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I’m excited to start my series today on “65 Questions Every Christian Parent Needs to Learn to Answer.” Yes, I’m going to answer each one on my blog this year (amongst other posts)!

Let’s get right to question #1: What key arguments are there for God’s existence? If you can’t confidently answer that question right now in a way that doesn’t reference your personal experience or the Bible, this is a post you need to read.

Why This Question is Important

(I’ll start all posts in the series with this section.)

In today’s secular culture, the Bible is increasingly considered to be a set of ancient documents filled with inconsistencies, erroneous science, implausible miracles, and irrelevant moral standards for modern life. Its difficulties have become the stumbling block driving many young adults away from Christianity.

But what if we step back and look at the evidence for God without discussing the Bible at all? The actual existence of God is a prerequisite for the Bible even mattering. If your kids are strongly convicted of God’s existence, they’ll be far less likely to casually toss their faith aside when they begin encountering biblical or other spiritual difficulties.

All three of the arguments I’ll discuss in this series are easily understandable by kids of all ages. I’ve described each to my 5-year-olds (in an age appropriate way).

Three Major Arguments for God’s Existence

There are three major arguments used to “prove” God’s existence. Many other lines of reasoning have been used, but the three most significant you should know are the creation (“cosmological”) argument, the design (“teleological”) argument and the moral argument. In this post, I’ll discuss the creation argument. My next two posts will explain the design and moral arguments.

While this may sound highly philosophical (perhaps boring if you’re not normally into this kind of discussion), I assure you that these arguments have immense practical significance. And when you fully internalize their meaning, dare I suggest you might even find them spiritually invigorating?

Nothing has solidified my personal faith, taking me from belief to passionate conviction, like learning these three arguments for God’s existence in depth.Continue reading

A friend and I were recently discussing the need for Christian parents to be intentional in how they develop their kids’ faith. If I were to summarize my friend’s position, it would sound something like this:

“I’m not sure how ‘hard core’ I need to be in teaching my kids about Christianity – you know, like the apologetics you talk about. I’m sharing my faith with them and taking them to church regularly. We say prayers each night. I’m teaching them to be good people, and to live the way Jesus taught. I think God will take it from there. ”

While this is a well-intentioned argument, I think it greatly misses the point of our calling as spiritual trainers of our children.

Parenting is all about preparing our kids to eventually live adult life without us. Christian parenting is all about preparing our kids to love and follow Jesus without us (the most important objective we have).

Is it enough to generally surround them with God stuff and good behavioral direction for 18 years and think they’ll be prepared to be spiritually independent as Christ-followers?

To answer that, let’s use the analogy of climbing Mount Everest. How would we prepare to reach that goal (which is far less important than the goal of raising our kids to know the Lord)?

• In order to prepare your body for the 29,035-foot climb to the summit, you need to start a workout and hike-training regimen several months to three years before you depart.

• To build muscle and cardiovascular strength (you’ll need that as oxygen levels drop by nearly 70 percent from sea level), run, walk, bike, swim or hike for at least 45 minutes to an hour per day, four to six days per week. Carry a weighted pack to build endurance. Build until you’re able to ascend 3,500 feet carrying 65 pounds in less than three hours.

• Even seasoned climbers should enroll in a week-long training course to learn or review skills such as using oxygen tanks, dealing with rock falls and glacier conditions, navigating in white outs and, just in case things get really hairy, rescue techniques.

There are an estimated 120 bodies still on Mount Everest, and only about one in four people attempting to climb will succeed. It is a serious undertaking and a lack of preparation equals failure. From this analogy, we can see what it takes to prepare for any major goal – in this case, raising our kids to follow Jesus as adults.Continue reading

UPDATE! If you’d like answers to the following questions, I’ve written a book that covers 40 of them, specifically for parents! My book, Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith, was published by Harvest House and was just released in March 2016. It’s available from your local Barnes & Noble and Christian retailers, as well as online at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and ChristianBook.com. Thank you!

In prior posts, I’ve talked about why parents have to care about apologetics (the reasoned defense of Christianity) and I’ve shared resources for getting started with apologetics. I realize, however, that it can seem pretty ambiguous to have a goal of “learning apologetics.” We need to know the specific questions we most need to study and discuss with our kids; the ones that non-believers most frequently challenge Christians on and the ones that most frequently turn young adults away from faith after spending 18 years in church.

That’s the purpose of this post.

I want to give you a very specific list of 65 apologetics questions every Christian parent needs to learn to answer and discuss with their kids (in age appropriate ways). Of course, any such list is subjective. I created this list based on my own study and experience with engaging in these topics, with a special emphasis on the issues challenging young adults today.

You may not think I’ve narrowed it down much by giving you 65, but there are hundreds of questions that could have been listed! In case this looks overwhelming, I’ve highlighted in red my “top 20.” Start with those if you’re new to these topics.

I encourage you to take some time and challenge yourself here. Read each question and give yourself a “point” for each one you feel you could thoroughly answer. What would your score be if you had to answer these questions today?Continue reading

POST UPDATE (2018): Since the time I wrote this post a few years ago, I’ve had the opportunity to write a book that focuses, in part, on teaching kids the evidence for God’s existence. Talking with Your Kids about God is a book that will clearly and concisely walk you through 30 conversations about God that parents most need to have with their kids in our increasingly secular world. It’s available from your local Barnes & Noble and Christian retailers, as well as online at amazon.com. If you need help with the topic in this blog post, you’ll find what you need in Talking with Your Kids about God!

As I’ve written about before, we have a family worship time each night before the kids go to bed. Lately, these worship times have not been meeting my standards, to say the least.

I don’t know what it is, but suddenly my soon-to-be 5-year-old twins find it necessary to stand on their heads and/or attempt handstands while my husband and I are offering what they should understand to be priceless spiritual wisdom.

I finally snapped a couple of nights ago.

“Guys, it’s not like God can’t see you right now. He sees you being disrespectful and not obeying your parents. He knows all you are doing and thinking.”

Well, that’s true, but I immediately felt lame for saying it. It made God sound like a cosmic policeman or Santa who “knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.”

The nature of my message visibly impacted Nathan. He slowly sat down, carefully pondering my creepy warning.

“Mommy, we can’t SEE God. How do you KNOW He is watching us?”

While Nathan’s question was specifically in response to the notion of God seeing us when we can’t see Him, it really pointed to a much larger question looming on the horizon: If we can’t see God, how do we even know He exists?Continue reading

In my last post, I explained what apologetics is and why you absolutely have to care as a Christian parent today. As promised, this is a follow up post to help you get started learning how to defend your faith. Without further ado, here are seven things you can do.

1.    Get to know who the leading apologists are and read their books.

Of course you’re not going to read every book by every leading apologist when you’re just getting started. But a great first step is to familiarize yourself with the big names in apologetics so you can look into what those authors have written. I’ve highlighted some below. To get a feel for what they write, look at their books on Amazon. Click on the titles and check out the table of contents. If you do this for several authors below and their books, you’ll quickly gain an overview of the major topics apologists address (and identify a few books for your reading list!). Continue reading