Connecting with Students Again: Highlights from Speaking at the Ezra Institute

Session starting soon—prayer appreciated!

I hit the send button, then copied the text message to forward to a few others. With the pandemic having squelched most speaking events, I hadn’t spoken anywhere in person for nearly a year. And even before then, while sharing the information I’m most passionate about often felt like an amazing privilege, it was an amazing privilege that could sometimes reduce me to a quivering puddle of nerves. But one perk of a scary job is the forced realization of dependence on God—and the discovery that prayer really does make all the difference.

So, there I sat in the back row of the lecture hall, rallying prayer before stepping up to address the youth at the Ezra Institute. What’s the Ezra Institute? According to the Institute’s website, “The Ezra Institute is a confessional evangelical Christian organization established in 2009. Our purpose is the preservation and advancement of the truth, freedom and beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for the renewal of all life and culture.”1

Founded by Rev. Dr. Joseph Boot, the Ezra Institute runs worldview training programs, camps, and conferences as part of their mission to inform faith and reform culture. I’d heard Dr. Boot mention the Institute’s Worldview Leadership Camps for youth years ago at a homeschool conference. Wow, I remember thinking as a teenager, what I wouldn’t give to attend a camp like that!

The Camps

Little did I imagine that someday I would have the chance to attend—but on the other side of the podium—the scary side. In answer to prayer, however, I’m happy to report that the sessions ended up being far more fun than petrifying. The students were a fantastic bunch of young people—welcoming, engaged, and alert. They needed to be too, given the amount of information I had to cover!

My lecture packed three talks’ worth of topics into forty-five minutes on Thinking Critically About Evolutionary Messages. We examined why Genesis matters, looked at 7 Checks of Critical Thinking for breaking down messages which contradict Genesis, and practiced applying these tools to answer common examples of textbook “evidence for evolution.” 2

“This might be like drinking from a firehose,” I’d warned the youth ahead of time, “but I believe in you.” They proved themselves well worthy of those expectations, both during the session and at a later Q&A panel with Dr. Boot and me.

“I’ll give you all their hard questions!” I let Dr. Boot know beforehand, half trying to sound like I was kidding. I wasn’t. Those 14-16-year-olds asked solid questions! Here are some examples of just a few:

“What role did the church play in the syncretism of Western Christianity with Greek philosophy?”3

“How do we know the word ‘day’ in Genesis means ‘literal day'?”

“Could God have used evolution if he’d wanted to?”

Hand after hand shot into the air, reminding me that youth are deep thinkers who want deep answers.4 If we give students shallow discipleship, we’ll reap a generation of shallow disciples. And shallow Christianity is no match for the torrents of unbiblical teachings that students face at secular university.

A Student Interview

I had the opportunity to hear about one student’s experiences with those torrents the following week, when I delivered the same lecture at a Worldview Leadership Camp for older students. Afterwards, one camper introduced himself as a first-year biology student. I couldn’t keep my inner researcher from leaning forward at that. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?” I inquired.

He agreed to answer the types of questions I’d asked students on my 360° in 180 travels, geared to help churches understand what real students experience—and how to best equip them. But in the few years since those original interviews, students have begun facing an additional suite of challenges associated with online learning and pandemic-related restrictions. This student, for instance, lived in a locked-down residence building while studying online. “With online school,” he observed, “one thing that’s really hard is finding peer support.”

Echoing a theme I’d heard many other students express, he said he would advise students to “make good friends—friends who want the best for you, friends who you can talk openly with. . . .  Don’t alter your beliefs to fit into a group.”

“What other challenges did you experience in your program?” I asked.

“You have to question everything there,” he answered, “which gets a bit old after time.” For instance, he pointed out that while schools seem to encourage critical thinking, saying, “Question everything,” they also tell students to accept human interpretations of science, like evolution, as indisputable facts.

“Do you have any recommendations for students in that situation?” I wondered.

In response, he brought up a couple of tips for students which I’d mentioned in my lecture, advising students to put faith-challenging messages in quotation marks while taking notes in class and to write down any questions about those messages for seeking answers later.

“What you were saying about writing things in quotations and asking questions,” he said, “that was like how I did it. I took the notes on [the information] they were telling us, but I questioned it. I made notes that I was questioning it, and I highlighted the parts that I disagreed with so I could look into them after.”

He also explained that, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the biggest challenges he faced at university was staying involved in church. This reminded me of the need for churches to reach out to students even more intentionally during these pandemic days, when students are craving—but lacking—personal Christian connections more than ever.

“How do you think churches can better support students?” I asked.

“Honestly, by having support groups—just staying connected with students and making sure to keep talking with them,” he answered. “The first year I went [to university], my church didn’t really contact me at all. Then I came back and got more involved with small groups and a mentor. I think that could be a huge help for [young] people—just going out and inviting them for coffee even once every two months.”

Mentorship. There it was again, the theme which had appeared on every continent where I’d talked to students. “What you’re saying fits really well with what students around the world have told me,” I said, adding that unfortunately, churches often seem to give young people the opposite of what they need by segregating age groups, cutting off mentorship opportunities, and emphasizing entertainment over discipleship. Young people worldwide want connections with older adults, but intergenerational connections in the church can be even scarcer than 2020’s toilet paper supply.

“It’s interesting how there’s not already communication about that,” the student remarked. “If you want to know what students need, just ask them instead of guessing.”

The Adventure Continues

On the drive home from the Ezra Institute, I could hardly stop smiling. Having the chance to interview a student face-to-face, to speak in-person again, and to be surrounded by a group of apologetics-hungry young people felt beyond refreshing. I blame this lingering exhilaration for the fact that I missed my highway on ramps twice during the dark drive back. (But if you’ve read many blog posts like this one from my travels, you’ll know my lack of an internal compass is more likely the culprit. It keeps life interesting.)

God willing, I’ll have many more opportunities to connect with students in the near future—especially as Prepare to Thrive, the survival guide I’ve written for Christian students, comes out. Scary or not, getting to speak with more young people will be an amazing privilege—one I can’t wait to begin.

To learn more from Dr. Boot, you can watch the original teaching series Creation, Cross, and Culture produced by Answers TV Studio Canada at https://www.answers.tv/creation-cross-culture.