Christian school world. And in reality, though it has been extremely stressful, and I can’t overstate how stressful it’s been for classroom teachers.

(03:11):
And frontline manager leadership folks in schools. So with that disclaimer, I will say that COVID has really proven to Christian schools all across the country and the research keeps coming out to be an incredible boon. In a season when so many Christian schools, particularly here in the Northeast, we’re on a multi-year, sometimes multi-decade decline in enrollment, just kind of a steady drip towards insolvency, we’ve all increased.

I don’t know a single Christian school that hasn’t either stayed level or actually increased by as much as 10 or 15% enrollment. Giving is up. People are more motivated for giving. Now I think there’s some corollary factors that are causing that in our culture, but COVID itself, though it’s come with an incredible price tag, both financially and stress-wise, has actually turned out to be an enrollment and mission booster for our schools.

Dr. Jeff Myers (04:12):
That is incredible. Yeah. I love hearing that. And I’m so glad. I think of a lot of the Christian schools that I visited over the years. You and I actually worked with several different Christian schools together. Some were huge, well established, and some were smaller and struggling, but to hear that even some of the smaller schools are able to hold their own and even grow in the midst of a time like this is great news.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (04:36):
Yeah. Yep. And that presents unique challenges. There is a school not far from here that had an increase of 25%. So how do you bring that many students into your school in one year? How do you acclimate them to the culture? How do you vet them to make sure they’re mission fit? So it’s created lots of fun and challenging problems, but the bottom line, Christian schools, yes, I would say across the country, across the board are prospering in very unexpected ways through a very, very difficult season.

Dr. Jeff Myers (05:09):
Good. Yeah. Well, we do want to keep our classroom teachers in mind. They are in so many ways the key to the future. They’re investing in our kids.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (05:17):
Yes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (05:17):
And you may not remember all the subjects that you learned, but you will remember the teachers who changed your life for the better. So be kind to the teachers.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (05:26):
Yes, please.

Dr. Jeff Myers (05:27):
Yes. Well, Roger, before we dig into what we’re really going to talk about, biblical immersion is the term that you use, and I want you to explain that. I’d love for you to just make a little bit of a case. If people are thinking about Christian schooling as an option for their children, what are some of the advantages and what are some of the challenges to that decision?

Dr. Roger Erdvig (05:50):
Yeah. There are longstanding dynamics to that decision that parents for decades, really the peak of the Christian school movement was in 1984. And prior to that, Christian schools were just booming through the 60s and 70s. So most of the questions are very similar. Can I afford it? Is the investment worth it? Is the academic quality of my local Christian school what I need it to be? Is it better for me to homeschool? So a lot of those questions are constants, I would say, through the decades.

What is unique at this time really is related both to COVID and then to the cultural things that are going on, or as maybe Carl Truman would say, the anti-cultural things that are going on around us. So right now, parents need to look and say, “What schools in my area are actually weathering the COVID storm most successfully?” And I would measure success by continuing continuity of learning.

(06:52):
Our kids staying focused. I’m sure you’ve heard about it. We’ve read in the news, the achievement gap is no longer about typical measures or demographic groups. It’s the COVID gap. And we see that in our school, kids coming from other schools, you think about it, there are students who, you got second grade students now who’ve never had a real normal school year.

(07:15):
You’re second grade students. It’s just astounding to me the disruption from COVID that many schools and school districts have embraced the disruption in a way that has exacerbated the impact for their students. I think you’ll find across the board.

And I know ACSI has done some really good research on this to say, “You know what? The Christian schools, they stayed in business. They kept their kids on campus. They kept them safe. They had reasonable common sense things in place and the continuity of learning stayed steady through most of the Christian schools.” Whereas a lot of other options, driven by many different motivations and reasons, have really wreaked havoc.

(07:55):
We’re seeing new studies on IQ levels just across the board of young students just plummeting over the years of the pandemic. Some of that is related to the family choices that they made. A lot of that is related to the quality of education. We had a student this year that we enrolled in our third grade who last year spent the entire year in a local public school in the hallway on Zoom, literally in the hallway of the classroom on Zoom, because they had to social distance.

I mean, just mind boggling things that really make no sense when you think about how children learn. Those are the kinds of things I think parents need to think about and say, “Okay, what is the best environment for my student in a time of national crisis like a pandemic?” So that’s really the first.

(08:40):
And then the second, everybody’s reading the news all over the country about what’s going on in school districts with an agenda that is not just unfriendly to Christianity, but is obviously anti-Christianity and the values that we want our kids to have. And we see our experience in our region.

Again, I’m in Delaware, I’m in a very liberal state, so it might be more exacerbated here, but we’re seeing lots of families who would have been mission appropriate years ago, but just since the call to be in public schools or for family reasons, dynamics, whatever, made the decision to be in public schools or other school choices. And there’s kind of like a mini, and I don’t want to overstate this, but a mini great awakening. So you can’t have a mini great awakening, can you? So a reasonably large awakening among parents.

Dr. Jeff Myers (09:31):
A medium size awakening.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (09:32):
Yeah, exactly. Saying, “What are we doing? How much longer can we do this?” I sat with a fellow who pays a premium for his kids to be in a very exclusive private school. And actually a guy who knew a guy who does that, who’s a Christian. And he said, “My friend finally woke up and said, and I’m paying for this.”

(09:54):
So what is the “this” we’re talking about? We’re talking about an educational system that is built on a foundation that is completely antithetical to not just Christianity, but many times common sense. And so that mini great awakening or that medium size awakening is happening where parents are realizing, I need to really think through what it is I want my kids to be 10 or 15 years from now, and then make some choices that will put them on a trajectory that will be more likely to get them there.

No guarantees, not every kid that comes out of a Christian school is your ideal poster student that you’d want for your own child. But think about the implications of your choices today and what trajectory you have them on and where they’re going. And that is going to relate to what we’ll talk about with the book, too.

Dr. Jeff Myers (10:36):
And there are a lot of organizations that can help parents across the country find a trusted Christian school as well. You mentioned ACSI, the Association of Christian Schools International. And I think there are in the Midwest, there’s one called Christian Schools International, CSI.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (10:52):
CSI. Yep.

Dr. Jeff Myers (10:53):
And then?

Dr. Roger Erdvig (10:54):
There’s also a Renew a Nation out of Virginia, my friend Jeff Keaton, he’s got a great network. There’s a lot of national level networks that can help people kind of navigate the world of, well, where would I send my kids?

Dr. Jeff Myers (11:06):
Right. Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Roger. I really appreciate that. I’m glad to have the case for Christian education made. And I think you’re right. Parents are deeply concerned right now. We’re seeing news reports all of the time about RACA school board meetings and it’s good for parents, for standing up, but at some point you realize, I want to live in a good community of well educated people, but I need to make the decisions that’s best for my child.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (11:33):
Right. Absolutely. And if I can just tell you a quick story, I recently went to a local school board meeting because they were voting on a sweeping agenda related to the transgender movement and public comment was supposed to be open for 30 minutes. It went for almost four hours. I finally had to bail. I couldn’t stay. I can’t stay up that late, but I was there for hours and hours of people getting up and sharing their opinion on it. Everyone had two minutes to do so. And Jeff, it was like, I don’t know how to describe it except I was in the multiverse.

(12:10):
You had a group of people advocating for something with all the confidence and boldness they could that was just from a different universe, a different truth base, a different understanding of reality. And then you had others who were advocating for a more traditional Judeo-Christian perspective on sexuality, but it was completely polarized. We weren’t even talking in the same terms.

Now the school board ultimately voted to approve those sweeping changes about policies for that local school district. And those are the kinds of things I think are part of the mini great awakening that’s happening with parents as they see we are living in a multiverse right now and where do you want to shape your children? In which universe? That’s really the question.

Dr. Jeff Myers (12:53):
That’s a profound question. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. I’d like to talk a little bit about how Christian schools do education differently and then we’ll see if we can apply that to areas that relate to the lives of lots of people who will be listening or watching the program. In Christian schools, in the 1980s, there was a movement called Biblical Integration, where we want the Bible to be integrated into the subjects that we teach. Is that a fair way to put it? Absolutely. That was the movement. So we want to have science class, but we also want to have Bible verses. We want to try to figure out how the Bible relates to the things that we’re doing.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (13:41):
Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Myers (13:42):
And you’ve started a movement here, which I’m very excited about. I was visiting with our vice president of program services at Summit Ministries, and he was telling me some of the things that have been happening here as a result of the book that you’ve written, which people can find out about as we go through the show, where you’ve changed the terminology. It’s not about integrating the Bible into what we’re doing, it’s about creating a biblically immersive environment where the Bible is the foundation for everything that we do.

Can you tell us a little about the difference and how you use that term biblical immersion? And for everybody who’s watching or listening, who’s not in the Christian education world, just hang on because we’re going to begin applying this to your everyday life. But first of all, we need to understand some of the terms we’re talking about.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (14:35):
Yeah. So you defined integration very well and even your little object lesson there of actually seeing the Bible come back to where it should be and you kind of are pushing it together. To me, suggests actually something that I would say is not consistent with a biblical worldview. And that is that at some point in time, and it has its roots in the enlightenment, we could talk a lot about where this came from, but the idea that science and verifiable facts about science or math or history or anything lives over here, and then our faith lives over on this side. Francis Schaeffer would call it a two story view of reality in those two stories.

Dr. Jeff Myers (15:19):
Yes. I was just going to say Nancy Pearcey wrote, but she was the student of Francis Schaefer wrote about that, the two stories. Yeah.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (15:26):
And I think that’s a really helpful analogy to see where it is. So you could look at it as trying to do this or trying to bring the two stories, collapse them into one, but that’s an unrealistic artificial view of reality. God never left math. God never took leave of science or history or any of the subject areas, foreign language.

So instead of thinking like we’re kind of dragging the Bible and dragging our content somewhere back to play nicely in the middle of the ring, so to speak, what if we just get rid of that analogy completely, although it is helpful to understand what’s happened in people’s minds, so I’m not saying that. But as far as our everyday activities, it’s not trying to bring it back together. It’s just taking our students and immersing them into a total environment that is completely saturated with a biblical worldview.

(16:22):
So that goes beyond my lesson planning, although it includes my lesson planning, it goes beyond my activities and it becomes who I am. And to me, that’s a much more helpful dynamic or a dynamic way to look at our job as educators or as we’ll talk about, as parents, as leaders, as ministry leaders, et cetera, et cetera, to say, instead of how can I integrate the Bible into what I’m doing is how can I create environments in our school, in my classroom, in the hallway, in the gymnasium, in the locker room, that saturate our kids in a biblical worldview at every turn.

And to me, it’s a much more holistic and helpful way. And what I’ve found, it’s kind of deceptively simple and the more I talk with folks out there, they’re finding it to be a very refreshing way to look at a task that has become too burdensome for people.

(17:14):
And so it’s an exciting development in people’s minds, really simple. As you would say, it’s not rocket surgery. It’s kind of simple, but a refreshing new way to look at it.

Dr. Jeff Myers (17:28):
Yeah. I could see in history how I might do that. I can see in literature how I might do that. I can see in social studies how I might do that. I think where it gets a little tricky for me is thinking, how do I do that in STEM? How do I do it in science and math? So math, story problems. Do I have the students count Bibles instead of counting apples or?

Dr. Roger Erdvig (17:55):
Well, you’re saying that, that’s kind of funny, but that’s the way a lot of curriculum in the past treated it. That’s I think one of the problems of integration is it devolves to plug and play. So instead of counting apples and oranges, we count books of the Bible and it becomes almost this trite. And I don’t want to make fun of that at all. I’m really hoping I’m not doing that, but it doesn’t get to the level that we need to do.

So you ask about math. Here’s the interesting dynamic that I discovered as I did my doctoral research actually. The cognitive propositions or the truth claims of a biblical world view are foundational and super important, but there are desires and habits that need to go along with those truth propositions that are equally important if a person is going to have a well-rounded, robust biblical worldview.

(18:45):
So what this means for education, we’ll talk about this in other areas too. We can’t stop solely on the cognitive side of things or the truth propositions. Like what did God say about math? And we can come up with some things that God has said about math and he’s used math in the Bible and math is the language of the creator in every way, but it’s not merely that or solely that. It’s also, and this is the fun part for teachers, it’s also how we teach. It’s not just what we teach.

We can teach in such a way that nurtures the development of a biblical worldview in our students. And that’s as important to this concept of a biblical worldview immersive environment as is the content that we’re getting across to our kids. So you can go through a whole math lesson and not necessarily talk about the Bible, but you can teach in ways that prepare students for biblical worldview development throughout their lifetime. And that’s what’s so exciting to me and kind of releasing to me too.

Dr. Jeff Myers (19:46):
Can you give an example of how that might look in a math class at Wilmington Christian?

Dr. Roger Erdvig (19:52):
Yeah. Well, I don’t want to overstate what we do here because we are a work in progress, but the ideal of what we’d want to see is that there are a number of teaching modalities or pedagogies that we have determined through research, and again, through the doctoral research with the young adults that I work with. There are teaching modalities that are consistent with the disciplines and habits that young adults and older adults need if they’re going to have a lifetime of worldview development. There are things we do that help to develop our worldview.

So one of them, for instance, is processing new experiences. By that I mean is when a young adult is out there kind of adulting for the first time, they’re experiencing a myriad of new things and it’s this idea of whether it’s figurative or literal of leaving home. You understand that?

(20:42):
They’re leaving their homeness of childhood. As they do, they have a myriad of new experiences. Those who have a strongly developing biblical worldview in that age bracket have an innate disposition towards not just having experiences, but actually thinking about and processing those experiences.

(21:02):
And what we found in the research is that the primary way that young adults do that, believe it or not, and I think you’d probably believe it, knowing the young adults you work with, is talking about it. So a young adult who has a strongly developing biblical worldview will face a new experience of some kind. Maybe it’s the first time they’re having to work side by side with someone who’s a Buddhist or someone who is a lesbian or whatever is different from them.

And no longer is mom and dad or their teacher there to kind of shepherd them through it. So they’re having this new experience. If their worldview is going to continually develop and strengthen, what they need to do is take that experience and process it. And the primary way young adults do it is through talking with other young adults who have a strong biblical worldview.

(21:49):
So that is a lifelong discipline that we all need. I mean, I’m significantly, well, not significantly. I’m over 50 years old now, 52 years old. I still have friends that I need to talk to, to process my life experiences to help derive meaning and understanding from them from a biblical worldview perspective. I do that with my wife. I have friends and colleagues at work with whom I do that. So that is a discipline and a skill that I need.

So what does this have to do with math? Dr. Jeff is asking me, “Roger, we’re supposed to be talking about math.” Press reverse on that story, bring it back to the math class and say, “Okay, if my students need that discipline in their life, how can I harness the math class to give them practice in learning that discipline?” So all the way in the elementary age, you can be thinking, okay, worldview development, that’s my end goal.

(22:39):
They’re going to be processing new experiences by talking to their peers. I need to give them experience and instruction on how to do that today in their math class. So math becomes the excuse, so to speak, to develop these habits and dispositions in our students from kindergarten all the way through that will then serve them well. So what does that mean? It means getting kids together to talk about their new experiences in math. Share with one another the challenges of solving this type of math problem. Get them tutoring one another in the classroom.

Again, these are not new things and these are things teachers do all the time, but just imagine, and this is what I’m seeing in my own life and the life of the teachers I work with, the power of realizing you’re not just going through the routine of doing a pair and share or having kids talk in the classroom, you’re actually inculcating in your students the habits they need for a lifetime of worldview development.

(23:33):
So it takes it out of this idea of, “Oh no, how do I do math from a biblical worldview perspective?” Well, you teach math in a way that’s consistent with the processes and habits that students need in their lives through their lifetime so they can continue to develop their worldview. Now doing that, divorced from the foundation of biblical truth is not going to work. We’re still talking about obviously doing that from a spirit led, guided perspective in our classrooms. But my point is it’s not merely or solely the content, but it’s the way we teach. And that’s how it applies to math and every other subject area.

Dr. Jeff Myers (24:09):
Got it. I see. I think I understand. So in a math class, you recognize off the top that mathematics is a language of God. There is a way of thinking mathematically about the world that allows us to create models of reality that correspond to what’s really real and you learn those best when you are in community with other people talking through and solving the problems together.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (24:37):
Yeah. And that’s so consistent with Summit’s idea that double strand of the DNA, that it’s truth and relationships together. I heard someone, a school leader, once talking about a teacher who was spending maybe a little bit more time on relationship building than he should have in the class. And I get that balance needs to be there. We can’t be buddy-buddy with our students at the expense of the learning agenda. But the feeling I got from that individual was that relationships are not really part of learning. Do that on your own time.

And what you’re pointing to is that vital importance of developing relationships in the classroom, again, because, not just to have fun, although it is more fun, but also to develop those learning skills and life processing skills that we can learn in the math class. And that’s not to minimize some of the things you just said, math, the language of God, we can build models of reality, of course, and that should be immersed in our classrooms too.

(25:31):
But that’s where I think most people get all scared that they don’t have enough truth claims to inject into their classroom, but they do have tools right in their hands that they can change the way they teach to be consistent with biblical worldview development.

Dr. Jeff Myers (25:43):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, this makes sense of things that I had learned several years ago about Hebrew schooling. How you would go through school if you were a young Hebrew boy back in the time of Jesus is to sit with a teacher and dialogue about the truths. You’re memorizing, you’re learning, you’re processing, but you’re talking about ideas and you’re doing it in a dialogue fashion. Yeah. Okay. Roger, listen, we got to take on another one here. I’m thinking about coaching and sports.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (26:18):
Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Myers (26:19):
I can see people saying, “Well, the goal of the sports program is to win.”

Dr. Roger Erdvig (26:25):
Yes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (26:27):
And you certainly wouldn’t want a coach who thinks the goal of the program is not to win, but at the same time, you are trying to think of, what is a biblical worldview of sports? Can you help us with that? Because that might even affect how we watch sports or coach or participate with our kids in those things.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (26:49):
One of the principles that applies, I think, equally in every subject area, including sports, is one that I would want to highlight for sports. And that would be to frame or process all of our experiences in that subject area through the Creation Fall Redemption Restoration narrative.

(27:10):
And so sports are just ripe with opportunities to connect our experiences to the big picture meta narrative of God’s creational history in mankind and his creation.

And so one of the ways athletic coaches can nurture the development of a biblical worldview while they’re looking to crush the opponent, and I say that with all due respect, of course, is to look at all the things that happen during the relationship of a sports team to itself, to each other, and to other teams, and just bring that back and kind of plot it on the Creation Fall Redemption Restoration narrative. I think a lot of sports has to do with the fall, right? Our attitudes towards even our fellow players that are doing better than us, our desire for glory, our disdain for other teams that don’t perform well.

What I’m suggesting is that as, and I know every good coach would do this, they’re going to debrief with their team after every game and after every practice, that they would use the language of Creation Fall Redemption Restoration to help the students realize that their little experience on the basketball court this evening where they got really ticked off and punched the wall as they were going out, that’s a result of the human tendency to be selfish and where does that come from?

(28:38):
Now, I am not suggesting that coaches use every moment to do a little mini teaching. What I’m suggesting, and back to the principle of the book, that the coaches themselves are so immersed in a biblical worldview and in creation fall redemption restoration, that it just leaks out of them as they’re addressing the challenges, victories of their team, so that the team is constantly being pressed to see their experience through that paradigm.

I’m sorry if that sounds ethereal or not really practical, but the key is that our coaches, our teachers, are themselves changing their information diet so that they’re listening to podcasts about athletics and Christianity and athletics in the biblical worldview so that again, they are so immersing themselves that they can’t help but spill it out on their teams.

Dr. Jeff Myers (29:37):
I know of an organization we’ve worked with at Summit Ministries called CASE, the Center for Advancement of Christian Education.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (29:43):
Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Myers (29:44):
I think they have a program called Teaching for Transformation, but I understand, I don’t know if they’ve developed this all yet, they’ve got one called Coaching for Transformation. And that might be fascinating. I’m not sure.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (29:55):
I’m familiar with CASE’s work, but I’m not sure if they have that. That would be fantastic and we need that. If that points to a huge need in the movement and the movement, I would say both Christian education, but in the nuts and bolts of biblical worldview, is for people who have mastered these concepts in unique spheres to write accessible materials for people to read. One of the challenges I find is, and I love to read. I stay up too late reading way too often. Much of the material is not accessible and it feels more like I’m reading graduate school textbooks.

(30:33):
And I know most Christian school teachers could read them, but as far as time and focus, we need easily digestible resources for people that break that stuff down. And so as you mentioned that, coaching for transformation paradigm, my hope for that would be like my hope is for science for transformation or math for transformation, that folks out there that have mastered these ideas of immersing their charges, so to speak, in that topic, that they would write some really accessible materials or do podcasts or things like that that really help people digest it and get it in a way that’s actionable the next day.

Dr. Jeff Myers (31:10):
Yeah. Well, let’s take it outside of the school. I’m imagining a 20 something, maybe a summit ministries graduate who’s asking, how do I apply a biblical worldview in my workplace? Before you went into Christian education, you did a lot of business consulting. Yeah. Helping corporations do a better job at creating community coaching was a big part of that. And I’m curious if you’ve got any insights about how these thoughts on biblical immersion can apply in a biblical worldview of work or a biblical worldview of business.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (31:52):
Yeah. You point to the work that I was involved in over 12 years ago. So 12 or 13 years ago was when I first started in Christian school leadership. Back then, what we were saying was that we agreed with John Maxwell that everything rises and falls on leadership, but we wanted to answer the question of if everything rises and falls on leadership, what does leadership rise and fall on? The answer back then was relationships and relationships rise and fall on communication.

I think that is still very true and I’m very committed to that and still active in helping business leaders to develop the skills that they need to be great communicators in one-on-one conversations as they manage by, as you and I have talked about. And we still need to write that book, Jeff, Managed by Talking Around. You remember that one? Or beyond touchy feely? We’ve got to get that done.

Dr. Jeff Myers (32:47):
I was just thinking of that, thinking, “Oh man, we set that project aside.”

Dr. Roger Erdvig (32:53):
It’s time to resurrect it because it is needed. Here’s why. Here’s why. And I’m not just being funny about that. In the last 13 years, the pressure cooker environment of the business world for our young Christian professionals, again, I’m talking about multiverses. It’s like the early 2000s to today in the business world are radically different, but the answers are still, or the solutions are still the same. It’s the one-on-one conversations people can have with others.

The big challenge now is the pressure cooker of the business world to be politically correct or woke or whatever term we want to put in there is just making people scared to death to even build relationships in the workplace. What I see is a lot of young Christian professionals and older Christian professionals pushing back against the tide as much as they can. And I have some dear friends that are in massive corporations and the stories they’re telling me, Jeff, I’m sure they’re telling them to you two, that I just can’t believe the kind of pressure they’re having to face.

(34:02):
It’s not only COVID related, but diversity and all these other kinds of things being done in a way that’s not God honoring, puts such a pressure that people are tending to shut down from engagement just for survival. And I get it. I mean, I’m not in that environment. I can’t imagine what that’s like. So I think the call today is the age old call of incarnating a biblical worldview or biblical truths in the workplace. And I think we can explore even in our conversation some of the specific ways to do that, but I do want to be very honest about the new and unique and almost daily increasing pressures that our Christian business people are facing.

Dr. Jeff Myers (34:45):
Let’s talk about it a little bit, if we can. So let’s say you do have somebody who’s in, and I like the way you phrased this earlier, someone who’s now working alongside someone whose worldview and growing up years were very different, whose perspective on life is very different. And they’re thinking, “I want to be a good witness. I want to be kind.” I get all of that, but help them for a moment.

Let’s say they were here in the conversation with us saying, “You got to help me, man. I’m shut down. I’m thinking about quitting my job because I can’t do this anymore. The pressure is overwhelming. It’s really uncomfortable.” Where do you begin with that? How do you help them work through it?

Dr. Roger Erdvig (35:34):
Yeah. I’m tempted to go right to talking a little bit about Rod Drayer’s suggested solutions. And I don’t want to overdramatize the situation that people are facing, but he recommends this concept of parallel structures.

(35:54):
Where there might be some industries or professions that Christians actually, by the very fundamental demands of that position and how they have to operate, need to pull away from that and create parallel organizations to accomplish the same end. So I just want to throw that out there as I understand that, and I know that’s not what we’re talking about, but I think we’re getting to that place where some of those things are going to have to happen.

But for those folks that are out there and struggling, it’s not all that dissimilar from the same things that we’re asking of anyone who is trying to represent a biblical worldview in the marketplace of ideas, as we’re quoted as saying many times. And the first place that either a young professional or otherwise would need to be looking is at themselves and saying, “Okay, I’m being faced with some new experiences here that are really, really challenging.”

(36:52):
“Is my worldview solid? Are the truth claims that I’ve embraced solid? Are the desires that I have in my heart biblically aligned? Are my habits biblically aligned?” I was just reading some new research from the Cultural Research Center, George Barna out there at Arizona Christian University. And what they just recently in their most recent iteration of the American Worldview inventory was that 88% of American adults hold to syncretism, which he doesn’t consider a worldview, but just a hodgepodge of facets from different worldviews.

Dr. Jeff Myers (37:26):
It’s the cafeteria approach.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (37:27):
Yes. I think that’s terrible, but I think there’s some opportunity for people who are sitting alongside that person that you’d say, “Man, this guy’s really pagan.” Well, they’re really pagan, but the good thing is that they probably have little pieces of commonality with you because syncretism is so prevalent in our culture and they don’t even know it.

So I think besides obviously evaluating our own worldview and feeding ourselves and growing our worldview so that we’re developing, the next step is really to find places of commonality, even with people that are on the other side of many issues. And I think this idea that our culture is so confused and is so synchronistic is actually an opportunity because they haven’t well thought out a secular humanist kind of Richard Dawkins worldview. He’s got it all figured out and he’s got all these classifications and categories and you ain’t in them.

(38:24):
The good thing with syncretism is that they’re confused and they may actually believe some things that you think are very important. You can find those common grounds. And that’s where, even in some of the major cultural battles, we as conservative Christians find ourselves aligned with people who we don’t agree with on many other issues. Who would have thought that JK Rowling would be on our side, on the transgender issue or other people like that. Did I say her name right? JK Rowling?

Dr. Jeff Myers (38:49):
Yes.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (38:50):
I think that’s her name. Yeah. So if I was to be working next to her, JK, and maybe we’re working on a project together, I’m not going to talk about the things we disagree with. I’m going to start conversations about the things we can agree with and be praying that that becomes a bridge where we can actually work together in a way that’s productive and ultimately might result in her maybe giving some more airtime in her brain to the things that are important to me from a biblical worldview perspective.

So number one is really, this is no time to be asleep at the wheel with our own personal worldview development, but number two is the crazy chaos in our culture may actually be an opportunity to find points of common ground that we can bond on and use as a bridge.

Dr. Jeff Myers (39:35):
Wow. Man, that is rich. There are a lot of aspects to this. Is there anybody, let’s say somebody says, “Great, great start. I get the basic idea. I want to know more.” Obviously we want them to take a look at this book, Beyond Biblical Integration, that you’ve written. Are there some sources that you regularly turn to if you’re asking, “Hmm, I wonder how I would approach such and such from a biblical worldview?”

Dr. Roger Erdvig (40:05):
Yeah. And that is, again, that’s a fundamental building block of being able to create biblical worldview immersive environments, is that the one who’s building the environments is consistently taking charge of their information diet so that they’re equipped. So for me, again, I’m not in the rough and tumble warp and wolf of the business world right now.

So for me personally, it’s Breakpoint, and I’m talking about podcasts now, The World and Everything In It, it’s Al Mohler’s The Briefing, but I fear that that’s not a good answer to your question because those are more general in perspective. I do think it would be helpful for us to develop a list of resources for podcasts and things like that, that young professionals in particular could draw from. I just don’t have immediate knowledge of those because I’m not necessarily in that world all that often.

Dr. Jeff Myers (41:11):
Yeah. That may be a call for somebody who’s watching or listening right now. These are big needs. We all know it. We all know that there’s a lot of tension in the workplace, and it seems like there are trip wires everywhere.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (41:25):
Exactly.

Dr. Jeff Myers (41:26):
That can be career ending. How do we navigate that? How do we have conversations in difficult situations? What are some of those touch points, commonalities that we can find with other people?

Dr. Roger Erdvig (41:38):
Jason’s new book, I think, lends towards that.

Dr. Jeff Myers (41:43):
So Jason Jimenez.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (41:44):
Yeah. Yeah, right. The Challenging Conversations book. Yep. And again, those are general though. And I understand the hunger for a business professional to say, show me how to do it. What I would recommend is there are a number of Christian business associations around the country. They might take a little bit more digging than to find a Christian school, but I regularly do coach training with one of them.

And I’m telling you, these are groups of Christian business professionals and high level folks. These are both entrepreneurs and successful long-term business folks who are getting together on a monthly basis, iron sharpening iron. I cannot imagine. So I’m glad you asked or probed a little bit further. I cannot imagine being a young business professional without a group of mentors around me.

(42:32):
It’s just impossible. Nobody has walked through a lot of what we’re walking through right now in our lifetime, in our country, in our areas, but they’re walking through it concurrently. And folks who are doing that can really bond together. And there are multiple Christian business connecting groups around the country that I would strongly recommend. Don’t do it on your own. The other is not, again, a pre-packaged resource, but a couple years ago, I discovered that I was a little bit isolated, and I got people around me all the time.

So I won’t tell you the name of the guy, because you might remember him from way back passing the baton at Brian College Days when we did some coach training together, but I’ve kept in contact with him for many, many years. And about two years ago, I think it was, we started talking to each other on a regular basis to wrestle through the leadership challenges that we’re facing as Christian leaders in this current world.

(43:30):
So that’s a long way to say, you got to get some friends that you can talk to on a regular basis and process those life experiences in the workplace with. I’ve been a part of a small group on and off where we were actually reading Live Not By Lies together. It was a book group. And that was another environment in which we were some key leaders.

I was the only school leader, they were their business leaders, and that’s where I’ve heard some of these tremendous stories of what people are facing, but studying live not by lies together and the practical implications that Rod Drayer suggests for how to live, not via lies, it was so helpful to do that in an iron sharpens iron kind of an environment. So you can’t be isolated.

Dr. Jeff Myers (44:09):
That’s so good. Well, for years, you and I have talked about and practiced coaching as a strategy as well, walking alongside of other people, being willing to receive coaching from others, but then also being willing to in turn coach others. So we’re always being mentored. We’re always seeking to share what we know with other people to create that kind of community where growth is the expectation and growth is the goal, growing us personally and then watching our businesses grow as together we figure out how to solve the problems that face all of us.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (44:51):
Yeah. And I would say that kind of peer coaching model, this guy that I told you about, we both happen to be professional coaches, so you should hear our friendship conversations. They’re amazing, that coaching back and forth. It’s kind of funny. Sometimes I have to shut it off actually in a conversation with them.

But my point is, I cannot overstate the importance of that life on life relationship, a peer coaching relationship where you’re willing to ask the hard questions and not give the hard answers, where you’re willing to step back and help someone else process. And I would say, again, to a young professional, get yourself a coach, get yourself someone who’s willing to really listen carefully to what you’re saying and probe the depths of what your experience and help you generate solutions from your own wealth of experience through your relationship with Christ. Those are really important concepts.

Dr. Jeff Myers (45:42):
Yeah. I think my times of greatest personal growth and my times of greatest business growth have been those times where I had someone just like you’re describing walk alongside of me and push me, challenge me. I want to be challenged. I want to grow, but just like every athlete, practice is not all that fun. And if it is fun all the time and it’s easy, then I’m not really growing. So I need to have those who are willing to push me farther than I would push myself.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (46:11):
Right.

Dr. Jeff Myers (46:12):
Yeah. Well, Roger, this has been a great wide ranging conversation. Everything from Christian education to biblical, creating a biblically immersive environment in schools to math, coaching, sports. We got it all. We covered a lot of things, but I think it really goes back to the theme of the show here that worldview is everything. And if we can understand a biblical worldview and then apply it in our thinking and in our relating to other people, we can’t actually do this in areas that previously may have been thought to be entirely secular.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (46:53):
Right. And the hope I have, honestly, Jeff, and this just struck me a while ago. I have grandchildren now, and so I think of the future for my grandkids, and every old guy says that now, right? I mean, that’s just part of what we’re supposed to say. But I just took great hope as I reflected on some of the kids that grew up in the Bible and the impact that they had on their culture. They did not grow up in this nice little happy little American cradle of the ’60s and ’70s that you and I grew up.

I mean, and that almost sounds silly to say that, but to compare it to today, it was a happy little cradle. My upbringing was very happy. There wasn’t a whole lot of conflict that really impacted me like the conflicts impact our kids now, but that’s a kind of environment that Esther grew up in.

(47:40):
I mean, that’s the kind of environment that Daniel grew up in. So I think the times are full of opportunity for even my little grandchildren who are going to grow up in a world that’s radically different than the one that I grew up in. And I think there’s a lot of hope because that’s the biblical record.That’s how it works.

Dr. Jeff Myers (47:57):
Wow. Roger Erdvig, thanks for coming on the show today. I really appreciate this conversation. A lot of fun.

Dr. Roger Erdvig (48:04):
I enjoyed the time together. Thanks, Jeff.

Dr. Jeff Myers (48:05):
Special thank you to my guest today, Dr. Roger Erdvig for coming on the Dr. Jeff Show. You can find his resources at rogererdvig.com. So if you’re listening, Erdvig is E-R-D-V-I-G. You may especially want to pay attention to his book, Beyond Biblical Integration. That’s a great resource for parents who are training their children, interested in how to have a biblical education for their children, but it also is a good, helpful source for recognizing that a biblical worldview applies to everything. That’s the life-giving power that we have through Christ. Enjoyed being with you, and I’ll see you next week.

(48:46):
Hey, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Jeff Show. It’s a podcast from Summit Ministries, summit.org. Summit is a nonprofit ministry that exists to equip and support the rising generation to embrace God’s truth and champion a biblical worldview.

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(49:50):
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