April 28, 1999

Briggs: Help youth face
hard questions of faith
___FORT WORTH (BP)--Reaching youth for Christ should be about helping them struggle with the hard questions of faith and not about playing a religious stock market where the primary end is bigger numbers, a Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor said.
___"Are we willing to look at our evangelism approach as a hard-sell based on the Christian Dow Jones averages' of the numbers game?" asked Philip Briggs, distinguished professor of youth education and church recreation, in a seminary chapel message April 15.
___Reading from Acts 12, Briggs relayed the story of a young girl he called "Rhoda." After Peter had been delivered from prison and had come to the house of John Mark's mother, Rhoda answered his knock at the door.
___In her excitement, she forgot to let Peter in and went to tell the other church members there he had been released. But no one believed her, and eventually she was pushed out of the way.
___Churches today are ignoring youth just as Rhoda was ignored, said Briggs, even though youth want something to believe in and to give their lives to.
___"We need to recognize that youth desire something that answers their big questions," he said.
___In seeking answers, youth need adults who will walk with them, not come at them with an authoritarian attitude or bore them with long-winded sermons, he added. "To be eternal, we don't have to be everlasting."

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