The Lord gave me a unique opportunity a few weeks ago. On a recent flight I sat next to a young man who was on his way home for the holidays following his first semester at a well-known university. Justin was one of the most outgoing and engaging young people I have ever met. Almost instantly after he sat down in the window seat in our row, he began asking me the typical “airplane questions”: Where are you headed? Where are you from? What do you do? I answered that I work with church youth workers and teenagers and that I was headed to a church to speak to a group of students and their adult youth workers.

His response startled me, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. “Why bother?” he asked before he launched into his story of how he had grown up in an evangelical church and had attended Sunday School and youth group meetings from a very early age. He was quite anxious to inform me that all of his church teachers and youth workers were inconsistent and unreliable and that his first semester at the university had demonstrated to him that Christianity is false. Justin’s brief college experiences had caused him to believe that his Christian upbringing was nothing more than make-believe, feel-good, historical stories that were made up by and for people who need that kind of emotional crutch.

That hour-long flight provided me with a God-given appointment to talk to this confident, yet confused, young man about the Bible, the church, my faith, his faith, his parent’s faith, and the importance of being able to defend what you believe. Justin made me think. He challenged many of the clichés that I normally use in my conversations with Christian kids. He motivated me to be clear and confident in communicating what I believe and why.

This opportunity to talk to Justin made me realize again how important it is that our students know what they believe and that they can defend their beliefs with Biblical truth. I hate to admit that my answers to Justin’s questions did not move him to reconsider his stance that Christianity is a series of fictional stories. But I do pray that he saw Christ in my life and that he could see a visual aid of someone who loves the Lord and who is confident in God’s Word.

Youth workers, I want to use Justin’s story to remind us how important it is that our students know what they believe!

No matter where our students go after graduation – on to further education or into the workforce or military service – it’s critically important that they can articulate what they believe. Without a doubt, sometime during their post-secondary experiences they’ll be faced with difficult, heart-searching questions about their faith.

I spent over fifteen years teaching college students as a faculty member in two Bible colleges. I taught a wide array of students from various churches all across the country. I can assure you that even in the strongest Christian educational environment, students will have to answer tough questions about what they believe.

Therefore, it is imperative for youth workers (and parents, of course) to make sure that doctrine and theology are an integral part of their comprehensive teaching plans. It’s a shame that some youth workers look at theology as boring or irrelevant for today’s high school students. I believe the opposite is true. It has been my experience that this generation wants to know what they believe. They don’t want us to “spoon feed” them or cram our own particular viewpoints down their throats. Instead, I am absolutely convinced that many millennials have a desire to learn the meat of Scripture, which includes Biblical and systematic theology. They can get fluff and entertainment elsewhere. This article - and my conversation with Justin on the airplane - is a call to youth workers everywhere to make Biblical theology a major emphasis in our teaching ministries.

The following are some starting points for incorporating doctrine and theology into today’s youth ministry.

1. Implement a thorough scope and sequence.
Most youth ministries provide a six-year educational window to teach God’s Word to students. What do you want those in-coming early adolescents to know by the time they graduate from high school? An intentional, comprehensive educational curriculum is essential to attaining these goals. (You might imagine that I highly recommend the educational scope and sequence provided in the youth curriculum from Regular Baptist Press! You can find the scope and sequence for the junior high and senior high curriculum cycles inside the front cover of their respective teacher books. RBP’s goal is to teach the whole counsel of God and to give students ways to apply Biblical truth to their day-to-day lives.)

2. Utilize materials and resources that are characterized by doctrinal and Biblical integrity.
I am afraid that one of the most insidious dangers facing today’s church educational ministries is the serious lack of doctrinal content in so many books and materials. Have you visited a Christian bookstore recently? Do that sometime and carefully look through that store’s youth ministry section. You will probably find a wide range of creative and seemingly relevant teaching guides with colorful and creative covers that contain interesting and innovative teaching methods. Look a little closer. My guess is that you’ll find many of these products contain very, very little Biblical or doctrinal content. The publishing trend these days is to sell materials to churches of all stripes with little regard for any particular doctrinal perspective. Please be careful in what you present to your students. Make sure that the materials you select have a Biblical integrity that matches what your church believes and teaches in other ministries. We must be discerning. If we want our students to grow up with a clear understanding of the Bible and doctrine, we must be consistent in what we teach and in what materials we use in our ministries. (Again, let me emphasize that you can trust the Biblical and doctrinal content of our curriculum from RBP. We always print our doctrinal statement on the table of contents page in our teacher books, so you immediately know who we are and what we teach.)

3. Give your students practical opportunities to develop constructive critical thinking about what they are learning in church.
My emphasis on theology is not a push for the rote learning of sterile facts and boring lists of proof texts. The Bible is far from that. We must never forget that the Word of God is alive, powerful, and life-changing. The Holy Scriptures can stand up to the most difficult scrutiny. So my advice to youth workers is to provide practical learning opportunities for your students so that they learn firsthand the truth of God’s holy, inspired, inerrant, and everlasting Word.

4. Develop ways to reinforce Biblical truth in various educational settings.
My high school basketball coach was a master at developing a style of coaching that permeated the entire school system. Not only did the varsity team play one way, but so did the junior varsity, the freshmen team, and even the junior highers. The offenses were the same and the defenses were the same. Every basketball player in our community grew up learning that one style of basketball.

Likewise, our students in church can learn effectively from consistent reinforcement of Biblical truth. Undoubtedly, this process starts at home where parents teach God’s Word to their children, but that routine must continue at church in the various educational ministries that reach and teach students. (That is exactly why our educational products at RBP revolve around the core of Sunday School. Our student devotionals and the memory verses are key educational tools designed to reinforce what is covered in Sunday School.)

5. Provide real-life opportunities for your students to think and live Biblically.
One reason that I am a big fan of youth ministry is that our ministries encourage our students to implement the truth of what they are learning into various life situations. The goal is for our students to be “doers of the Word” (James 1:22). I really believe that our teenagers will be more likely to continue on in their faith and will be more confident to stand up for what they believe if they have had guidance in applying Biblical principles to the various real-life experiences of their day-to-day lives.

I have been praying for Justin. My prayer is that one of these days he’ll see the truth in the Biblical content he learned as a child and that he’ll become convinced of the genuineness of a life in Christ, even though he hasn’t seen that demonstrated consistently. More than that, I am praying that God’s Word will not return void! After all, that’s what God promised.

We’ll continue this discussion of doctrine in youth ministry in my next post. Thanks for reading.