66. Are We Raising Kids Who Can Handle Doubt? - Better Questions

Are We Raising Kids Who Can Handle Doubt?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Hello. Welcome to another episode of the Better Questions Podcast. We wrestle with hard questions and look to ask better ones. My name is Matt. It's grateful to be with you today. And our question this week comes from Jane in Kansas. Jane asks a great question. She asks, Are we raising kids who can handle doubt? There's a lot more to this question, but I I think this that summary of her question kind of highlights the real tension that she's leaning into. Um and it's you know this reality that all young people uh at some point or another will have questions about faith, about life. And you know, I think about my own faith journey when I was in middle school, high school, growing up in a Christian home, growing up in the church, and I remember times when doubt felt extremely lonely. Um I also remember times where there were real split spaces and places where doubt well questions were um welcomed, and those were real places of I think healing for me personally. And so what maybe the question I would start with is what do we actually want, or what do we actually do when someone in our life, whether it's our own son or daughter, or whether it's someone else, a kid in a small group or a teenager in the church or whatever, says, I'm not sure I believe this anymore. My question is, what's what's your instinct? Do you panic? Do you throw a Bible verse at them? Do you launch into apologetics mode and start explaining the cosmological argument? Or, you know, go into uh what what is the Pascal's wager, you know? Start getting into philosophical debates. Here's what I'm learning. I think how we respond to doubt in young people might matter more than we think, and not just for that conversation, but for their the long arc of their faith. Like I think it's really important that we think through this because um this is a superport of of formation. And and I want to start, there's a lot of great research that's come out of Fuller Youth Institutes, sticky faith research, um, Kara Powell, Brad Griffin. You know, one of the things they they said that 70% of youth group graduates in their study said they had doubts in high school of what they believed about God and the Christian faith. And nearly as many said they wanted to talk to someone about it. So that's that's encouraging that they wanted to have the conversation. Um, but here's the other number less than half of those students actually talk to a leader. Right? So less than half talked with their peers. So seven out of ten kids are wrestling with serious doubt, and only one or two of them are actually talking about it with anyone. And I think the my follow-up question to that is why? Like, why aren't they talking? And I think for many of us we probably already know the answer, if even if we don't want to say it out loud, like somewhere along the way, I think adults have communicated, probably without meaning to, that doubt is a problem to be solved, right? That it's a problem to be solved rather than saying, oh, this person needs a person to walk with them on this journey. Not necessarily to resolve or give them a sense of certainty, but to encourage them to continue to ask more questions or better questions. I'm sorry, that was cheesy. Okay. Moving on. Uh, one of the things the Fuller researchers found was that four quist uh four questions that kids were most likely wrestling with were these four questions. Does God exist? Does God love me? Am I living the life God wants? And is Christianity actually true or the only way? Which here's the thing about that list. Those aren't just teenager questions. Like those are our questions. Most adults I know, and most of the stuff that comes into my inbox for better questions are these questions. And so when these four questions are shared with leaders, parents across the country, uh, one of the most common responses is that adults are also carrying these same questions. Researchers made this observation that perhaps when we're silent about our own faith questions, our kids don't know that they can ask theirs out loud. So think about that. Maybe part of the reason teenagers are not equipped to handle doubt is not because they were taught the wrong theology, but maybe because we didn't model a faith that did that had room for uncertainty. And so here's I think a lot of the pushback that many of us carry. The fear is this that if we make space for doubt, that we're actually going to cause more doubt. Like if we open the door, everybody's just gonna leave. But the sticky faith research actually tells us the opposite is true. That it was actually um high school seniors and in their study who felt most free to express doubts and discuss their struggles with adults actually showed greater faith maturity in college and beyond. So let me let me just say that again. The kids who felt the safest to doubt out loud ended up with stronger faith, not weaker faith. And the researchers are really careful here. You know, they're not saying that doubt on its own automatically strengthens faith. We're not treating doubt as a virtue. That's an important point. The point is that it is the hiddenness of the doubt that becomes the problem. Whereas the freedom to discuss it, the freedom to open up, the the places where people didn't feel judged, but rather were encouraged to ask hard questions, like that's where real faith formation grew. And so I think the key here is doubt walked with community is different than doubt walked alone. And so let me just take a quick detour here to the psalms. You know, I think this is actually one of the most underutilized pastor tools that we have for young people. You know, out of 150 psalms, more than a third are laments, which are just you know, crying out to God. Like they're cries and put in forms of songs. It's an act of grief, but it's also asking for help. And so when we think about the psalms, often it's praise, worship music, and you know, the the hard reality is that a third of the psalms are God, where are you? How long do you even see this? Right? That's that's not a faith crisis, that's like a faith conversation because the the so the psalmist is crying out, crying out, wrestling, and he's not given clear pet answers. So when we teach kids to lament, to bring their why God questions rather than suppressing them, we give them a container for doubt that doesn't require them to leave their faith um in order to hold it, right? They they're they're able to have a space where they can actually work these things out and ask more questions. And so what do we do? I think practically just a couple things on this create a safe space for doubt uh and a moment of doubt, but have that space exist. Um one ministry in the FYI research, the Fuller Youth Institute, they close every session of their fifth and sixth grade group with 56 seconds of silence where kids could write any question on a note card. And they're not answering every question in the room. They're just saying questions live here. This is a place where you can have them. And so, what would it look like if maybe at the end of a youth group or at the end of a small group session or in a conversation with your kids, you simply said, Hey, what questions do you have about God? What questions do you have about the Bible? What questions do you have? And make a list and encourage them to practice asking and thinking about questions. And then I think modeling uncertainty, and and I don't mean like performed doubt, that's just like dishonest, right? I mean being willing to say, I've wrestled with that too, and here's what I've found. Or even I'm still wrestling with that. Like those sentences can do so much power, they're so powerful because they're saying, hey, I understand what you're walking through. I have also walked that path. You're not alone. And that is more healing than giving someone, well, here's what the Bible says. Here's the answer to your question. Um, and while certainly there are answers, I think over time that answers coupled with an acknowledgement that you've wrestled and walked with it too is actually more powerful. And last one is just preparing them before they leave. Um, you know, one youth pastor shared that he'd regularly get middle-to-call nights from his college students who were told by a campus ministry that doubting meant they didn't have enough faith. And they were calling him to ask, is it okay to doubt or not? You know, there is, I think, a fear because we walked through, I think COVID really exacerbated this. Uh, this season of, and I was almost it was almost trendy to deconstruct your faith. And it was a whole movement, it's kind of subsided, it's not quite in the zeitgeist like it was, but there's a lot of fear that people and young people were gonna deconstruct their faith to oblivion. But what's interesting is if you go back and look at a lot of the big voices and names that were deconstructing, many of them have eventually reconstructed, rebuilt something from the broken pieces. And that's because faith is a journey, it is something that is ongoing, it is something that is is is going to be formed and continue to be reformed and you know, sempre referenda, right? Reformed and always reforming. This is this idea that we are constantly um on this pattern or that this trajectory and timeline of faith. And so let me just close by saying, I think if your son or daughter, or someone you care about, is asking questions, please don't see that as a sign or as a negative thing. See that as the potential for someone to develop an even stronger faith. And encourage them. Be curious, ask hard questions, but really seek answers to your questions and be okay in the in-between, in the tension in between, where maybe you don't have it all figured out. And I think that's the faith where we are really able to grow and see um healthy faith formation in our kids. So with that, thanks for tuning in. It's a great question. I have a man, you guys are sending them in left and right. I may have to do a couple um couple episode drops this next week because the questions are coming, and I'm grateful. You can send them in to askbetterquestions pod at gmail.com. Or many of you have been just texting them uh and at the top of the episode. There should be a little link you can click text in your question. And uh keep them coming. We'll keep we'll keep wrestling with them. And until next time, grace and peace.