For the past few years, I've had the privilege of leading women who are farther along life's journey than I am. At first this role scared me to death, as I felt ill-equipped to handle a different season in life--one I haven't experienced yet. However, as I've listened to their wisdom, walked along with them through trials, and peeked into heartaches, it has been an experience I treasure. I'm so grateful to all these women who have given me a glimpse of their lives and hearts as they have walked trusting Christ in places I have not yet trod.
One particular area of heartache has gripped me as a mom of young children: hearing mothers of grown children expressing concern over one, two, or more of their offspring who were raised in the church and active in youth group, then went their own way in their young adult years. We pray often for each other on these issues. These are godly women and often their kids have attended solid churches. What went wrong?
It was with that concern in mind I recently picked up Ken Ham's book
Already Gone. With the help of a poll conducted by Britt Beemer, Ken carefully looks at the epidemic proportion of young adults who are leaving the church. According to statistics, if you look around your church youth group on a Sunday morning, it is not unreasonable to fully expect two-thirds of those young people to leave the church when they leave home. Some of them will return when they have their own children, but most will never come back.
What Ken discovered is intriguing and alarming: many young adults who seem to leave the church after high school were "already gone" before they left high school, or even jr. high. When asked when they began to question and even reject Christian teaching, these young adults cited these years as the ones in which they made their ultimate decisions about Christianity. Shockingly, it was not their college years or experience that tipped the scales in either direction. Furthermore, those who had grown up attending Sunday School were actually
more likely to question their beliefs, embrace the world's values, and exit the church doors. The reason for the abandonment of faith given was a disconnect in church to what they are experiencing in their daily lives. They have no answers to provide a solid Biblical foundation which will counter the things they are learning at school about evolution, moral issues, and the things that matter most to them in life.
According to their poll, those who have attended Sunday School are actually:
- More likely NOT to believe that all the accounts/stories in the Bible are true/accurate.
- more likely to doubt the Bible because it was written by men.
- more likely to defend premarital sex.
- more likely to accept that gay marriage and abortion should be legal.
- much more likely to believe that God used evolution to change one kind of animal into another.
- more likely to doubt the Bible because of the secular dates of billions of years for the age of the earth.
- much more likely to have become anti-church over the years.
Thankfully, Ken Ham does not suggest that we quickly pull our children out of the Sunday School program. He does, however, call into question some of the ways we teach our children and suggests ideas to help remedy the problem.
First, we need to equip children with Biblical information on creation to help counter the evolutionary theories that are so prevalent in our culture. This means we need to start teaching apologetics, even in preschool. Whether in lessons to children or to adults, our congregations need help in understanding how things like dinosaurs, the fossil record, and Noah's flood fit in with scientific discoveries and the biblical account of God's creation of the world.
Second, we must teach Biblical authority, starting with the first book of the Bible. It is there that we learn about the creation of the world in 7 days, the sanctity of human life, the institution of marriage, the problem of sin, the creation of races, and other issues that shape a Biblical Christian worldview. Perhaps one mistake we are making is in teaching Bible stories, interpreted as a narrative that may or may not be true but from which a good, moral lesson can be learned. The Bible instead must be taught as historical fact, including details on how/where/why such events took place. Use this teaching to ask important life questions, using the text to make connections to the questions of our day and to defend matters of faith.
Where is the message of salvation in the remedies Ken Ham suggests? Actually, a correct understanding of Genesis issues IS the basis for our knowledge of salvation. Evolution supposes a world that started from nothing and gradually becomes more sophisticated over time. Because of the assumption of millions of years before man arrived on the scene, we have death (of lower animals) occurring before the fall of man, which if true leaves the Bible inaccurate and irrelevant for any man. Evolution supposes we have a world that given time, creativity, and the right solutions, can save itself. Why would the message of the gospel be relevant to those who would believe such things?
From a Biblical standpoint, we live in a world that God orginally created as perfect. Man's sin and its curse brought with it far-reaching consequences including physical and eternal death which, left to ourselves, we will never escape. God took it upon Himself to provide a means of escape by sending His Son, Jesus Christ. He lived a perfect life and died in our place to satisfy the wrath of a holy God and take sin's curse upon Himself. He was raised to life, showing that the power of death and sin's curse has been broken, and proving that those who believe upon Him will one day receive eternal life as their reward.
Moms, dads, Sunday School teachers, youth workers, pastors...are you helping those in your care to have a Biblical worldview that is strong enough to counter the culture? There is much food for thought in this book and I'd highly recommend it. Another great resource is the Answers in Genesis website at
http://www.answersingenesis.org/.
My oldest son has always been fascinated with dragons and dinosaurs. When he was a preschooler, we happened onto a book about dinosaurs that was written from a Creationist perspective. When we read about dinosaurs in other books together, we always discussed the words "millions of years ago" to be misleading and instead gave the Biblical perspective. He is now reading Answers magazine with a thirst for how Biblical knowledge lends us clues about dinosaurs and is considering a career along these lines someday. I'm thankful to see how God is at work in his life in these areas even as I soberly understand there is much yet to be done to equip him with a solid Biblical worldview.
Our kids can be equipped! And by God's grace, in answer to much prayer and careful teaching, may they be among those who remain in His church because they know without a doubt they are in need of salvation and want to build their lives on the authority of God's word. Perhaps they will even be empowered by the Holy Spirit to help others rediscover that the Bible does have answers to life's toughest questions and is necessary for salvation.
