ALTHOUGH STATISTICS VARY, some numbers indicate that today between 30 and 40 percent of young people drop out of high school in the US. If public school is this unpopular, just think how many young people give up on Sunday School—or never really try it.
One can be quick to claim that today's young people choose physical comfort and entertainment over mental discipline and spiritual growth. But looking closely we actually find a youthful generation that is far more willing to dive below the material surface of things than to just skim the waves and accept the physical world at face value.
As a Christian Science Sunday School teacher, I have often reflected on Mary Baker Eddy's assessment of Jesus and his capacity to forsake the material world in favor of the deeper, spiritual reality. She wrote, "Jesus of Nazareth was the most scientific man that ever trod the globe. He plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause" (Science and Health, p. 313). The way I've found to go "beneath the material surface" is to ask questions. Lots of them. Although society may associate the practice of asking questions with ignorance or weakness, I teach my Sunday School students that asking questions is the best way to find answers, because it stimulates one's pursuit of the "spiritual cause" that Mrs. Eddy wrote about.
