2009 Teen Winter Reteat

Over Valentine's Day weekend, I had the privilege of being the speaker at the 2009 Teen Winter Retreat at Fort Faith Camp in Morley, Michigan. The retreat was attended by young people grades 7-12 from three different Grace assemblies. The retreat was organized by Mike Taylor from Shorewood Bible Church in Chicago and was attended by teens from Berean Bible Church in Minerva, Ohio as well as Grace Life Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. All told about 25 youth participated in the weekend's fellowship and Bible study.

The theme of the weekend's Bible study was Grace Based Apologetics. The five studies were focused on answering one essential question. Questions included the following; What is Truth: Does Absolute Truth Exist?, Does God Exist?, What About the Bible: Can We Really Trust It? What About Jesus: Was He Really God and Did He Really Rise from the Dead?, and Jesus Among Other God's: Is There Really Only One Way to God?

There are many reasons why I selected these topics to discuss with the young people. First, as a high school history teacher in a public school, I have first hand knowledge of the impact our postmodern culture has on our young people. Even teens who report to be Christians believe that Christianity is only true because they choose to believe it. Thereby asserting that religious is truth is relative to the individual. Consequently, I was curious to what extent our Grace young people have been effected by the cultural beliefs of their peers. In addition, I wanted to equip our teens in how to answer the absurd assertions that are being made in the name of religious pluralism and tolerance.

Second, in the early half of this decade three of my Grace friends, departed the faith in favor of atheism. In fact, one of them even incorporated his knowledge of Pauline Dispensationlism into his rational for his deconversion, as he termed it. Naturally, this radical change in direction saddened me deeply, however, it caused me to realize how philosophically unprepared I was to answer the challenges of the new militant breed of atheism that is currently being articulated by atheists. Consequently, much of the reading I have done (in addition to normal Bible study) has been devoted to the topic of Christian Apologetics and defense of the faith. Throughout the course of my reading, it became my sincere opinion that many of our Grace Church's have overlooked the topic of Apologetics in the education of our young people. Herein lies the two fold purpose behind my choice of topics for the Teen Retreat. First, I wanted to assess the accuracy of my assumptions, that apologetics has been a grossly overlooked topic within in our Grace churches at large. Furthermore, I also wanted to give the teens a basic equipping that would enable to answer some of the more difficult challenges to Christianity that are being purposed by our postmodern culture.

Due to the small sample size of the young people that were present at the retreat, it is impossible to arrive at any authoritative conclusions with regard to exposure rate of our Grace young people to Apologetic reasoning. At present, a handful of the teens in attendance, mostly older ones (i.e. juniors or seniors) were familiar with a large portion of the martial presented. The rest, I am pleased to report, were extremely excited about the topic and expressed a great desire to know more. In fact, after sessions two, three, and five I spent as much time answering questions as I did teaching. The overwhelming response reinforced my suspicions going into the retreat, that the marital presented would fill a much needed void in our young people's understanding. As I left the retreat Sunday night, many of teens expressed gratitude and a desire to learn more. Moreover, many requested written copies of my notes as well as list of suggested reading so that they could study further on their own.

Finally, it was extremely encouraging to see how grounded our teens are with regard to the clarity of the gospel, final authority of the King James Bible, and the advanced issues of the Grace Life. Training in Apologetic reasoning will not only equip our youth to defend their faith against the onslaught of relativism, atheism, and religious pluralism but it will also prepare them to better argue and defend the distinctive features of the Grace Life amidst the confusion of denominationalsim and tradition that exists within Churchianity.

If any of the teens are reading this, keep standing and contending for the one faith for the current Dispensation of Grace. To view the PowerPoints and notes used during these lessons click on the links listed below. Note: These notes have not been extensively proof read for typos and grammatical errors. Please enjoy.

• Grace Based Apologetics PowerPoint Presentation
• Lesson One--What is Truth?
• Lesson Two--Does God Exist?
• Lesson Three--What About the Bible?
• Lesson Four--What About Jesus? Is He Really God? Did He Really Rise From the Dead
• Lesson Five--Jesus Among Other Gods--Is There Really Only One Way to God
• Bibliogrpahy of Suggested Reading