Did you know that 64% of Gen Z kids have unanswered questions about God and the Bible?
What should you do when kids come to you with the hard questions?
Listen to their questions. Let them talk and share about the questions and doubts they are struggling with.
Let them know it's normal to have questions. Grappling with your faith is part of owning your faith. Don't make them feel guilty for having questions.
Even Jesus expressed a question. Remember on the cross when He cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
Work with them to find the answers. Sit down with them and together work through their questions. And if they ask you something you don't know, let them know you are not sure, but would like to research it with them to find the right answer.
Be proactive. Bring up some of the hard questions and work through them together. If you want children to have a strong faith as a young adult one day, then we must begin preparing them now.
Teach apologetics and doctrine. One critical element in this is to teach kids apologetics and doctrine. Our cute, little lessons are not going to sustain them when they are sitting in a college classroom one day.
I have created a teaching series called Pranksters. This series teaches kids how to defend their faith. Hundreds of churches are using it. It is available now at this link.
I will also be releasing a new teaching series in early 2022 entitled "Mythbusted." It will expose myths that the enemy tries to use to attack our faith. Stay tuned for more details.
I also have a new book coming out by the first of the new year that is entitled "Fertile Soil...see kids' faith grow and flourish for a lifetime." This groundbreaking book will show you the key elements that are needed to see kids' faith grow and flourish for the rest of their life. You can get more information and pre-order it at this link.
We must, must, must, must, must, must, must, must, must teach kids WHY we believe what we believe.
Equip parents. The same study I refer to above, also reveals that 40% of kids turn to their parents when they are grappling with their faith. We know that parents are the primary spiritual influence in their children's lives. So we must equip them with the Bible answers they need to help their children follow Jesus for a lifetime.
Did you now that Brad Pitt was raised in a conservative, Christian household? As a child, he attended a Baptist church faithfully. He talked about this in an interview he did for GQ magazine. He goes on to say that when he was about 13 years old, he begin to ask some questions as he sought to own his faith.
The questions were asked from a sincere heart of wanting to know what the truth was. He says he asked these hard questions, but no one had any answers for him. Without the answers, he struggled with his faith and now claims to be an agnostic.
If we want to see kids stop walking away from the faith, then we've got to be prepared to answer the hard questions. We've got to give kids the opportunity to grapple and work through tough questions.
Questions like...
Why did God tell the Israelites to kill people that were in their pathway?
Why do bad things happen to good people?
How do we know the Bible is God's Word?
Why do kids have to suffer with cancer?
Why would God destroy everything in the flood?
If there is only one God, why are there so many different religions?
Why does God allow evil to exist?
Why did God make Noah build a Titanic-sized boat when He could have simply spoken a boat into existence?
Why do innocent children have to suffer with diseases such as cancer?
Why doesn't God intervene for children who are starving?
Why does God allow tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters to kill people?
What about people who never hear about Jesus? Will they go to hell?
These are the kind of hard questions that we must help the next generation with if we want to see them follow Jesus for a lifetime. If we ignore these types of hard questions, then kids will grow up and get the wrong answers from those who are skeptics.
And I believe this. We can't wait for the kids to come to us with these hard questions. We need to initiate these types of questions and then guide the children as they grapple and work through them.
We can't afford to leave the hard questions unanswered if we want to effectively reach and disciple the coming generation.
