Every year following the Christian Youth Summit, we have many conversations with youth, parents, leaders, and pastors about the topic of young people sticking with the faith. As feedback comes rolling in following the Summit, teens open up about the questions they wrestle with. They share how encouraging it is to have a venue to talk about big questions of the faith, especially in our increasingly anti-Christian culture.  It is clear they want the discussion to continue. They are in such a vulnerable and critical stage of their lives, a season of making their faith their own. Yet it is also clear they don’t always feel like the “big questions” get much air time in the midst of busy schedules.

It is our hope that the Christian Youth Summit would be an awesome and empowering event, but more importantly that it would trigger discussion far beyond the Summit. Please continue the dialogue at home.  And if you or your kids were not able to attend the Summit, let this be a time to start dialogue about big questions of the faith. Embrace the Biblical truth that passing the torch of faith to the next generation is the most important thing we can do.

Earlier this year, Focus on the Family featured an article that touched on this issue:

“If we want our kids to develop a robust faith, we can’t just react to their comments and questions. We also need to proactively place the big questions in front of them — the ones we know that they will encounter from the skeptics, such as why God allows so much evil, or why Christians believe miracles like the Resurrection are possible.”

The author, Natasha Crain, also made a very critical observation about the key role of parents regarding faith discussions:

“There is no replacement for you. If you have no answer when kids wrestle with big questions, they’ll begin to wonder if faith matters that much, given that you seemingly haven’t given it as much thought as they have. Commit to a life of study…”

Prepare the Way has talked about the need for parents to get equipped for many years and it is the reason we offer seminars for both youth and adults. Stephen will be speaking about his Standing Firm apologetics seminar topics in early April at a church in Arizona that is tackling this objective. We have seen for years the fruit that is produced when parents and youth invest time in standing firm together. To schedule a seminar or conference at your church, check out our speaking topics.