John Stonestreet – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9
1. Students don’t know WHO TO TRUST. They are inundated with information. The issue is not information, the issue is discernment. With all this info, who will they trust? Of the students he talks with that have serious doubts, the source of those doubts is most often sin in their families or churches and most often their families. In his words, “90% are problems in the homes, and 90% of those are problems are with the dad.”
Interesting – intellectual doubts come from moral questions having to do with watching the example of their family and those in their church.
2. Students don’t know HOW TO THINK. We are a feeling culture, not a thinking culture. Our entertainment driven culture distracts us from serious things. Too many Christians are trying to out amuse the world. They can’t defend their faith against other world views.
3. Students don’t know WHO THEY ARE. The most important issue of the day is what does it mean to be human. When our culture loses its knowledge of who God is, they also lose knowledge of who they are.
4. Students don’t GET CHRISTIANITY. They don’t know why they believe what they believe. Most of the answers they give are just plain silly. The purpose of the Bible is to know God, ourselves and the world. But you can know the Bible without knowing God and having a biblical worldview. Kids have a moralistic, therapeutic deism. Moralistic – God wants me to be good. Therapeutic – God wants me happy. Deism – God is not really involved except when I call on him.
Worldviews are not primarily taught, they are caught. Our kids don’t need Christian celebrities. Our kids need old people. Our kids need mentors.
Parts 2, Parts 3, Parts 4, are the best videos if you want to watch him directly.
Applications for me:
1. Do my children trust me?
2. How will I help them discern the information they are gathering?
3. How will I teach them to think?
4. Is my example or the example of those around them causing them to have intellectual questions?
5. Who else will I invite into my kid’s life to be examples to them.
6. And given all the stories he told, the fact that my kids are good Christian kids now does not mean anything. I will keep praying and keep discipling. I cannot coast.
