If we don’t answer young people’s questions and invite them to a different mission, who will?

Sitting in Sean McDowell's class many years ago, Sean told a story of his own journey in the shadow of a famously well-known apologist father. And the way his dad addressed Sean’s doubt’s was simply to encourage him to pursue truth — confident that Sean would find that only Christianity would satisfy his deepest desires, including for truth.

That’s how I think about working with youth and young adults. We know that the number one reason young people 18-34 leave the church is because their questions don’t get answered adequately.

This comes in several forms. Two — not addressing difficult cultural issues or inadequately addressing them — are often are expressed in a form of anti-intellectualism that tells you to ‘just have faith.’

And this makes me sad.

Upholding the primacy and veracity of Jesus, Christianity, and Bible need not include checking one’s brain at the door. Indeed, it’s difficult to follow Jesus with all heart, soul, and mind if we do.

I’ll not deep dive approaches to apologetics here. Suffice it to say, though, that being prepared to offer an answer with gentleness and respect (1 Pe 3:15-16) as we contend for the faith (Jude 3) and refute false teaching (Ti 1:9; 1 Ti 2:24-26) isn’t all about debates and explicit debunking.

What I have found is that walking with people through life means that a) you’re with them when the difficult moments come and b) if you’ve earned trust, you’ll have an opportunity to speak into their life.

And like Josh McDowell’s response to his son Sean, we need not fear doubts and questionings and searchings in our families or students or small groups or whomever we serve.

Indeed, we may just have an opportunity to serve in relational, communal Christianity in a way that God designed. Psychologists recognize that parents (ideally) help their children grow from dependence to independence to interdependence. Some part of their individuation includes forming attachments beyond their nuclear parents.

And isn’t one point of community to provide a place for them to form new attachments who will, as an alternative to TikTok or other purveyors of cultural narratives, to provide young people a place to form attachments and explore ideas in a way that will keep pointing them back to the Gospel?

That’s been my experience as a leader. Young people are deeper than they’re given credit for, and if we don’t answer their big questions and point them in the direction of identity, meaning, and purpose, who will?