Executive Director of Summit Ministries

I interviewed John Stonestreet about the state of young people today and the work of Summit Ministries in reaching youth with the message of biblical worldview.

The impression many people get of young folks today is that they’re so distracted and consumed by pop culture that they can’t be serious about anything else. Your experience, however, is in another direction altogether. What are you seeing among the young people with whom you work?

In one sense, of course, the impression that young people are distracted is right on. They’re plugged in all the time in a world full of noise and messages. The mistake we make, as those trying to reach them, is to assume that because they are distracted, therefore they’ll not be serious about anything else. This is (a) not true and (b) not helpful. We think we have to add Christian noise to the rest of the noise in order to reach them. We try to be relevant with the coolest stuff, Christianizing secular music, offering Christian pep rallies, and filling youth rooms with Wiis and Xbox 360s. Of course, this only succeeds in contributing to their addiction to media and distraction! And, thus, the Christian message gets dumbed down at best, or drowned out at worst.

Another result is the endless cycle of emotional appeal that we subject students to these days. Another conference with another emotional appeal to rededicate and rededicate and rededicate: this produces a generation of Christian junkies who just want another high. They define their spiritual success as how they’re “feeling” and whether they’re on the high or not. Of course, this is highly volatile. One or two tough times, and they become either disillusioned with the concept they think is Christianity or hopeless about ever making it. This is clear in the high numbers who abandon their faith altogether when it gets challenged ideologically or socially in college.

What’s the answer? Paul suggests that we’re transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:1-2). Young people need a filter, something to help them navigate their world that’s full of distractions and competing ideas.

My experience is that when students are taught how to think about their world, to take a step back and evaluate their distraction, they respond. They want to be serious, but they need the tools. In fact, once this begins to happen, many of them can’t get enough. They want to be challenged; they want to be taught how to think; they want to know how their faith engages with their life. At Summit, they hear 70-plus hours of lectures over two weeks on apologetics, worldview, culture, and philosophy and they can’t get enough. Does it challenge them? Sure, it does. But they love it. They spend their spending money mostly on books! They have tough discussions over lunch, or even while white-water rafting, about ultimate questions, other religions, or theological and apologetic concerns.

Do Christian kids resonate with the idea of “worldview”? Why do you think that’s so?

They really do. I know I did when I first heard it as an undergraduate student in college. I was raised in a Christian home, school, and church, but suddenly I realized that the Gospel was much bigger than getting to heaven when I die.

Dorothy Sayers said something about this when she noted that the typical presentation of Christianity had something to do with only about 10 percent of life. Why, she asked, would the normal thinking person be interested in something that had nothing to do with 90 percent of their life?

I think this is one of the reasons for the big exit from Christianity that so many have noted of students when they leave the shelter of youth group. They don’t know how their faith speaks to all the new aspects of life they now face as young adults in college and in culture.

Thinking in terms of worldview connects the dots for them, and they are yearning for this. This is the post-Seinfeld generation, where the idea of wholeness and an integrated life is not even considered possible. Theirs is a life of episodes, of disconnected experience, barely tied together. When they grasp the idea of a Christian worldview and understand that other worldviews are competing for their hearts and minds, their faith opens up to them, I think. They see where ideas have antecedents (they come from somewhere) and consequences (they take us somewhere).

What do you teach the kids about worldview—what it is and why it matters, for example?

First, we teach them that everyone has a worldview. Everyone, whether they realize it or not, operates from a set of basic beliefs that shapes their view of the world and for the world. And the key to understanding their world and the key issues they face, including historically, is to understand the assumptions that shape cultures as well as the actions of the people who embrace them.

Second, we teach them that Scripture offers a worldview in the sense that it establishes certain truths about reality that are fundamental to everything. The idea that the universe is a creation has enormous consequences, as opposed to the idea that it’s an accident. If humans are image bearers, then the universe is a different place than if we’re all god, as Oprah is currently suggesting.

Third, we teach them that there are worldviews that compete with Christianity for individuals, families, and cultures. The history of the world is the history of competing ideas. And as residents of the Information Age, these students encounter more competing ideas than any generation that has ever lived before them. Our approach, and we have had to adjust as different ideas rise to the forefront, is to help young people understand five major worldviews in addition to the biblical Christian worldview: secular humanism, Marxism, Islam, postmodernism, and the New Age.

Fourth, we teach them how to recognize the worldview struggle that is core to key cultural issues. Worldviews are not merely abstract ideologies that compete for publishers. They’re real-life applications of ideas that compete for souls. The real battle is not between Dawkins’ The God Delusion and McGrath’s The Dawkins Delusion. The real battle has to do with family, legislation, technology, church, abortion, human trafficking, etc.

Fifth, we teach them basic apologetics. We want them to know where their faith will be challenged (both directly and indirectly) and how it can be defended. We do this through teaching, but primarily through exposing them to the enormous amount of resources available. I’m amazed at how many students as well as adults are unaware of the terrific resources out there to help them deal with challenges to their faith.

Finally, we talk about how they can jump in. We want them to survive college, but we also want them to thrive in college—to make a difference, to be faithful with the truth, and to impact others.

Tell us a bit about Summit: Who are you? When did you begin? What have you been up to over the years? What are your roles at Summit?

Summit was birthed over 45 years ago, actually. David Noebel, our president and founder, nearly lost his faith at the University of Wisconsin. When an older gentleman reached out and showed him the truth, he realized there were no doubt many others who needed help, too. This is why Summit was born.

The ministry has always focused on reaching the 16- to 24-year-old age bracket. As you know, college or university can turn into a four-year brain and heart surgery, and many Christian students become casualties during this time (some studies suggest up to 70 percent!). And, of course, college students are being trained to take key roles in society, so what they believe is also vital to everyone else.

Our main ministry to this group is our two-week summer leadership conferences. They are not your normal youth camp, as I described earlier. They’re highly academic, challenging, and intense. But we’ve seen terrific results.

In the 1980s, Summit experienced a huge boost when Dr. Dobson featured the ministry on his radio show. His son Ryan had had a life-changing experience at the Summit. The radio broadcast forced us to expand immediately and has led to the other aspects of our ministry today. We now have conferences for adults (including one specifically for teachers and pastors), a full biblical worldview curriculum sequence for Christian schools and home school programs, a resource department (mainly through our website and bookstore), and two institute programs that are seeking to identify and mobilize young scholars to a life of Christian intellectualism.

Basically, we’re trying to play defense and offense. Defensively, we want to train students (and adults) to defend the Christian worldview so they are not “taken captive by hollow and deceptive philosophy” (Colossians 2:8). Offensively, we want to mobilize a new generation who can “take every thought captive” (2 Corinthians 10:5) and emerge as leaders in the church, the academy, and the culture.

Personally, I have two primary responsibilities: (1) I assist in the day-to-day management of the organization and our various ministries, and (2) I speak and teach for camps, churches, schools, conventions, and conferences.

What are some of the features of Summit’s training program? Does what you do with kids differ much from what they experience in their churches?

It does differ. In addition to the length and rigor of our summer program, I think there is another key difference: we think that everyone needs to know why they believe what they believe. Often, it seems that churches feel that theology and worldview are only for the intellectuals or those who are interested. We disagree. Every student (and every Christian) will face challenges to their faith from other worldviews, and they need to know what to do.

I think there are three key features of Summit conferences that set them apart. First, our faculty is the finest collection of Christian thinkers and speakers in America. Students receive world-class instruction in these areas. Second, our staff consists mainly of college and post-grad students who have been turned on to worldview thinking and are passionate in helping students connect the dots. Third, the expectations we place on students to learn set the program apart from others. We want students to engage as if their life depended upon it, and, of course, we believe that it does.

Let me mention some other practical features of these conferences. First, students are given a terrific activity schedule squeezed in around the 70 hours of instruction. Second, students can earn college credit from Bryan College for their work at the Summit.

Let me also add this. We don’t want to replace the church for these students. We have them for only two weeks! Instead, we want to use our considerable resources to assist the church. To this end, we’ve developed curriculum programs to begin the training of students much earlier than we can at our conferences. Also, we offer several one-week training conferences for adults, especially teachers, parents, and pastors.

What kinds of results have you seen in the lives of the kids you’ve trained over the years?

Probably the most common comment we hear from Summit graduates or their parents is, “Those two weeks changed my life.” Of course, students say this all the time after returning from the latest camp or conference. Two things are different here, however.

First, I meet people who are still saying this two, five, 10, even 20 years after they attended. In other words, this wasn’t a spiritual high. Rather, God used this program in a dramatic way. A dad told me recently about his daughter who was rebellious when they forced her to go to Summit. After returning home, she ran away, left her faith and family, started to abuse drugs, and lived a promiscuous lifestyle. This went on for two years. “She’s back now,” he said. “And she’s reconciled with us, her church, and with God.” Then he said, “I want you to know that the one thing she told us that she couldn’t shake when she was living that life is the truth she had heard at Summit. So, thank you.” And with tears in his eyes, he walked away.

Second, very often they give specifics of how their life was changed. “God used the Summit to put me on the path that I’m currently on.” In fact, Dr. James Dobson’s son Ryan says this about his time at the Summit, and his dad agrees, that it put him on the path to working with students as a nationally known speaker and author. I met a mom recently in Kansas City whose daughter is finishing a Ph.D. in neurology at a top 10 university in that field. She pointed to the Summit as a transition point where her daughter learned that her faith was intellectually viable.

Let me also add this. Now that Summit Ministries is 46 years old, we see many of our graduates faithfully living out the truth in almost every area of culture. Our graduates are running businesses, writing books, fighting human trafficking and abortion, preaching, teaching, holding political office, practicing law, parenting, conducting world-class research, etc.

What opportunities for kids to receive training are available in the coming year?

We have nine student conferences scheduled for this summer. Seven conferences will be held at our Colorado Springs location and will run consecutively every two weeks from May 17 to August 28.

We also have one conference on the campus of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. (June 21—July 3) and two conferences at Bryan College in Dayton, Tenn. (July 5-17 and July 19-31).

Also, we hold three conferences for adults during the year. Our Colorado conference will be held March 1-6; our Virginia pastors’ conference will be held June 21-26; and our Tennessee educators’ conference will be held July 5-10.