A nation that doesn’t know its own identity can be easily misled. It’s an idea at the heart of Grace Youngson’s conversation with Michael Hamilton on this special edition of The Family Policy Alliance Report, recorded live at SoConCon 2026.
Hamilton, founder and CEO of both Sojourn and Good Comma Editing, believes most people — Christians included — only ever get a surface-level pass at history in school, if they get one at all. Sojourn exists to go deeper, taking people to the actual places where the story of Western civilization, and Scripture itself, unfolded.
Hamilton’s emphasis on knowing not only what you believe, but why you believe it, echoes an earlier conversation on The Family Policy Alliance Report with John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Stonestreet explains how a biblical worldview gives Christians a foundation for understanding history, culture and the difficult questions they encounter.
Bringing This Home: What Parents and Churches Can Do
Hamilton connects this directly to how the next generation is being raised.
He argues it isn’t enough for parents or churches to simply tell young people what to believe. They need to be equipped to understand why they believe it and to wrestle honestly with competing worldviews, particularly as those ideas begin confronting them in junior high and high school.
That, he says, is the difference between the “grammar stage” of early learning and the deeper, more dialectical engagement people need as they get older.
Sojourn’s trips, in Hamilton’s view, function less like classroom instruction and more like a demonstration — showing people what a mind shaped by deep historical and biblical literacy can look like, even if they weren’t raised with that kind of education themselves.
For Hamilton, knowing what you believe and understanding the history behind it go hand in hand. Christians shouldn’t be afraid of difficult questions. They should be prepared to engage them.
How to Get Involved
Sojourn runs both domestic and international trips, and Hamilton says the organization increasingly partners directly with churches, Christian schools and even groups of family and friends who want to build a custom trip together.
An upcoming trip retracing Paul and John’s journeys through Turkey is currently enrolling for February.
You can also reach Sojourn at info@leadwithsojourn.com or follow @LeadWithSojourn on Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Learn more about Family Policy Alliance and join us at familypolicyalliance.com.
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