As the Retreats Director at SpringHill Camps, I work with hundreds of churches and thousands of young people every year. Before I came into camping ministry, I helped pastor a large campus ministry on a state university campus. The biggest sense of urgency for me in ministry has always been to help students take hold of their faith—and not just understand it, but own it. To have a faith that will stand the test of time.
I grew up going to church. My dad would gather us all up every Sunday morning and drive us to that historic church in our old blue Buick. My mom was my Sunday school teacher. They met at that church, where both their families still attend.
I learned the Word of God from the pulpit. I saw it lived out in the lives of family members and so many other good and Godly men and women who make up that church. I experienced the truth of the Gospel in their humility, in their perseverance and their hospitality.
I knew all the right answers. I believed what the Scriptures said. I loved God and I knew He loved me. But when, as a young teenager, my parents’ marriage fell apart, it rocked me to my core. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t challenge the faith they handed down to me, make me doubt what I believed, and cause me to wonder if this faith I saw in everyone else could really be my own firsthand faith.
In the book firsthand, Ryan and Josh Shook take a personal look at this same dilemma. After all, they grew up in a Christian home, with parents as pastors. They knew how it felt to be under the scrutiny of others, expected to be, and talk, and look a certain way.
And like so many kids who grew up in the church, they came to realize there was a fundamental difference between appearing changed—or acting changed—and truly being changed by the Good News.
But their book isn’t like others I’ve read on this topic. It’s not just a bunch of stories about kids leaving the church after high school. It’s not a critique of shallow youth ministry, or lame preaching. It’s an encouraging and thought-provoking look at how to have a genuine, firsthand faith. They didn’t write it to convince us that we need this kind of faith, they wrote it to tell us how to have it.
Each chapter provides illustrations and application of biblical truth, that when paired with the student- or church-wide challenge kit, could be used to guide teens, young adults and their families to a firsthand faith of their own.
Even without the challenge kits, each chapter wraps up with true stories from real people, people struggling to have a faith of their own. There are questions to keep you thinking or to get your small group talking, and there are simple application steps—things you can do every day on your journey to a genuine, firsthand faith.
Fortunately, for me, the foundation of truth that my parents and pastors had laid still stands. The faith that was handed down to me, is now a firsthand faith of my own. As a pastor, parent, teacher or leader in the church, firsthand will help you give another generation that same kind of faith.