January 5, 2021 Show with Jay Seegert on “Why Many Youths Abandon the Christian Faith (& How Should the Church Respond?)”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions and now here's your host

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

Cumberland County Pennsylvania Lake City Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com

this is Chris Arnzen your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this fifth day of January 2021 and I'm thrilled to have back as a returning guest

Jay Siegert who always proves to be a very fascinating guest he holds degrees in both physics and engineering technology from the

University of Wisconsin Whitewater and John Brown University respectively he is an international speaker and author keynote speaker and managing director for the starting point project ambassador and board of directors member for Logos Research Associates and is a representative speaker for Ratio Christi and today we are addressing why many youths abandon the

Christian faith and how should the church respond and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Jay Siegert.

Thanks Chris it's always great to be on the program I'm really looking forward to this one in particular because it should be practical to every listener and I'm going to give our email address right away for our listeners that might have questions especially perhaps the parents of youths that have abandoned the faith or perhaps there is a teenager or older person who might still be considered a youth who has abandoned the faith or is considering abandoning the faith and they'd like to send in a question of their own as well our email address is

ChrisArneson at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

as always give us your first name at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter and I can readily understand if a parent has a child who has abandoned the faith or if you are that very person who has abandoned the faith or is considering it we would understand that you would want to remain anonymous but other than that if it's a general question please give us your first name at least city and state of residence and country of residence well

Jay why don't you tell us again about the Starting Point Project. Sure, the

Starting Point Project is a ministry that I founded roughly 14 -15 years ago and it deals with our starting point everyone starts somewhere with their belief system it's impossible not to start somewhere and Christians we start with the belief that God exists and that the

Bible is the word of God and then we use that foundation that starting point that worldview to then interpret and define everything else including what even science is, ethics, morality, philosophy, history, all those things get defined by our starting point or someone else would have a different starting point and you can ask them what they've chosen for theirs and they usually tell people what most people don't realize they even have a starting point but if they think it's a little come up with something and then you can ask them what made you choose that and why are you confident that that particular starting point those beginning assumptions will accurately be able to define everything else around you and it really leads into some great discussions without having to be combative you just get people to realize that their beginning assumptions will color everything else that they look at so it's most of the time it's really not debating the minutia and all the details and the facts it's evaluating the lenses that we're using to interpret those facts because again facts don't interpret themselves we always have to interpret them by what we already believe so our starting point project is all about discussing the

Christian worldview our starting beliefs that God exists the Bible is his word and then we discuss the challenges that come along to Christianity with you know starting with the creation account you know it seems like a far -fetched story but when you really look at science it backs up what

Genesis has been telling us all along you can trust the Bible from cover to cover including the creation account so I basically travel around the country and around the world giving talks supportive of the

Christian worldview and training people including youth for evidences for their

Christian worldview and along the way help them to not walk away from their faith and help parents as well so that they can be stronger in their beliefs and know how to mentor their own children and grandchildren well if anybody wants more information on this starting point project you can go to the starting point project .com

the starting point project .com and hopefully we'll remember to repeat that later on in the program well this is a pretty startling information

Jay that there's an alarmingly high percentage of youth who are walking away from their faith today and the exact figure may not be important but varying studies show different percentages and use different criteria but it's probably in the ballpark of two -thirds or higher obviously no percentage is acceptable at all but what are your thoughts on this well it's it's something that at first it's hard to believe most

Christians think well no that that can't be true but the studies have verified that over and over there's a high percentage whether it's two -thirds or 70 percent or you know 75 80 percent it's certainly over 50 percent and it's shocking even though most people aren't thinking of it that way so much because you you think most

Christians are pretty stable or doing fine I mean why would they walk away sure once in a while someone might get challenged in their faith and they think some other view is correct and so they kind of wander off that way for a while but it's such a huge percentage and and one of the factors that happens is it somewhat goes unnoticed from the big picture it's just thinking this off the top of my head very often when you get together with other

Christians each Christian couple wants to portray they're doing fine so you give the impression you're doing fine other people get the impression they're doing fine when in reality most of those individual couples are struggling having some issues or they did they really went through some serious times in their lives but they haven't necessarily shared that so you as an individual couple get the impression everyone else is fine so we don't want them to know that we're the only ones struggling so you just go on week after week month after month year after year in church wanting to portray that you know appearance that you're doing just fine when in reality most are probably struggling with something and we'd be better off being more transparent so that we can discuss it with others encourage each other pray for each other and realize that this is kind of normal so I think a parallel happens that many end up walking away but it's not something that you want to say yeah our kids walked away from the faith you're not proud of it maybe you're a little bit embarrassed and it can go unnoticed somewhat in the church because you have youth groups junior high high school and you got a number of kids coming you know each week and they're generally having a good time playing games singing doing some stuff whatever and then as they graduate and move out of the youth group maybe go off to college typically that's when they're going to walk away is during the college years well they're they're not at home so much anymore they're not in the church because they're maybe going to to school across the state or across the country so when they walk away the church doesn't notice because someone has taken their place someone from grade school moved up into junior high

I moved up in the high school so you always have you know a pretty active group going on a lot of energy but most people don't track what's happening to them when they leave and we'll cover a lot of these aspects during the show today it's not that college is so bad we'll find out that college is really more the time when the problems are exposed it's not like everything is fine they go to college and college is evil and it messes them up college is just the time when any troubles that were going on finally get exposed and the parents are shocked and we'll talk about those things as well so that's why even though this phenomena is true and it's happening it goes largely unseen and unaddressed and being someone who is theologically reformed

I believe that those who truly and forever abandon the faith or if they even abandon the faith for a considerable period of time that would prove that they were never regenerate to begin with but having said that have you heard some of the reasons that youths have given for a walking away from the faith that they were raised in sure there are a number of reasons and sometimes it's hard to figure out what the true reasons are because very often it's human nature you're typically not going to have a youth say yeah

I was raised in a Christian home I went to church you know I had friends at church and it was a youth group and you know everything was pretty good

I really didn't have a problem with what was being taught but then I just decided

I really wanted to get more into drinking and drugs and living with my girlfriend and sleeping with her or whatever and so I just I couldn't do that and hold on to the

Christian faith so I just decided to give up the Christian faith so I could live all I want they're probably not going to be that transparent even though that is often what is really happening they're they're being drawn away by the world which is tugging at all of us and they do have that dilemma what am

I going to do because what I am partially doing or fully doing and certainly want to do would go start and start contrast against how

I've been raised and so what am I going to do and often what happens is both happen for a long time especially when they're still at home junior high high school you get a lot of activities going on that aren't good but they remain hidden because they know that they can't afford to expose those things so they they live with that tension but eventually you know you can't do that forever one's got to give away the other and then when you go out to college you're more out on your own you're not under the umbrella of your parents you know protection or purview they're not really seeing what's going on and at that point many just decide that you know it's too strong of a pull everyone else is doing this and then they will use the rationale of what they're hearing from their professors that you know christianity is is wrong science has disproven the bible disproven the creation account there never was a flood you know jesus wasn't the son of god there's a lot of different religions out there there's different versions of the bible there's mission portions of the bible there's extra stuff that got put in there and on and on and on and on and on and for some youth that's really troubling to them because they they were believing all those things about the bible now it seems like it's not true and it's it does trouble them but for many other youth they're thinking yeah i knew it now they have a justification to do all the things they wanted to do anyway and they have an academic reason for it so when they go home and start talking to their parents they pull up all these things about the errors and contradictions in the bible all the violence and the killing that was going on and all the violence and evil and the name of religion around the world and so many different religions and god isn't going to send a good person to hell just because they didn't believe in jesus and and science is disproven the creation account the big bangs effect and evolution and on and on and on and many parents are just blown away by that they are not ready with answers for that and now their child walks off in inside themselves feeling justified i'm okay and going this direction because i've got real education now that professors told me my parents didn't know what they were talking about and i i verified that because when i showed all the things that i've learned now they had no response and so i'm just going to walk off and i believe if they are truly saved they're going to be pretty uncomfortable in that lifestyle being convicted by the holy spirit i believe they eventually will come come back in line for those that were never there to begin with they're probably just gone and probably will never come to a saving faith some some do it's not it's not hopeless but it's probably going to be a little bit more challenging um and that gets into some other things we can share along the way of like what happened while they're at home in this christian environment which is which is a huge thing so basically throughout the show we're going to be talking about two elements we'll be talking about apologetics and the defense of the christian faith which is a factor but in my 35 years of experience now i think it's a lot smaller factor than i was led to believe years ago i think the bigger factor is what's going on at home and in their church for years and years and years before they walk away and we'll get into all that well one of the reasons why i have become very much affirming of the classical christian education model is that it provides while the children are very young it provides a preemptive strike if you will um as uh deputy barney fife used to say in the anti as he used to say in the anti griffith show gonna nip this in the bud that's right and basically the the model of the classical christian education is to present uh the arguments of the enemy in a classroom setting along with the truth to get children accustomed to hearing these arguments that the enemy uses to dismantle the faith so that this is no surprise to them when they leave the the shelter of their of their homes and of their churches and when they are surrounded by unbelievers uh who uh you know are ready to either uh in a polished fashion because of who they've been reading or uh perhaps from an articulate professor hearing their faith dismantled in a convincing way to the the less biblically literate person or even in just a an outright fraudulent or sloppy way but whichever way the the lies are hurled at the the young christian the classical education at least has already prepared them to hear and sometimes depending upon what school it is and what teachers are providing these classes but you know they'll give the best of arguments so that these children will be uh when i say the best of arguments i mean from the enemy so that these children will be prepared to respond to them does that make sense to you oh it's totally completely and it's largely overlooked within the christian household and even in christian settings even in in i think a number of christian schools and it can even be in homeschooling and if you think about it the best sales people in this secular sales job the best sales people are the sales people who anticipate all the arguments they're trying to sell something and the person says oh that's too expensive we don't have the money right now or we already have one whatever argument they already know every single argument that's going to come up and they're very quick to say you know what you think this is too expensive but if you don't buy this look at all the money you're going to spend on a b and c over the next year when you don't have this you buy this now yeah you're going to spend 200 dollars now but you're going to save 800 over this year and no matter what's brought up they're just boom boom boom really quick to address legitimately address those arguments but many christian parents and youth included are not prepared so the students go off having maybe grown up in somewhat of a christian bubble and now they're off in college and their professors not only have good arguments good sounding arguments but the professors are very intimidating and very condescending towards christians so many youth think i don't dare say anything because my professor just brought up all these things i know nothing about i've never heard about them before i'm embarrassed that i haven't and i've even heard stories of kids who have grown up in homeschooling which i i think homeschooling can be great obviously you can do any form of education a long way but i think there were some instances where the homeschooling parents sheltered their kids so much when they went off to college and in this case they went off to a state university and they were presenting evolution these christian youth had never heard about that before and their peers were saying what do you mean you never heard about evolution before and evolving from apes and like what do you live under a rock and these these christian students were so embarrassed they ended up walking away from their faith they were angry with their parents for not having told them about this idea that apparently everyone else believes as opposed to you know approach that i use with our kids i told them i said i want you guys to know more about evolution than anyone else around you i want you to fully understand what is believed about it and then i will also share with you the massive logical and scientific problems with the idea of evolution so when they went into their classrooms they went to a christian school through eighth grade and then they were in public schools for high school when they had in the public high school and then in the state university biology classes that brought up the evolution they just had big smiles on their face because they're like i knew you were going to say that i knew you were going to say that and they didn't they didn't act up condescendingly or disrespectful at all but when the professor said something they were able and raised their hand or say something and say but what about this this and that nothing was a shock to them so i i think we do need to do a better job not only teaching what scripture says but explaining what many of these other views are and what the problems not just biblical problems with them but also some of the science and logical fallacies that exist now what would you say uh would be some wise counsel for parents to change improve what is going on in their homes to help prevent some of this apostasy that is going on and now obviously we don't want to give the wrong impression on the other end of the spectrum that every home where children have abandoned the faith means the parents are at fault that the the home wasn't being conducted as a christian home should be conducted and then necessarily uh does not mean that the church where these children were raised is at fault either you might have the best uh scenario that is humanly possible in a fallen world where these children have been raised and nurtured and taught and loved and still walk away obviously because the reprobate uh unless they have some vested interest in masquerading as a christian for their entire life they're going to usually be repulsed and repelled by the truths of scripture and eventually leave or manifest that they are not truly one of god's children but uh even having said that uh what would the counsel uh what counsel would you provide that perhaps parents are overlooking some things that should be going on in their own households sure there's a lot and again a lot of the program will be along these lines of answering that question and i would also totally agree with you that just because someone walks away isn't a blight on the mom or dad you know it can be that i know of homes where that the dad is a pastor and he did a wonderful job of shepherding his church and he shepherded his family as well and it is you know one or two child children walked away and there are times where parents are doing almost nothing right but the kids turn out very solid so there's no formula that's a guarantee but the parents can do things in a certain way that would make it a lot easier for their children to make the right decision and they should be nurturing them and so one of the issues is that in many christian homes and again i never want to say all or you know almost all but in too many christian homes a typical scenario is they go to church on sunday morning and a lot of churches don't even have sunday school anymore so up they go and they sing some songs there's a sermon for half an hour whatever and then they go home and that's kind of the end of it for the week and then the week of monday through friday is very busy dad's working 60 -65 hours a week and mom's probably working somewhere too and they're both trying to keep up with stuff at home and fix the car and the kids are doing their thing and they're kind of living separate lives and then the weekend comes and got projects to work on so there's not a whole lot of family time spent together and kids are with their friends and then sunday morning comes up again and oh church yeah we're christians they go to church and the church might be a really nice church and they go home again and that goes on month after month year after year well children in that environment aren't going to be very strong in their faith if that's really all they're getting is a 30 -minute sermon on sunday and it's never really talked about at all the rest of the week they're not doing any bible studies or not reading together praying a whole lot and that's very common because we're just so busy now within that here's a specific scenario that can happen too often sunday morning comes up everyone's getting ready for church dad's walking down the hall and he sees little billy he's still in bed and he's like you gotta get out of bed we gotta leave in eight minutes we can't be late and also there's all this tension so billy rolls out of bed and gets ready really fast and they're driving to church and there's tension in the car because they're going to be late maybe some screaming or name calling whatever and as soon as they walk into the church the parents are like oh hi how are you and they're all friendly and their kids are rolling their eyes saying yeah if you just saw my parents a couple minutes ago screaming at us and then the kids go off to their sunday school class and it's okay they got friends there and there's a sermon about whatever and then they go into the church service afterwards singing and there's a sermon that they don't fully understand but it's church it's funny and then they go home and again then from sunday afternoon through the next sunday nothing's going on you know related to christianity they don't see it lived out in their parents lives parents are just busy and then little billy knows that when his room is a mess his parents get really mad at him and he's thinking if they only knew that i was smoking pot once in a while oh my look so he learns to hide that and there's this tension in his life now and then he's going to hang out with his friends from the public school and his parents oh no no no you got to hang out with the kids from the youth group from church and little billy's thinking my friends from the public school are actually pretty nice in fact it's my friends from the youth group who got me smoking pot but he can't tell on his friends you get in big trouble so there's just all this tension back and forth then he eventually goes off to college here's all these reasons why the bible's not true anyway and he is so relieved to get out from under all that tension and all that guilt and in the double lifestyle and so those are the types of things that can very easily lead to them walking away so what parents can should be doing is making sure that their own lives are in order that they're really living out the christian life throughout the week showing it to their children their children should see them praying and reading their bibles and maybe having some kind of a form of a family devotional you know throughout the week so it's consistent in their lives so their children learn what christianity is really about how much they really rely on god and scripture itself and reading scripture and memorizing it that's going to make a huge difference it's not a magic formula but that is i think missing in way way too many christian households we have to get to our first break right now and again if anybody wants to join us with your own question our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com please give us your first name at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside the usa don't go away we'll be right back with jay seeger after these messages from our sponsors when iron sharpens iron radio first launched in 2005 the publishers of the new american standard bible were among my very first sponsors it gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the iron sharpens iron radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the nasb i'm dr tony costa professor of apologetics in islam at the toronto baptist seminary and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor jeff downs of knox reform presbyterian church in mechanicsville virginia and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor mark rimaldi of grace reform baptist church of long island in merritt new york and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor scott pisolo of the master's church of bucks county pennsylvania and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor kevin venue of the bible church for washington new york and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor andrew smith of christ reformed community church in st augustine florida and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor clint lighter of highway m chapel sedalia missouri and the nasb is my bible of choice here's a great way for your church to help keep iron sharpens iron radio on the air pastors are your pew bibles tattered and falling apart consider restocking your pews with the nasb and tell the publishers you heard about them from chris arnzen on iron sharpens iron radio go to nasbible .com

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that's ptl bible rebinding .com this is pastor bill sasso grace church at franklin here in the beautiful state of tennessee our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support iron sharpens iron radio financially grace church at franklin is an independent autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of god as revealed in scripture through the person and work of our lord jesus christ and of course the end of which we strive is the glory of god if you live near franklin tennessee and franklin is just south of nashville maybe 10 minutes or you are visiting this area or you have friends and loved ones nearby we hope you will join us some lord's day in worshiping our god and savior please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about grace church at franklin our website is grace church at franklin .org

that's grace church at franklin .org this is pastor bill sasser wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign lord god savior and king jesus christ today and always welcome back this is chris sorensen and our guest today is jay siegert the founder of the starting point project today we are addressing a very important theme why many youths abandon the christian faith and how should the church respond if you have a question our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com

chrisarnsen at gmail .com please give us your first name at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside the usa you may remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter and we do have an anonymous listener who says is a part of the reason in your opinion that many youths grow up to view christianity as being nothing but a compilation and congregation of a bunch of hypocrites is because they see in the private lives of their homes that the love of christ is not genuinely there and a outstretched arm to be ready to forgive even serious sins for instance i know that there are many parents who would be so appalled and so embarrassed in front of their own congregations and pastors and even the outside world if their daughter were to be pregnant out of wedlock or something like that that they might be even much more harsh and unchristlike than someone who does not really have the true scriptures to guide them this is just something that i have come to witness in my own personal life and i was wondering what your thoughts might be well that is certainly a very valid point and that's one of the biggest arguments that skeptics bring up about christianity or church in the sense in general is the hypocrisy well there we could talk about hypocrisy in every corner of the planet in every belief system every human being it's part of our fallen human nature i used to jokingly say that i don't struggle at all with being a hypocrite it's the easiest thing i do and the point is it's not hard to be a hypocrite to have a set of beliefs but then to at least occasionally do things that would be contrary to that and i think it's very very unfortunate that within the body of christ that you have christians especially parents reacting overly harshly towards their children when their children mess up because we all mess up i think my experience has been in my own life and i've seen in others the harsher i might be towards someone else and something they said or did is sometimes a red flag about my own thinking and judging them on the wrong basis rather than saying we're all fallen human beings in need of forgiveness from christ we tend to say well that person's i'm not as bad as them because i don't do a b and c well maybe you don't do a b and c but you do x y and z which in god's mind the sin is sin there there are different earthly consequences you know if you are just kind of bitter internally towards someone that's a different human consequence than if you murdered someone they are both sins um but they're they're violating god's standards and and that person is right to bring that up that often in the church the parents can be overly harsh with their children for a particular sin shortcoming or whatever and it brings embarrassment to the child it makes them work even harder at hiding those things because they're afraid of how their parents will react where in reality um we should handle these things privately when we can and when they're appropriate showing god's grace encouraging them to to not make the mistake again saying you know what you did a b or c and that can't be changed but you can change what you do going forward are you repentant and want to change or are you going to double down and try to justify what you did and in a proper christian household there should be lots of grace because god has been extremely gracious with us so why wouldn't we forward that on especially to our own children so that they can become even stronger in their faith and then be better positioned to help someone else in the future who falls you know in the same way they can say hey i made the same mistake but this is how i got through it i had encouraging parents who loved me through it they didn't just brush it off like it was nothing but they they still loved me um because nothing nothing we would ever do in the rest of our lives and no amount of maturing in our christian faith will ever make god love us more than he loves us right now he loves us with an infinite love nothing we do as far as messing up will make god love us less than he loves us right now it is an love our actions can affect our daily relationship with him but it's not going to affect it loves us and i i think i grew up in somewhat of an environment of performance based um somewhat on some teaching that i had but um i just felt like when i was working really hard and doing good god was smiling and proud of me and when i messed up he was just gritting his teeth and his fist he's like oh how could you do that he's like so mad at me it's not so much that it's just god disciplines us because of how much he loves us and he hates to see us go down the same path too far and so he will step in and discipline and we as parents should be mimicking what god does for us and so parents should have an appropriate amount of discipline but not shame and embarrassment and judgment like their children aren't nearly as good as they are as parents so that can be a reason that some youth walk away because of seeing that too often in the church and maybe being afraid for their own situation of that eventually happening so why not walk away and avoid the whole thing to begin with i just saw a movie on television called apostasy about a jehovah's witness uh single mother of teenage daughters and this was in the uk and uh one of the daughters went off to college and she got pregnant and i'm assuming that this is an accurate um portrayal of jehovah's witnesses uh in fact even in the credits at the end they were talking about how they documented even sermons that that were lectures whatever they would call them in a jehovah's witness kingdom hall uh that they actually took them from real sermons and so on but um they take uh first corinthians chapter 5 verse 11 and even apply that to the children in a family uh we read in that uh chapter and verse but actually i wrote to you not to associate with any so -called brother if he is a sexually immoral person or a greedy person or an idolater or is verbally abusive or habitually drunk or a swindler not even to eat with such a person so in this depiction of this family in this movie apostasy when the jehovah's witness mother uh did visit on occasion her daughter who was living on her own at this point um just to take care of the bare necessities and to repeatedly plea that the that the girl returns to the faith uh she had to keep the cordiality and the contact to a minimum and when she prepared a meal for her pregnant daughter she actually went into the kitchen the mother went into the kitchen and ate by herself uh so as to not each eat with such a person now is that instruction even for those within the household of a christian family and it becomes a sensitive issue that i'm sure that that all pastors even those that are very biblically literate and may even agree on many things theologically and doctrinally they may disagree on how to treat rebellious children within a home uh and uh and of course even the circumstances may make each case different than another one uh for instance you know if a if a child agrees to not have sexual relations outside of marriage of course uh under the roof uh that they should perhaps be permitted to remain there but all kinds of things may come up what if the situation involves a homosexual uh homosexual activity and you know on and on we could go uh how how much does this in your opinion this text apply to the actual household when you're talking about parents and children you know i i think it's again an interesting point it's a very practical point that you know when you think about it just stepping back for a second when situate specific situations like this arise that we're talking about right now when they don't get addressed in general there are problems then how are you going to deal with if it does happen all of a sudden you got to step back and say well what are we going to do it takes you by surprise rather than thinking well no we we knew that if something like this were to occur this is how we should respond biblically but a lot of christian households haven't thought through it and again too many there's a lot of biblical illiteracy where the parents really don't know what are they supposed to do so they they read some commentary or some article that someone wrote and they might quote that passage that you quoted and get the impression like nope we need to eat dinner in a different room from our son or our daughter whatever take it out of context and and really wreak havoc and they're really not acting biblically and again it's not an exact black and white situation because there's certainly going to be unknowns and some gray areas but in most cases the the son or daughter messed up and and they know it and they they're still struggling but they want to improve they they want to grow they're repentant they want to mature in their faith that's a very different situation than someone who did something and says i can do whatever i want i'm going to continue to do it that's where you you need to pray it's okay how much separation do we have and if you're let's say your child is 18 or whatever you might it might be so extreme that you have to kind of you know set some tough boundaries down to say you know what we we love you we will not stop loving you but because you are not repentant and you are basically telling us you're going to continue this behavior we cannot be tolerant of that within this household this is you know we're responsible before god for what goes on here you are our child we are responsible for telling you right and wrong you have your own choices to make and god is allowing you to make those choices for the most part but god gets to choose the consequences and so we are going to have to have some tough love here and just say if that is your stance you're going to continue to you know act be active sexually with your boyfriend your girlfriend or whatever or take drugs or whatever it might be we are going to ask you to then move out on your own because we cannot have that under this household but again the other case is they're struggling they want to get help they're not quite sure how you need to be extremely loving and just say we are here for you we want to help we know you're not perfect but we know you want to improve we will get you help and you are loved here and you are accepted in this household because we know that you want to mature in your faith that's a totally different situation um one reaction is kicking them out right away obviously he's going to push them away from you relationally and we have absolutely no influence on them anymore um if the case is extreme enough you have to pray about in each case you know the holy spirit will let you know what action you need to take but even if you tell them they need to leave that needs to be done in love you shouldn't be screaming at them as you're telling them to get out you should just be saying we have to obey god just reminds me of a situation i had with my son when he was in grade school in fact if you could pick up on that story when we come back because we have to get our midway break right now sure just don't forget just don't forget the story i won't and uh if anybody wants to join us our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com please give us your first name at least you're sitting in state of residence in your country of residence if you live outside the usa only remain anonymous if your question involves a person on private matter and this is our longer than normal break so please be patient with us grace life radio 90 .1

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forward slash podcast that's w for world n for news g for group dot org forward slash podcast james white of alpha and omega ministries and the dividing line webcast here although god has brought me all over the globe for many years to teach preach and debate at numerous venues some of my very fondest memories are from those precious times of fellowship with pastor rich jensen and the brethren at hope reform baptist church now located at their new beautiful facilities in corham long island new york i've had the privilege of opening god's word from their pulpit on many occasions have led youth retreats for them and have always been thrilled to see their members filling many seats at my new york debates i do not hesitate to highly recommend hope reform baptist church of corham long island to anyone who wants to be accurately taught discipled and edified by the holy scriptures and to be surrounded by truly loving and caring brothers and sisters in christ i also want to congratulate hope reform baptist church of corham for the recent appointment of pastor rich jensen's co -elder pastor christopher mcdowell for more information on hope reform baptist church go to li .net

that's hope reformed li .net or call 631 -696 -5711 that's 631 -696 -5711 tell the folks at hope reform baptist church of corham long island that you heard about them from james white on iron sharpens iron radio when iron sharpens iron radio first launched in 2005 the publishers of the new american standard bible were among my very first sponsors it gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the iron sharpens iron radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the nasb i'm pastor nate pickowitz of harvest bible church in gilminton ironworks new hampshire and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor rich jensen of hope reform baptist church in corham new york and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor sule prince of oakwood wesleyan church in toronto ontario canada and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor john samson of king's church in peoria arizona and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor chuck volo of new life community church in kingsville maryland and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor steve herford of eastport baptist church in jacksonville florida and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor roy owens jr of the church of friendship in hockley texas and the nasb is my bible of choice here's a great way for your church to help keep iron radio on the air pastors are your pew bibles tattered and falling apart consider restocking your pews with the nasb and tell the publishers you heard about them from chris arnson on iron sharpens iron radio go to nasbible .com

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hc bible .org call 609 -494 -5689 609 -494 -5689 harvey cedars where christ finds people and changes lives so every day at thousands of community centers high schools middle schools juvenile institutions coffee shops and local hangouts long island youth for christ staff and volunteers meet with young people who need jesus we are rural and urban and we are always about the message of jesus our mission is to have a noticeable spiritual impact on long island new york by engaging young people in the lifelong journey of following christ long island youth for christ has been a stalwart bedrock ministry since 1959 we have a world -class staff and a proven track record of bringing consistent love and encouragement to youths in need all over the country and around the world help honor our history by becoming a part of our future volunteer donate pray or all the above for details call long island youth for christ at 631 -385 -8333 that's 631 -385 -8333 or visit l -i -y -f -c .org

that's l -i -y -f -c .org so as host of iron sharpens iron radio i frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations the church i've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is grace covenant baptist church in flemington new jersey pastored by alan dunn grace covenant baptist church believes it's god's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped and how he shall be represented in the world they believe churches need to turn to the bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship god in spirit and truth grace covenant baptist church endeavors to maintain a god -centered focus reading preaching and hearing the word of god singing psalms hymns and spiritual songs baptism and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship performed with faith joy and sobriety discover more about grace covenant baptist church in flemington new jersey at gcbcnj .squarespace

.com that's gcbcnj .squarespace .com

or call them at 908 -996 -7654 that's 908 -996 -7654 tell pastor dunn that you heard about grace covenant baptist church on iron sharpens iron radio hi this is john sampson pastor of king's church in peoria arizona taking a moment of your day to talk about chris arnson and the iron sharpens iron podcast i consider chris a true friend and a man of high integrity he's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the christian faith i've always been happy to point people to this podcast knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet where folk won't be led astray i believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide this is a day of great spiritual compromise and yet god has raised chris up for just such a time and knowing this it's up to us as members of the body of christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances i'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting iron sharpens iron financially would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry i know it would be a huge encouragement to chris if you would all the details can be found at iron sharpens iron radio .com

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browse the pages at ease shop at your leisure and purchase with confidence as todd and patty work in service to you the church and to christ that's cumberland valley bible book service at cvbbs .com

that's cvbbs .com let todd and patty know that you heard about them on iron sharpens iron radio so iron sharpens iron radio depends upon the financial support of fine christian organizations to remain on the air like the historical bible society the historical bible society maintains a collection of christian books manuscripts and bibles of historical significance spanning nearly a thousand years the mission of hbs is the preservation and public display of ancient scripture dissemination of scripture to provide tools equipping believers and christian apologetics with evidence for the bible's reliability and to introduce reformation literature and christian art to a broader audience since 2004 hbs has toured schools and churches throughout the northeast united states reaching thousands of believers and non -believers alike who are hungry for knowledge of the bible hbs's founder daniel p buttafuoco attorney at law is committed to sharing this collection along with an inspirational historical message that will captivate you and your church come journey through their website historical bible society .org

the collection includes a complete 11th century bible an actual page of gutenberg bible from 1455 the first book ever printed the geneva bible the 1611 king james bible and much much more visit historicalbiblesociety .org

today thank you daniel p buttafuoco attorney at law for your faithful support of iron sharpens iron radio and i have right in my hands for the first time from the historical bible society the beautiful booklet that i mentioned i believe yesterday and perhaps even last week this is a 44 page book produced by the historical bible society that they are giving away to those that send in a check for a minimum of 35 dollars to the historical bible society uh it's called the genealogies and it is the family tree of jesus as it were and it is taken directly this artwork 44 pages of artwork on i believe i'm gonna have to measure this but i believe this is eight and a half by eleven so it's quite large but it's it's taken directly these prints are taken directly from the first edition king james bible first edition 1611 king james bible that is among their vast collection of rare and precious and valuable bibles and books of history and uh as i said if you donate to the historical bible society a minimum of 35 you will get this beautiful 44 page genealogy of jesus and uh it it looks like parchment paper uh it's taken directly from as i said the prints are taken directly from first edition king james bible 1611 and uh if you go to historicalbiblesociety .org

historicalbiblesociety .org you can find out more about how you can get your own copy of the genealogies of jesus and that's a minimum donation of 35 so i hope that you take advantage of that and please let the historical bible society know that you heard about them from chris arns and on ian tropenzine radio they just renewed their advertising contract with us so please make sure that if you are able to send them the donation and to get your free genealogies book 44 page book uh please uh make sure that you do that so that you will further ensure that the historical bible society will continue to sponsor this program before we return to our guest jay siegert we just have a couple of announcements to make uh first of all if you love this show and you do not want it to disappear please go to irontropenzineradio .com

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and put i need his church in the subject line chrisarmson at gmail .com that's also the email address where you can send in a question to jay siegert and today jay's topic is why many youths abandon the christian faith and how should the church respond that's chrisarmson at gmail .com

jay you are just about to launch into a story i believe about one of your your children yeah my son we were been talking the context we were talking about you know discipline within the home you know it can be too harsh it can drive some away not only only not only the children who are being harshly treated but even others outside of the home outside of the church can look upon that as well that's what christianity is and it's just so cruel and and whatever so we were talking about what's appropriate what's not and i just had thought of one example off the top of my head when my son was in grade school he had done something at home which was i don't even remember what it was it was very minor but it necessitated me talking with him and giving him some kind of discipline and so i told him to go into his room and i came in about a minute later and i always made sure that myself i was calmed down in case i was upset in this case i wasn't but we want to make sure as parents that we discipline out of what god tells us to do and not out of our own disturbed nature if sometimes our kids do something and it it becomes an inconvenience for us now we're going to be late to the movie now and we get all upset about that and discipline them out of anger rather than on what is actually right and wrong and so when i went into my son's room on this occasion he was sitting on his bed and he was you know teary -eyed he already felt bad about whatever it was that he had done which again was fairly minor but i sat there and i always talked to him very calmly and but i remember on that day i looked at him and i said do you have any idea who i am and he did not know how to respond to that and i did not expect him to know how to respond because i don't talk to him that way so he just kind of looked at me not knowing what to do and then i started smiling and i said i am you just a little older i said we're basically the same i've just had a few more years and i'm a grown -up now and i said but i'm like you i mess up when i was your age and messed up the same ways that you do and i still mess up today and i wanted him to know that i'm also a human being and we need to show that humility with our kids in order to have more transparency from them and have a better relationship and i remember another time i got another portion of the story to finish in a second but another time i had gone into his room and i said you know what um what you did a little while ago was wrong but i'm not here to talk to you about that right now because you already know that i'm here to apologize to you because i think that i responded a little too harshly and you know why because i was in a tense mood from some other things that were going on and i just i kind of took it out on you i i hadn't even yelled at him or anything but it was it was more than i probably should have and i realized later i was just totally unrelated to him and so i said would you please forgive me and he said yes and i walked out it wasn't there to say well and by the way what you did was wrong and you need this to do this and that and just i didn't mean to apologize and so it was but on this first occasion that i brought up when i went into discipline and um i said you know what i said i don't really like disciplining you i like to get along and want you to be happy with me but you know what if i don't discipline you for what you did that was wrong now god's going to discipline me because the bible tells me i need to discipline my children when they do something wrong so if i don't discipline you now i'm sinning and i'm going to get in trouble and he kind of smiled and we talked through it and so i think we really need to make sure that our discipline is very biblically based and that our children need to understand they are being disciplined based on standards that god set up in his word and not just mom and dad are hacked off now so boy are they going to get it it always needs to go back to what happened how was it a violation of what god wants us to do and and to talk about it very graciously and not be overly harsh and and offer opportunities for forgiveness and things like that so that really should be the way discipline happens but too often as parents get into the emotion of the moment and we react because we are personally upset because it's kind of messed with our schedule our agenda and that doesn't lead to anything good it drives our kids away not only from us but away from the bible because that's what they think christianity is all about is just rules rules rules you break the rules you are in big trouble and mom and dad are gonna be so angry with you rather than saying hey we want to help you through this yeah you messed up but we're here to help you and offer forgiveness and we still love you still care about you so that that's a stark contrast from how a lot of discipline happens in in many christian households which is not healthy for the children and isn't going to help them later in life too whether they have to make these harder decisions or whether they're locally or not we have another anonymous listener who says when it comes to young black men leaving the church i have discovered and having conversations with those that have become members of the nation of islam or even more traditional muslim religions that they found the church too matriarchal too feminine and had no truly strong male role models they found what they saw as a masculine haven in these false religions and it just happens to be a fact that many churches in the black church experience at large are very matriarchal and the numbers of members who are women typically dwarf those that are men in numbers and i was wondering if in such cases if a person happens to be a member of the church where there are few male members and perhaps no strong male leaders in the home that more effort needs to be done on the part of the mothers of these children and perhaps church members to make sure that men in the church that are godly and faithful and good role models are very much involved actively in the lives of these children even if they are not from our own family that absolutely huge that observation is just astounding because god has created us with a certain order and a hierarchy not of importance or value but just this is the way he has planned he's designed us in a certain way he's designed men to be head of the households and to be ultimately responsible which you could look at it wrong and you say why does he get to lead the household i kind of look at it as an extra burden like oh my word i'm responsible for everything so things go wrong here it's ultimately my responsibility because i'm leading this household and so god has set up a certain order of male and female husband and wife mother and father which now in congress they're trying to get rid of using the name mother father husband wife brother sister which is just it's just i guess it should shock us anymore but but that's the way god has set this up and so uh boys in general are geared they're created in god's image and they're they are meant to develop into these leaders well what are they supposed to do when they don't see those role models they don't have it in their own life instinctively they're going to look for that and that's sometimes why youth join gangs they're looking for leadership that's lacking in the home and i think in many christian churches men have dropped the ball drastically and there is a void there well guess what some women have some skills where they could lead something they could teach something it's not that they don't have any of those skills it's that they're not supposed to have to be the key leaders in the church but they will often very sincerely step into that void and they're doing it very sincerely but that wasn't god's intention and it's the i think the male leadership's fault for allowing that to happen too often and the church becomes kind of weak there and so like this caller mentioned even black youth are going into islam because they're seeing that strong male leadership now the leadership there are not based on biblical principles unfortunately but they're leaning towards something that god has designed for them they're just fulfilling it in the wrong way but in a sense we can't be surprised because again the church has dropped the ball in what they're to be doing and the church spends too much time tickling people's ears rather than teaching scripture well i'd like you to go through some more of your own ideas and how to remedy this situation i don't want to take too many more listener questions before we run out of time so if you could spend some time just going through some principles that you definitely wanted to have stated today sure what's interesting is i've been speaking on apologetics topics for 35 years now full -time for 14 plus but uh 35 total i started when i was in my latter year of college and uh went from there and then eventually moved into a full -time 14 -15 years ago but i deal with youth walking away from their faith i guess one of the biggest parts of a ministry is dealing with that but what's interesting is not until just a few years ago again i've been dealing with this for 35 years but not until just a few years ago it was the first time ever i asked myself hey how come i didn't walk away when i was in college because i was challenged by my professors they were telling me i was wrong about everything that i believed and again i was studying physics and engineering and um so to have phd physicists tell you that no you don't know what you're talking about you're wrong that was disturbing to me because i realized that i knew what i believed but i didn't know why i could not defend it the christian worldview so for the first time just a few years ago i said how come when i had the same challenges that youth are having today how come i didn't walk away it took me i'd say maybe a half a second to figure out the answer and the answer was my relationship with my parents it had nothing nothing to do with my academic education or my level of intelligence or anything it was totally my relationship with my parents so at that point my life growing up in a christian home believing in the bible and entrusted in christ as my savior going to a solid bible believing uh church i went to a christian college for engineering and then i went to the state university for physics so at the state university when i was being challenged and i realized i can't defend my belief system i didn't for one second think that maybe i'm wrong i thought very logically i thought i know i'm not wrong because i don't think my parents are wrong i don't think they would lie to me i don't think my pastor is wrong or would lie to me so if i'm not wrong that means i'm right if i'm right that means there has to be evidence if there's evidence i'm going to find it and so i just set out like crazy to find evidence and god brought it to me and i was like a sponge i could not get enough and i was excited to find this and i wanted it because i enjoyed the christian worldview i i saw it lived out in my parents life where too many youth don't have that background they haven't really seen it lived out there's so much tension there's contradictions there's hypocrisy there's there's moral tension in their own life of things they want to do what they feel they probably shouldn't and all this is going on so when they get challenged they're not going to say hey i'm going to drop everything and find evidence for the christian faith they're going to say great now i have an academic excuse to do whatever i want to do and so i think it's again very important for parents to be having a really good relationship with their kids active talking about things having conversations letting their children ask any question they want and being humble and saying you know what that is a good question to be honest i don't know the answer but you know what i probably should know that so let me look into that and get back to you thank you for bringing that up there's too many parents there's too much pride and they don't want their kids to realize they don't have answers so the kids come home from high school or college and just say my professor said the big bang's an fact the bible's just a joke and that evolution's been absolutely proven and there never was a flood and jesus isn't the son of god and the errors in the bible and all that again most parents don't have answers instead of saying you know what those are great questions and we should probably know those things by now they they start making stuff up and they'll say well you just need to you just need to trust jesus and you need to go to church because it's the right thing and that's what we do and don't worry about those other things well that's a terrible answer it doesn't make any sense to the child but they kind of put up with it while they're living at home because what else are they going to do they're they're 10 years old they're 15 or 18 or whatever um they kind of have to to do it so they bury their head in the sand for a while but eventually they go off to college or they go further into college and they realize i can decide anything i want i can believe whatever i want and i'm in college and learning real truth and i know what i was told that was true growing up but what do i really believe and they they tend to walk away but if they have a really good relationship with their parents they want to walk away from their own family situation they want to be able to go to their parents and say man this stuff has really blown me away help me and the parents should say yeah let's dive into this and we don't know all of this but let's look into it but most parents are just so busy they don't have time they don't want to be exposed as to not really knowing scripture the way they probably should at that point in their life so you may have messed up with the parents we all do but you can always start now and just say you know what going forward this year i'm going to know much more about the basics of the christian faith how do we know that god exists how do we know he created everything how do we know the bible's word of god how do we know that jesus is the son of god you know those basic questions if you don't know answers to that start there and then build from that platform uh we have harrison mechanic spurred pennsylvania who says in conversations i have had with many christians i think that they are coming to the wrong conclusions in response to the problem of which you speak they think that church needs more programs more youth activities that are separate from congregational life and other things but i disagree first of all those aren't things that are commanded in scripture so they can't be essential but also many times i have heard and even witnessed that these subcategories of life outside of the regular mixed body of christ where adults and children are together these children's or youth groups tend to be come churches of their own and very have very often have deficient messages that they are teaching the children sometimes they're best basically just being used as glorified babysitters what is your response to my thoughts here well i can't disagree with that i i think that is very true again not of of every church in every situation but i think it does do a disservice when we have churches set up where we separate everyone in too many youth programs are focused on entertaining these kids they want to have fun if they're not having fun they're not going to come and you want to have a vibrant youth group and be proud of your group and what you do so you do a lot of games and fun things here and there and invite your friends and now you'll you'll read some bible verses or talk about being kind or getting through struggles at school and do some topical things but they're really not diving deep into god's word and i would say you know if you don't think studying god's word is fun that that's okay we're not saying hey let's have fun what can we do i know let's read god's word we're trying to learn truth about our creator to find out why is it that we're here and what does he want us to be doing and we know along the way that means going to school for a while early part of your life getting a job probably getting married and having children what does god teach us about those things and how to best approach those things that's going to be in god's word so that's what we're going to and you guys right now are seventh eighth ninth grade 10th whatever your age is this is what you should know about the christian worldview and about scripture at this point in your life because these are the things that are coming at you at that point in your life so we're going to be going to god's word to help you with those things and if you don't think it's fun that's okay but you need to learn these things rather than like okay you're right it's not that fun so we'll do more videos and games and i think again the church does a disservice when they focus that way and i fortunately go to a very very strong church where the youth program is absolutely amazing and they go through scripture so each youth if they're in there the whole program through junior high through high school they're going to go through the whole bible a number of times and learn a lot of practical things about scripture and memorization so that they're going to be much better positioned for the rest of their life versus like they were babysat and entertained while their parents were in the church service or whatever so i think it's a very valid point and again another area that some churches have dropped the ball we have bb in cumberland county pennsylvania who says do you think that very often legalism in a home and church are the reasons for the flight of children away from christianity and i have to be careful about how i phrase or define my terms because there are people who have an unbiblical christianity or even a liberal christianity which is no christianity at all in reality who will label many things that are actual truly commands of scripture as legalism but i'm not speaking of that i'm talking about the heavy -handed overbearing type of life that some children have in their homes and within their churches where rules are the inventions of men that restrict and choke the life out of many children so that as soon as they are able they flee and run as far away and as fast as they can run uh again another valid point i think legalism it is tough to define it for a broad audience but i think legalism can do potentially more damage than any good because it focuses too much on the rules themselves rather than the relationship and i think dr palo years ago said the rules without relationship leads to rebellion and i think legalism feeds into that when the parents focus so much on the rule itself rather than the intent behind the rule and and and then tying the rule into scripture saying okay yeah we believe this really is a rule here but let me show you in scripture why we've come to the conclusion that this this really should be a rule here's why this is what it does for us this is actually a protection it provides for us as christians and we want to help you with this one even though this particular one whatever it is it's not easy because there's a lot of stuff that i would love to do but i know i'm not supposed to but yeah it's in there so i need help with it so the legalism just kind of blows right through the purpose of the rule and any kind of relationship and it's just like you know what you are my son or my daughter and i love you if you perform when you don't i'm pretty hacked off when you do yeah you're okay and i'm proud of you and you live your whole life in like servitude and just in a bad way and so paranoid about messing up or is god happy with you today is he not are your parents happy are they not versus knowing that christ has done everything for you you can't add anything to it so you're never going to do a particular work that's going to make god so happy now he's proud of you and then later he's not he's kind of disgusted he didn't want to look at you versus you know what christ has done everything and it actually frees me up it takes me out of being a slave and i want to do those good things now i want to follow those rules in thanksgiving to him and i can't really do them on my own but that's why i have the holy spirit to help me do those things that are really difficult but you're doing them because you're excited about it versus boy if i don't do this i'm going to get slapped you know and it's a totally different mindset and when you when you live under the hammer of legalism you are focused on yourself the whole time how am i doing what am i doing do i think it's good enough or not versus i got really nothing to add to this right now it's all christ i'm going to focus on him the whole i can it frees me up to be able to focus on him rather than focusing on myself and my works the whole time but we are going to our final break it's going to be a much shorter break than the last breaks uh so if you have a question you'd like to ask of jay siegert please send it in as quickly as possible because we are rapidly running out of time our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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and jay sieger you have about five minutes of uninterrupted time now to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today about the youth that are walking away from faith well yeah there's so much we could say but it comes down to god's word i mean it's so important we we know nothing about christianity other than what god tells us in his word so it starts at home with the parents yes you know for the time we have left yes churches can help and good pastors do help tremendously but it is the parents responsibility god does not say hey parents if you get a chance sometime maybe talk to your kids about the christian worldview and god's word and why we know it's true what difference it makes and how we live it out oh he commands us to be talking with our children and mentoring them especially uh deuteronomy chapter six and of course it keeps occurring diligently to help them when you sit down in the house and walking by the way when they lie down and all these things it doesn't say sit them down and give them a lecture uh been there done that it doesn't work out i'm a lecturer i travel around the whole time and give lectures and talks and i just thought okay if i do family devotionals i'll just give another lecture and it wasn't that effective it was like pulling teeth that never went well and then i realized the much better way is to not once or twice a week sit down for a lecture but just every day share life with your kids in particular just say hey you know how school today what happened what do you think about that is that a good or bad thing what do you think god's word has to say you do that on a regular basis week after week month after month year after year your children will be growing in the faith and they'll see that everything is always turned back to scripture what does god say about that it's not about whatever rules we'll make it up as we go it's what does god say about whatever particular subject is bringing being brought up and too often parents will blame the school system and in one of the talks that i give in churches when i kind of set up you know how things are kind of going south and what's being taught in schools i say you know why our kids are walking away from their faith it's because every single teacher in the public school system and every single professor at the state university they're evil rotten nasty liars and the looks i get from the congregation is amazing and then i start to smile and i laugh and i say i don't mean that at all i think majority of teachers in the public school system even professors at universities are very nice people most of them are pretty good teachers obviously there are exceptions but most of them are very sincere people they're not trying to lie to our kids unfortunately a lot of what they teach is not true but they don't even know it they're just teaching the only thing they've ever heard because they went to the public school system and then they went to college and they said i love my biology teacher i want to be a biology teacher so they get a degree in teaching to go back to the high school and they teach the same thing they learn a lot of it's not true but they don't even know that and so then we blame the teachers and the professors oh they're ruining our kids and our kids are walking away and then after i say that then i say you know whose fault it is it's your pastor's fault and then everyone laughs and i say because your kids get messed up so you bring them to church and he's supposed to fix them right and then they go home and they get messed up a little bit again so you got to bring them back the next week for another booster shot and i say no it's not your pastor's fault i said it is largely our responsibility as parents to be mentoring our children our children are gifts from god they're in our care for a short period of time how are we going to make best use of that time because they're going to go off on their own and they have to make their own decisions we want to set them up for success we want to teach them as much of god's word as we can because that's what's going to move them forward not just remembering rules they grew up with but understanding god's word that's what they're responsible for knowing but you can't give your kids or your grandchildren something you don't have if you're not quite sure why you believe what you believe why should anyone else believe it if you're just choosing it because it seems to work and you like it great but then why should your children believe it if you're just that's just kind of what you chose why couldn't they just choose something they like if it works better for them we should be giving them you know answers first peter 3 15 be ready always to give answers reasons for the hope that we have do this with meekness and pure gentleness and respect we need to be having answers for why we believe in god why we believe that the bible is god's word why we believe jesus christ is the only way set that foundation so their kids are set up for success in the future well i want to make sure jay that if a listener wants to invite you to their church or their school to have you give a presentation there or they want to get in contact with you for any other reason that they have that information first of all the website is the starting point project .com

the starting point project .com any other contact information you care to share our website should give them everything they need we don't charge anything for our engagements we do ask that travel expenses be covered but you know churches conferences schools whatever we just get honorariums generally but there's no charge we just ask that they cover expenses to get wherever it is that i'm going i'm based out of wisconsin but i travel all over the country and around the world so if they want something in their church it could be a sunday morning service it could be a weekend seminar could be something in the school system again there's no charge but it's all very biblically based and all very very encouraging messages and uplifting i'm not there to condemn people to say you messed up i just i want to help people wherever they are and help them improve so that god can use them to the full extent that he intended great well uh once again that's the starting point project .com