We are desiring to give each of our graduates an age appropriate gift, i.e., 8th grade, High School, and College, for graduation. We want to give them something to help them think through the Christian worldview in light of the culture they are being raised in.
Great question! We are in the “business” of providing such resources for kids and adults especially useful for those headed to secular university or college so anything on our site is appropriate, as well as the books & sites below.
The Reasons to Believe section of Probe.org is a great place for starters.
Resources written for children up to about 8th grade:
Here are Amazon.com listings by journalist turned Christian apologetics author extraordinaire Lee Strobel (note emphasis on titles very similar but not the same):
The Case for a Creator for Kids
Off My Case for Kids: 12 Stories to Help You Defend Your Faith
The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God (more grown-up edition)
Also, see:
My Heart Christ’s Home: Retold for Children (don’t know grade level) by Robert Boyd Munger OR
My Heart Christ’s Home (original)
Other suggestions for high school grads, possibly 8th graders:
Ethix: Being Bold in a Whatever World, by Sean McDowell (son of Josh McDowell, good author, speaker, thinker in his own right; this book written somewhat to youth leaders, perhaps—I’ve only sampled it; great illustrations especially about absolute truth vs. relative truth and morality)
How to Stay Christian in College, by J. Budziszewski—My wife and I give this one to high school grads for obvious reasons, given the title. J. Budziszewski is a one-of-a-kind critical thinker who matches his intellect with caring for kids. See his columns under Ask Theophilus at Boundless.org—excellent narratives of paraphrased professor-student conversations about deep, real life issues from a Christian worldview.
Note: I suggest the 1999 edition, although there’s a newer one (Th1nk books, a NavPress imprint). This older one contains many useful links, many from a site I used to edit:
LeaderU.com. Massively useful for scholarly work like writing papers, essays, debates. Most or all of the links cited in the book should still work.
Chris Chrisman Goes to College: and Faces the Challenges of Relativism, Individualism and Pluralism. From the master of worldview, James Sire, brought down off the proverbial shelf for laypeople, this fictional account of three new collegians creatively tackles the topics in the book’s subtitle. Particularly interesting: Sire “identifies no fewer than six types of relativism,” according to the cover.
For college or high school grads:
Welcome To College: A Christ-Followers Guide for the Journey, by Jonathan Morrow. This sweeping, but accessible and succinct volume contains 42 chapters that ask: What do Christians really believe? Can I put that into words for unbelievers? What is the nature of truth and how do we know things? What about sex? Finances? How should a Christian worldview inform my entire life and experience? and much more. Packs a worldview wallop.
Making Your Faith Your Own, A Guidebook for Believers With Questions, by Teresa Vining. See the top review of a pastor’s wife.
The second review at Amazon.com of the above book is by my colleague, Sue Bohlin, whose responses on scores of questions from believers and unbelievers, posted here on Probe.org, are worth their weight in gold:
Probe Answers Your Email. Look for Sue Bohlin’s responses particularly, especially in the Marriage & Family, Sexuality, Homosexuality and Gender sections, but elsewhere as well. Michael Gleghorn is great on theology & philosophy. This set of 500-600 answers is good for high school, college, adult, sometimes younger, depending on topics.
My Utmost for His Highest (latest edition), Oswald Chambers
A subscription to our own Probe-Alert e-letter (always free, every two weeks, relevant new materials and more) might be a good “freebie”—they’ll have to approve it via email. Or, to avoid that and make it a one-step operation, send a list of emails to me and I’ll mass subscribe them manually.
I hope you find this helpful. God bless you and your graduates and may they thrive in their faith as they move to their next life-step.
Byron Barlowe
© 2007 Probe Ministries