You are watching a nature show on television with your child. The film footage is impressive; the narration is interesting, adding fact upon incredible fact.

The narrator then adds another remarkable "fact": "Over millions of years, the hummingbird developed the remarkable ability to fly not only forward as other birds, but to also fly backwards and hover in midflight like a helicopter."

The next day your child comes home from school with homework for science. You notice some charts to be filled in, showing how humans evolved through time.

What should you do?

Even if your children grow up in God's Church, in today's world they will be bombarded with the concept of evolution. But will they just naturally learn what the truth is about creation by hearing something said about it a few times a year at Sabbath services? No! Without your consistent instruction and guidance, your child will be taught by default one predominant picture of how the world and everything in it came to exist—evolution.

Convinced of a Creator

Following are some pointers to help your child not only refute the false teachings of evolution, but also become convinced of a Creator who is very real and who should become very real to him or her personally.

1. First, become informed yourself. You are your child's most important teacher! And God intends you to be your child's most influential teacher. But as a teacher you need to be armed with important information to pass along.

Take the time to read or view some of the materials listed in the box "Some Resources to Help." Your child's teachers at school will most likely not be taking the time to become informed about this information if they believe in evolution, so you must. Some of the books you can find at your local library (maybe even your church library), or you can find most of them used through the Internet.

2. Whenever evolutionary concepts are encountered—whether in a TV show, in a book or at school—at your earliest opportunity discuss it with your child. If you have educated yourself with some facts and proofs that show evolution is false, you can help your child refute what he or she has just heard about evolution on a level you know your own child can best understand.

There are many ways to teach the truth, especially if you are creative. There are several important concepts brought out clearly in the book Darwin's Black Box, for example. These include the principles of irreducible complexity, minimal function and obvious intelligent design.

3. The theory of evolution refuses to acknowledge the existence of the Creator God and the validity of His revealed instruction to the human race—the Holy Bible. But if you remove something from a bottle, something else must come in to replace the void. You cannot only teach your child that evolution is false. You must also be reading the Bible with your children regularly, starting at an early age and continuing through their formative years at home.

Explain why evolution is so popular today. Go through Romans 1:18-32 and explain how the underlying motivation is that people—even many highly-educated people—don't want there to be a God. They don't want to believe that someone has authority over how they should live their lives. They want to feel free to live as they wish without the guilt of answering to their Creator.

Despite advanced knowledge in many areas today, God says the end-time nations of Israel will come to destruction because they lack knowledge: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6). This certainly includes a willing ignorance of the existence of God.

While teaching your children that we exist because God created us, it is also very important to teach why God created us! As you read through the Bible with your child, reinforce the reason God made humans with an intelligence vastly higher than any other creature—our potential to enter the immortal, divine family of God!

4. What about dealing with evolution being taught at school? Ultimately, you are responsible for the education of your child, and it is important to know what others are teaching him or her. Start the habit of discussing what was taught in school each day, briefly at the dinner table or before starting on homework. And when it comes to the subject of evolution vs. creation, it is critical you are involved.

Here are some tips for helping your child deal with evolutionary teachings at school:

• Taking tests in school—where evolutionary teachings are expected to be put down as the "correct" answers—can be handled without violating the student's conscience by simply adding a note at the top of the test page to the effect, "The book says..." or "The teacher said..." These three words (or something similar) qualify all the answers that follow as not necessarily being the student's personal belief, but that he or she is merely remembering and repeating back what the teacher or book said.

• Don't start arguments about evolution vs. creation in the classroom. As well-meaning as we may be, arguing with people who do not acknowledge God as our Creator may only cause problems in the long run. No teacher wants to be put on the spot or proven wrong in front of a class of students.

• Do prepare your child to "be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you" (1 Peter 3:15). This is a principle we all need to be prepared to practice. But being able to answer people who ask us about why we believe in a Creator—or about any of the beliefs we hold—is something that can only happen if we know the facts.

Again, this means covering evolution vs. creation concepts with your child—and reading the Bible—as an ongoing process. Remind your child that he or she is not alone; there are many others who believe in creation rather than evolution; many of them not even in our Church. Still, even if he or she were alone, this is good practice in learning to hold fast to the truth, even if no one else around us believes it. This is one of those areas of peer pressure our children need help to stand up against.

5. Help your child formulate a list of proofs of the existence of a Creator. In order to develop a relationship with God and ultimately become baptized and converted, they must come to prove absolutely that God exists. "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is..." (Hebrews 11:6).

Start a listing of absolute proofs, which can be added to or expanded upon as your child grows in understanding.

Preparing for the Kingdom

The world around us is rapidly approaching its end. Why? Because it has rejected God. But we—including you and your children—have been called out of that world to walk with our Creator and prepare for the arrival of His Kingdom here on earth.

Parents, God has charged us with the responsibility of equipping our children with the knowledge and direction that will help them see their calling clearly; and love it, embrace it and pursue it! UN

The author is pastor of the Bethlehem, Philadelphia and York, Pennsylvania, congregations.

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Some Resources to Help

• UCG booklet: Creation or Evolution: Does It Really Matter What You Believe? (In this booklet you will find another listing of some additional excellent books.)

• UCG booklet: Life's Ultimate Question: Does God Exist?

• DVD (or VHS): Unlocking the Mystery of Life, Illustra Media, 2002. This excellent documentary examines the scientific case for intelligent design and, through computer animation, takes you into the interior of the living cell to explore systems and machines that bear the unmistakable hallmarks of design.

• Book: Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, Michael Behe, 1996. This book demonstrates that the tiny building blocks of life—cells and their myriad components—are far too complex for their codependent parts and processes to have evolved without an outside, intelligent design at work.

• Book: Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Michael Denton, 1996. This book examines features of the natural world that mutation and natural selection cannot explain and shows the impossibility of transitional forms required by evolution to have taken place.

• Book: Darwin on Trial, Phillip Johnson (professor of law), 1993. This book examines scientific detail that argues convincingly against the theory of evolution.

• Book: The Case for a Creator, Lee Strobel, 2004. A journalist investigates scientific evidence that points toward God.

• Book: Icons of Evolution, Dr. Jonathan Wells, 2000. A molecular biologist tackles 10 of the most prominent arguments neo-Darwinists use as examples of evidence for evolution and shows how each is misrepresented and misused to support Darwin's theory of naturalism. (At the Web site www.iconsofevolution.com you can also find his list of "Ten Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher About Evolution").