Eric's Feb. Reading

After reading 2 & 3 I was confused , alarmed & agreed with how close the statistics were between those that attended church & those that didn't, knowing that I am a part of a youth ministry. The reason why I agreed with the statistics was in my youth I learned about the stories of the bible from my Sunday school teacher but never questioned them just took the teachers word & never had a strong christian faith & belief. Although I don't have children I came back to church (thank God), & am building a strong christian faith & belief through apologetics. I also believe that teaching apologetics shouldn't be solely on the church but should also come from the parents, but knowing that not all youths parents go to church, this makes it more challenging. So I see the importance of renovating & apologetics so the youth have something to stand upon in this generation.

Steve's February Entry

Chapters 2 and 3.
Let me say that I am not for totally getting rid of Sunday School. I agree that it should be renovated and a shared responsibility. It sounds to me it’s more about the content that is taught in Sunday school. Having an allotted time for teaching God’s word is not the problem, it is what is taught as well as how it’s taught. It sounds to me that Sunday school teachers will need more knowledge then just teaching nice Bible stories. It sounds like teachers will need to be prepared and have some skill in teaching apologetics. The question I have, who will want to step up to this responsibility? This type of teacher will have to do some work to have a good understanding in apologetics.

I agree that this is just not a Sunday school problem. Parents will have to step up to the plate to teach their own children. I understand this can be tough because it takes time. It takes time for the parent to read and understand the material. Then the parents will have to relay it to their children. This all takes time. However, if you do, do this, your faith will become much stronger and your kids have a much better chance of staying with their faith. I see this as a top priority for any Christian family.

I have to say I am blessed to have my oldest son take a strong interest in apologetics. If I did not talk about it with him or have apologetics books laying around he may have not gotten interested in it. He could have, but I wanted to do my part in taking responsibility to expose him to it. The Bible talks about raising your kids in the way of the Lord.

Apologetics should be a value in our Christian families. It should be another aspect of raising our kids in the ways of the Lord. I understand I may be coming off in this blog a bit tough, but we need to know why we believe what we believe.

I am not talking about sitting your kids down in your house in desks and having class for an hour everyday. If you want to do that, go for it. I have little conversations with Hunter here and there. I read something and then I bring it up to him to see if he has thought about this. Here is example. "Hunter, can you prove that Jesus was raised from the dead?" It is planting the seed. Hopefully they bite. Another thing my wife and I have done is talk about those issues in front of the kids.

1. I like doing it and
2. The kids are listening.

These are some tips to help with "time" issue and getting the juices running with your kids.

Josh's Feb Posting

I read everyones posts for the month before I decided to post mine. I find it quite interesting to see how people react to how the book was written. I have to admit some of the comments he includes do take me back a bit, but...... for me, it makes me take a step back and really think about what he said and how it impacts me. I think he was very purposeful in his quotes and interesting statements. I find myself getting defensive at times. At the root of this I find myself thinking that one, who is a strong believe, shouldn't question the church so heavily. This is totally not logical thinking because we should be able to question anything as it is likely someone will ask us questions about those very same things. This all ties back to the February reading because he talks about appologetics.


I know appologetics is not new to the church or youth group as I believe Theresa also posted. At least that tells me we are trying to hit the root of what this generation desires. Answers to the tough questions. Not just to tell the to believe because our parents did or because......... but give real life facts of how the Bible proves itself true and relevant in history and our lives today.

Annette had posted 2 questions in her blog, I remember one. She mentioned how things have , been changing in our church and believed this was the result of being sensitive to the Holy Spirit. I agree with her that we have leadership in this church that are allowing themselves to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading. We are very blessed to have this as a desire of the leadership in our church. After reading about all these statistics throughout the book so far I am left to assume that there is a gaping hole the church by and large is not filling, a hole we must fill to retain this generation.

Kristie's February reading: chp 2-3

The night I finished reading chapters 2 & 3 I felt conviction of the way I was ‘filling the role’ I was filling for heir force once a month. I was just seeing myself as a connection for them to enter Ardent a little easier. But, I was convicted of this and prayed that the Holy Spirit would change me and show me how to teach them; even if I am only there once a month.

For the most part this month’s reading was discouraging to me. Yes, it was hopeful that a majority of those who left the church plan on returning when they have children of their own; however, if we are real with ourselves this is still very disturbing because: there is still the fact that they left the church to begin with.

Mr. Ham says

“Faith that is not founded on fact will ultimately falter in the storm of secularism that our students face every day.”

According to Hebrews 11:1 We are told that faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. And it seems that as “good” Christians we accept the ‘idea’ that we just choose to believe without necessarily needing facts other than choosing to believe. But this book, the ‘Truth Project’ and the ‘True U’ series we are doing in Ardent proves that there are facts to prove our ‘faith’ and we need to know these also. Most Sunday school curriculum (at least those that I have seen) seem to teach a bible story and tell the students that it is true but with what I have read it is evident we need to be able to teach them that there are facts to prove the Bible is true. Why are we [the church as a whole] so afraid of doing Sunday school and Wednesday services different than the way they have been done for years and years; because apparently it isn’t the most effective way. As Ken Ham said we have to ‘equip [our students {in Heirforce and Ardent} and even our adults] to be able to defend the basics of their Christian faith and basic beliefs.’

“Dear Lord, help us to not fail those that you have put in our care! May our walk constantly reflect what we teach.”

Annette's February reading

OUCH! That opening line is KILLER..."Sunday School is actually more likely to be detrimental to the spiritual and moral health of our children."  I'm not sure that I would recommend this book to some of the traditional people that I associate with.  That would be a pretty offensive statement to them. We still hear on occasion questions about why we don't have Sunday School at First A/G. 

I think we need to be careful about jumping to action here.  Your first instinct might be to "change what we're teaching" in Sunday School or life groups.  That's NOT what is being communicated here.  It's not about teaching Bible stories with accuracy.  It's about helping young people to construct a CHRISTIAN WORLD VIEW!  That is something different entirely!!  That is way more HEART focused than head focused. 

This just pressed on me the urgency of crying out to God for supernatural wisdom about how to reach the younger generation.  Our man-made ideas aren't working out so well.  #1: Parents must step up to their spiritual responsibilities.  If they're doing that, then the chances of their children becoming spiritual champions is much greater.  #2: This is an admonition to look at what we're doing in children/youth ministry and why we're doing it.  I'm all for renovation!  Let's allow God to shake up the way we minister to kids.  I believe He already has been...we're doing most things differently than they were done before.  I believe that was Holy Spirit driven.  What do you think?

I agree wholeheartedly with the challenge to bring apologetics into every level of Christian Education.  I'm so glad to hear them say that!  We need to match the aggressiveness of our culture in how they're indoctrinating young people with their apologetics of evolution and secular humanism.  Here's another shocker...

Let there be no mistake, it's time to do something - it's time for YOU to do something.  If not, you might as well sleep in this Sunday.  The statistics show that not going won't hurt your kids one bit.  In fact, they might be better for it.

Wow, he's not worried about offending us, is he?  :o)  One thing you will notice throughout the book is that Dr. Ham is obviously very concerned about the Genesis issues.  That is his primary focus in  ministry so he tends to look for that information a lot.  Do you think it's relevant?

I was also struck by the idea that to that group that planned to come back after they had kids felt that the Bible was relevant, but the church was not.  We can definitely do something about that!!!  While some of this information was discouraging (although not entirely surprising to me), that made me feel very hopeful.  I would summarize the findings of these two chapters in this way: it's time for the church to GET REAL!