CHILDREN BURIED UNDER 2,000 BOOKS

 In an extensive survey by the Barna Group endeavoring to learn "Why are so many young people falling away from the faith," they found that less than one half of 1% of Christians between the ages of 18 and 23 have the worldview presented by the Bible. The Barna Group defined the biblical worldview as:

• absolute moral truth exists
• the Bible is completely inerrant
• Satan is a real being, not symbolic
• a person cannot earn his way into the kingdom of God though good works
• Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth
• God is the supreme Creator of the heavens and the earth and reigns over the whole universe today

Fuller Seminary conducted its own study about the same problem and found that "the most important factor in whether young people leave the church or remain steadfast in their faith is whether they have a safe haven to express their doubts and concerns regarding their faith before leaving home. Such a refuge is found in two places: their home and their church's ministry to the youth."

The Fuller study also learned that most church youth programs "tend to focus on providing entertainment and pizza rather than building up young people in their faith." This leads to the youth's being poorly equipped "to face the challenges they will encounter upon leaving home." Their conclusion was, "If one is never grounded in the faith to begin with, it's almost a certainty he will abandon it."

One church youth minister began his ministry by asking the kids to fill out a survey, asking, "What do you want to do, that is, what would be your favorite things to do at our meetings," and that's what they did.

Two studies found that nearly 75 percent of Christian young people fall away from the faith and leave the church after high school. The question of the moment is "Why?" But another important question is, "What?" That question concerns what did their lives consist of prior to their decision to make shipwreck of the faith? That question also involves whether or not their homes and their churches taught them the Bible.

Let's do a comparison:

 Statistics show that children today spend an average of 30 hours per week in school where they are taught ideas that are hostile to biblical truths, e.g., evolution, the acceptance of homosexuality, etc. Then they come home to another 30 hours per week spent in front of a television set bombarded by commercials and sitcoms, playing video games, or connecting on social media. If they live to be 78 years old, they'll spend 11,762 days (41% of their lives) staring at a screen. 

Throw that against the time spent in classrooms of their churches: 45 minutes a week. Not even an hour. Their exposure to worldly influences versus Bible training is overwhelming. They’re also not being taught to intelligently examine the views of skeptics who will constantly challenge their faith. They are not prepared to enter the college classroom where a majority of college professors view Christians with hostility and take every opportunity to belittle them and their faith.

In addition all those overwhelming statistics, parents of students in the San Diego United School District received an e-mail from the district superintendent in April 2021, and, as per the message, "The nonprofit Gender Nation would be donating 2,000 age-appropriate LGBTQ  books to the elementary schools in the system." 

The question arises, "What if we wanted to donate 2,000 books supporting the Christian worldview to the San Diego United School District's elementary schools or 2,000 New Testaments?" 

They enter the groves of academe` with a baby knowledge of the Bible and are thus unarmed for the fiery darts that will come their way. In this regard, the influence of godly parents is essential. "One particular study found that when both parents were faithful and active in the church, 93 percent of their children remained faithful. When just one parent was faithful, 73 percent of their children remained faithful. When neither parent was particularly active in church, only 53 percent of their children stayed faithful. In those instances where neither parent was active at all and only attended church now and then, the percentage dropped to a mere 6 percent."
 

We might blame the secularization of our society or the increased biblical illiteracy of the world in general for the defection. But if the world is biblically illiterate, the church hasn't been doing its duty as stated in I Peter 2:9., since the church is to be “declar[ing] the praises of Him who called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light.". 

One author has proposed the following: "Instead of entertaining youth with skits, bands, and movies, we need to teach them Scripture with logic, truth, and a Christian worldview." 

Frank Turek, a Christian author and lecturer on apologetics, went on to say, "What we win them with we win them to. If we win them with entertainment and [then a] low commitment [of discipleship], we win them to entertainment and low commitment." 

Charles Spurgeon was way ahead of his time when he implored the church to start "feeding the sheep rather than amusing the goats” (“The Seeker Church: Is Anyone Making Disciples?” CrossExamined. Web. Oct. 5, 2015).