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Apologetics Conference
Posted by Bowden McElroy in Church & Missions
(Note: I’ve been very busy and should have begged off posting today. Instead, in a display of shameless promotion, I would like to show sbcIMPACT readers what has been taking up my “spare” time.)
Surveys indicate that only 4% of teens in the United States attend church of any kind. 91% of teens in our nation say there is NO ABSOLUTE TRUTH. 88% will leave the Church and the Christian faith by the time they graduate from college. Yet, we as Christians are commissioned to always be ready to give an answer for the reason we have hope in Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:15).
The crucial question that stands before us is how can we equip our young people, parents, and leaders to think biblically in such a manner that affects the whole life and leads to engage today’s culture with the Gospel of Jesus Christ? The issue is not only ‘”KNOWING WHY WE BELIEVE” but exhibiting the positive and powerful TRUTH of Biblical Christianity to impact our world.
Southwood Baptist Church and the Tulsa Metro Baptist Network are so-sponsoring what we will hope will be the first annual Oklahoma Conference for Christian Apologetics. The theme of our first conference is Equipping Believers to Engage the Culture. Speakers for the February 19th – 20th event include: J.P. Moreland, Everett Piper, John Strappazon, and our pastor Jim Burkett.
If you live near the Tulsa, OK area, then please come. If not, please pray for us.
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Bowden,
These statistics are tragically right on target. What teens need though is a good dose of “creation” doctrine. Without that foundation, they will continue to have a puzzled look on their brows when faced with that typical question…. “Have you trusted Christ as your Savior?” The Apostle Paul gave us this situation at Acts 17.
Our youth need a foundation, which systematically has been eroded by the current cultural and religious theories of creation. And now we have many religious organizations that are joining the ranks of those confused about creation and melting the minds of the youth even further. The bottom line is that parents are ill equipped, and more than that probably don’t really care enough to get equipped.
This actually sets up the perfect storm for youth to rediscover the creator God and run past their apathetic parents. We, those that lead out in the church, better be ready and steadfast in our understanding of creation,…so that Christ can clearly be taught once again in our churches. Because apathetic parents will fight you tooth and nail…and I’m talking about the ones that are in the churches getting bench time on Sunday morning.
I hope these conferences recognize the real issue and do make an impact.
Blessings,
Chris
I believe life’s paradigm has also affected our youth more in the past 30 years than at any time in history. What has typically trained our children during this period have been the media, music and video games. God’s principles developed through biblical parenting have been “ghostly” over the last 3 generations and their paradigm has evolved into a downfall of the Christian ethic needed as a base foundation to build upon. Christians do not want to isolate themselves, however, we must take drastic measures with this psychological cancer that youth cannot break away from when their parents, from a past generation, cannot support the truth of God’s word in their lives, much less, with their knowledge of God’s word.
When I was born again at 25 yrs old I began to read and study the Word and pray daily. I purposely set up things to trust God for at work and in my personal life to exercise and increase my faith. I began teaching a class of Singles and was teaching about “grace”; at least what I was experiencing at the time. One of the girls in the class told me I was teaching Calvinism and I told her that I was not (I was raised to lean toward Armenian). I went home and searched out what Calvin said about grace. It was funny how my spirit was speaking the truth when my paradigm was telling me otherwise. That is only a portion of what I see as the problem with the youth of today. They must also wash themselves with the word and prayer constantly as scripture states until they become better acquainted with kingdom living and truth. Maybe our churches would best serve in the areas of Bible reading/study, Prayer and Faith in order to lay a rock solid foundation to build on before the storms come and wash away what they build on the foundation of sand.
One more thought related to this: An inventory of what the church “has” already done to build the youth over the past 30 years would be good information. That would help identify and eliminate what “not” to do since it brought us to these statistics.
Bottom line, a focus on foundational principles beginning with the new family and working as hard as possible with those who want to build fresh on God’s truth would be an important starting point.
If Israel becoming a nation was a beginning of time’s final chapter, it would be there that our problems began. God has only one method in bringing in new converts and disciple them. However, it looks like the organized church has laid the foundation for the “great falling away”. Our Baptist society began implementing programs to build the church through mechanical means during and after that time. Growth in numbers has been the flagship of our Baptist heritage and we have compromised so much to get them in and even more to try to keep them in. If we disciple them with the pure word of God we may scare them off and lose our numbers. No one denies that we Baptist look at numbers. What has evolved is what shows up in our statistics now. Our denomination is too big and fat to move fast enough in the right direction to begin laying a Rock-solid foundation to start a new future. Prayer and fasting and more prayer and fasting are our only hope now. Only time will tell.