At a Glance
Words are constantly created and redefined in our day. With such dramatic shifts, how can we have the “mind of Christ?” Words are not just sounds we utter; they are powerful building blocks for culture. Words and their meanings shape our thinking, convictions, beliefs, and worldview – ultimately bringing about our actions. Which words need to be redeemed? Are there words that need to be rejected? Today we are joined by author, teacher, education consultant, trainer, speaker, and our good friend, Dr. Elizabeth Youmans, who helps us think deeply about this while helping us consider specific words like, gender, marriage, liberty and more.
Special Guest
For the past 30 years, Dr. Elizabeth Youmans has traveled throughout the world as a trainer of teachers, a conference speaker, and a consultant to Christian school founders, faculties, pastors, and homeschoolers. She has helped them establish their vision and expression of Christian education by training faculties, mentoring educational leaders, and writing books and curricula centered on biblical principles. Elizabeth was called into the sphere of Christian education as a parent of a child enrolled the founding year in a Principle Approach® parent cooperative in Chesapeake, Virginia. She was so interested in the Christian history lessons her son was receiving, she asked permission to audit his third-grade class. The rest is history! When one of the teachers had major surgery that year, Elizabeth was asked to teach in her place. The vision was so successful that first year, it was renamed StoneBridge School. For fifteen years, she served as a classroom teacher, curriculum writer, and school administrator when StoneBridge was designated the national demonstration school for the Foundation for American Christian Education (FACE), home of the Principle Approach. She led a team to design and launch the unique high school vision for StoneBridge School, where she remains an emeritus board member.
Elizabeth served North American education at FACE as a national trainer of teachers, a curriculum writer, an editor of The Noah Plan®, a published K-12 Principle Approach curriculum, and as a graduate school professor at Regent University in Virginia Beach. She now has 40 years of pioneering experience in Word-centered education at the local, national, and international levels, as she continues to impart the vision for educational reform by laying teaching and learning solidly on the foundation of Christ and His Word.
Chrysalis International, a Christian educational institute located in Orlando, Florida, was founded in 2000, when the Lord propelled Elizabeth into the nations. For the next 15 years, she traveled and taught on five continents. Inspired by an international NGO in 2002 to design a principle-based curriculum for at-risk children around the world, she wrote a turn-key curriculum and training program for use in the Church that is suitable for any educational setting. Known as the AMO® Program, it is a multi-generational program with a children’s enriched curriculum and worldview courses for the adults who teach and disciple them. All are available in four languages.
Today, she instructs and disciples international educators in their calling of educational leadership in the nations. She governs and co-teaches the AMO® Program online courses of study, continues to write and edit new teacher guides for the AMO® Program, and governs the activities of the non-profit.
In addition to all the traveling Dr. Youmans has done professionally, she and her family lived in Germany and she has traveled to Antarctica on a scientific expedition. Elizabeth is the mother of four grown children and enjoys her eight grandchildren and one great grandson. She is a member of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Orlando, Florida.
Educational Background:
Ed.D., Whitefield Theological Seminary and College
M.A.Ed., Regent University, Virginia Beach
A.D.A. Internship, Fort Sam Houston Medical Center, Texas
B.S., Pennsylvania State University
Resources
What You'll Hear
Using the link above, you can read the transcript or listen along while highlighted text follows the podcast audio.
"Whoever controls the language controls the culture, because words are really governing agents."
Dr. Elizabeth Youmans [6:50]
Quotes
“Whoever controls the language controls the culture. Words have incredible power because they set the agendas of whole nations! The words we use to describe a situation or problem frame the way we approach it. It’s not bullets that ultimately win wars, it’s words. A bullet won’t make you die for someone, but the right word lodged within you will make you fearless. Making words mean what you want them to mean is the first step in controlling the minds of men and from there, their actions. Words have incredible power in the hands of a propagandist. . . . The real warriors on either side of the issues wage war with words. If you divide a people’s language, you can divide their will. . . . Unify their language and you have unified their power!” – Dennis Peacocke
For more, see the blog series from Elizabeth Youmans, “Language Builds a Nation.”
Go Deeper
When the principles of the Bible are understood as a comprehensive worldview, it has tremendous power to work transformation in individuals, families, communities, and even nations. Too often, Christians are ineffective because they have absorbed cultural thinking that is not in alignment with truth.
Not all worldviews are equal. Some lead to brokenness and poverty, while the biblical worldview leads to God’s intended flourishing and the blessing of the nations. Our Kingdomizer Training Program can help you understand the biblical worldview and discover areas in your own thinking that need to be transformed by God’s Word.
More than a million people have now been trained in 115 countries. Get started with our completely free Kingdomizer Training Program today!
Now available with online training videos in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic, German, Korean, Kiswahili, and Bangla.
