“Young people today are dealing with a crisis of purpose. They’ve lost sight of the big things to live for anymore, including not having religion.” – Pat McMongile, FBI agent
The 2025 school year is off to a sobering start. The school shootings in Minneapolis and Denver and the recent gruesome murders in the news have created seismic waves of despair and disorientation. As an adult I’ve felt the sorrow and weight from these recent incidents. I have struggled even more searching for words of hope to process these horrific events with my children.
We all know that the world shouldn’t be this way, and yet it is. It can seem as though we are trapped in a horrible story with no hope of a happy ending. It’s for this very reason that parents and youth ministers need to introduce our young people to the better and more beautiful story of the gospel, which brings purpose and hope.
A World Gone Mad
Law enforcement officers have coined a new term for the young people invested in or promoting this macabre series of killings—Nihilistic Violent Extremists (NVEs).
The emerging profile of the attackers reveals a common thread of isolation, hopelessness, and anger.1 The internet has become their new school for indoctrination and ideological authority, and meaninglessness crowds the story of their lives. As the author of Ecclesiastes says, “Vanity of vanities…all is vanity” (Eccl. 1:2). They no longer have a cast of friends, and they find pseudo-community via lonely ventures into the Internet. In a world bereft of meaning and friendship, it is no wonder that hopelessness, violence, and vengeance become the currency of engaging society.
For those who have been paying attention to the way technology is shaping society, hopelessness and violence are not a surprise. In The End of Education, Neil Postman warned educators that the “engineering” tools of schooling would not maintain students’ interest for long (p. 36-38). Postman contended that simply giving children the skills and knowhow to graduate high school, get into college, and enter society would ultimately create boredom and would fail to satiate the deeper questions and appetites of our young people.
Instead, he proposed that educators work hard to inundate children with the “metaphysical” tools of learning (p. 36-38). Even as an unbeliever, Postman understood that without “gods” or a much larger story to feel a part of, students’ minds and hearts would ultimately wander into ennui. He said we can only find true meaning in a story that transcends the tiny story of individualized edification and flourishing. Interestingly a recent study from the CDC revealed that at least one of every four students said they felt “persistently sad or hopeless in the last year.”2 Clearly this “my story” framework isn’t leading our young people to the flourishing we want for them.
I would like to humbly propose a Story for our young people that serves the dual purpose of resuscitating their hearts and simultaneously unleashing them to produce hope in the world.
Pointing Teenagers to Christ’s Story
The narrative arch of the Bible is the larger story our young people need. It is the powerful antidote to the isolation and hopelessness so many experience in this world. Specifically, the gospel—that Jesus died to rescue sinners and to restore the broken world—is the only story big enough to carry our lives and infuse them with meaning. By redeeming our sin and darkness through his death on the cross, he then commissions us to engage in his larger story by making him known in word and deed.
If we look honestly at our efforts to equip the next generation, we find that much of our discipleship centers primarily on orthodoxy (right belief) and making sure that our kids have right doctrine, iron clad apologetics, and a resolute foundation of their faith. All of these things are important, but they won’t have much meaning without robust orthopraxy (right conduct). Students need to know the grand story that undergirds our belief and how it calls us to live in relationship with God and others.
Without keeping the story of Scripture front and center, we will continue to perpetuate the Moralistic Therapeutic Deism that Christian Smith warned us about several years ago. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a way of describing the common belief among young people that God simply wants them to be good, remain comfortable, and to call on him only when they need him.
By contrast, orthopraxy is lived theology derived from knowing the story of the gospel. It occurs through everyday examples of the conversations our young people have with their neighbors, peers, teammates, and classmates. It is birthed through helping them find charitable and intentional ways of serving others (Gal. 5:13), outdoing others in showing honor (Rom. 12:10), and displaying the fruit of the Spirit—even with those who disagree with them (Gal. 5:22-23). Moralistic Therapeutic Deism isn’t strong enough to combat the nihilism we see growing among young people today. But the gospel story has power to transform lives by leading us into orthopraxy.
Following Jesus’ Discipleship Model
So much of Christ’s discipleship was aligning his followers with a proper orthopraxy. He wanted them to live out his teachings in a hurting world. He told us that all the Law and all the Prophets depend on “loving God with our hearts, souls, and minds, and in loving our neighbor as ourselves.” In other words, the tools of learning (and the reason for learning) the Bible assist us in magnifying the grandeur of God and in radically loving other people. This is what Jesus was committed to on earth and it’s also what he has invited all of us to do as his disciples. We are invited to create and strengthen community with Christ’s love.
Living in this larger story is not license for retreat from the world. On the contrary it emboldens our kids to love their classmates, serve their community, and offer their gifts and talents to a hurting world. God’s story is exponentially larger and more meaningful than a story centered on pursuing one’s dreams and protecting oneself from the world. It’s no wonder that the myopic story we often offer is leading many of our children to disillusionment and disaffiliation with the church. The growing number of “nones” is not because hedonism and sin are more appealing but because the gospel story that we offer is too small and weak to captivate our kids’ hearts. At best it a sanctified version of the story the world is already offering to our youth—a story that ends in meaninglessness, sorrow, and anger.
Jesus also said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:39). Jesus was and is always offering hurting people an upgrade and a path towards true flourishing. Here in Matthew, he’s saying that true life is found in the death of the “my story” narrative and the full embrace of “his story.” It’s only in that story that real life, peace, and joy can be found.
Everyday life is the laboratory where our children get to live out their faith and implement the tools that we have given them. We need to remind them to seek out other lonely students in their schools, to joyfully immerse themselves in service projects helping the poor, the weak, and the widows. We must reorient their theology to hold biblical moral values in one hand and to radically value a pursuit of the lost in the other.
The malaise and darkness that we see consuming so many young people in the world today is a result of a dark narrative that can only be overturned if more of our young people embrace Christ’s exhortation to be the light (Matt. 5:14-16). This is the story into which God calls his people.
The Hope of the Gospel
Years ago, a pastor shared a powerful analogy with me. In Greek mythology the Sirens were a seductive, mysterious, and malevolent group of creatures that lured wayward sailors to their islands with their melodious songs. Mesmerized by the singing, sailors would head towards the voices only to have their ships dashed on the rocks. Then the Sirens, whom the sailors mistook to be beautiful women, would pounce upon them and devour them.
In the Odyssey, Odysseus and his men were within range of the island. To prevent disaster Odysseus had his men fill their ears with beeswax to mute the singing. He had his men bind him to the mast so that he could hear the singing but would be powerless to steer the ship to disaster. In other words, he gave his men the “tools” to protect themselves from danger.
In Jason and the Argonauts another ship was nearing the dreaded island, but in this case, Orpheus a prolific musician, unleashed such beautiful and wondrous music on the ship that the sailors could not hear the alluring songs of the Sirens and were able to pass by undeterred.
The Story of Jesus is the better music our kids need to live in this world with all its despair.
If we are like Odysseus, stuffing bees wax in our kids’ ears to prevent the world from calling to them or merely giving them tools to stave off the world, we will not give them a story or methodology that will hold them. But if like Orpheus, we play the music of the big story of Jesus, we pray the gospel will capture their hearts. Not only that, but the melody of the gospel released into the world will liberate their peers from the Sirens of nihilism, filling a dark world with the light of hope.
Our love, service, compassion, kindness, and mercy are a far better sound to a world that is drowning in dissonance and despair.
- “An Ex-FBI Agent’s Warning to Parents About Nihilists Like Robin Westman,” The Free Press, August, 29, 2025, https://www.thefp.com/p/demons-like-robin-westman-broke-this. ↩︎
- “Youth Mental Health: The Numbers”Poor Mental Health Effects Adolescent Well-being,” CDC, November 29, 2024, https://www.cdc.gov/healthy-youth/mental-health/index.html.
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Rooted’s 2025 Conference in Chicago, IL offers a chance for youth, children’s, and family ministers to grow together in the grace of the gospel. We hope you’ll join us October 23–25!
