❧
WHAT ARE OUR YOUTHS
INTERESTED IN?
worship,
truth, and the roots our young people need
There is something that has been bothering me for quite some time.
In many church camps, youth gatherings, and special sessions, I often
hear teenagers and young people say:
“I wish we had more time for worship and prayer.”
But I rarely hear someone say:
“I wish we had more teaching about God and
Scripture—teaching that would deepen and sharpen our worship and prayer.”
That difference may seem small, but I think it deserves our serious
attention.
I am not suggesting that worship and prayer are unimportant. Quite
the opposite. Worship and prayer are essential to Christian life. But I am
increasingly concerned when worship and prayer are separated from the biblical
knowledge and theological foundation that give them meaning.
What Are We Actually Seeing?
Many of our teenagers and youths struggle with basic knowledge about the Bible,
God, Jesus Christ, salvation, the Church, and the foundations of their faith.
And this becomes especially visible when they encounter false teachings.
A young person may passionately sing a worship song without actually
understanding what the lyrics mean. The moment can be emotionally powerful, but
if the truth behind the song is not understood, worship can easily become
merely an emotional experience.
At the same time, many young people are consuming sermons, teachings, and
theological content from social media without knowing how to evaluate what they
hear. False teachers do not always come looking like false teachers. Sometimes
they come with attractive personalities, impressive testimonies, emotional
preaching, large audiences, and Bible verses.
So what happens when our young people have not been taught how to
distinguish truth from error?
They become vulnerable.
Many also spend hours consuming content that does little to cultivate
wisdom, holiness, biblical understanding, or spiritual maturity. Yet when it
comes to Bible study, some have never even been properly taught the basics of
how to read and interpret Scripture.
They are encouraged to pray—but are they taught how Scripture shapes what
they pray?
They are encouraged to worship—but are they taught whom they are
worshipping and why?
They are encouraged to have faith—but are they taught what exactly they
believe?
And when difficult questions arise, sometimes the answer they receive is
simply:
“We’ll pray about it.”
Of course, we should pray.
But prayer was never intended to become an excuse for avoiding the
responsibility to learn, think, investigate, and pursue truth.
Why Does This Matter to Me?
Perhaps my concern comes partly from my own journey.
After my conversion, I faced criticism from family members and relatives.
That pushed me toward one of the greatest questions of my life:
Why Jesus?
I wanted to know why I believed what I believed.
I wanted to know whether my faith could stand in the middle of a
religiously pluralistic society. Could Christianity actually be defended? Could
I explain why I believed that Jesus is the Christ?
My testimony included a health problem that was resolved, and I remain
grateful for what God did. But my focus was never supposed to stop at the
miracle. My focus was Jesus Christ and the salvation He offers.
That led me into a deeper quest for Christianity. I began wrestling with
difficult questions associated with my faith.
I asked questions.
I questioned what I was taught.
I engaged with teachers.
I searched for answers.
I wanted to understand the Bible, God, Jesus, salvation, the Church, and
practically everything connected to my faith.
Even during my intermediate studies, when life became more chaotic and
distractions increased, I prayed that God would open doors for me to grow.
Eventually, I was introduced to CBS, and it became an answer to that prayer.
God also gave me suitable friends who helped me through difficult seasons
and encouraged me in my questions.
I wanted to equip myself—not merely so that I could answer other people,
but so that I could first clarify my own faith to myself.
Later, during college, I became involved in evangelism. And the more I
engaged with people, the more I realized how difficult it can be to communicate
and defend the Christian faith.
I had grown up seeing the miraculous works of God, but I was also being
grounded in the foundational truths of Scripture.
I loved worship songs.
I prayed extensively in my personal life—for myself and for people I
cared about.
But I did not want worship without understanding.
I did not want prayer without truth.
I did not want faith that collapsed whenever a difficult question
appeared.
And I certainly did not want to respond to every difficult issue by
saying, “I’ll just pray about it.”
There were things I could pray about—and there were things I needed to
study, investigate, learn, practice, and act upon using the opportunities and
abilities God had already given me.
I also experienced firsthand the devastating effects that false teaching
can have.
That made me even more convinced that young Christians need more than
emotional experiences. They need roots.
So What Are Our Youths Interested In?
This is where my concern becomes a question.
Today, I see relatively few young people passionately pursuing these
things:
•
Who is God?
•
Who is Jesus?
•
What is the Gospel?
•
What does Scripture
actually teach?
•
How should we interpret the
Bible?
•
Why do Christians believe
what they believe?
•
How do we respond to
objections against Christianity?
•
How do we recognize false
teaching?
•
How should our faith shape
the way we live?
Yet sometimes we seem to assume that these things are not what young
people are interested in.
Perhaps they are not.
But then I have to ask:
If they are not interested
in these things, what exactly are we cultivating their interest in?
More worship?
More prayer?
More activities?
More entertainment?
More emotional experiences?
Meanwhile, false teachings are entering through social media, distorted
doctrines are spreading, and young Christians can find themselves lacking even
the basic knowledge necessary to recognize them.
Perhaps the question is not simply:
“What are our youths
interested in?”
Perhaps we should also ask:
“What have we taught them
to be interested in?”
And perhaps an even more uncomfortable question is:
“Have we given them a
Christianity worth thinking deeply about?”
Our young people need worship.
They need prayer.
They need fellowship.
They need joy.
But they also need truth.
They need to know the God they worship, the Christ they proclaim, the
Gospel they believe, and the Scriptures they claim as their authority.
Otherwise, we may produce young people who can sing beautifully, pray
passionately, and attend every camp—but who are unable to explain what they
actually believe when their faith is challenged.
That should concern all of us.
So I keep coming back to the same question:
❧
WHAT ARE OUR YOUTHS
INTERESTED IN?
❧
And perhaps we need to
ask it not only of them, but of ourselves.
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