Faith & Church Life

A teenager who starts asking hard questions about God is not necessarily a teenager losing faith. Very often it is the first sign of faith becoming genuinely theirs rather than inherited — and it usually arrives looking like the opposite.

That is difficult to hold as a parent, particularly when the questions come with a locked door, a refusal to come to church, or an announcement made specifically to see how you will react.

These articles are about that stretch. What to do when your teenager pulls away from church. How to answer doubt without either panicking or dismissing it. How to pray for a young person when you are not sure what to pray for.

There is a practical strand too: prayer prompts you can actually use on the days when you have nothing, and short devotional pieces written for parents rather than about them.

We hold to something the TCN work has always held to — Scripture is a compass, not a rulebook to end an argument with. A teenager who is met with a verse instead of a conversation learns that faith is where questions go to die. The opposite is available, and it is better.