Foundations Of A Biblical Christian Worldview Outline

General Starting Outline For YWAM DTS

I.  Introduction

A.  Personal Introduction And Greeting

B.  What Is A Worldview And Why Does It Matter?

  • Definitions, explaining the importance of the topic

C.  The Worldview Tree And Pyramid

  • This is usually an "on the whiteboard" group discussion about the bad and good fruits they see in society with a foundation underneath illustrating where the fruits in society come from - pushing the students towards thinking "why are things the way they are?"

II.  Four Key Worldview Questions  (Mostly Answered From Genesis)

A.  Who Is God And What Is He Like?  (The amount of content here depends on whether they have already had or will have a clear teaching on the Character and Nature of God)

B.  What Is Truth?  (What Is The Nature Of Reality?  Where Does Truth Come From?)

  • This has to do with realizing that God has presented us with objective truth that is always true for all people at all times in all places through the Bible, etc.
  • This part of the teaching is designed to combat the idea that everybody has their "own truth."
  • It is designed to get the student to realize that they need to surrender to God in their thinking and commit to a life long process of renewing their minds and replacing the worlds ideas with God's

C.  Who Is Man?  (Origins, Purposes, Mini-Creators Of Beauty etc.)

  • Lot's of fun stuff here about God's purposes for us!

D.  What  Is Wrong With The World?  (Understanding How ALL Evil In The World Is Rooted In The Fall Of Man And His/Her Sinful Nature)

  • Helping the students to understand that the root of sin must be dealt with to truly "change the world."
  • Humans are not just animals that can be controlled and manipulated through humanistic/naturalistic means

III.  Comparative Worldviews

  • This is where most of the "cross cultural missions" content will come in.  It is highly based on Darrow Miller's material as well as some of my own.

A.  Defining and explaining the three main categories of worldview found in the world - Animism, Naturalism, and Christian Theism

B.  Worldview Comparison Chart

  • This is an extensive chart where we work through the same four questions as in point II comparing each of the 3 main worldview categories.
  • Depending on time, I cover several ADDITIONAL questions to the 4 above (such as eternal destiny in each worldview, happiness (or lack thereof) in each worldview, what "helping others" looks like in each worldview, etc.

IV.  The Bible And Social Structure And Reform

  • How much of point IV gets covered is greatly related to how many hours of teaching there are in total, or in other countries whether or not their is translation.

A.  The 4 Primary Government Spheres Of Society (Biblical Basics Of Each)

 1.  The Individual 

  • There tends to be a lot of good discipleship, leadership, responsibility, service to one another, and taking initiative stuff under this point.  :-)

2.  The Family - General Introduction 

3.   The Church - General Introduction 

4.  The Civil Government - General Introduction 

B.  How Change Happens

  • We wrestle through together just how exactly does change come about in society?  More laws?  Carrying signs and protesting?  Programs?

1.  Internal To External

2.  Small To Large - Local To Greater - Etc.

3.  A Bit Of Leaven And The Whole Batch Of Dough

4.   Faithful In The Little Things

5.   Etc.

C.  The 10 Commandments and Social Order (I frequently run out of time and don't get to this one)

V.  Bonus Content (I often run out of time before getting to these - although bits and pieces of these things are always spread throughout the rest of the teaching)

A.  A Christian View Of Wealth

  1. What is wealth?
  2. Where does it come from?
  3. Should Christians pursue wealth?
  4. Is money evil?

B.  Breaking the poverty cycle

  1. Where does poverty come from?
  2. How do we get rid of it and/or deal with it?
  3. Where is the world going wrong on this?

VI.  A Vision For Dominion!  (My favorite part, I never leave this out even if I have to skip something else).

A.  The Ever Expanding Kingdom (Daniel Chapter 2)

B.  Dominion Throughout The Bible Leading Up To The Great Commission

C.  The All Of Life Nature Of The Great Commission

C.  A Victorious Mentality

D.  Created To Create (Work, Business, Art, Serving Others, Making The World Better Through Labor And Creativity)

E.  Science, Technology, Creativity, Etc.

F.  The Gospel That Changes All Of Life Filling The Whole Earth!

G.  Depending on what the students have been taught already by other teachers and parts of the curriculum, I often tell the story of Bill Bright and Loren Cunningham and the vision for the Mind Molders here (and cover in brief what they are and how they relate to the rest of the teaching)

 

 

Thoughts:

  • I try to flex with what the students have already been taught or will be taught by other speakers and areas of the specific schools curriculum
  • I try to understand the heart and goals of the school leader
  • I try to work into the content various YWAM Foundational Values throughout the class when teaching in a DTS.  There is a LOT of good content for that here.
  • I try and flex with the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to increase or decrease emphasis on various points, or in some cases to drop a point or add a point.
  • While I couldn't really teach someone else's outline, I am very open to suggestions and input.