Questions Young People Ask...

I am the Deacon of Youth Ministry at my church (listed in the sidebar links). A deacon is just a leader who is assigned to a specific service task. Elders are the other kind of leaders in churches and they are usually tasked with a focus on prayer and teaching the Bible.

Recently, we helped hosted a Gulf-wide youth conference at the church. Over 250 12 to 20 year olds attended from many different nationalities. During the conference I led a 75 minute seminar called "Defending the Faith". The purpose was to equip them to deal with tough questions they might face about their Christian faith. This is traditionally called apologetics. Almost half of the students came through the seminar during the weekend. And best of all, we had a blast!

I led the sessions with both teaching and discussion. And boy was it gloriously messy! People asking questions which spurred secondary questions, which spurred some to answer the first ones... and on and on. And lots of interruptions like "yeah but what about...!" I loved it.

At one point during the sessions I had them tell me what THEIR questions were; not the questions that they were being asked. If you know students, you know that many of them are trying to figure out their faith just as much as trying to answer questions posed to them - if they're being asked questions at all. In fact, many of them at this conference are not likely to have not made personal commitments to follow Jesus as Lord. So, answering their personal questions is perhaps even more important than answers to questions they may face.

Most of all I want them to put their faith in Jesus.

Over the next couple of weeks I'd like to share some of their questions with you. And I'll share my answers as well.

Here is a small sampling of the questions:

"Why us..."
Why were we created?
Why would God create us if he knew we would sin and rebel against him?

"What about the Bible..."
How was the Bible put together? What is it's history?
Why are there different versions of the Bible?
Hasn't the Bible been corrupted over the years?

"Why evil..."
If God is good why doesn't he just stop all the evil in the world?
Why did God create hell?

"What about the nature of God..."
How can I understand the trinity?
How can God be loving and full of wrath?

And my personal favorite:
How can I know that God loves me?

There were lots more and I'll mention them here if any readers want to know more. In the meantime we'll work on some of these.

Honestly, the first question in the list; "why did God create us?" really surprised me for some reason. Someone in each of the three sessions asked about this.

And the last question really touched me. A young man asked it with such authenticity that I stopped and answered him immediately for fear we wouldn't get back to it.

Do you have other questions? Ask them in the comments section and we'll try to get to them.