Christian youths are generally uninterested in the Bible, so much so that one retired teacher involved in teaching BK has called this state of apathy "a famine condition".
And the Teachers Christian Fellowship (TCF) is pleading with churches and Christian parents to encourage their teens to sit for the SPM Bible Knowledge (BK) paper so as to whet their appetite for God’s Word and instil in them the discipline of systematically studying the Bible.
Said Mrs Kua Kun Han, who is now an associate staff worker with TCF: "Most churches are so self-absorbed they have dangerously left their youth in the care of fun-filled weekend programmes that cannot even compete with the great octopus of entertainment with its many arms juggling every kind of addictive menu, which our young people gobble up in the remaining 99 percent of their time outside their church buildings."
Don’t believe this? Try organising a TCF Postal BK Quiz, Mrs Kua challenged. "Many church youth advisors and school Christian Fellowship advisors don’t even have the courage to slot in the one-time Quiz as an annual activity."
She added: "It’s been famine so long it will take time to admit that the advisors and students have little appetite for the study of the Word. This quiz has turned out to be a thermometer, a gauge of interest."
To substantiate her observation about our youths’ apathy towards the Bible, she shared a real-life example of two students – a youth leader and a non-believer – participating in the quiz. The youth leader, who had been actively serving in his church for five years, scored less than 50 percent, while the non-believer scored over 80 percent after reading Luke from a borrowed Bible for two weeks. He became a Christian soon after.
The ‘Bible famine’ can be eradicated if churches and especially Christian parents have the courage to confront the truth and start watering their parched youths. Parents are often the main opposers to their children taking the subject for fear that they will fare poorly, Mrs Kua quoted her BK teachers as saying.
"BK is a ‘can-score subject’. There are those who took it as their 10th, 11th or even 12th subject and they scored the A just as easily as their other school subjects," she assured parents and students.
She added that churches are the best place to prepare students for the BK paper as they have the resources, the venue and the contact with students through their own youths.
And while TCF is encouraging their teachers to organise BK classes in their own churches, church leaders are the best persons to spearhead this Bible-study programme for their youths because they have the influence over their teens.
Thanks to some churches, which have caught the vision and burden for their youths, there are encouraging signs of BK classes slowly sprouting throughout the country, Mrs Kua observed. Perhaps, this is because teachers in smaller towns are the key leaders in their churches.
For more information, contact TCF at 03-5637623 (tel.) or e-mail tcfmy@pd.jaring.my; Scripture Union at 03-77829592 (tel.) or e-mail sufes@po.jaring.my; or Malayan Christian Schools’ Council at 03-7956530. |
