Road Trippin With Rachael

I think we have a problem in our children and youth ministry…

What problem is that you ask? Well, I don’t think we are taking the education of our children seriously when it comes to spiritual development. 

Curriculum is a great tool to utilize in Sunday school classrooms, but it is meant to be a foundational tool, not necessarily the sole tool. Teaching Biblical Accounts, and helping future generations know their bibles are of paramount importance, but knowing how to practically apply and discuss faith takes it from being head knowledge to heart knowledge, because to do these two things requires someone to ruminate on what they believe and how to share it. In other words, it has to be an intelligent faith. 

In other words, we need to be teaching out children and youth apologetics. 

What Actually are Apologetics?

Contrary to how the word sounds, apologetics is not the art of knowing how to apologize. It is the art form and practice of the defense of a belief system. Another way that I like to think of it: if apologetics were a person, he would be a philosophical handyman. Apologetics require being able to think philosophically, historically, culturally, spiritually, and theologically. That sounds like it is something only people in the world of academia will be engaged in; however, this is false. We all think along these lines everyday of our lives, we just don’t think deeply about them, nor do we regularly think beyond a surface level.  An excellent argument for the importance of Christians learning how to think can be found in Os Guinness’ word Fools Talk. Guinness argues that Christians need to be a thinking people, and they should be thinking about how to articulate their faith. 

The Problem

We like to think that apologetics is something that we should be teaching our high school students. Afterall it is in high school that they are being challenged in their faith, right? Wrong! Students are being challenged and having their world view developed much earlier than high school. In fact, many argue that foundational beliefs about who God is and feelings towards the church are developed from birth to 3 years old, if a child is raised in church. My sister who is a middle school teacher has said that she  regularly encounters students who are struggling with sexual identity, relationships, parents involved in serial monogamy, and suicide. As these are 11-14 year olds, I think it is safe to say that trying to teach apologetics  is a little late by the time a student is in the 9th grade. 

Additionally, since generally speaking students are not beginning to learn apologetics until later, some of those foundational skills are not in place by the time they are in college – this leads to another discussion of students leaving the church post-high school, but that will be addressed at another time. It is normal to question what they have been taught when a student goes off to college or finds themselves in a new friend group; it’s normal to be introduced to new views and thoughts – it’s also healthy. They need to come to their own conclusions on what they think and believe. If apologetics isn’t being taught early on, and built on in an age appropriate way, then the likelihood of a student in college leaving the church will increase. However, if a student has been encouraged to think about what they have been taught critically, how to mentally sort through new thoughts and ideas, and be able to think about how that may or may not challenge their beliefs they are more likely to remain connected to a church through college and post-college. And because they have learned how to see things from different view points, they are often more secure in their faith than when they left home. 

The Solution (In My Opinion)

Let’s have these conversations before high school. We live in a world that is no longer culturally Christian, so we cannot assum that students are going to remain connected to church post graduation when there isnt a parent encouraging them to do so. It is also important that we help young people from an early age learn to not only believe and develop their own faith, but be able to explain logically why they have the beliefs that they do. For too long faith has been seen as unintelligent – now is the time to be teaching children and students how to think about their faith like a philosopher, wrestle with it, and see how they can engage forensically with those in a healthy way. It’s also a great way to teach our children in our churches how to read more complicated books, understand research, and how to articulate what they believe and why. 

Some ways to do this:

1. When appropriate, you can share statistics.  There are several Christian groups that do research, and they present their work to different groups. As a caveat, not all research is good research, so be sure that if this is something to teach kids and students, make sure they also know what to look for – like sources.
2. Teach logic. This can be done through school and there are many resources available. It can also be done as exercises at home if your students attend public school – many private schools have logic as a class, and there are homeschool groups that also focus on logic. 
3. Expose kids and students to a variety of fields of study. Getting locked into a single field will narrow their view points and make it harder to see where someone else may be coming from. 
4. Get kids and students involved in missions. This allows them to see their faith in action, and it has them living out the concept of orthodoxy and orthopraxy (beliefs and practice). 
5. Discuss what they are learning at church and the sermons. This helps them learn to think deeper than surface level – especially since sermons are meant to meet the needs of the whole church; meaning new christians as well as more mature ones. They are not designed to be taking people to the meat of scripture.
6. Get your students involved in groups that aren’t filled with people you attend church with. Learning how to interact with those who believe differently will help them learn how to see things from different view points and help them to be able to think more critically about what they believe. 
7. Encourage learning from Christians who believe differently. Often, we will only interact with authors who have beliefs that are similar to our own and miss out on insights that people with some different views may have. Don’t teach kids and students to be afraid that someone with a different view may have something to contribute.