How to start your own Home school or Christian school

Good afternoon, America, and welcome to the Dean's List. I'm Dean Bowen. We are listening to America Out Loud Talk Radio. We are happy to have you on board. You can find us here at americaoutloud.news, Monday through Friday at the 2 p.m. Eastern time slot. And if you've been listening at all for a little bit, you know that, well, I don't know, I tend to get political sometimes.

The objective here is that we want to shine the light of truth on the educational landscape throughout the country. That's what we say. That's what we talk about. And sometimes doing that, we're forced to get into the political weeds. And that's okay. I don't mind it. We kind of like it a little bit around here.

But from time to time, we're able to step out of the weeds and have conversations with people about educational topics, people that know what's going on, they know what they're talking about. And I have had a wonderful opportunity over the past 12 months to get to know a lot of these people. And I've got somebody on the show today who is one of those individuals.

His name is Homer Allen, and he is involved in a lot of things educational. And I just want to dive into all of it. If we've got time, I don't know if we're going to if we're going to get through all of it, Homer, but thanks for being on the show. It's great to be here, Dean. Thanks for inviting me. You're welcome. You're welcome. So we're to begin. I didn't really give you a formal introduction, but you're involved in a lot of things you teach at Regent University.

you're involved with homeschool startups. You're involved with Herzog Foundation, which we've talked a little bit. You're an author. Where to begin? I guess, why don't we start with, I'm interested actually in the classes that you teach at Regent. Can we start there?

Sure, that one of the things that Regent University has, unlike a lot of schools that are Christian schools, they actually have a track for Christian educators, which means K-12. Teachers that want to work or be administrators in that, they have a masters as well as a doctoral program. And so about seven years ago, they asked me to head the teacher class in strategic planning,

and fundraising. In other words, how you are able to raise the funds around the Christian school or homeschool that God has given you. So I teach the class to students, their graduate and doctoral students who are seeking to learn that. And it's a really huge barrier for some people because they look at it as raising money for themselves almost. It's like going out on the street and holding up a sign and say, please support me.

Well, and it's exactly the opposite. So what we do in that class, I always start with the same book. It's a critical book. It's by Henry Nallon, who was a professor at Harvard long ago. And it's called, the name of the book is called The Spirituality of Fundraising. It takes about an hour to read. It's a tiny little book.

But as a professor, he had given a lecture on in a Christ-centered way. He would say, Harvard, guys, well, he left Harvard to join a ministry in Canada. But he wrote, he had a speech called the spirituality of fundraising. And people say, oh gosh, it's not spiritual law. It's begging for money. I said, no. What in the right sense, if God gives you a vision for your school or for whatever your ministry, whatever it is,

and you sense in your heart, it's really from the Lord, you have counsel that says, yes, you need to do this, but it's gonna take a lot of money. If you wanna start a Christian school, a regular four or five day a week school, you're gonna have to staff, you're gonna have to have the facility, you'll probably have to pay for heat, and other things, you'll have to make decisions on who's gonna initially buy the materials and all that, and all that takes money.

And so how do you do that? You just hope and pray and you just say, oh, put up a sign that says we're starting a school. Well, generally it takes a long time of planning and that, but the best way is to do a lot of prayer and put together a team of people who have a similar burden and put down, record the vision.

In a bucket, two and three, chapter two, verse two and three, it talks about right down the vision, recorded. So that those who read it will be able to run for the vision is yet for an appointed time. It will surely come, it will not terry, wait for it because it will come. That's the hit bucket too. So when you have a school, I started the school years ago in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire is considered one of the hardest places in America to start anything Christian. It literally has the fewest number of tithers in terms of percentage wise, not people percentage wise in the country, based on a Barnus study. In other words, fewer people who are Christians in New Hampshire give the least amount of money.

So how do you start at a school like that? Well, you do a lot of prayer. You surround yourself with people and you go and you tell people, the Lord has shown me that there needs to be a Christ-centered school here because there is none. That was in Manchester, New Hampshire. And there was no, in the largest city in all of New Hampshire, there was no Christian school.

that I was asked to start at. And you go to folks and you put together the thoughts that you feel God wants to talk about, but mostly you talk about the lives. Then once they get ahold of the Lord, the Lord can use to change the city, the town, their life, but maybe the country, depending on the individual. And you paint stories of what God wants to do, and you ask them, you have a sum that you need to raise, whether it be 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 or a million.

And you just do that. And we watch the ward over and over and over and over, miracle after miracle, literally miracle, where people will walk up to some people who they don't know, but they've heard about the vision that God planted. And they say, you know, if I can help financially, and it takes sometimes a lot of hard work, a lot of struggles, and it doesn't always go the way you want. In fact, it usually doesn't.

All right, it doesn't. So anyway, so that's what I teach, how to really get ahold of God and get ahold of the vision that he has for you. And that's true with anything, not just schools. It reminds me of when we started Waterbrook 17 years ago, and I went to Cleveland, Ohio to talk to a man who I had met about a year previously.

And he was involved in funding a Christian K-12 school in the Cleveland area. And so I went down to talk to him, you know, it's the summer before we start. And I want to, I just want to get advice. I want to, you know, talk through how we go about doing this. And he said something to me. And at the time, I didn't believe it. But he said, you know, you're not, you're not going to be able to run the school just on tuition alone. You're going to need

You're, you're going to need a donor. You're going to need some, some support outside of tuition. And you know, I'm young and I think, no, we got this, we can do it. I can just do this on tuition. But over the years, I've, I've come to realize the wisdom in his statement that, that there's got to be something external to start side of tuition. Right. You know, we, our school is in the Flint area and you know Flint, it's not a thriving financial mecca.

And so tuition isn't enough to get it done. There's got to be other streams, I guess, other streams of income.

And that's true with some of the most prestigious prep schools in New England. Some of the most prestigious prep schools in the United States are here in our region. There's Exeter and Exeter is a good example. Exeter charges about $40,000 for a day student, about $60,000 for a boarding student. They have a billion dollars, quite literally, a billion dollars in their endowment.

And you say, my gosh, that should be enough to do anything. Well, they claim, I'm not sure in this case, that's not enough to run our school. So it works for me. Well, I was reading the other day on air, this article about

Cal Berkeley and the parents there are a little upset because there's not enough police and and Cal Berkeley isn't funding the police and so the parents have raised $40,000 to to have their own security, you know, apparatus around the campus.

And they've gone to Cal frequently and Cal said, I'm sorry, we just don't have enough money to fund this. But on the day that the parents kicked it off, Cal was announcing and advertising the end of their fundraising campaign, which raised like $7 billion. But they don't have enough money. But there's the other side of that, which deals very much with why I'm involved in homeschools.

You look around in one of the schools I consult with here in the Boston area is $20,000. And they said, that's for Boston. That's really cheap. I, how do you guys do that? But you asked the average parent in the Boston area, not just wherever you're from. You know, how do I, I have three kids, ones in second grade, ones in fourth grade, ones in seventh grade or something.

So it's only $60,000 to send my three kids to your school. And they kind of look at you like, what are you out of your mind? I can't afford one child. I can't afford half of one child. Where do I get that kind of money? And so we take that and we say, you know, really in some ways,

And I don't know your tuition. There's been some ways Christian schools have become sort of a mini prep school for what we charge. And parents are the parents with having to work two jobs or whatever and stuff are left out. And a lot of Christian schools will say, well, we give you a good scholarship, but you can only give so many scholarships before it doesn't work anymore. So homeschools, as I was praying about that,

I said, there's too many families. They can't afford hardly anything. We're talking around a thousand dollars, maybe, maybe as much as two, but they certainly can't afford 10 to 15 or 20,000. So what happens to them in Massachusetts when I think it's true and Flint may not be true in all of Michigan, but it's definitely true in Flint. What's going on in the public schools is not very positive.

uh, we have requirements that the government, which is 75 or more percent Democrat, saying, uh, you're required to introduce certain things to second and third and fourth graders about homosexuality and about relation with your boy. It's required. It's, it's right in the old curriculum requirements. And you say, not on my watch, not with my kids.

And you get, what are we doing? And sitting back, and they say, well, what, over and over, I talk to parents, but what can I do? I'm too frightened to pull to homeschool my own children. And I don't have the money to send them to a Christian school or another type of school. So 90% of what we do is not helping parents start homeschools. It's helping them overcome

they literally this, the blockage that in their head that they can't do it, that they're going to screw up their own child. So we have what we call the three, the three C's that we recommend to parents. We said, we will help you will come beside you to give you the courage that you need to start a

a community that you want to have and give you an option to several curriculums that you can choose. Now we'll be there for you and we'll come beside you to do these things. We'll help you. We'll literally like Moses lift up, keep your arms lifted up and they don't believe it at first but we have example after example after example after example that people once they realize

It's okay. You don't have to be perfect. You don't even have to have a high school or college degree. God can use you because that's it. You're the parent. Right. And you don't have to do this alone. That's the critical thing. The community is absolutely critical. A lot of parents coming together with friends and others. And by community, I mean, anybody, two or three, they say in prayer, well, it can be that small. It just started a homeschool. It doesn't have to be 50 or 100.

And there can be one day homeschools or five day homeschools that come together. And there can be, you know, it's all over the map, but we have the background information and we don't charge for our services. I guess I shouldn't say that on your show. No, no, that's all right. We charge millions of dollars. And I would like to

to touch on the details of that before we're done here. But you mentioned courage. And a lot of what you do is just almost instilling that courage into parents. And I was speaking to a mom, I guess, back in the fall. And she was on the show and we were talking about her own endeavors with homeschooling. And I said to her,

that I've always been of the opinion that if you don't have the time of the temperament, that homeschooling probably isn't going to, you know, it's not going to work for you. And her reply to me was interesting. She said, well, I don't agree. I think you make the time. And you, you understand, you get to learn who your child actually is, and you, and you see their temperament. And you kind of

understand and educate yourselves on ways to educate your children. And it just creates this whole foundation of.

Because I agree with you, I think parents are a little gun shy. You know, you made the statement, I feel like I'm going to mess up my kid. I think I'm at a room of thanks here. I'm not an educator. I'm not certified. I'm not whatever. And they tend to get inside their own heads. But this mom was saying this actually allowed me to get outside of my own head and realize I can do this.

And because of it, she built this relationship with her children that she says she wouldn't have had had she not taken the time and grappled with the courage to actually homeschool them.

And that's really a big deal. And that's why it's important to realize you're not alone. You don't have to do this alone. And I think that's the initial fear that we've found. I'm here in the Boston area where Harvard and MIT, two of the best colleges in the world are. And we met with parents that are from Harvard and MIT.

And it's not the knowledge that they don't debate their own skill and ability. They abate that they're not the right ones. There's some aspect of them in their mind that they can't do this. And it's true no matter what the background, it's true with high school dropouts that may be, you know, really amazing people, that they may be plumbers, they may, whatever, but whatever,

There's something in them that feels like I don't want to be responsible and saying when my kid is like 18, boy, if I have just really made a mistake here. And so that's why community and having people around you, we're talking, we're talking Christians in this capacity. You know, the word talks to us a lot about, you know, being together and coming together and

particularly obviously true with obviously the Eucharist and communion. It's true with what Jesus says. He's about to depart. He's asking the Father that they will be like we are. Come together as it says in John 1723.

I pray, you know, that I have to use a side note. It's a good interesting side note. I have a book coming out with a lot of authors. One of the authors is a lady who is a pediatrician. She's a doctor.

And she works in the emergency room. She's a Rhodes scholar. She's a brilliant thing. And I said, I said to Carrie, that's first name. Why don't you write a chapter on what you found about the importance of community? Because she talks about community. She says you're in the emergency room, you're a doctor. She says, community is everything to me. But why don't you write a chapter on that as it relates to your many children? She has five kids.

And so she says, I work in the emergency room at a Boston hospital and I'm a pediatrician. Who do you think are the most people I see now after COVID?

you would think it would be kids coming in for accidents, kids having serious physical things that have happened to them that they're traumatized. They all who knows they may be coughing and can't stop. They may have serious congestion. The most people I see more than 50% maybe on some days as much as 70% are kids with mental and psychological disorders that you can't detect.

They are depressed. They're upset. They're suicidal. My whole emergency room is shifted from the physical to the mental. And who I see is a pediatrician. You're kidding me. So I've asked other people who I know in different hospitals, and they're all seeing the same thing. This is not just one doctor mentioning that. And she said, we've lost community.

It's a tragedy. And one of the things at homeschool New England is we try and start with community. Community and culture is kind of go hand in hand. What do I mean? Not just someone who's willing to work with you. You want someone who believes like you do. I don't mean just Christian stuff, but you, you know, you get along with. You want to be around with. You want to help their children and they help your children and you want to grow up.

raising children together in a community type thing. It doesn't have to be every day or even two or three times a week, but it does have to be fairly in an ongoing way. So that's what we try and do. We try and help people overcome whatever it is to have the courage to step out and say, you know, the Lord

We're on your side. This is something that this is doable. You can do it. Yay. Go for it. We're here. So Homer, tell me how did the this idea for the book come about? Well, I've been in Christian education a long time and It's funny we all know

What in Proverbs, everybody quotes it. You see it everywhere. Proverbs 22, 6, train up a child in the way he should go. And when he is old, he will not, so when he is old, he will not depart from it. Train up a child in the way he should go. And when he is old, he will not depart for it. Now, the word he is substituting for he or she, it's referring to mankind, so to speak, or child kind.

But why do I, so I began looking at that.

And I ran across something by Chuck Swindall. It's really a great, I recommend this for everybody. I mean, if you do nothing else in the next week, go on and find a little eight-minute segment by Chuck Swindall called Train Up a Child. And it's a little tiny eight-minute interview on YouTube. It's a great thing to listen to. And he actually talks what I've really based endless research on, proven to be correct what he says.

He's talking to somebody in his church. He's interviewing Chuck Swindall, the pastor from, he used to be ahead of, you know, Dallas Theological Seminary. So anyway, so he says, you know, that scripture in Proverbs 22, 6, train up a child in a way she'd go, I spent a long time studying that, says Swindall.

And I've found that the word way, the way you should go really means the bent of your child. Train out the child in the way or the bent. What in other words, what's unique about your child?

And even if you have twins or triplets, each God has created each one of those children unique. But what's unique about them? So he goes into that a little. So what's the way of so he talks about his grandchildren?

And he says at one of my grandchildren, at the age of two in her crib, when she heard music, she could tap to the sound of that beat, boom, boom, boom. And every beat she could, she was setting on her hand on the side of the crib. You could tell she was musically inclined. Her sister was a little bit older.

uh didn't care and didn't want and she couldn't tap it for anything like that she clearly didn't have the same ability out of the same family and he goes on and so you have to pay attention to

So the way he goes on to explain, and all the research I've done proves it's correct, is really a challenge to the parents. It's not a promise, just he said, what that means, and this is a part that we all forget.

Well, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to go to a really good church with a great Sunday school. And I'm going to get my kids in a great Sunday school. And then I'm going to find a great Christian school, maybe one that Homer Allen heads. And I'm going to get my kids in that school or the Dean heads. And that's a great Christian school. And then when summer comes, I'm going to put them in the best Christian camp I can find. And then they'll turn out wonderful.

He said, that doesn't mean that at all. It's not that there's anything wrong with that. Well, maybe there is. That takes the onus of the parents. He said, pay attention who God created your child to be. And what are the unique gifts and talents that God has for your children? And when I thought about that,

I had a wonderful dad. My dad was just a wonderful dad. He was a doctor in the small town of Pennsylvania. He was an iron nose and throat when they had all four together. Yeah. And he was an amazing man. But my brother and sister and I, there were three of us, we had one profession that we were given the option to be. And it wasn't exactly an option. Palmer.

When you grow up, you're going to be a wonderful doctor. You will be a tremendous doctor. He even thought way back then, you could be a doctor as a woman. And my brother, my brother was the oldest. He definitely was going to be the star of the family. He could be a great doctor. Well, the problem was, neither my brother or I, my sister was good in science.

And I had tutors, my dad was trying, you know, anything it took to get me into medical school. I had tutors, I had this, I had that. And I realized, fairly on, short on, that I was not picking up the stuff as quickly as the guy beside me in a lab, in school, in high school, in college. And I was getting Ds and Cs, some Cs, I was usually Ds and even worse, not passing at all. And I realized most medical schools aren't going to like to see this.

not getting into most medical schools. And I'm thinking this just isn't working for me. I don't know why I'm supposed to have all those genes that get me into medical school. And I realized that I had better find another career path or I'm going to be homeless guy pretty soon.

So the skills that I had were completely different than the ones that my father had as it relates to science. And I just couldn't, literally, I took a chemistry probably three times. And the third time I got to see, I was really proud of myself. I did it in college. So anyway, but why do I say that? Pay attention to that.

Then it, then, and if you, and when he was old, he will not depart from it. Well, we see all the time that our kids departing from the Lord. Sure. But what the Lord is saying in this verse, and there's a theologian at Gordon Conwell that goes into this verse really heavily,

He said, that verse is not a promise. You can't promise that someone will do exactly what you want them to do if they do certain things. He said, that is actually a challenge to parents. If you don't, says the theologian from Gordon Conwell, pay attention to the gifts and things of your child. If you don't figure out what God has given him and the things that God has created him to be, that child, that boy or girl,

It says, if you don't do those things, there's a good chance that he will depart from not only the Lord, but from doing anything constructive. He'll be asking himself at whatever age, 30, 40, 50, what has I created to do? The major of in life, about 35 million copies of mostly to adults who had no clue and still don't, but God wants them to do.

Now, it wouldn't be fun if parents would say, you know, I have a child that is so gifted and then whatever. And I'm going to do everything I can to try and expose him to the people who have those type of gifts and the kinds of professions and get them to down a path. It doesn't have to be the path I've chosen. It's the path the word may be slamming them towards. Sure, right.

And I met with a lady just last week from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who has a Tuesday assistant head, and she's running a grade school. It's doing exactly that with every high school student started in ninth grade. She's giving them internships around the

characteristics of things that show up on tests and things. I'm talking about personality tests and background tests that deal more with their talent and abilities. Yeah. And she's exposing them to things that are areas that they're beginning to blossom in, even in ninth grade, and say this, I really like this. I didn't know that I've never heard even about this or whatever it is. So

I love it. That's, that's where the train up a child and that's where that. So rather than train up a child, we changed the title to train up a champion because that's what your child can become. Yeah. Uh, if you focus in on the gifts and talents God has for them. So the book is called train up a champion. Yep. And when is the publication date? When will it be out? Uh, it'll be out the beginning of June.

Or willing, or I'm talking to all the people that want to print it. I haven't found one yet. All right. So authors and they all see that this book is not just a simple one concept. We've hit we've hit subjects that are really hard. How do you build a work ethic in your young children by young? I mean, six years old. How do you begin to build a work ethic? There's a lot of good stories in that. There's a tremendous stories in that.

What do you do with technology in your household? How do you handle kids that are on the phone? What do you do before that happens? I mean, what do you do with children that are younger? So we have a fellow who's written, who has a ministry, he's written on technology and the name of his chapter is really funny. Help my smartphone, my family. They're all being sucked up into their smartphones. Sitting around the table.

Yeah. So anyway, it's a ton of specific things that are unique to this are not just generic things. Like, so it's because of them. Then we have a friend of mine who written a great chapter on all the mistakes I made raising my child. Is that the longest chapter in the book? Probably the longest one. Yeah.

You read that chapter and said, I made a few of those mistakes too. Yeah, right. I could have helped write this chapter. And how to overcome that. I'll not to do that. Okay. It sounds exciting. And hopefully it'll be out soon. And before we're done here today, we'll get your information and we'll find out, you know, we'll let people know how they can get it, how they can get ahold of you and how they can get the book. Actually, before we go to a break, why don't you tell us that?

OK, I'm part of an organization called Homeschool New England. So and that is also the name of our email homeschoolnewenglin at gmail.com homeschoolnewenglin at gmail.com.

Okay. That will get you all the information you need as it relates, we can send that to. The book one that comes out will be, I think you can buy the first copy for half a million and then everything else is free. That sounds like a deal. No, it's 1995. I use that term not kidding. I actually learned that from

It fell by the name of Dr. Spencer Johnson, who wrote the book, Who Moved My Cheese, The One-Minute Manager. Right. It was apparent in our school up in New Hampshire. And I questioned him one day on how to write a good book and how all his books were selling literally in the millions that he'd written, millions of copies. He, I think, moved my cheese, sold about seven million copies. I read it.

Now, yeah, it was an interesting book, very interesting. He was an interesting man. And I said, well, what is your key to success? And he said, there are three keys I have. All right, I do it with all my books. So I tell a lot of stories in my books, all my books are storybooks. If they don't have stories, I don't write them. I keep them very short, and I keep them affordable.

And therefore, the way he says is 1995. So they can buy my book, the businessmen, women, and they get on the plane. And by the time the plane lands, they've already read the whole book. And that's the kind of thing it is, a total story. And hopefully it has some purpose in their life. So I took note of Dr. Johnson's and we tried to keep it short, guys, you keep it interesting to tell lots of stories. I like it. It's a good model.

All right, so we're going to keep it interesting. We're going to pause here for this break and we'll pick up more stories on the other side with Homer Allen. You're listening to the Dean's List on America Out Loud Talk Radio. Filling off since COVID, try the wellness company Spike Detox Trio, packed with nato kinase, bromiline and turmeric to help boost your immune system and fight off harmful spike proteins. Bounce back with energy and clarity. Go to TWC dot health forward slash out loud and use promo code out loud for 20% off your first order.

Virus protection and immune boosting just got easier. Enter the Daily V Stack. Using cellular absorption technology, we put vitamins A, C, D, zinc, and quercetin together with a multi-mineral complex for complete protection. The Daily V Stack is basically an oral IV of six products, all in one at an affordable price. Go to chemicalfreebody.com forward slash out loud, get the Daily V Stack, protect yourself, boost your immune system, and

Save 20% on your first order. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and disability. Lifestyle changes are critical, but you can also support your heart with concentrated nutrients. Healthy Cell created heart and vascular health to support cholesterol and blood pressure, with CoQ10, Vitamin K2, Resveratrol, and soluble fiber. In Healthy Cell's not a pill, it's a patent-pending gel you swallow.

If you wouldn't go a day without brushing your teeth or washing your hands, what about washing your nose? I mean, your nose does filter the air you breathe, air loaded with bacteria, viruses, and irritants.

Make nasal hygiene part of your routine with clear. No messy bottles to fill, no drowning sensation. Clear as a natural drug-free saline with the added benefit of xylitol, which blocks bacterial and viral adhesion. Available in stores and online at clear.com. That is XLEAR.com.

Whether you're flying on a cruise, driving, or exploring, use KOFEX-RX nasal cleanse daily to help protect yourself from viruses, bacteria, and allergens. KOFEX-RX is easy to use, safe and effective, if it's perfectly in your pocket or purse. Travel with confidence and stay healthy with KOFEX-RX nasal cleanse. Click on the KOFEX-RX banner ad in the American Outlaw Shop.

for 20% off your next order of Colvix RX. Prepare for the next pandemic with the Wellness Company's Contagion Emergency Kit designed by Dr. Peter McCullough. Get life-saving medications like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, plus a free nebulizer and a guidebook for safe use. Order now by going to twc.help forward slash out loud and use code out loud for $65 off your first order plus free shipping.

Many voices, one freedom, united in the First Amendment. Our goal is to herald the voice of genuine liberty at America out loud dot news. A place where you'll find the naked truth expressed with a patreonic heart.

Now is our time, my fellow Americans, America Out Loud Talk Radio, Liberty and Justice for All. Welcome back to the Dean's List. I'm Dean Bowen. You are listening to America Out Loud Talk Radio. And we're having a conversation today with a friend of mine, Homer Allen.

Homer is involved in many things education. He works at Teaches Strategic Planning at Regent University. He's involved with the Herzog Foundation. He runs homeschool New England and he is involved in the in the homeschool movement. Homer, but before we dive into that, I've got some homeschool questions and some some Herzog. I'd like to talk Herzog with you, but here.

Before I go there, I wanted to ask you, so you teach this class at Regent, strategic planning, funds development. Have you had any students that have left your class and have actually gone out and started schools?

Well, actually that ties into the Herzog thing. Yeah, actually, I have about 15 to 20 students each year in one class I teach, which is the funds development class. And they're either in the midst of it themselves. They have a school that they're heading or they're going to be having a school.

Then you have students who are hoping to head to school, and then you have students that just want to get this great out of the way and move on to now. You can usually tell those students pretty quickly. That's all right. That's the nature of university. But the funny part is that you said, if I had any students in my class, it's not unusual.

Um, because of the nature of my class being helping them fundraising for me to have students that are in my class in six months, a year, two years, five years later, they're calling me up to says professor. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You can, you know, you needn't bow down or anything. It's all right. And you helped me raise some funds. I just had a call today from, from a fellow down in the South Carolina.

Okay. And I'm up at Boston, of course. Can you help me? What's your idea? So it's kind of one of those classes, I guess, that a lot of the students feel like, here's a resource I can use for most of my life. This is the class that never ends. It's ongoing. Was that part of the verbiage in your contract that you were going to have these students forever? Yeah, it's kind of my wife's mantra is, I wish you got paid for some of this.

That made you rate up the class, if the class paid you for, you know, seven years. Yeah, but yeah. But let's tie that into the Herzog Foundation because it's a natural flow over. Some three or four years ago, and this is, this is the key. There's a guy named Stanley Herzog. And I knew nothing about any of this. So I'm not pumping this. I'm just bringing the reality to the, what this is all about. Stanley Herzog sent his kids to a Christian school in Kansas City.

And when he died, he left some $350 million to three people in his church with a singular focus of, let's help K-12 Christian schools. Wow. Use this money, the 350 million to help promote and start K-12 Christian schools. That was it. They certainly looked at this brief

scenario with all this money attached to it and say, my gosh, what do we do? So they looked around Kansas and looked for people who might help them and they consulted with a bunch of people. And they ended up with a pastor who's a cowboy chapel pastor named Darryl Jones. And they liked him because he was a really nice guy. And because he was an entrepreneur. Other pastor said, boy, if you want a guy that really thinks out of the box, that's this guy. So they went to him.

And they said, would you consider coming in as president of the Herzog Foundation to help start Christian schools and help come beside Christian schools and help work with already existing Christian schools and homeschools all over the country?

And he got together with his wife. And both of them said kicking and screaming. By that, I mean, they really knew it was the Lord, but they really love. And his wife really loved. I've actually spoken to her being the pastor's wife and the things she did in their church, but they decided that was the Lord. So they went on. So some three years ago with this big pot of money, they said, how can we impact and grow Christian schools across the country?

So they came up with a series of ways to do that. First of all, we'll have seminars all over the nation. They'll have something, they're gonna have some in Boston, they have some Kansas City, they have some in Tennessee, they have some in California, they've some in Oklahoma, they've some in Fort, et cetera. Deal with the key things that you need to do to run a good Christian school or a good homeschool.

What are those things like fundraising is one of them? Strategic planning is another. How to deal with your board? How to be a better teacher and recruit better teachers and so on and so forth? So they put together a series of questions that they got from various heads of school and people in the school and put together three day seminars, usually two and a half day seminars. And they had these seminars all over the country, but that's not the interesting part.

All of the things that they do are free. So they bring you together with some of the best talent in the country around the teachers that have been doing this stuff where they've written books on the particular subject, like how to handle your board, what board a good board has to do, et cetera. How to start a Christian school, et cetera. Then they have a two and a half day seminar that's free.

They also put you up in a really nice hotel for free, and they also feed you for free. The only thing you have to do is get there. In other words, you have to pay for their transportation to drive in or fly in wherever you're coming from, but everything else is free. And it's an amazing time with a small group of people. Usually they keep it under 50.

And you sit there and for two and a half days, you get to ask these little brilliant people who they've hired to come in and teach you that any question is on your heart. They go through their materials.

And then they support you with ongoing, you know, the opportunity to call them up, et cetera. So that's all free. And that all comes out of the money that they were given by the Herzog when he died. And so they've really done an amazing job. So most of the schools that I know of now is taking two or three years for the word to get out, but the word is definitely out.

And they fill up pretty quickly. Because some schools send, you know, a couple people to those. Not just once, but they send them to two or three times a year. Right.

Over two or three thousand Christian schools in the country. Maybe a lot more You can imagine if they're only taking 50 that they feel really quickly, right? And and they all I have not heard a bad word about any of their seminars because they hire such good qualified people to go over the subjects So then they go something else which is the part that I play in a bunch of people play there's probably a couple hundred of us and

We help people start Christian schools through an eight course in homeschool or regular K, you know, regular five day a week for their week school. And they put together something called school box. And school box has eight courses in it on how to start a Christian school and another eight courses on how to start a homeschool.

And it goes from everything by putting together budgets, how to hire teachers, what you need for policies and procedures, fundraising, you name it. It's all in that eight courses. And they assign you a mentor, someone like me, and I'm one of the mentors, they have one of hundreds. And they say they match the mentor up with the school, not in the area necessarily, because I'm working with somebody in California, somebody

Um, again, Virginia, uh, and some of the in Illinois, I think, uh, is in another place. But anyway, I'm working with four different groups, uh, around they try and match the person up with the philosophy that the school wants to, uh, promote. First of all, there are Christian schools. Um, and for.

Quite literally, you walk them through the courses that they're laid out, the eight courses, and they have to do one a month. It takes maybe an hour or two or three for each one, but the questions that you're asking can go off and on for several more than just two or four hours. All the questions they walk you through lead to other questions that you have to know because you have a background in knowing that.

So you have, and then they do something they just introduced just about two months ago, which is the other and above. If you go through four of the eight ones by the time you hit the fourth one and you completed the fourth course.

then you get to have a free website. By that, I mean, you have to put together material, but they will pay for you to put up a website for your homeschool or for your school, which is the top. We're talking about a professional website, not some amateur. They went and hunted down two really amazing website design folks.

So I'm thinking, my gosh, you know, next. So that's what they do. That's how they're.

So as a mentor to them, someone wants to start a school or home to school, call the Herzog Foundation, and tell them what your interests are. And they will, if they approve, by that you have to go through a screening, which they want to make sure you're sincere and you really are interested in all that normal things. But if they sense that you're the right person, which they almost always do, then you're off and running.

And here's them all. On August of 2025, you'll have a homeschooler school ready to go, ready to start up and run. That's a big deal. That is a big deal. It is. And Cindy and I have talked here on the show quite a bit.

when she comes on, we take a few minutes to encourage people to just go after it. If you feel like this is what God is doing, if you feel like God is drawing you into this arena, have the courage to just step into it and say, yes, let's go. And this is a big deal. When we started,

I wish Herzog would have been around. I wish you would have been around. I wish, you know, I wish I would have had the knowledge and the information that you have shared with me, you know, off camera, off screen where you and I are just talking. When Cindy and I started Waterbrook, we

that that summer we started, our founding board, the treasurer came to us, even before we even before we began Homer, our treasurer came to us and said, you know, I'm going to have to resign. I don't we don't have enough money. We have enough money that we've got saved with this money that we have saved and tuition dollars that'll that'll come in. We can make it to December.

And then once we get to January, we will have exhausted all of our income and what we have coming in through tuition is not enough to carry us to the end of the year. We can't do this, I'm gonna resign. And she did, and she resigned and said, what do we do? It also, I just had a meeting with the families and I said, what do you guys wanna do? I laid out the numbers, I was completely honest with them.

And they said, we want to do it. We want to put it in God's hands and we want to see if we can pull this off. Now, it would have been easier at home or if we had Herzog to call and give us a plan. We didn't have that. But what we did have was just some ingenuity.

And in November, we're having a parent meeting and we're letting people know, okay, we've got a month, we've got a month left. What are we going to do here? One of our parents, she raised her hand in that meeting. And she said, my brother, who owns a signed company here in Flint, I'm going to promote crani signs. If you're in the Flint area, promote, you know, get your signs from crani. Her brother owned crani signs still does. And

At his shop, there was a lot, an acre, two acre lot, full of old signs. And he said, look, if you guys want to come and scrap these signs and clean the lot up for me, you can have whatever you make.

And Homer, at that point in time, steel, the cost of steel was through the roof, the price of steel was through the roof. And we did every weekend, about five or six of us went out to that scrapyard. And we had trailers and we loaded those trailers up with old, old signs. And we took them to the scrapyard. We made an additional 30 grand, over 30 grand. Wow. That winner, that was our fundraising.

It wasn't easy, it was difficult, but we went after it, this door opened up and it kind of relates to what you were talking about earlier that prayer is a big part of it. And sometimes we pray and we seek direction from God and he opens these doors and he gives us these opportunities and we step into it. And Herzog actually might be one of these doors, one of these opportunities for somebody listening.

Yeah, and Herzog is spelled H-E-R-Z is in Zebra O-G foundation and it's a dot com Herzog foundation dot com and I'm only pushing it because I've been around education for over 30 years and I've never seen anything like I've never seen anybody just sort of

literally funding the kingdom like they are doing. And it's totally a great plant. The one thing that I'd have to mention, Dean, that most people don't think of.

Satan comes along and he gives them all kinds of questions. What if this happens? What if that? You don't have this. You don't need that. Why don't you do this and that? And so they say no. And they say no to God's plan, even though he's put the desire in your heart, not just about a Christian school, but about whatever it could be.

and so they don't do it. And we forget that God is the most creative being in the universe. He has a million more ideas than you'll ever have. I love that. And so when we get into trouble, we think that we're really in trouble. But if we are careful to do what the word wants us to do, doors open that you'll never expect.

The best example I can give you in the homeschool world is there is a school in Westfield, Massachusetts, out near Springfield in the western part of our state that started a K-12 Christian school with 100% volunteers.

of people sitting in the pews, then one of the helps start a Christian school out where they were that they didn't have any. And they had a church say, we have tons of space, come and use our building. So they charge the families $500 a year per family, not their child, per family. And so boom, you can imagine they filled up right away.

They have teachers there that are some of the most competent people because they retired and they've done this. And what's the price tag for all those teachers? Zero. Zero dollars. How did that happen? Because God put it in the heart of the people that there's something they could do in their retirement or because their spouse has a good income. They don't need money or whatever the deal is. They can literally change your life. They can be amazing. Well,

You sit there and say, gosh, that's incredible. So how much money do they need to run this school? They just need the money for heat and stuff and extra, you know, craft materials and books and stuff. But do they have to pay their teachers all kinds of money? And do they have to pay the church all kinds of money? No, they don't pay them anything.

That's what I mean. You don't know what God wants to do. So you can't sit there and say, no, no, this will never happen because we don't have this and we don't have that. The best thing I ever read about starting, about anything starting, when God puts something on your heart, you start. So the thing I read about that was not from a Christian. It was from a guy who was ahead of

the what they call them the evangelist of apple long ago and he wrote a book called the art of the stir it's a youtube you can see it it's a youtube thing the art of the stir and he says what is the art of the stir start

He said, don't worry about your mission, statement. That's important. But don't let that be stumbling block. Don't worry about this. Don't worry about that. If you feel led to start, start. Just go after it. That seems so basically simple that no one wants to do it. They think they have a thousand reasons that Satan convinced them this will never happen. Yeah.

Years later, they're thinking about how they'd like to start something that there wasn't all these hurdles. And you just say, no, no, no, because wasted two or three years of your life worrying about things that God has already put a plan together to overcome. You just won't find it. It's the old story.

You can't tie, you can't what you call steer a ship, this tied up in the harbor. Right. And that's the moral of the story. If you're going to go somewhere, you've got to go. You've got to take that step and you've got to go after it. It reminds me of the wedding at Cana.

And, you know, the mother of Jesus, Mary comes up to him and he says, I'm sorry, mom, it's not my time. And, you know, she says, you know, she gives him that look. She gives him that look. No, it's just just get out there and go after it. I love that. That's probably fantastic advice. If anybody is interested, Homer, we're up against it. Home School New England at gmail.com is how they get a hold of you.

I want to thank you for your time. And the time went by fast. It got away from me too quickly. I would love to do this again if you're up for it. Sure. It's always good to say hello and see what you're doing. All right. Thanks for joining me. We will see you again soon.