What God did This Last Year

Kevin Swanson, founder of Generations, recaps the amazing things God did in 2021.

I’d like to ask you to keep our ministry in your prayers and to consider supporting us financially.

2021 in Review

Wow! Wow! Wow! All we can say is “Praise God!” We are so thankful for what He is doing through this ministry and the millions of families around the world who have committed themselves to family discipleship! The last year has been an incredible year for Christian discipleship as at least 1 million new families have turned from mainstream secular education to homeschooling thanks to Covid-19, Critical Race Theory, and the persecution of parents at the hands of federal and state governments. Reports have it that homeschooling has grown by over 40% in the last 12 months! History may look back on these days as the season of the most unprecedented growth of Christian discipleship on record.

Here at Generations, we saw an incredible 85% increase year-over-year of our overall activity in 2021. That’s the largest bump since Generations was established over 18 years ago. Take a look at the chart below. This shows the steady growth of our ministry activity over the last 12 years. We’ve never had a year like this!

We’re coming to the end of a big year, and we’re excited about a growing team for 2022. The Lord has brought together a wonderful group of homeschooled graduates, homeschooling dads and moms who have captured the family discipleship vision and want to share it with the world. Our core team has already brought this message to countless families through hundreds of conferences and online summits over a period of 18 years. Over the next ten years, we plan to make our biblical worldview-based curriculum available to at least 100 million Christian families around the world, to include translation efforts to help Christians overseas. Consider the opportunities confronting us:

1. An increasingly aggressive opposition to the Christian Faith among mainstream institutions will press Christian parents to take more extraordinary steps to follow through on the Ephesians 6:4/Deuteronomy 6 mandate. Many families are realizing they are in an all-out war for the minds and souls of the next generation. And we want to join them on the front lines of the battle!
2. The home is seen as the safest place to raise children, protecting them from physical pandemics as well as spiritual contagions now spreading like wildfire via popular media, peers, and bad worldviews in school. Even the US Congress is concerned about the bad influence of social media like Facebook and Instagram on the emotional and psychological state of teens.
3. The COVID-19 crisis has already opened the floodgates for home education in the US and elsewhere. Millions of new homeschooling students are joining the ranks of those educating their children at home.

Generations ministering at Ukraine’s first homeschool conference




4. Interest in our discipleship resources from families around the world is increasing exponentially. Chinese and Vietnamese parents are translating our materials for their own use. We contributed significantly to the first Homeschool/Family Discipleship conference in the Ukraine in June of this year. We have already taken the message to Korea, Japan, Mexico, Nepal, the Philippines, Malawi, Uganda, and Zambia. And, as the Lord allows, we are planning future conferences in Ukraine, Mexico, Portugal, Brazil, and South Africa. The same radical humanist-atheist worldview dominant in the US and Europe has already taken over most of the educational programs of other nations. That accounts for about 98% of the Christian families in the world, or 250 million children. We are not done with our job until every Christian family in the world has removed their children from secular public schools that refuse to acknowledge God, and His power and glory in creation, science, and history. Before God, as Christian leaders in the church, we must work to equip these Christian parents to educate their children at home, providing every means possible to make this happen. We have our work cut out for us!

And, we are getting the vision out. Every day, I speak to thousands of families through our radio program. Multiple online summits, seminars, and resources provided by Generations reached 100,000 families this year. Our springtime summit reached 30,000 families, touching the lives of 60,000-90,000 children in one fell swoop. Now we are looking to break out in 2022 and double our outreach.

We released our new Christian homeschool curriculum for 1st-4th grade this year

We’ve already found ways to impact the whole world with our resources. As a missionary kid who grew up on the mission field, I’ll never forget the troubles my dad and mom had getting good resources. It was almost impossible due to the exorbitant cost of shipping, which was often 2-3 times the price of the book. But now, for the first time, Generations is offering families in other countries the ability to order materials and receive free postage. We want to serve missionaries, indigenous pastors, and Christian families around the whole world without saddling them with the outrageous fees that would normally accompany these shipments. This provision for our international brothers and sisters was made possible by your sacrificial giving in 2021.

For 18 years, I have led this organization in addition to pastoring a local church. As director, I have never received a full-time salary with Generations. In the good providence of God, Generations has now become one of the largest homeschooling ministries in the world. I can see this ministry doubling again in the next year or two, and we need to develop the ministry more strategically. We don’t want to miss opportunities. So, I will be bringing on a new full-time director—Daniel Craig—to work with me next year. We are also planning to add a full-time technical engineer to help us reach the nations online with our biblical worldview and family discipleship materials.

Also, I want to share with our supporters that our facility space has pretty much been exhausted. We have used our barn, garages, and basement to house our resources and office space for 18 years. My wife pointed out that we have completely run out of space for our own family’s things. So we will need resources to build some additional facility space in the near future.

All that said, I estimate that we will need to raise $500,000 for next year’s ministry opportunities, not including the cost of making our curriculum available online for other languages. That’s a tall order for us as we seek to reach out to 200,000+ people next year in 100 nations around the world with this family discipleship vision. But what better thing to do with our ministry resources than to encourage more discipleship? This is the Great Commission at the most foundational level. It begins in the home and then contributes to the building of the church, eventually impacting the nations. That’s as true for Brazil and sub-Saharan Africa as it is for America! Would you help us with this vision? Would you support us in reaching the hearts and minds of the next generation of Christians with a biblical vision and a robust faith?

I can’t think of a better time to be alive. I can’t think of a more invigorating and important battle. I can’t think of something more exciting to sacrifice for than the faith and future of our children. I am thankful for the faith, the courage, the long-term commitment, and the faithful giving that make up the Generations ministry. Our staff and directors have experienced unusual spiritual attacks and extremely challenging trials this year. But we have seen firsthand how God’s strength is perfected in our weakness. We have very much felt the protective hand of the Lord upon this ministry. At times, I look at this ministry as a walking, talking, real-life miracle of God! How is it that the toughest years are also the best years?

We do ask for your prayers. We are certainly in the thick of the war of the worldviews, right where we believe God has called us. Thank you for standing here with us.

Fellow servant for Jesus,

P.S. For any donation of $100 or more received by Dec. 31, 2021, I would like to offer a free copy of my book The Story of Freedom. Of all the great stories in history, these are among the most harrowing and thrilling. The blessing of liberty in the Western world must never be forgotten or lost. It is a legacy and a heritage, and in the last year America and other nations have lost more freedoms than any time in the history of the world. Perhaps, our children may salvage some liberties, if we could only share the legacy with them! Generations is a 501(c)3 ministry. Donate Now!