For any Christian parent, one of the biggest heartaches is seeing your child turn away from God.

Perhaps your son or daughter grew up in Sunday school. But when he or she hit adolescence, they started questioning their faith and eventually dropped out of church.

Unpacking the topic of deconstruction at a plenary session at D6 Singapore Family Conference 2025, keynote speaker Dr Timothy Paul Jones offered tips on how to engage with youths who are dealing with doubts.

Held on July 25 and 26 at Paya Lebar Methodist Church, the conference saw over 400 people from more than 50 churches come together to learn how to live out Deuteronomy 6 in their homes and communities.

A Professor of Christian Family Ministry at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a Pastor at Sojourn Church Midtown, Dr Jones shared about the trends he is seeing in the US.

“For many of these students, deconstruction of their faith – taking it apart – ends up leading them to deconversion from their faith.

“That is to say, leaving their faith behind. They reject the faith that they once held.”

Highlighting a study conducted by his doctoral students, Dr Jones pointed out that among those who in the first year of American state college or university profess to be a Christian, four out of 10 will disown their faith by the time they graduate.

Revealing that he, too, went through a similar experience during his freshman year, it was by God’s grace that Dr Jones discovered Surprised By Joy by CS Lewis, who wrote about his journey from atheism to Christianity.

“God used that book and some others to bring me back to Himself, such that it really set the whole trajectory of my life towards apologetics,” he said.

Describing what he went through as a “painful period of time”, Dr Jones recounted: “I didn’t have anybody in my church or around me who was able to help me in that time. I had all these questions, but nobody I felt comfortable talking to about the doubts I had.”

Elaborating that this is why he is passionate about youth and family ministries, he said that his experience motivated him to help “youths to be able to know that there are reasons to believe what they believe”.

Speaking to parents and those who are ministering to students in church, Dr Jones recommends five questions that they can ask when someone says they are deconstructing their faith. Source: © The Bible Society of Singapore

1. “What do you mean by that?”

Clarifying is necessary because what you are thinking of might not actually be what a youth is doing, said Dr Jones.

While there are several definitions of deconstruction, he zoomed in on the one that he sees most students doing.

Selective deconstruction is where they are taking their faith apart and “choosing the parts that they like and discarding what they don’t like”, clarified Dr Jones.

“That’s a problem because the Christian faith is a coherent whole … You can’t just take the morals that you like in Christianity and reject the ones that you don’t.”

But there is another type of deconstruction that can be positive.

“I call that a deconstruction that’s actually reconstruction,” he said.

“They’re testing their faith to see if they believe it for themselves. They’re saying, ‘Do I really believe this? I want some reasons for what I believe.’”

If they have doubts about their faith and want answers, that opens the chance for others to journey alongside them.

“But here’s the thing: ‘If I hear ‘deconstruction’ and I automatically assume the worst about it, I end up shutting off that conversation.”

Dr Jones proposes this instead: “Talk to me about what you mean by that because I really want to understand you. I care about you, and I want to understand what you’re going through.”

“What you want to do is say, ‘Let me help you with that. I want to help you find reasons. Let’s look together. Let’s figure this out.’”

2. “When did you start feeling that way?”

Delving a bit into neuroscience, Dr Jones explained that during the teenage years, the part of the brain that is responsible for rational thinking develops more slowly than the part that governs emotions.

What you get is “wonderful beings who think more emotionally than they do rationally,” he remarked.

“You can get frustrated by that or you can say this is part of a normal developmental process,” said Dr Jones.

“You’re going to have many better conversations with teenagers if you love them in it and love them through it.”

But what that also means for faith is they are often operating on their emotions more than their reason.

When doubts come, chances are something might have happened at the emotional level. “If you can figure out what that is, you can go a long way towards talking them through it.”

By asking them when they started feeling this way and taking the time to listen, they are going to tell you a story, predicted Dr Jones.

It could be their friend who was really hurt by a church and that triggered some doubts in their mind. Or it could be that they feel out of place in youth group and feel they don’t belong.

“It may be silly in your mind; it may be ridiculous that they would doubt their faith over such a small thing as whatever it may be, but to them it feels very, very real,” he said.

“So listen to their story and treat that story like that story matters because it really does.”

“If you can get them to the point of telling you the story of when they started feeling this way, you can help them construct a better story.”

3. “What are your specific doubts?”

Having done this exercise before, Dr Jones observed that when he asked students to list every single one of the doubts they had, they would realise that it was not “an overwhelming number”.

Sharing that this is again a normal part of teenhood, where “a few small things can just seem really big”, he said: “They’re almost always going to discover they have fewer doubts than they thought they had.”

However, one important thing for parents and youth ministers to note is that the doubts that young people now have are different from before.

“In the past, students’ doubts began with miracles of the faith. They would doubt whether the miracles actually happened,” said Dr Jones.

“And these doubts didn’t typically start until they were in college.”

That is why in the 1990s and 2000s, much of the apologetics was focused on defending the faith with historical and scientific evidence, he added.

Using the example of Jonah, Dr Jones pointed out that the questions he used to get on the Bible lesson were: “Can a whale really swallow a human being?” and “Can a human being really survive three days, three nights in a whale?”

Today, students are asking: “Was it really fair for God to let that happen to Jonah?” and “Was it really fair and good of God to threaten the Ninevites with destruction because of their sin?”

“Sometimes we’re prepared to answer those old questions … but there’s a new set of questions students have. They’re not asking first whether God’s Word is true. They’re asking first whether God’s way is good.”

In addition, students today are struggling with questions as early as 12 years old. By the time they get to college, their doubts only deepen.

Urging those who are interacting with youths to start equipping themselves, Dr Jones noted that these doubts tend to begin with issues of gender and sexuality.

“What we have to be able to do is have apologetics that includes biblical interpretation and ethics.

“Rather than simply appealing to the miracles of the faith, which are certainly true and we need to defend those, we need to help them to interpret the Bible well and help them to know what is truly good.”

The way we deal with a student who is afraid of losing their faith compared to one who is not bothered should be different, said Dr Jones. Source: © The Bible Society of Singapore

Parents also do not have to wait until such doubts surface before addressing them.

Even when children are young, daily conversations – whether it is after watching a movie or hearing the news – are discipleship opportunities, said Dr Jones.

Themed “As You Go”, this year’s D6 conference focused on how discipleship can happen in the midst of everyday life.

“If something is going on and you’re like, ‘Wow, that’s really wrong’, show how God’s way makes a better world,” he continued.

“If you do that over the years with your children, it helps them to be more likely to be willing to love God’s commands when they’re in tough areas of their life that they’re struggling with.”

Modelling a life of faith is also key, said Dr Jones.

“The best way for people to actually know, love and believe the truth is if they see it lived out in the people around them.

“You’re not going to cultivate love for God’s moral commands in hearts simply by teaching their heads. You’re going to do it by the life you live, and you loving God’s moral commands and showing that to them.”

4. “Who are you listening to?”

Be curious about what your youth is listening to and where they are getting these ideas from, said Dr Jones.

Ask them to show you the videos that they are watching, but avoid doing it in a way that attacks them and shuts off the conversation, he advised.

“Talk about what they are listening to,” said Dr Jones, giving examples of follow-up questions.

For instance, “What do you think about what this person said?” and “Would you be willing for us to talk about whether that’s completely true?”

Encouraging parents to set limits on their child’s access to the Internet, Dr Jones said: “You do have a responsibility for what your kids are watching.”

Besides the prevalence of pornography and false messages, some of the content that children are being fed is meaningless.

“We want them to invest their minds and hearts in things that are meaningful instead of what’s meaningless.”

5. “Do you want to believe?”

Some youths are going to tell you: “No, I really don’t want to” or “I really don’t care”.

“Still love that student, pray for that student, spend time with that student and absolutely show them the unconditional love of God,” suggested Dr Jones.  

“But that’s very, very different from the student who says, ‘I really want to believe and I’m just struggling.’”

For the youth who is afraid of losing their faith, we can say to them: “Can I spend time with you, praying and seeking answers with you?”

Instead of reacting with fear or anger when someone tells us they have doubts about the faith, the five questions above can be a strategy for us to respond with calmness and curiosity, said Dr Jones.

“Don’t panic. God is working even in the life of that student who says that he or she is deconstructing.

“God will still be God, even if somebody struggles with faith in Him. Your panic is not going to produce their faith.”

At the end of the day, the better story wins.

“What I mean by that is that the story that people are going to believe is the story that makes better sense of their lives,” said Dr Jones.

“We all want to think that we make our choices completely on the basis of evidence … But do you realise what makes the evidence you find believable, believable? It’s the story you believe about your life and about the lives of others.”

Instead of teaching Bible stories in isolation, show our youths how it all fits together in the big story of God, he added.

This is how Dr Jones summarises God’s story:

• God made the world good (Creation)
• Sin made the world groan (Fall)
• Jesus broke the power of sin (Redemption)
• God is making the world new (New Creation)

“That story is a better story that makes better sense of people’s lives,” he emphasised.

Using simple hand actions, Dr Jones demonstrates how the four parts of God’s story can be taught even to young children. Source: © The Bible Society of Singapore

Wrapping up his plenary, Dr Jones also put out a call to churches: “Is your church ready to be a place that prodigals can find a home again?”

While he has seen many who have walked away from the faith, he is confident that “there is a generation of prodigals that are going to be coming home”.

“The lies they’re believing will not ultimately bring them the happiness they’re looking for,” he said.

“And some of those prodigals will come home as very broken people because of the lies that they believed about their bodies, about themselves, about their faith.”

Challenging churches to think about making a plan and a place for prodigals, Dr Jones concluded: “I just believe that God is big enough, beautiful enough and wonderful enough, and that His plan is so glorious that He is going to bring prodigals home.”

One idea could be a class that functions like a “halfway house” to help those who are thinking of re-entering the faith to work through their questions.

“I find that a lot of churches don’t really think any of these people are coming back,” he noted.

“I think they are, and I think we need to develop the types of churches that can welcome them back and can lead them to full obedience to Jesus Christ.”

This is the first in a series of articles we are running from the D6 Singapore Family Conference 2025. Look out for more stories on discipling the next generation in our churches and homes.  

For more details about next year’s conference, do head over to biblesociety.sg/registration, which is now taking early bird registrations.  

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