Tag Archive for: Natasha Crain

By Natasha Crain 

If you’ve read my books or followed my blog for a while, you know that the focus of my writing is to equip parents with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend the truth of Christianity so they can pass that knowledge on to their kids. This is my passion and focus, but it certainly doesn’t represent ALL that kids need to know and experience in their faith.

It’s not enough to KNOW what’s true if that truth doesn’t transform us.

For years now, I’ve followed blogger and author Kristen Welch at her blog; We Are THAT Family. She is someone I hugely admire for living a life transformed by truth through her work to serve others around the world, and today I want to introduce you to her ministry if you don’t already know about it.

In 2010, she and her family started Mercy House Global to “engage, empower, and disciple women around the globe in Jesus’ name.” They rescue pregnant teens in Kenya and provide a home for them. They empower these young moms and women around the world by providing dignified jobs through partnerships and sustainable, fair trade product development. They also disciple these women to be lifelong followers of Jesus Christ. You can read more about their values and see a statement of faith here.

As part of the ministry, Mercy House has several “Fair Trade Friday” clubs that support their mission. Our family belongs to the bracelet club. For just $14.99 each month, we receive a beautiful bracelet made by a woman in an impoverished country. My two daughters love getting the package in the mail each month and reading more about who made each bracelet and where it came from. It’s led to wonderful conversations about what fair trade means, why it matters, and the kinds of needs people have in other countries. I highly encourage you to check out what they offer and consider supporting Mercy House through one of these clubs.

The reason I’m writing about this today, in particular, is that Kristen has a new book out that I want to recommend to you as well: Made to Move Mountains: How God Uses Our Dreams and Disasters to Accomplish the ImpossibleIn this book, Kristen shares very honestly about what it’s been like to deal with the “impossible” challenges of running an often heartbreaking ministry like this…and how God has met their needs. It’s also a very personal book, as she talks about the toll serving has taken on her family and her marriage, and how God has brought them through even when it’s felt overwhelming. There’s no tidy ending, which I love because life rarely has tidy endings. It will convict you, move you, encourage you, and help you think in fresh ways about the mountains of dreams and disasters in your own life.

Kristen has provided the following excerpt from the book to share here. I hope you’ll enjoy her insights and I highly recommend getting a copy.

Excerpt from Made to Move Mountains:

When I think of someone who was more fearful than brave—but with a measure of faith—and who definitely didn’t boast of his abilities, I think of Gideon. When I was in Israel, one of our stops was at Ein Harod, the spring of Gideon, written about in Judges 7. I love this story. It is an important one for us to consider, and it has been incredibly encouraging.

Gideon was a military leader who was also a prophet and a judge. In verse 2, God says to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’” God whittled away twenty-two thousand of Gideon’s army, but in verse 4, the Lord says to him, “There are still too many men.” God tells Gideon to separate the remaining men based on how they drink water from the spring in the desert. As we heard the gurgling water and stood at the small natural spring where Gideon obediently separated his men and was left with only three hundred, the story came alive in a new way.

Gideon was prepared for the battle. He had gathered his resources, used his expertise, and led an enormous army into enemy territory. But we see very clearly in chapter 7 that God did not want Gideon’s expertise or his battle plan; God wanted his trust. God wants us to trust him so much that we will do what he tells us, even when it goes against what feels right. God wants our obedience because he fights battles in a way that brings glory to him instead of to us. Gideon had to lay down his faith in his military experience and trust a miracle-working God to fight the battle.

One of the reasons I love the story of Gideon is because I can identify with his fear and his courage. Gideon continued to obey God but with fear and doubt every step of the way. He was taking a brave step forward and doubting with every step backward. Nevertheless, God used him to defeat the enemy and help set Israel free, but not without discomfort and risk for Gideon. God had a plan and removed what Gideon thought was necessary for victory. We can’t always see or understand why God asks certain things of us or allows us to experience suffering; we don’t have a bird’s-eye view of the big picture. We can see only the temporary, not the eternal, and we have to trust that the discomfort and uncertainty he is allowing is not only for our good but also for his glory. In this tension, miracles happen.

Kristen Welch, a blogger at We are THAT family, is a bestselling author and founder of Mercy House GlobalMade to Move Mountains released March 3, 2020.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

If God, Why Evil? (DVD Set), (MP3 Set), and (mp4 Download Set) by Frank Turek 

If God Why Evil. Why Natural Disasters (PowerPoint download) by Frank Turek

Why Doesn’t God Intervene More? (DVD Set), (MP3 Set), and (mp4 Download Set) by Frank Turek

Why does God allow Bad Things to Happen to Good People? (DVD) and (mp4 Download) by Frank Turek 

 


Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/3eaBrf4 

By Natasha Crain

I saw the following post in a Christian Facebook group:

My daughter is starting her second semester of college tomorrow. She got ahold of her syllabus and found the following quote from the professor.

“Except to one whose reason is blinded by unquestioning adherence to fundamentalist doctrine of creation, the evidence of the fossil record, with that of anatomy, embryology, biochemistry and genetics, compels a single conclusion: evolution is a fact.”

Any suggestions on how she should approach this?

If this is his daughter’s first time hearing about evolution (or at least secular views of it), it’s going to be a tough semester. Any suggestions on how she should “approach this” are at least a couple of years late.

I hear or see questions like this all the time. Unfortunately, in my experience, many (if not most) Christian parents aren’t tackling the topic of evolution at home. I know some would love to but are overwhelmed by the subject and don’t know where to start. I wrote 8 of 40 chapters in my book on the topics of creation and evolution views to help parents who feel this way (I also posted a giant resource page last week).

However, far more parents are simply disinterested in the topic and, consequently, have a limited understanding of why evolution is such a big deal. They have a general idea that evolution is a challenge to Christian faith, but don’t necessarily know the particulars of why. At one end of the spectrum, there are parents who don’t care to know because they think it’s enough to teach their kids that “evolution is wrong and the Bible is right.” At the other end of the spectrum, there are parents who don’t care to know because they think evolution and Christianity can seamlessly fit together.

Both of these approaches trivialize the impact that studying evolution can have on a child’s faith.    

Here’s why.

(Please note: There are many different uses of the term evolution. When I say evolution in this post, I’m talking about modern (“neo-Darwinian”) evolutionary theory in which all life descended from a single primitive species via natural selection acting on random DNA mutations. For more background on basics to understand about evolution, please see my post, 4 Key Points Christian Kids Need to Understand About Evolution.)

The Compelling Evidence for Evolution: Not Simple to Throw Out

When your kids first have the chance to hear the scientific case for evolution, it will likely be very convincing to them. Kids whose parents simply emphasize that evolution is wrong because it’s “not what the Bible says” (without further discussion) may well be left in a faith crisis when they eventually engage with the subject in depth. That’s exactly what happened to me. Here’s an excerpt from my chapter on the evidence for evolution, in which I share my own experience:

I didn’t learn about the evidence for evolution until I was in my 30s. When I did, it rocked my lifelong faith in a matter of hours.

When I was growing up, evolution wasn’t yet a subject taught in most public schools; I never encountered it academically. The only time I heard it mentioned was when my church youth group leader once laughed it off, saying, “Yeah, like we all really came from apes!”  I remember thinking that was a pretty far-fetched idea. In college, I studied economics, so I came no closer to evolutionary theory as a young adult. It was very much off my radar until I had kids and decided I should learn about it for their sake.

I started studying evolution by reading an online series of introductory articles published by Biologos.org.  After studying just eight lessons one day, I numbly shut down my computer, pulled a blanket over my head, and felt years of faith sheepishly slink into the shadows of my newfound knowledge. The evidence was shockingly vast—far more extensive than I had ever imagined. The details were fascinating and compelling. This wasn’t some half-baked idea about how fossils fit together, as I had previously imagined. This was… completely scientific. As scientific as any other science I had ever studied and assumed to be valid. It was hardly a leap to ask myself, Why shouldn’t I accept this science if I accept all other science I’ve been taught? I felt like I couldn’t breathe for hours as I lay pondering what life would look like without the God I had always believed in.

It’s important to know that this one night when evolution floored me came after I had attended church for 30-plus years, served as a youth group leader, taken numerous Sunday school classes, read the Bible regularly, and engaged in an active prayer life. None of those things prepared me to figure out what I should do with the evidence for evolution. If evolution was true, I had no idea how Christianity could be true at the same time. If evolution was not true, I had no idea how there could be so much evidence for it.

It was devastating.

How much more is learning about the evidence for evolution potentially devastating to young people with a relatively inexperienced faith? How much more will they “have no idea what to do with” compelling information that immediately seems to contradict the Bible? Recall from the introduction that we actually know that answer: At least 60 percent of young adults are turning away from Christianity today, and the evidence for evolution is one of the biggest reasons.

[End excerpt]

If your kids hear all this scientific evidence in school and say, “Meh. Unimpressive…” then their faith may not be challenged. But that’s an unlikely reaction for most. Clearly, kids need to engage with their parents on the complexity of these issues. Trivializing the subject is not the answer.

Five Ways Evolution Can Challenge Christian Faith

At the other end of the spectrum are parents who don’t care what their kids believe about evolution because they assume Christianity and evolution can fit seamlessly together. Indeed, the acceptance of evolution, in and of itself, does not necessitate atheism. God theoretically could have created the universe and planned for life to unfold via an evolutionary process (this idea is called theistic evolution).  However, that doesn’t mean Christianity and evolution go together without some significant challenges. There are several big reasons why many people end up rejecting their faith after accepting evolution (again, not a necessary outcome, but a very possible one given these questions):

First, if a deity did create the world via evolution, it raises the question of whether He would still be active in it.

Most theistic evolutionists believe that God acted directly in creating the universe, but in doing so ensured that nature would require no additional guidance from that point on. If God is so “passive” in our natural history, why should we believe he’s so engaged in salvation history as told by the Bible (making covenants with people and nations, performing miracles, entering history as Jesus, and so on)?

Of course, there’s no logical reason God couldn’t act differently in these histories, but the contrast does give many people pause.

Second, if evolution is true, it’s hard to see how humans are different from animals, as the Bible claims.

The Bible is very clear that humans were made in the image of God. Although there is considerable scholarly debate over what precisely that means, at the very least it means humans have the cognitive and moral faculties necessary to have a relationship with God…and that animals don’t. The Bible presents humans as very different creatures who are uniquely accountable to our Creator, with eternal implications. According to modern evolutionary theory, however, humans are just another kind of animal. We all descend from the same species.

Theistic evolutionists usually believe that, at some point in time, God chose certain creatures to receive His image and become fully human (there’s no consensus on when or how that happened). Again, while logically possible, evolution certainly raises significant questions about the supposedly special status of mankind.

Third, if naturalistic (atheistic) evolution is true, it’s easier to account for the problem of suffering in the world.

One of the most difficult theological questions is why there is so much suffering in the world if an all-powerful and all-good God exists. While many Christians have offered answers throughout history, naturalistic evolution (at first) seems to explain suffering more readily than theism. If there’s no God, and the history of life is just a giant snowball of continuous DNA mutations rolling through time, genetic errors leading to suffering and disease are to be expected.

Fourth, if evolution is true, it raises serious questions about the reliability of the Bible.

There are quite a few things Christians disagree on when it comes to interpreting parts of the Bible, often boiling down to the meaning of a few specific verses. But there are more than a few verses that are in question if one believes evolution is true. Most obvious is the creation account in Genesis. If the Bible really is God’s Word, why wouldn’t God have informed the biblical writers that He created life via evolution…or, at the very least, remained silent on the topic and not given them an account that at face value contradicts reality? Those were the immediate questions that came to my own mind when I first learned about the evidence for evolution.

Additionally, many verses reference the creation account throughout the Bible, and, importantly, treat Adam as a historical figure (see, for example, Luke 3:38; Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:22, 45; 1 Timothy 2:13, 14; Jude 1:14). However, evolutionists conclude that we do not descend from an original set of two parents; they believe we descend from a group of at least 10,000. If Adam is not a historical person, it clearly challenges several more verses in the Bible than the creation account itself. (Theistic evolutionists have addressed this challenge and the next in a variety of ways beyond the scope of this post).

Fifth, if evolution is true, it raises serious questions about Christian theology.

There are also a lot of theological implications if there wasn’t a historical Adam or a historical “fall.” In the traditional Christian view, salvation is the result of God working to restore a fallen mankind to a right relationship with Him through Jesus. If there wasn’t a real Adam and there wasn’t a historical fall, it naturally raises the question of why there had to be a savior. Theistic evolutionists have offered answers to this, but there’s no question that it’s far more difficult to reconcile Christian theology without a historical Adam.

As I wrap this up, I want to return to the father’s question at the beginning of this post. When you realize how many scientific and scriptural considerations there are on this topic, you can see how difficult it will be for a young adult to go into a class where naturalistic (atheistic) evolution is taught as fact. Don’t let your child’s eventual college professor have the first (and possibly final) word on what your child believes. Take accountability and engage with your kids long before then.

If you’re not sure how to talk about these issues with your children, please check out my book. I explain young-Earth creationism, old-Earth creationism, naturalistic evolution, and intelligent design for parents with no background in these topics (without advocating any one position).

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have by Natasha Crain (Book)

Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith by Natasha Crain (Book)

Courageous Parenting by Jack and Deb Graham (Book)

Proverbs: Making Your Paths Straight Complete 9-part Series by Frank Turek DVD and Download

Forensic Faith for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

God’s Crime Scene for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

 


Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2VSTqzY

By Natasha Crain

My 5-year-old and I were playing the game Connect Four the other day and, for the first time ever, she was in a position to beat me. I absolutely won’t let my kids win a game for the sake of winning, but when I see that they’ve gotten into a position to win on their own, I’m willing to point it out (yes, I am that generous).

All my daughter had to do was put her checker in a specific spot and it would guarantee a win on her next turn.

I excitedly explained, “You’re going to win! You did it on your own! I didn’t let you win at all! Look. If you play right here, you are going to win on your next turn no matter where I play next.”

She looked at it a minute and realized I was right. A guaranteed win if she played where I showed her.

Then she played somewhere else.

I was flabbergasted that my little girl, who has long been desperate to beat me at Connect Four, didn’t take the guaranteed road to victory. I literally couldn’t understand it.

I blurted out, “What are you doing?! You FINALLY could have really beaten mommy! WHY didn’t you play where I showed you?”

She shrugged, then replied, “Because I wanted to play over here.”

Reminder: Our Kids Aren’t Purely Rational Creatures

My daughter’s response was positively maddening because it was so illogical. Why give up the win just because you “want” to play somewhere else? It didn’t make sense.

But it made me reflect on the fact that humans are not purely rational creatures. There are all kinds of reasons why we make the decisions we make, and that includes the decisions we make about our spiritual life.

This is precisely why, no matter what we do, our kids may become atheists.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know I’m passionate about equipping Christian parents with an understanding of secular challenges and helping them address these with their kids. I strongly believe that if we aren’t intentional in how we disciple kids today, we are failing them in the most important area of their lives. So does it sound contradictory that I’m now saying no matter what we do, our kids may become atheists?

It shouldn’t.

It’s simply an acknowledgment that even when we line up the checkers of truth and point clearly to how our kids can “win” spiritually, they may choose to do something else.

Dr. Gary Habermas has offered a framework that further illuminates this reality. He suggests there are three kinds of spiritual doubt that people deal with in determining their faith:

  • Intellectual doubt is doubt about the facts of Christianity. It’s when you question the information you have and/or are presented with new information that makes you question it. The intellectual challenges to faith are everywhere today, having been brought to the public’s attention by vocal atheists like Richard Dawkins.
  • Emotional doubt is doubt created by subjective feelings that aren’t necessarily tied to the facts. For example, your child may understand 1 million important facts about the truth of Christianity, but after he or she loses a friend to a terrible disease, none of those facts may matter. The looming emotional question of why God could allow such a thing may be beyond the reach of all the intellectual reasoning in the world (at least for a period of time).
  • Volitional doubt is choosing to doubt even when one doesn’t have apparently reasonable cause to do so. It’s analogous to my daughter choosing to play in the wrong place just because that’s what she wanted to do. Pride is a significant factor here.

Research shows that the exodus of youth from Christianity today is primarily due to intellectual barriers to faith (see David Kinnaman’s You Lost Me, for example). Kids are leaving home unprepared with basic facts and information about why there is good reason to believe Christianity is true and are subsequently losing their faith when they are presented with compelling information that challenges what they previously believed.

There is no excuse for Christian parents allowing their kids to leave home subject to so many intellectual doubts.

First Peter 3:15 tells us that we should all be prepared to give a reason for the hope we have. Not just people who happen to have a Master’s degree in Theology or Apologetics. Not just people who happen to have some time and energy left over after taking their kids to their 13th extra-curricular activity for the week. All of us.

My book, Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith, is written explicitly for that purpose: to give parents the critical information they need to equip their kids with so their kids can encounter intellectual challenges with confidence.

Does that mean our kids won’t become atheists, as long as we give them enough information? Of course not. Remember, there are still emotional and volitional doubts that are part of the picture (as well as intellectual doubts that some will continue to have). We can help them build a lasting faith, but ultimately their faith is not in our control.

That said, we should never be discouraged away from putting all we can into our kids’ spiritual development. Here’s why.

(The following is an excerpt from the final paragraphs of my book.)

The time and consideration we give to our kids’ faith development is an investment, not a purchase.

With a purchase, a person gives with the expectation of a certain and specific return.

With an investment, a person makes contributions, knowing that there is also a risk of that investment not resulting in the desired outcome.

Make no mistake: It’s an investment of our training efforts that God has asked us to make with our kids (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). There are no guaranteed outcomes, as with a purchase. For a long time, I didn’t fully grasp that difference. I envisioned certain outcomes for my children based on the effort I was putting into their spiritual development. When they didn’t live up to my expectations, it resulted in my frustration and even anger. It made me not want to do anything more because it didn’t seem worth it.

Then I realized one day that I was pursuing results as if I could purchase those outcomes with the currency of my efforts. I was immediately convicted of the error in that thinking and realized I needed to become an investor. I felt liberated—newly free to do the job God has given me without the burden and illusion of control.

So go be an investor. Put in all you’ve got. Then pray that God will take that and make it grow, all for His glory.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have by Natasha Crain (Book)

Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith by Natasha Crain (Book)

Courageous Parenting by Jack and Deb Graham (Book)

Proverbs: Making Your Paths Straight Complete 9-part Series by Frank Turek DVD and Download

Forensic Faith for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

God’s Crime Scene for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

 


Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2SHzvls

By Natasha Crain

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak to four groups of parents during the Apologetics Canada conference (incidentally, if you live in the Long Branch, NJ, area, I’ll be speaking at the No Pat Answers conference on April 9). I ended up speaking with a lot of parents after these talks and heard some variant of one particular question repeatedly:

“I’d love to have deeper conversations about faith with my kids, but how do I get them more interested in sitting down and having those discussions?”

To answer that, I gave several of these parents a snippet of advice from my marketing background.

Every day you probably see or hear some kind of advertisement for buying a new car. If you aren’t currently interested in buying a new car, however, do you notice those ads? Can you even remember the most recent one you saw or heard? Probably not. But let’s say you’re suddenly in the market for a car. Do you pay attention to those ads now? Absolutely. You notice the cars around you on the road, you pay attention to the ads on the radio, and you start keeping an eye out for sales in your mail.

There are some people who just love cars and pay attention to car-related ads all the time. But for most people, car ads become relevant only when they’re in the market for a car. This is called situational relevance.

Similarly, there are some kids who are naturally interested in spiritual matters. But for many, we have to find ways of making faith situationally relevant based on whatever else is going on in their mental life at a given time.

So how do you do that? Here are ten ideas. Note that not all of these will work for all kids. Situational relevance is all about understanding where your kids are mentally right now and working with that. These are simply thought starters.

  1. Before doing anything else, be sure to untangle God-interest from church-interest.

It’s extremely important to keep in mind that increasing your kids’ interest in God is NOT the same as increasing their interest in church. Those are two separate issues. Theoretically, your kids could be very interested in matters of faith but not like going to church for one reason or another. They won’t necessarily have processed that fact themselves, so you need to ask the questions necessary to differentiate the two. You may well find that your kids would enjoy talking about God with YOU even if they fight the trip to church every week.

Alternatively, your kids could love the experience of church but not be all that interested in God. Beware of having a false sense of confidence that your kids are actively developing their faith just because they like church. Atheists have churches now too. The real question is whether or not your kids are interested in engaging with you on the subject of faith at home.

  1. If your kids are young, implement a scheduled family spiritual development time ASAP.

I strongly believe every family should be setting aside weekly, if not daily, time to engage together in spiritual development (studying the Bible, having conversations about faith, praying, etc.). That said, if your kids are at a certain age and you haven’t already set the precedent of doing this, it can be difficult to implement immediately. To drive their interest, you’ll probably have to work up to it using one of the other tips in this post.

For those with younger kids who are still happy to sit down with their parents at a given time, however, there’s nothing better you can do to develop their interest in faith from the very beginning; you can effectively create a natural interest by making faith an integral part of their lives from a young age. We’ve been doing this several times per week since our twins were 3. They now expect that discussions of faith are part of our everyday lives, and they (now 7) choose to read the Bible and their own devotionals without any prompting. The more they read, the more it leads to questions and conversations of interest to them. When you start early, you can create a snowball of interest.

  1. Ask them what they believe about God, Jesus, and the Bible.

Parents spend a lot of time either telling their kids about Christianity or having other adults (e.g., at church) tell their kids about Christianity. But how often do we stop and flat-out ask our kids what they believe? How often do we take inventory of how they are actually processing all this information? When you find out what they think about God, Jesus, and the Bible, you’ll quickly see what topics they may be most interested in discussing. For example, you might ask, “Do you believe in God? Why?” If they do, press on to ask, “On a scale of 1 to 100, how sure are you that He exists?” If you find that the number isn’t as high as you would have imagined, it’s a perfect opportunity to have relevant discussions in this area. Or, if they don’t have very good reasons for why they believe (even with strong certainty), you can pique their interest in that area.

  1. Consider what is of interest to them right now.

One parent, I spoke with at the conference told me how her teenage daughter lost all interest in her faith after something terrible happened to a friend of hers. She was wondering what she could do to get her daughter interested again. I asked if her daughter still believed in God, and she said yes, but that she’s mad at how His world works. The obvious subject of interest for this girl right now (the one most situationally relevant) is the problem of evil and suffering. It wouldn’t make sense to try to get her interested in some random study on the fruits of the Spirit at this particular time. Meet her where she is. Sit and listen to her talk about the questions this event raised for her. Express your own sadness and questions. Tell her you’d like to learn more about it too. Then get a book on the subject to read together or read one on your own and use your knowledge to facilitate relevant conversations.

  1. Find a quote from a favorite actor or musician about faith and discuss.

If your kids have a favorite actor or musician, it’s a situationally relevant opportunity to talk about that celebrity’s views on religion. You can Google the person’s name with the word “religion” to find quotes to discuss. If the celebrity you’re looking for doesn’t happen to have said something interesting about faith, Google “atheist celebrity quotes” or “atheist celebrity memes” and click on the image results. You’ll find many of them from people older kids will know, and it can make for a great discussion. Once you’ve opened some discussion that they find interesting, you can follow up with similar conversations.

Incidentally, here’s a great one from Natalie Portman (discuss what determines the best way to live).

Imagen1

  1. Print out and discuss song lyrics from your kids’ favorite artists.

Most kids give the lyrics of songs they listen to no thought. Yet, those lyrics can offer all kinds of opportunities for relevant discussion, given that so many conflicts with a Christian worldview. It shouldn’t be a time to preach at them about how bad the stuff is that they’re listening to (if that is indeed a problem). If you do that, you’ll be closing future doors of conversation with older kids. But it can be a time to objectively look at the lyrics and talk about the worldview presented.

  1. Pretend to be an atheist and have your kids try to convince you that Christianity is true.

If you really want to get your kids thinking, ask them if they want to take the “atheist challenge.” Tell them you’re going to pretend to be an atheist, and they’ll have to try to convince you that Christianity is true. The novelty of seeing parents take an opposing viewpoint can naturally drive interest in further discussion. Alternatively, the parents can take the “atheist challenge,” and the kids can pretend to not believe in God. You then have to convince your kids Christianity is true. You can bring up all kinds of interesting points they’ve never thought about (see how sneaky/brilliant that is?). (My book has 40 different subjects you could bring up in this context, with all kinds of quotes and examples from atheists!)

  1. Play “What would you say if…”.

Certain personality types love intellectual challenges. My daughter, for example, loves open-ended questions that she can try to answer in the best way possible. If you have a child like that, you can facilitate conversations in a game format by asking, “What would you say if…” Here are a few examples:

What would you say if your friend’s mom said God doesn’t exist? What would you say if someone told you the Bible is 2,000 years old, so it’s not relevant for our lives today? What would you say if someone told you Christians are hypocrites, so they never want to be a Christian? What would you say if someone told you they believe in science, not God? What would you say if someone said they believe in God because their parents do? What would you say if someone said they don’t believe Jesus came back to life because we know that dead people stay dead?

  1. Watch a video on space or biology from both atheist and Christian perspectives.

Older teens who are encountering issues of faith and science will appreciate your willingness to watch two different perspectives, particularly if they are struggling with faith doubts. They may not otherwise be willing to talk about faith matters, but would be interested to see your take when you watch an opposing viewpoint. That can then open the door for further discussion that wouldn’t have otherwise happened.

A great science DVD series from a Christian perspective is The Intelligent Design Collection – Darwin’s Dilemma, The Privileged Planet, Unlocking the Mystery of Life.

  1. Visit a church of another religion.

Kids are very experientially-oriented. While they may be bored to tears if you try to talk them through the differences between Buddhism and Christianity, many would take an interest in learning about Buddhism after actually visiting a Buddhist temple. Take them to see one, and you can bet there will be a lot of questions to talk about. If they develop an interest in learning more about other religions, it’s a perfect opportunity to point the conversations toward understanding how we know Christianity is true.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have by Natasha Crain (Book)

Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith by Natasha Crain (Book)

Courageous Parenting by Jack and Deb Graham (Book)

Proverbs: Making Your Paths Straight Complete 9-part Series by Frank Turek DVD and Download

Forensic Faith for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

God’s Crime Scene for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

 


Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2tdB299

By Natasha Crain 

Last Sunday, our church did its annual multilingual service, with three congregations—Mandarin-speaking, Spanish-speaking, and English-speaking—all coming together for worship. We had readings in multiple languages, and a sermon was given in Spanish with an English translator. There was no Sunday school this week, so kids joined their parents in adult church.

When we informed our kids Sunday morning of what would be happening, there was a collective and passionate, “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” (Honestly, I should have typed more o’s to reflect the true level of protest.)

“PLEASE, let us stay home! We can do home church! Please, not THAT service! It’s SO BORING!”

Apparently, they remembered it well from the prior year. We dragged them into the car in spite of the whining and endured their pleas all the way there.

I’d be lying if I said this was a rare occurrence of my kids not wanting to go to church. The nature of this service perhaps made them complain more loudly than normal, but there are plenty of typical Sundays when our kids ask, “Do we have to go?” I’d bet a lot of money that you’ve been asked the same.

The question of what to do when kids don’t want to go to church has been one of the most frequent ones I’ve received over the years from readers, and it’s one of the most commonly discussed questions in various Christian parenting forums (you can join my own Christian parenting group on Facebook by clicking here).

The running theme of kids’ complaints is usually that church is boring, and they don’t want to go because of it. Parents tend to assume it’s their job to convince their kids that church isn’t boring and are looking for ways to do so.

But that’s a really bad assumption.

I think there are actually quite a few legitimate reasons why so many kids are bored by the church and/or Sunday school. In other words, kids aren’t always just making up random excuses to not go; a lot of times, their avoidance reflects a genuine problem.

Here are several “legit” reasons for boredom at church that parents should consider.

  1. There’s too much emphasis on fun at Sunday school.

This probably sounds counterintuitive. After all, if Sunday school is a lot of fun, then kids should want to go, right? No, no, and no. Now, if Sunday school truly was some kind of incredible amusement park-like experience, that could be the case (and kids would choose to go for the wrong reasons). But Sunday school “fun” usually consists of relatively mild amusement like crafts, foosbal, or maybe an indoor relay race using spoons and M&Ms.

This kind of “fun” can never compete with your child’s idea of fun at home, where they can do anything they want.

Of course, they will want to stay home; church fun is boring compared to home fun. When a Sunday school program focuses on entertainment, this is the natural apples-to-apples comparison a kid’s going to make. Who can blame them?

If most of what your kid takes away from church is that there’s a little lesson with a lot of social time, you’re going to have a hard time convincing them that “church” isn’t boring (when “church” is Sunday school entertainment in their mind).

  1. “Adult” church is beyond their current grasp.

Parents sometimes try to get around the lack of substance found in many Sunday school programs by keeping their kids with them in “adult” church each week. This can work really well for some kids. My 11-year-old daughter has recently been opting out of Sunday school to come with us to adult church because she’s able to follow along and says she learns much more than in class. When my 9-year-old daughter saw that her sister was doing this, she wanted to come too. But when she did, she spent most of the service with her head on my shoulder trying to sleep—she just doesn’t have the interest or attention span yet that my older daughter does. When she told me after church that day that it was boring, I told her, “Of course it was! You chose to sleep!”

For kids like my older daughter, who want to attend adult church in lieu of Sunday school, this can be a great choice. But for those like my younger one who aren’t ready to track with what’s being taught and instead spend the time doodling in a bulletin or daydreaming, boredom will be the inevitable outcome. That doesn’t necessarily mean that kids’ Sunday school will be seen as less boring, but rather that adult church isn’t always the answer.

  1. Their family attends church sporadically.

Every pastor I know laments the fact that families are attending church with less regularity than they used to, for all kinds of reasons (Sunday morning sports being a big one). A “regular” attender is now someone attending once per month.

I know this is going to rub some people the wrong way, but it’s important to say: A church could have the best Sunday school program in the world, but if a family only attends sporadically, it’s natural that a child will find it boring—they’re not really connected to what’s going on or what’s being taught. You can’t blame a kid for mentally checking out at that point.

  1. Faith in their family is mostly about going to church on Sundays.

Even if your family attends church every week, if you’re not regularly praying together, studying the Bible together, and having conversations about faith at home, your kids will rightly wonder why they should bother going to church. Church will come to be seen as just one more thing they have to do each week, without any meaningful connection to their daily lives. In other words, it will become an unnecessary time burden in their minds because it’s irrelevant for the rest of the week.

  1. They regularly engage in deep faith conversations at home.

Here’s another counterintuitive point, but I’ve seen it happen in a lot of families that are very committed to their faith. If your family consistently has deep faith conversations (the kinds I write about in my books, Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side and Talking with Your Kids about God), in all likelihood your kids are gaining a far more intellectually robust faith than they’ll get from the average Sunday school—and Sunday school will seem extremely boring in comparison. A telltale sign that this is the problem is when your kids complain they aren’t “learning anything” or say that it’s the “same stories over and over.”

Though parents often assume there’s some kind of problem with their kids’ spiritual development when they don’t want to attend Sunday school, it can mean the opposite in this case; kids may simply have much higher expectations for what should be discussed in a Sunday school environment and be bored by the 600th telling of Noah’s ark followed by popcorn.

  1. They have doubts about God or the truth of Christianity.

It should be obvious, but I’m surprised how many parents never consider this possibility: If kids have stopped believing in God or in the truth of Christianity, they’re going to find church boring.

Imagine for a moment that you had to attend a church (or other group) you didn’t agree with every single week, and someone expected you to take interest. They study a book you think is fiction but apply it as truth in their lives and think you should too. Chances are, you’d find that boring because you don’t believe what they do. Why study a fictional book so deeply each week?

In the same way, kids who no longer hold a faith in Jesus are going to get tired of hearing about Him every Sunday. It’s outside the scope of this post to weigh the pros and cons of making such kids attend church, but there are two points for our current purpose to take away here:

  • If your kids find church boring and/or fight you on going, have a conversation with them about what they currently believe regarding God, Jesus, and the Bible. You may be surprised by what you learn.
  • If you discover that their boredom with the church is rooted in unbelief, your greater concern (by far) should be to discuss their doubts and to have conversations about the evidence for the truth of Christianity.
  1. They’re human.

On the drive to the church service I described at the beginning of this post, I turned to the kids in the back of the car and said, “Hey guys. I have something surprising to tell you.” They got quiet, and I continued.

“I don’t feel like going to church today either. I don’t really enjoy this particular service. I would rather be at home this morning.”

They looked at me with wide eyes, anticipating we might go home.

“But I’m going anyway. You see, as humans, it’s often easiest and very tempting to stay home from church on Sunday mornings. That’s a totally normal feeling, and adults have it too sometimes. But we make it a priority to go in spite of those occasional feelings for several reasons: 1) It’s one way of putting God first in our lives (by committing to church each Sunday morning); 2) Church isn’t only about learning—it’s also about worship, and worship transforms our relationship with God; and 3) It’s important to develop relationships with other believers and be in community (Hebrews 10:25). I’m not going to church this morning because I can’t think of anything else I’d like to be doing, but rather because I love the Lord, and this is one way I put him first.”

In other words, I explained to them why their boredom shouldn’t be the deciding factor in attending church.

didn’t try to convince them that they shouldn’t ever think the church is boring.

This is a critical distinction for kids to understand because as I’ve hopefully shown in this post, there are many legitimate reasons why kids may find church boring at times. When they understand why church matters even when they find it boring, it can lead to far more productive conversations than just ramming heads every Sunday morning.

Stay tuned for next week’s blog post, when I’ll do a cover reveal with the table of contents for my new book coming in March! I’m so excited to share it with you! Also, I’m running a giveaway of four of my books on my blog’s Facebook page through December 5. If you don’t follow me there already or haven’t seen it, click over!

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have by Natasha Crain (Book)

Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith by Natasha Crain (Book)

Courageous Parenting by Jack and Deb Graham (Book)

Proverbs: Making Your Paths Straight Complete 9-part Series by Frank Turek DVD and Download

Forensic Faith for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

God’s Crime Scene for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

 


Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2PzKxGO

By Natasha Crain

News broke yesterday that popular Christian comedian and YouTuber John Crist has come forth with an admission of ongoing “sexual sin and addiction struggles” after multiple women exposed years of his sexually immoral behavior.

Honestly, my heart sank when I saw this. I love Crist’s videos. We watch them with our kids. In fact, our family had just watched one of his most popular ones, “Church Hunters,” this week! If you’re not familiar with Crist, he pokes fun at evangelical culture through his videos, and in a way that you can typically nod along with because they (unfortunately and humorously) hit close to home. Church Hunters, for example, is a parody that features a couple searching for a new church, but they’re considering all the wrong criteria…something all too common today. The video actually made for a great discussion with our kids about how people DO look at the wrong things, and what is most important when considering a church home.

You can read a detailed article with the accusations and Crist’s own statement here. In that article and some common responses, I’ve seen to it on social media, I’ve noticed three areas of serious confusion that both Christians and nonbelievers sometimes have about this kind of news:

Confusion 1: Thinking popular Christians are more immune to sin than others.

Honestly, I feel this point is so obvious that it’s embarrassingly uninsightful to point out. But consider this statement in the article from one of the women who says she was emotionally devastated by her encounters with Crist:

“I was truly blinded by his celebrity status…There were a few moments I thought, ‘Hey, this is kind of weird,’ but the same phrase kept playing through my head that stopped me from leaving: ‘It’s OK. He’s a Christian. He won’t do anything inappropriate.’”

The naivety of that last statement is mind-blowing. A Christian wouldn’t do anything inappropriate? May we all be mindful of the following biblical truth:

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

All.

While we may feel disappointed when we learn of the moral failings of Christians we appreciate, admire, or learn from, we should never be shocked. Christians are able to sin just as nonbelievers are. The Bible never claims that we become perfected in this life—only that when we put our trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins, we will someday stand before the Lord clothed in his righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). Of course, saving faith doesn’t see that as a license to sin—we should never sin so that “grace may abound” (Romans 6:1).

Confusion 2: Assuming that popular Christians should be seen as church leaders.

Social media is buzzing with commentary on Crist, and a good number of people are referring to him as a fallen Christian “leader.”

There’s an important distinction to be made here: John Crist is a popular Christian, but that doesn’t mean anyone should consider him to be a Christian leader.

Equating the two things has become a real problem in our culture. Given the nature of social media, anyone can build a platform and influence others. But just because a person identifies as a “Christian” doesn’t mean they teach biblically sound doctrine or faithfully attempt to represent Jesus in their everyday lives. Leaders in the local church, however, are held to specific biblical standards in order to qualify as worthy of shepherding the flock (see Titus 1:5-9, for example).

One example of the confusion in this area is the following comment made by a woman on Facebook: “Crist’s exploitation of women was well-known for the past 7 years…The question is, WHY were there no consequences, and his career was allowed to flourish?”

Unless you’re confused about the difference between popular Christians and Christian church leaders, the answer to this is clear. Who would have the authority and ability to issue “consequences” and stop his career from “flourishing” if his work is outside the context of a church or church organization? People are free to enjoy social media content, however, they want. Crist was in no church position to step down from.

Do I wish that every Christian would be above reproach, whether in a position of formal church leadership or not? Yes, of course. But to think every popular Christian naturally has the same kind of accountability structures as actual leaders in the church is misguided and problematic. It results in people placing a critical light on an ambiguous notion of “the church” rather than on individual choices.

Confusion 3: Believing the failures of Christians are indicative of whether or not Christianity is true.

The article reports that “Crist’s use of his Christian reputation to gain trust contributed to at least two women—Nora and Lindsey—losing trust in Christianity altogether. Neither affiliates as a Christian today.”

Lindsey says, “I haven’t been to church in years…It’s hard. It’s hard to go into a place where you know that people know things that are going on, and they never do anything about it because they just list it as ‘bad behavior’ or something that someone can just be forgiven of and then it’s fine. It’s not fine. Even when you forgive someone, it’s important to go back and make restitution and to change your ways and change your behavior. It’s really hard to even consider participating in a community, in a body of believers, that would allow such behavior to unfold unchecked, and give it a platform. No, I don’t consider myself a Christian anymore. … I have no ill will toward the church. I don’t have bitterness there. I think a lot of people are really earnest in what they believe, and I respect that. But I want to be able to respect it more.”

Based on this statement, it seems that Lindsey doesn’t consider herself a Christian due to her disappointment in a particular Christian and the perceived lack of moral concern from the Christian masses, resulting in her inability to “respect” Christianity.

Unfortunately, this demonstrates the lack of critical thinking about worldview that is prevalent in the church today. It’s yet another example of why teaching kids apologetics (how to make a case for and defend the truth of Christianity) is absolutely critical.

Christianity does not become more or less “respectable,” depending on whether your favorite Christian comedian lives consistently within his stated beliefs—even when it affects you personally.

It also doesn’t become more or less respectable, depending on how many people have heard about his moral failings and have rallied to collectively bring them to light.

There is just one question that should determine if you should be a Christian:

Is Christianity true?

That’s it.

End of story.

If Christ hasn’t been raised, your faith is in vain (1 Corinthians 15:14). That’s the truth test, and nothing else.

You may be hurt by other Christians; you may be hurt by someone in your local church, you may be disenchanted with leaders who presume to represent Christianity but do so poorly, you may not like what the Bible says on some matters, you may wish the world were different…but none of this should logically substitute for an objective investigation of the evidence for the truth of Christianity (see these books for help having these conversations with your kids).

If Christianity is true, we should be Christians in spite of bad experiences. The question isn’t whether John Crist is trustworthy; it’s whether Jesus is. That’s not to minimize the hurt done in the name of Christ (a subject outside of my scope here), but rather to refocus our kids on the objective questions that matter most.

I hope that John Crist’s statement of repentance is sincere and that he emerges from this experience as a more committed follower of Christ. In the meantime, let’s recognize this as nothing more than what it is: a popular Christian has admitted a long pattern of immoral behavior and needs to address it personally, with those he hurt, and with the Lord.

Let’s pray that good will come from this, so Crist can better use his influence in the future for the glory of God.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

So the Next Generation will Know by J. Warner Wallace (Book and Participant’s Guide)

Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have by Natasha Crain (Book)

Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith by Natasha Crain (Book)

Courageous Parenting by Jack and Deb Graham (Book)

Proverbs: Making Your Paths Straight Complete 9-part Series by Frank Turek DVD and Download

Forensic Faith for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

God’s Crime Scene for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

 


Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2XqLx3B

By Natasha Crain

As Christians, we have all kinds of pithy sayings that make their way through churches and establish themselves as generally accepted truths. Some end up on bumper stickers, some on wall decals, and some just get repeated so many times that people think they’re actually in the Bible.

There’s a popular one among parents that I keep hearing lately, and each time I hear it, I cringe. Not only is it false, but it’s particularly damaging to the discipleship of the next generation.

It’s the idea that “Faith is caught, not taught.”

When people say this, they’re usually trying to emphasize that faith is a matter of the heart, not a cold belief in a set of facts that someone has taught them. And of course, there’s truth to that sentiment. But nine times out of ten that someone relays this saying to me, there’s an implication that our kids’ spiritual development has little to do with the “intellectual stuff” of apologetics, but rather everything to do with how well we live our faith in front of them (apologetics is the study of why there’s good reason to believe Christianity is true).

This belief is desperately wrong. At best, it results in a passive approach to discipleship. At worst, it’s an excuse for intellectual laziness.

Let’s look at why.

First, we have to clearly understand what faith is.

Faith, in its most basic sense, is trust.

A blind faith is a trust that has little or no justification. For example, imagine that I claimed there’s an invisible unicorn living outside my house. When you ask me what reasons I have for that belief, I tell you, “I don’t need reasons. I just have faith.” In this case, I would be acknowledging that I hold a blind faith in my invisible unicorn—it’s a faith without reason.

At the other end of the faith, spectrum is a person trusting in something they have good reason to believe is true. For example, I’m willing to get on an airplane because I have faith that it will safely get me to where I need to be. I can’t be certain, but I know there is a good reason to place my trust in the process.

Importantly, this means that faith is not a way of knowing something. It’s how you respond to what you know. This is such an important distinction. Atheists often suggest that faith is inferior to science as a way of knowing about the world, but faith isn’t a way of knowing about the world at all. It’s trust that we place in Jesus in response to what we know about the world (and that knowledge comes from many sources).

In short, biblical faith is not blind faith. Biblical faith is trusting in what we have good reason to believe is true, based on the extensive evidence God has given us.

Now that we’ve established an accurate understanding of what faith is, we can see two major problems with the idea that “faith is caught, not taught.”

  1. It emphasizes passing on our trust rather than the reasons for our trust.

If faith is trust, then what this saying effectively states is that our trust is something that should rub off on our kids as they see how we live our lives.

Our trust in Jesus may or may not rub off on our kids, but regardless, that shouldn’t be our primary goal in discipleship.

Instead, we need to pass on the good reasons that should lead to our kids’ trust in Jesus. Otherwise, they’re just borrowing our own trust without knowing the justification for it. That’s a faith that’s waiting to crumble as soon as it’s significantly challenged.

It’s worth a side note here that parents shouldn’t assume a well-lived Christian faith is even desirable to their kids. There are numerous kids who grow up in loving Christian homes, with parents who truly “walk the walk,” but abandon their faith. Why? Those kids might admire the sincerity of their parents’ convictions but feel no desire to “catch” that same faith because they don’t believe it’s built on good reason. Once again, this points back to the need to pass on the reasons for the hope we have (1 Peter 3:15), not simply our own trust.

  1. A deep understanding of the reasons for faith is not something that’s simply “caught.”

Even if we restate the saying as “Reasons for faith are caught, not taught,” it still doesn’t work.

Here are just a few major concepts that will never be passively caught based on how you live out your Christian faith:

What objective evidence is there for the existence of God?

Do science and God contradict one another?

Can all religions point to the same truth?

What historical evidence is there for the resurrection?

Was Christianity copied from pagan religions?

How do we know that the Gospels are based on reliable eye witness testimony?

How do we know that the Bible we have today hasn’t been corrupted in the copying process over hundreds of years?

How can a good God permit so much evil and suffering?

Between my two books, I cover 70 of these critical questions that kids need to understand today. My new book, coming in March, focuses on 30 more questions specifically about Jesus (Talking with Your Kids about Jesus: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have). That’s one hundred important questions kids need to understand given the challenges today…and that’s one hundred important questions they won’t grasp deeply just by watching how you live your faith.

These things are taught.

And the need to proactively teach is woven throughout Scripture:

“Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them” (Deuteronomy 4:9).

“…he commanded our ancestors to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they, in turn, would tell their children” (Psalm 78:5-6).

“Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching” (Proverbs 1:8).

“Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

There’s good reason the Bible tells us to teach and train and not just keep walking with the Lord while kids look on. Those eyes can’t physically see all that needs to be mentally learned. And as long as Christian parents think all they need to do is model what it looks like to put their trust in Jesus, kids will keep struggling when challenged on the justification for such a life.

Does passing on an understanding of all the good reasons for faith means a child will necessarily follow Jesus? Not at all. But when we’re obedient in our calling to be teachers (not just walkers!), we can be confident that we have given our kids the opportunity to develop their own trust in Jesus and didn’t simply encourage them to borrow our convictions.

A borrowed faith is readily handed back.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have by Natasha Crain (Book)

Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith by Natasha Crain (Book)

Courageous Parenting by Jack and Deb Graham (Book)

Proverbs: Making Your Paths Straight Complete 9-part Series by Frank Turek DVD and Download

Forensic Faith for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

God’s Crime Scene for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

 


Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/35ASDpQ

By Natasha Crain

The highlight of my summer was a family RV vacation to Kings Canyon National Park. Behind our campground flowed a gorgeous river that I returned to multiple times over the course of our trip. Each time I went, I sat and pondered the “big questions” of life. There’s something about the majesty of creation that bubbles up a deep sense of awe about who God is, what he has done, who we are, and the meaning of life.

But this sense of awe also led me to reflect on how so many kids are apathetic about their worldview. A common thread I hear from parents is that their kids just don’t care about their spiritual beliefs, or just don’t care about Christianity specifically. There are certainly many kids who explicitly reject Christianity today, but I just as often hear about kids who are ambivalent.

How does ambivalence happen? As I sat by a river contemplating that question, a thought struck me:

Kids are being bored out of Christianity.

And they’ve been bored out of it by the Christians around them. Since parents are the primary spiritual influencers in the lives of kids, I want to suggest four ways we sometimes let this happen.

1. Parents rely on Sunday school for their kids’ spiritual development.

The vast majority of Sunday school programs don’t exactly challenge kids to think deeply about their faith. It’s Adam, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Daniel, Jesus’s birth, Jesus’s miracles, and Jesus’s resurrection… repeat. Oh, and how could I forget Jonah! Always a Sunday school favorite.

But hearing the same stories over and over each year without going deeper is hardly different than reading kids the same book over and over and expecting them to really engage.

That’s boring.

When parents aren’t having rich conversations about faith with their kids at home—conversations that help them see the relevance of all those Sunday school lessons—Christianity can start to feel like nothing more than the sum of a handful of Bible stories. That’s pretty easy to leave behind when kids leave home.

2. Parents treat spiritual beliefs as subjective truths.

There are a number of Christian parents who treat spiritual beliefs as a matter of subjective truth—this is what works for them, but something else may work better for their kids. This usually sounds like some version of, “I want my kids to have their own faith journey, and that might not be Christianity for them. I just want them to be happy people with good values.”

Of course, every kid will be on their own faith journey (that goes without saying), but in this context, the parent is suggesting that it doesn’t matter where the child ends up because all beliefs are equally valid. Happiness and good “values” (however the parent defines those) are prioritized over their kids’ pursuit of objective truth—what is true about reality for everyone.

But Christianity is either true or false; it can’t be true for one person and not another. If Jesus was raised from the dead, then he was who he said he was and Christianity is true. If he wasn’t, our faith is in vain, and Christianity is a false worldview (1 Corinthians 15:14).

How does all this lead to boredom? If it doesn’t really matter what you believe, there’s no need to really put effort into determining what’s “true”—true in such a case is just whatever you stumble into thinking works for you over the course of your life. Why bother caring so much about the belief system your parents happen to adhere to?

3. Parents live their lives in a way that’s indistinguishable from those of nonbelievers.

Even for those parents who recognize that Christianity is a matter of objective truth with far-reaching implications, it’s easy for daily life to not reflect that in an obvious way to kids. Parents get busy, and family spiritual disciplines (e.g., Bible reading and prayer), church, serving, and meaningful faith conversations go out the window before anyone really notices what happened.

If the only detectable difference between the lives of a Christian family and those of nonbelieving families is that the Christian family occasionally attends church, kids will (rightly) question what difference being a Christian really makes. And if they don’t know why it matters that much, they won’t be motivated to really commit their own lives to the Lord. They’ll be bored by occasionally listening to “Christian stuff” that doesn’t translate into anything they see as meaningful.

4. Parents don’t teach kids what big faith questions they should be asking.

As I’ve written about before, I grew up in a Christian home and spent hundreds of hours in church. I never rejected my faith, but when I left home for college, it didn’t even occur to me to find a church or join a Christian college group. As far as I had thought through faith, I was saved, I would live my life without doing anything too bad, and go to heaven someday.

In other words, I had some rough “basics” down, yet it was hardly an invigorating faith. No one had ever challenged me to think about big, deep, meaningful questions that would become increasingly relevant as I got older. Things like: How can I be confident that God exists? Why is there so much evil in a world created by a good God? Why is God so “hidden?” What happens to those who haven’t heard about Jesus? Why do some prayers go unanswered? (You can look at the tables of contents in my books for 70 such questions kids should be thinking about.)

No one ever put these kinds of questions in front of me to say, “Hey! Here are some really big questions you should be thinking about when it comes to your faith—questions that have compelling answers and will lead you to a deeper conviction of what you believe!”

Instead, I just kept learning the “basics”—important basics, but only the basics. I wasn’t even aware that there could be so much more richness to my faith. I believed Christianity was true, but it was a boring kind of true. Familiar and comfortable like an old chair.

Plenty of kids today walk out of faith with a big yawn for this reason. Maybe they aren’t explicitly rejecting Christianity in this case, but they’re intellectually bored enough by it that they have no problem relegating it to a small corner of their lives until they feel the need to dust it off again.

Unfortunately, that perceived need often arises in the midst of a life crisis that finally prompts them to ask these questions. And those who have never really taken the time to work through them before will be woefully unprepared. What in the past was boredom can easily then turn to rejection in the darkest of times?

Spiritual apathy may seem less immediately troubling to parents than a child’s outright rejection of faith, but the end result is often the same. Boredom can end up being a quiet faith killer that parents unintentionally foster in their own home.

Need help fighting spiritual boredom? In my next post, I’ll offer ideas for reinvigorating your family’s spiritual life.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have by Natasha Crain (Book)

Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith by Natasha Crain (Book)

Courageous Parenting by Jack and Deb Graham (Book)

Proverbs: Making Your Paths Straight Complete 9-part Series by Frank Turek DVD and Download

Forensic Faith for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

God’s Crime Scene for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

 


Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2lNA3Iq

 

 

By Natasha Crain

My blog has been quiet since earlier this year because I was finishing my next book (Talking with Your Kids about Jesus; March 2020). Now that I’ve turned it into the publisher and my kids are heading back to school, it’s time to resume blogging!

I debated what my first post should be as I start back up, but decided there were some especially important things to address with the headlines this week about Marty Sampson of Hillsong United saying he’s losing his faith. Hillsong is one of the most popular worship bands today, and Sampson’s announcement has led to endless discussions on social media this week. Last month, a similar high-profile announcement was made by Joshua Harris, a pastor, and author known for his book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye.

If you haven’t seen it, here’s what Sampson posted on Instagram:

“Time for some real talk. I’m genuinely losing my faith, and it doesn’t bother me. Like, what bothers me now is nothing. I am so happy now, so at peace with the world. It’s crazy.

This is a soapbox moment so here I go… How many preachers fall? Many. No one talks about it. How many miracles happen. Not many. No one talks about it. Why is the Bible full of contradictions? No one talks about it. How can God be love yet send four billion people to a place, all ‘coz they don’t believe? No one talks about it. Christians can be the most judgmental people on the planet—they can also be some of the most beautiful and loving people. But it’s not for me.

I am not in any more. I want genuine truth. Not the “I just believe it” kind of truth. Science keeps piercing the truth of every religion. Lots of things help people change their lives, not just one version of God. Got so much more to say, but for me, I keeping it real. Unfollow if you want, I’ve never been about living my life for others.

All I know is what’s true to me right now, and Christianity just seems to me like another religion at this point. I could go on, but I won’t. Love and forgive absolutely. Be kind absolutely. Be generous and do good to others absolutely. Some things are good no matter what you believe. Let the rain fall, the sun will come up tomorrow.”

Some of the takeaways from Sampson’s announcement are obvious and have already been dissected ad nauseum this week (for example, no one should esteem Christian leaders to the point that if they fall away from Jesus, it impacts their own faith). However, there is a less obvious point I want to highlight today with implications for Christian parents specifically.

It’s not enough for kids to know that answers to faith questions are available.

As many have pointed out this week, Sampson’s claim that “no one” is talking about the various faith questions he raised is absurd if taken literally. Of course, people are talking about those questions, and they’ve done so for thousands of years. In fact, they’re so common that I’ve written about every point he raised in one or more of my books. He certainly didn’t stumble upon some kind of unexplored territory.

But I’m pretty sure he knows that, and it’s not what he meant.

In fact, he later posted a list of some apologists (authors and speakers who defend the truth of Christianity) for people to check out if they have similar questions.

Sampson clearly knew that answers to his questions were available. The problem here is not a question of available answers…it’s a question of available processing.

Building a Home Where Kids Process the Big Questions

When I talk to people after speaking engagements, a lot of parents will say something like, “It’s so good to know that the answers are out there! I want my kids to know that!” There’s no indication that they have any intention of personally digging into those answers with their kids. They feel it’s enough to point them to some ethereal box of knowledge when a need eventually arises.

Sampson’s statement attests to the serious problem with that idea.

He knew answers were out there, but was apparently living in a Christian climate that never really engaged with them. That silence screamed, “The Christians around me aren’t thinking about faith as deeply as I am, otherwise they would be talking about this more and questioning too.”

For adults like Sampson, this tends to be a function of the climate in the church you attend and the believers you fellowship with. For kids, it’s in large part a function of the climate in your home.

In homes that foster a thinking climate, parents:

  • Proactively raise big questions for discussion—even when their kids aren’t asking them. (If you don’t know what those should be, there are seventy conversations to have with your kids in my first two books.)
  • Explicitly tell their kids that questions are welcome and regularly ask what questions they have.
  • Share their own questions about faith, and how they’ve searched for answers.
  • Make it clear that biblical faith isn’t blind, and that God has given us much evidence for the truth of Christianity.
  • Explore the beliefs and logical implications of other worldviews, so their kids better understand Christianity in context.
  • Press kids to explain why they believe what they do, not just reiterate their viewpoints (on any topic, not just spiritual matters).
  • Engage in conversation about hot cultural topics from a biblical worldview rather than avoid them.
  • Model intellectual curiosity about faith by reading/listening to/watching content that grows their own understanding.
  • Study the Bible with their kids for understanding, not just to memorize isolated verses.

In homes that don’t necessarily foster a thinking climate, parents tend to:

  • Instill the idea that when we have questions, we just have to have more faith (but biblical faith is trusting in what you have good reason to believe is true).
  • Assume kids will learn what they need about the Bible in Sunday school (but they won’t).
  • Equate discipleship with raising kids with “good values” (but Christianity is far more than a set of values).
  • Fear their kids’ questions, believing they will lose credibility if they can’t answer them (but kids can learn just as much from exploring answers with you).
  • Believe they have no other spiritual responsibility than to pray for their kids (but we are called to be active disciplers).

Every Christian parent should take a hard look at whether they’re fostering a “thinking climate” in their home. Giving your kids opportunities to process questions (not just telling them answers are available) so they don’t conclude “no one” is talking about these things is a critical part of discipleship today.

And there’s one other related point I want to note from Sampson’s statement. He said, “Lots of things help people change their lives, not just one version of God.”

A lot of kids today—and clearly adults, too—are looking for the worldview that “works” for them. The one that “changes their life.” The one that “feels” the best. The one that “helps.”

The problem is, that’s not the decision-making criteria we should use when considering worldviews. The question should always be, What is true? What is the true picture of reality?

If Christianity changes my life, but Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead, Christianity is still a false worldview, and I shouldn’t hold it. It’s not true.

If atheism changes my life, but Jesus was raised from the dead, atheism is still a false worldview, and I shouldn’t hold it. It’s not true.

Kids not only need opportunities to process big questions of faith, but they also need direction on how to weigh the answers; they need to clearly understand that the search should always be about discovering what is true…not about what subjectively “works.”

I was sitting in a church group recently that was discussing the need for teaching kids these things. One parent very honestly acknowledged his doubts about all this, saying, “It just seems like one more thing we’re supposed to do.”

If that’s how you feel, I want to leave you with this thought. If your child’s math teacher only wanted to teach them addition because subtraction is just “one more thing,” you’d think they were crazy. Subtraction is an integral part of math. In the same way, raising your kids in a home that presses in on deep questions of faith is not one more thing for Christian parents… it’s an integral part of discipleship today, whether you feel like engaging in that process or not.

As you begin this school year, consider what the temperature is in your own home’s thinking climate. If it’s been cold, don’t feel guilty—just turn up the heat. If you don’t, the secular world will… before you even realize your kids have burned out of Christianity.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith https://amzn.to/2U8N50p

Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have https://amzn.to/343tfbv

 


Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Hv9srG

By

During my Bible time with the kids, we turned to a story they hadn’t heard before – the passage from John 9 of Jesus healing the man born blind.

“…and then Jesus put mud on the man’s eyes and he was no longer blind! Jesus had made the man well.”

My 3-year-old twins, Kenna and Nathan, started laughing hysterically. “He didn’t put mud on his eyes!” They started running around the room, cracking up at what they thought was mommy’s joke.

At first, I thought they were just being silly, but then I realized that putting mud on someone’s eyes isn’t something you would expect, having never heard the story before! Still, I tried to preserve the point at hand.

“That does sound funny, doesn’t it? But can you imagine if you couldn’t see? Can you imagine how excited the man must have been to finally see after he met Jesus?”

They looked at me blankly.

Kenna: “Mommy, WHY did he put mud on his eyes?”

Sigh… Back to the mud! Hmmm. Why DID Jesus use mud? He certainly didn’t need to.

“Jesus could heal people any way he wanted. He could have used mud or water or nothing at all. What’s exciting about this story is not the mud, but the fact that Jesus made the man see!”

I missed a great teachable moment by brushing off their question. It’s a fantastic opportunity when our kids ask a WHY question about the Bible… especially one we don’t know the answer to!  There are (at least) two major things they can learn from us at those times.

1. It’s important to continually grow in our knowledge of the Bible.

When the answer to a question is not obvious, it’s tempting to brush it off as a simple fact of what happened. But we are to be spiritual warriors, ever-growing “in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).  We need to look for answers we don’t know (use a Study Bible or go online!). How wonderful that, as parents, we have the opportunity to consider questions from our kids that make us look at passages with fresh eyes. When we look deeper into a passage with and for our kids, we are teaching them that we can ALWAYS learn something new about God’s Word.

2.  We can’t always know answers for certain.

There are many things in the Bible that have multiple or uncertain interpretations. That doesn’t mean we should give up on seeking a deeper understanding of what those possible meanings are. In fact, we do a disservice to our children if we raise them to believe that there are always black and white answers. They will be better equipped to navigate faith questions when they grow older if they understand that some things will never be known for sure… And that this fact does not negate the truth of God’s Word.

Today’s Thought:

What is a Bible question you’ve always had but had never taken the time to find answers to? If you’re like me, there are many!

Today’s Action:

Find the answers to your question! Use a Study Bible, go online, or buy a book (if it’s a topic that requires a lot of thought!). The more we seek answers for our own spiritual development, the more we’ll be prepared to seek answers with and for our kids.

If you want to know the interpretations of Jesus’ use of mud, you can read several commentaries here (scroll to the bottom of page): http://bible.cc/john/9-6.htm

 


Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Lno6VB