Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Left: Remained, or Departed (11/20/25)
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TITLE: Those Who Left | Previous Challenge Entry
By Rhonda Barber
11/27/25 -
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One thousand six hundred sixty-four. The approximate number of times I took my son to church by the time he was sixteen. That’s nearly 3,400 hours spent sitting in pews, attending kids’ church/youth group, listening to sermons, and believing we were doing everything we could to build his faith. My husband and I did many of the right things. Could we have done more? Absolutely. Could we have done things differently? Of course. There’s always room for improvement when you’re raising children and doing your best to point them to Jesus.
We celebrated Christmas and Easter with the primary focus on Christ. We watched with joy as our children were baptized. All signs seemed to affirm that our kids were walking with God. So the day my teenage son looked at me—calmly, honestly—and said, “Mom, I don’t know if I believe there is a God,” my heart shattered.
He told me he had felt that way for a long time but didn’t know how to say it. As I traced his faith struggle backward, I remembered a season when he spent much of his time with a friend who was also wrestling with doubt. Our families were close. We did life together. But somewhere in those years, a quiet unraveling began.
He’s in his thirties now, and he still claims not to believe. And even today, this momma’s heart aches when I think about him spending eternity apart from God. It is a grief I carry daily.
But I also know this: he is not alone. If you look at any statistic, you’ll see this pattern again and again. Even Scripture acknowledges that some will “fall away” (1 Timothy 4:1). Jesus Himself spoke of seeds that sprouted quickly but withered without root (Matthew 13:20–21).
Church attendance is decreasing. The younger generation is leaving in alarming numbers. And the most painful part is how many aren’t just leaving church—they’re leaving their faith entirely.
So we ask the inevitable question: Why?
There are countless reasons.
A society that mocks belief.
Church hurt and hypocrisy.
Voices insisting science disproves God.
The overwhelming pull of the internet and culture.
And this is only the beginning.
But here is what I know with every fiber of my being: we who are left must fight for those who left.
Read that again.
Let it settle.
We who are left must fight for those who left.
Nothing grieves me more than lost souls—not just my son, but anyone wandering far from Christ. I am deeply passionate about this. It’s why our nonprofit centers its work around the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19–20). Jesus came “to seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10), and we are called to carry that mission forward.
In a world filled with faith casualties and quiet crises, we must be people who “stand in the gap” (Ezekiel 22:30). People who fight for souls through prayer, fasting, compassion, and intentional conversation. People who refuse to stop interceding. Scripture urges us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and to “not grow weary in doing good” (Galatians 6:9).
Don’t stop praying.
Don’t stop speaking their names before God.
Don’t get so tangled in daily life that you forget the eternity that hangs in the balance.
Imagine a bridge is out ahead. You see someone heading straight toward danger. If you don’t warn them, they will fall to their death. How would you feel knowing you could have saved them but stayed silent? Jude 1:23 says to “snatch others from the fire and save them.” This is our calling.
This is not to heap guilt on your shoulders. This is to stir up a holy fire in you—a passion so strong that not one person slips into eternity without having heard truth, love, or hope from your lips. As far as it depends on you, do something. Anything. Pray, speak, love, reach out. Fight for their souls.
Because we who are left must fight for those who left.
Will you fight the good fight with me today?
Let NO ONE perish on your watch.
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It is a message that needs to be told. I will pray for your son and the rest of your family that God will get a hold of his heart and realize Jesus loves him so much he died on the cross for him.
Prayers do make a difference. I remember speaking to a young
person it was the prayers of either her mom or grandmother that turned her heart back to God.
She left home at a young age and started drinking and drugs and other immoral acts because she was searching for love and other things to fill a void in her life.
She never forgot the prayers and the fact that she was loved and she told me she had decided to turn back to God and go back home and Jesus had changed her life and it was those prayers that made the difference and gave her hope.