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Why We Need Biblical Worldview Training
 The Need
According to The Barna Research Group, only 22% of adults and just 6% of teens acknowledge the existence of absolute moral truth.1
George Barna’s 2003 national survey found that only 9% of born again Christians hold a biblical worldview. In his words, “Although most people own a Bible and know some of its content, our research found that most Americans have little idea how to integrate core biblical principles to form a unified and meaningful response to the challenges and opportunities of life. We’re often more concerned with survival amidst chaos than with experiencing truth and significance.” 2
Without a solid foundation in biblical truth, moral standards are relaxed and Christians are increasingly willing to condone premarital cohabitation, drunkenness, homosexuality, profanity, adultery, pornography, and abortion.3
Recapturing a biblical worldview gives Christians a new zeal for their faith and confidence that their faith can stand up to the challenges of an increasingly secular and hostile society. It also protects Christians, especially young people, from the subtle deceptions of modern philosophies and ideologies.
Components
Through the Minnesota Worldview Leadership Project, Minnesotans are encouraged to develop a biblical worldview and become advocates in their churches and communities. Participants make a commitment to teach others what they have learned and to shape culture by living out a biblical worldview in their spheres of influence.
Participants complete homework assignments, work through regular small group meetings, devotional/Bible study materials, prayer, reading assignments, and weekend mini-seminars with leading Christian thinkers, and develop initiatives for where they can best utilize their worldview training after the program is completed.
The goal of the program is to inspire and equip Christians to view life through a biblical mindset and help them identify, understand, and counter opposing worldviews, while advocating effectively and winsomely for a biblical worldview.
Throughout the program, participants explore a number of key issues related to worldview thinking. Topics include the clash of worldviews, postmodernism, naturalism, the Christian mind, creation and Intelligent Design, the Fall, truth vs. relativism, and salvation, redemption and restoration.
In addition, participants look at how worldviews influence life in the areas of economics, work, ethics, marriage, family, sexuality, popular culture, literature and the arts, natural law, and politics. Participants learn to advocate for the truth through apologetics, teaching, and challenging false worldviews.
Outcomes
Through the Minnesota Worldview Leadership Project, participants will:
- Understand what it means to think Christianly and be able to articulate the elements of a biblical worldview, with particular emphasis on defending the propositions that truth exists and that it is knowable.
- Be equipped to think through worldview issues for themselves.
- Understand the basics of other major worldviews competing with Christianity in Western culture, including Islam, postmodernism, secular modernism, and New Age.
- Know how to engage with individuals who hold divergent ideas about reality, not just how to engage the ideas themselves.
- Be committed to apply what they have learned, using their talents and gifts in their sphere’s of influence, to teach and train others to apply and live out a biblical worldview.
- Demonstrate growing spiritual maturity, effective worldview living, and zeal for bringing the Kingdom of God to bear in all areas of life.
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