If Satan were devising a plan to destroy the Christian Church

Excerpted from the book: TESTED: A New Strategy for Keeping Kids in the Faith

What Would Satan Do?

If Satan were devising a plan to destroy the Christian Church, he would eliminate any awareness of the necessity of preparing our youth to withstand the false teachings of the culture he has been cultivating. He would have the Church avoid answering the hard questions for our kids. He would segregate Christianity to a place where Christians speak their own language, unintelligible to the secular world. He would convince them that it is hopeless to look at scientific and historic evidence for support of their faith. He would direct them towards teaching methods that fail to prepare their children to understand their own faith. He would build a Christian culture that believes that it must intellectually coddle youth and expect no exertion from them. He would foster skepticitis. Ultimately this devious plan would result in 75% of kids raised in Christian homes leaving the faith after high school.

Is Satan Succeeding Right in Our Church Youth Groups?

Here’s the situation in which we find ourselves

• Approximately 75% of kids raised in Christian homes leave the faith after high school. Multiple studies over the past 15 years confirm the massive loss of kids.
• These kids tell us that the main reasons they leave revolve around the lack of evidence for the Christian worldview. In their minds, scientific, historic and logical truths contradict the Bible.
• The people who have led the youth groups and churches over the past generation are the same ones developing ‘strategies’ and curriculum for this generation.
• The methods illustrated in this book directly address the reasons that kids are leaving the Christian faith in order to remove those justifications.

How Would a Christian Church Design its Youth Program?

On the other hand, what plan would the Christian Church make to energize its followers and impact the world?

• Expect its youth to learn the core tenants of its faith and make sure they know it.
• Teach its youth the Word of God.
• Prepare its youth to withstand the false teachings of the secular culture.
• Teach Christians the scientific and historic evidence supporting the faith and make sure they know it.
• Teach Christians to persuasively communicate truth in the cultural language of science, history and philosophy.
• Train Christians to lovingly grapple with people in the world so that we can bring them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
• Build relationships within the Church.
• Provide opportunities to serve the Church and community.
• Underlie everything we do with gentleness and respect with the goal of saving lost souls.

If we are going to prepare our youth to impact the world then we must train them. We will have to guide our kids through exercises combating secular ideas. When was the last time anyone addressed the skeptic’s claims of the ‘truth’ of evolution or the ‘evilness’ of God in their classroom? If we were training our kids to take on the world, then these are basic activities that we would do – routinely.

Excerpted from: TESTED: A New Strategy for Keeping Kids in the Faith