having to get up and goto Church???
Posted on 07/03/2013 8:22:51 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It's something most Christian parents worry about: You send your kids off to college and when they come back, you find they've lost their faith. The prospect of this happening is why many parents nudge their kids towards Christian colleges, or at least schools with a strong Christian presence on campus.
But in many ways, the damage has been done long before our children set foot on campus. That's the message from a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly.
My friend Larry Taunton of the Fixed Point Foundation set out to find out why so many young Christians lose their faith in college. He did this by employing a method I don't recall being used before: He asked them.
The Fixed Point Foundation asked members of the Secular Students Associations on campuses around the nation to tell them about their "journey to unbelief." Taunton was not only surprised by the level of response but, more importantly, about the stories he and his colleagues heard.
Instead of would-be Richard Dawkins', the typical respondent was more like Phil, a student Taunton interviewed. Phil had grown up in church; he had even been the president of his youth group. What drove Phil away wasn't the lure of secular materialism or even Christian moral teaching. And he was specifically upset when his church changed youth pastors.
Whereas his old youth pastor "knew the Bible" and made Phil "feel smart" about his faith even when he didn't have all the answers, the new youth pastor taught less and played more.
Phil's loss of faith coincided with his church's attempt to ingratiate itself to him instead of challenging him. According to Taunton, Phil's story "was on the whole typical of the stories we would hear from students across the country."
These kids had attended church but "the mission and message of their churches was vague," and manifested itself in offering "superficial answers to life's difficult questions." The ministers they respected were those "who took the Bible seriously," not those who sought to entertain them or be their "buddy."
Taunton also learned that, for many kids, their journey to unbelief was an emotional, not just an intellectual one.
Taunton's findings are counter-intuitive. Much of what passes for youth ministry these days is driven by a morbid fear of boring our young charges. As a result, a lot of time is spent trying to devise ways to entertain them.
The rest of the time is spent worrying about whether the Christian message will turn kids off. But as Taunton found, young people, like the not-so-young, respect people with conviction-provided they know what they're talking about.
Taunton talks about his experiences with the late Christopher Hitchens, who, in their debates, refrained from attacking him. When asked why, Hitchens replied, "Because you believe it."
I don't know what that says about Hitchens' other Christian debate partners, but it is a potent reminder that playing down the truth claims of the Christian faith doesn't work. People don't believe those they don't respect.
Here's something that one of the students told Larry Taunton; he said, "Christianity is something that if you really believed it, it would change your life and you would want to change [the lives] of others. I haven't seen too much of that."
Folks, that's pretty sobering. This puts the ball in our court. Are we living lives that show our children that we actually believe what we say we believe? And here's another question-do we actually believe it? I have to say, as a parent I'm taking this very seriously. If possible, join me in reading Taunton's excellent article. Come to BreakPoint.org and we'll link you to it.
I like this article, very truthful and telling. I believe it 100% So much so that if a kid in that youth group tells the youth pastor that she wants to join another church she she grows up and that youth pastor tells her “she’s on the road to hell if she does” well then he did not not lose her. He never had her attention to begin with. Now that youth pastor has just sealed the deal that she will leave like the building is on fire when she is 18 and join that other church.
Sola Deo Gloria.
having to get up and goto Church???
Ill was the kindest word I could think of.
If we had a BB gun forum and I posted that you were going to shoot your eye out. Would you complain about that also?
If a thread appears when I open Free Republic I have the right to express my opinion. Unless I woke up in China this morning.
Interesting. I will mention some of the points to the new leaders of our youth group!
This is the second article recently that has mentioned someone’s getting a compliment on his sincerity from the execrable Christopher Hitchens. Two different people. This suggests it’s a fictional anecdote.
Learn from the apstole Thomas, he had his doubts.
The King James version bible is there for anyone to read. If a person doesn’t read it and uses this or that church’s actions as an excuse to become an atheist then the fault lies with the individual along with whatever church he/she is blaming (if that church is in the wrong in the first place). As Abraham told the rich man in the Lazarus story when the rich man was begging due to thirst on the bad side of the gulf after death, (paraphrasing), “you had the prophets”.
For me, at the time I was atheist, it was due to young arrogance and rebellion. I was so much smarter.
I'm always dumbfounded by people who insist there is no God or spiritual life after death, and then run around trying to convince people there is life on other planets or perhaps we may or could have been visited by aliens. Heck, they might even believe in ghosts. You may not be one of these people. Perhaps you simply believe this is all there is-which isn't a lot. But there is far more evidence about God visiting us here then there is life elsewhere, ghosts or aliens.
Yet it is a matter of faith and not all have faith-it is a gift from God. All one has to do is ask for their eyes to be opened to hear the truth.
Because it is a conservative forum, liberal activists are banned as trolls.
And because this is the Religion Forum on Free Republic, atheist conservatives can likewise be trollish to the stated purpose of this subforum. So while you are on this subforum, be sure to stay on the issues - e.g. theology - and do not use ad hominems of any kind even in reference to a group of believers, e.g. your claim that Christians are "ill."
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No.
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