Bible Panorama

If You Have Children, Read This 👆

Sunday School is turning your children into atheists. I know because I ran one for 20 years — and I just discovered what happened to my students. I used to be proud of our Sunday School programme. Really proud. Bible stories told with a felt board. Scripture memorization competitions. Songs with actions. Crafts. Snacks. The children loved it. Parents thanked me every week. “Pastor Samuel, my daughter loves your class!” “My son memorized all the books of the Bible because of you!” I thought I was raising the next generation of believers. I was wrong. Last year, I decided to look up my former students. Children I taught from 2004 to 2020. I found 83 of them on social media. What I discovered made me physically sick: 61 of them — 73% — no longer identify as Christians. SEVENTY-THREE PERCENT. Children who won our Bible quiz competitions. Children who memorized entire chapters of Scripture. Children who were baptized in our church. Gone. I started reading their posts, and this is what I saw: “Finally free from the religion I was brainwashed into.” “I deconstructed my faith. Best decision I ever made.” “I can’t believe I believed those fairy tales for so long.” One post hit me like a truck. It was from Anna. I taught her from age 5 to 12. She wrote: “Sunday School taught me to memorize. It never taught me to think. The first time someone asked me WHY I believed, I had nothing to say. That’s when I realized I didn’t actually believe — I had just been trained to repeat.” Trained to repeat. Was that what I had been doing for 20 years? I couldn’t sleep for three nights. I kept thinking about our lessons. What were we actually teaching? Noah built an ark. David defeated Goliath. Jonah was swallowed by a fish. Jesus died and rose again. We taught WHAT happened. We never taught WHY any of it was true. We never taught them how to DEFEND what they believed. We taught stories and called it faith. Then we sent them off to university with a Bible full of underlined passages and absolutely no ability to answer a single difficult question. That week, I tested our current Sunday School class. 12 children. Ages 10 to 12. Our oldest group. “Why do you believe the Bible is true?” “Because it’s the Word of God.” “How do you know it’s the Word of God?” “Because… the Bible says so?” “What would you say if someone told you Christianity is no different from other religions?” Blank stares. “What if a teacher told you there was no evidence for the resurrection?” One boy said, “I would just say I have faith.” That’s not an answer. That’s a white flag. I was standing in front of 12 future atheists. Not because they were bad children, but because I was teaching them the same useless curriculum I had been using for 20 years. I was so upset that I called Pastor Richardson that afternoon. “Pastor, I think Sunday School is part of the problem. I think we’re actually raising atheists.” Silence. “What do you mean?” I told him about the 73%, about Anna’s post, and about the test I had done with the current class. “We teach them WHAT to believe. We never teach them WHY. So when someone challenges them, they have nothing to say. They assume there ARE no reasons. And eventually, they walk away.” More silence. Then he said something that shocked me. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. For years. I just didn’t know what to do about it.” “What do you mean?” I asked him. “I watched my own nephew walk away. Same story. Raised in church. Sunday School every week. Got to university, couldn’t answer the questions, decided it was all false. His mother — my sister — blames the church. She may be right.” “So what do we do?” “I discovered something three months ago. A pastor from Orlando told me about a resource called Discovering the Why of Faith. 52 weeks of systematic theology for children. It teaches them WHY Christianity is true — not just WHAT the stories say.” “Theology for children?” “Yes. Real arguments. Evidence for the existence of God. Why the Bible is reliable. How to defend the resurrection. All at a level children can understand. The children in his Sunday School can now explain things that most ADULTS can’t.” He handed me the activity book. “I’ve been waiting for the right teacher to test this. Someone who understands the problem. That someone is you.” I took it home that night. I opened Lesson 1: How Do We Know God Exists? No felt boards. No colouring pages. The cosmological argument — explained for children. The moral argument — with examples from their own lives. Evidence. Logic. Reasons. I almost cried. THIS was what Anna needed. THIS was what all those 54 children needed. And I never gave it to them. That Sunday, I threw out our old curriculum. Then I told them: “Today we’re going to do something different. I’m going to teach you WHY we believe what we believe.” Confused looks. I continued... “Everything that begins to exist has a cause. Did the universe have a beginning?” A girl named Lara answered, “Scientists say yes. The Big Bang.” “So, if the universe had a beginning, what caused it?” A boy named Marcus jumped in. “Something that didn’t have a beginning. Something eternal.” “And what would that be?” “God?” “You just presented a logical argument for the existence of God. Without quoting a single Bible verse.” Their eyes widened. For the first time in 20 years, I watched children engage with faith as if it were a puzzle to be solved — not a story to be memorized. Week 4: Why Trust the Bible? I used to teach: “The Bible is true because it is the Word of God.” Now I was teaching: 5,800 Greek manuscripts. Dated within decades of the original events. More evidence than any other ancient document. Marcus looked up. “So we have more evidence for the Bible than for things everyone just believes happened? Like Julius Caesar?” “Much more,” I replied. “Why has no one ever told us this?” “Because I didn’t know. Until now.” Week 7: Evidence for the Resurrection. We used the minimal facts approach. Five facts that even non-Christian scholars accept. The children eliminated every alternative explanation, one by one. “Hallucination doesn’t work because groups don’t have the same hallucination.” “Conspiracy doesn’t work because they died for it.” “Legend doesn’t work because the sources are too early.” These were 11- and 12-year-olds. Thinking like investigators. Defending like apologists. By Week 10, I received a phone call. It was Lara’s father. “Pastor Samuel, what’s happening in Sunday School?” I prepared myself for the worst. “Lara spent 45 minutes at dinner explaining why the resurrection is historically credible. She was using phrases like ‘minimal facts’ and ‘manuscript evidence.’ She’s 11 years old. Her atheist uncle didn’t know what to say.” “Yes, but... is that a good thing to you?” “Good? It’s incredible. He asked her to send him what she’s learning. This is what Sunday School should have always been.” I was so happy after speaking with that father. His testimony was truly a balm to my heart. By Week 14, something unexpected happened. I received a message on Facebook. From Anna. The same Anna who had posted about being “trained to repeat.” “Pastor Samuel, my mother told me you’re teaching Sunday School differently now. Something about evidence and arguments? I wish I had understood that. Maybe I wouldn’t have walked away.” I told her about the workbook. About what I had learned. About how deeply I regretted it. “Could you send it to me? I’ve been an atheist for six years. But honestly... no one ever showed me any real evidence. They just told me to believe.” I sent her the link that night. Week 18, Anna messaged me again. “I’m on Week 8. The part about the resurrection is harder to dismiss than I expected. I’m not saying I believe yet. But I’m less certain that I don’t.” By Week 20, Pastor Silas made an announcement. “We’re restructuring our entire Sunday School programme. Pastor Samuel has been testing something that is transforming our children. They’re not just learning stories — they’re learning how to defend their faith.” He showed a video of Marcus explaining the cosmological argument. He’s 12 years old. That day, three parents enrolled their children in Sunday School who had never done so before. One father told me after the service: “I stopped trusting Sunday School years ago. It felt more like childcare with Bible stories. What you just described? That’s what my children actually need.” I’m 58 years old. I spent 20 years teaching Sunday School. And for 20 years, I was part of the problem. Felt boards, crafts, and Bible verses to memorize are not enough. They never were. They produce children who know how to recite, but don’t know how to reason. Children who know how to quote, but don’t know how to question. Children who look like believers until someone asks “why” — and then they have nothing to say. 73% of my former students eventually walked away. Not because Sunday School was too weak on Bible stories. But because it was too weak on reasons. If your church’s Sunday School looks like mine did — stories, songs, crafts, and nothing about WHY any of it is true... Your children are being set up to fail. The material that changed my ministry — and is changing entire families — is still available. 52 weeks of systematic theology designed to teach children and young people to think, not just repeat. Real arguments. Real evidence. This doesn’t replace the Bible. It teaches children why God’s Word is worth believing. Don’t wait 20 years like I did. Even if you’re simply a parent. The children in your Sunday School are counting on you now. Stop training them to repeat. Start teaching them to think. Before they become another Anna. 📖 Click “Learn More” to get access to the **Discovering the Why of Faith** material. Low impression volume