The Formation Crisis

Why raising a child to faithfully serve God's calling can feel impossible today—and what we can do in our lifetimes to flip the odds.

Executive Summary

This piece is written primarily for educational entrepreneurs, reformers, and potential collaborators who want to build new formation infrastructure for Christian families. While Christian parents will find valuable insights here, my main goal is to recruit builders and funders who can help create the solutions our children desperately need.

I've spent years in education reform circles, talking to frustrated employers who can't find good hires, and hearing from people alarmed by our society's disintegration. Everyone's missing the connection: it's all rooted in a profound formation crisis that's decimating our children's spiritual, intellectual, and character development. This isn't just an 'education' problem as we typically view education—it's also a spiritual warfare issue that won't be fixed quickly or easily.

We face a crisis where spiritual formation is artificially separated from intellectual growth, leading to confused kids who, even if they excel in tests, lack real-world preparation for succeeding in the reality that God created for us. Parents are letting the internet—full of digital 'sinfrastructure'—fragment and corrupt young minds, and outsourcing the rest of their children’s formation to secular schools that undermine their trust in and understanding of God. Speaking of schools, school leaders worship leading indicators like test scores while ignoring lagging ones related to holistic flourishing—evidenced by rising youth suicide rates amid academic 'gains.' China's model warns us: if the US continues optimizing for test performance instead of holistic God-honoring human formation, the mental health crisis will compound.

The solution? Modular, open-source formation tools and Christofuturist schools that equip youth to rebuild society God's way. This will take decades of patient, faithful work on the part of thousands of Christians. See: The Formation Crisis Part 2 for the core infrastructure vision.

Ultimately, our children will either rebuild civilization on Godly foundations or accelerate its collapse and degeneracy. So, it's time to stop outsourcing our sacred duty to God and our progeny. If this resonates, reach out to collaborate on next steps—DM me on X at @garysheng to explore building formation experiments together.

The Central Question: How Do We Stop Failing Our Children?

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction." (Proverbs 1:7)

This ancient truth reveals why our education system produces confused, mentally ill children who waste their talents on meaningless pursuits.

We face a formation crisis disguised as an education problem.

Ask any Christian parent:

"Do you want to see your children burn with love for Christ, possess deep self-awareness, understand their place in the world, and channel their gifts into vocations that honor God while contributing meaningfully to society?"

Almost none would say no. Because it's a worthy goal to form children in this way. But it won't happen if we as Christians don't radically rethink how we think about education and how to develop our kids.

The Myth of Separated Formation

There are countless issues with how we think about education today.

But the deadliest lie is that spiritual formation can be divorced from intellectual and character development. This myth has infected Christian families who think they can outsource academics to secular systems while handling "the God stuff" at home or in a "house of God" once a week on Sunday. See: Don't Be A Churchian for why compartmentalized faith fails.

The 2002 film "Time Changer" prophetically illustrates where this separation leads. A Bible professor from 1890 travels to our era and discovers the catastrophic results of teaching morality without Christ's authority. He watches in horror as people who consider themselves "good"—like Eddie Martinez who insists "I ain't no angel, but I ain't ever cheated or lied, or shot anybody"—completely miss that obedience to God, not relative goodness, determines both earthly flourishing and eternal destiny.

The film's central insight: "Satan is not against good morals. He is opposed to Jesus Christ." This is precisely why our formation systems fail—they try to create "good citizens" while removing the only authority that defines what "good" actually means. When we teach children to be moral without teaching them why they should obey—because their Creator designed reality to function through joyful obedience to Him—we set them up for lives of confusion, emptiness, and rebellion disguised as personal freedom.

Your child's mind becomes a battlefield the moment they encounter any digital or educational environment. Every curriculum, every teacher interaction, every peer relationship either reinforces divine truth or undermines it. There is no neutral ground in formation.

When schools teach science and mathematics as patterns in a meaningless universe, they're not just teaching math—they're teaching atheistic ontology. When they present history as randomness more than divine providence, they're catechizing children into secular worldviews. When they ignore the reality of sin, the psychological consequences of atheism, and treat every behavioral problem as a medical condition, they're denying fundamental truths about human nature.

Many Christian parents miss the spiritual warfare at play because schooling is wrapped in academic respectability, with teachers used as shields for a failing system.

And by the way, the Ten Commandments posted in classrooms won't fix formation that's rotted at the philosophical foundation.

The Internet Has Become Satan's Playground

If you put your kid in a faith-based school but ignore that the digital world is its own satanic battlefield, you're still missing the mark as a Christian parent.

The internet is flooded with 'sinfrastructure' designed to fragment young minds. See: Recognize and Resist Sinfrastructure for a deeper analysis of these systems.

Your child's phone delivers hundreds of contradictory worldview snippets daily through TikTok and YouTube. Their developing brain becomes a junkyard for whatever content maximizes engagement—which means whatever triggers the strongest emotional responses, not what builds character or wisdom.

Then you have apps like Snapchat, X, and Instagram, which are engines for cultivating lustfulness, wrath, and envy.

Silicon Valley companies build algorithms that degrade your child's formation and flourishing. They build platforms optimized for addiction and profit. Your child's attention and fallen nature becomes the product being sold to advertisers who profit from their confusion, insecurity, and lower impulses.

Stop Outsourcing Your Parenting to iPads and Secular Schools

Most parents today have unconsciously outsourced their children's formation to systems that actively work against their stated values.

They outsource intellectual development to schools that teach secular materialism. They outsource social development to peer groups shaped by anti-Christian social media algorithms. They outsource entertainment to platforms that normalize sin and mock virtue. They outsource moral formation to churches that meet for two hours weekly while children spend forty hours in environments that contradict everything the church teaches. See: Don't Advance Anti-Christian Causes for understanding how to discern the false lights and competing ideologies children encounter online.

As "Time Changer" warns, sending children to secular schools creates children deceived into thinking that being a "good person" by society's standards means they're on the right path. The film shows our future—now our present—where blasphemy is entertainment, divorce is normalized, and schools forbid mentioning God, yet everyone believes they're morally upright. Without Christ's authority defining morality, children learn that truth is whatever feels right to them, that obedience is oppression rather than joyful alignment with reality's design.

The result is predictable: children who can recite a few Bible verses while living according to secular, anti-Christian values, who may pass tests but lack wisdom, who possess impressive gifts that are left undirected towards God's purposes.

The ‘Leading Indicator’ Deception

Educational leaders worship metrics that flatter their egos while ignoring outcomes that actually matter. These are what I call leading indicators—fast-moving numbers like test scores that spike quickly and make everyone feel accomplished in the moment. But they betray the true goals we claim to pursue.

Their counterparts—lagging indicators—move slowly and change lives: trust, transformation, durable value, communities that work when no one is watching. These are harder to measure and brag about, yet are far more useful to monitor.

In education, we optimize for the brand value that comes from leading indicators—test spikes, Ivy admissions, hype—and often recruit gifted kids, hoping they still look gifted later.

True success shows up in lagging indicators—signs of overall human flourishing, including that deep sense of hope, excitement, and gratitude to be alive. But instead, test scores spike while suicide rates climb. College admissions increase while marriage rates plummet. Academic achievements multiply while young adults report unprecedented levels of meaninglessness and despair.

Consider the stark reality in America: According to the CDC's 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 42% of high school students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2021 (up from 28% in 2011), 22% seriously considered suicide (up from 16%), and 10% attempted suicide (up from 8%). Suicide rates for ages 10-24 rose 62% from 2007 to 2021, even as some academic metrics showed gains.

Honest teachers, administrators, parents, and students know they're optimizing for the wrong things but feel trapped by systems that reward these leading metrics.

A child pursuing engineering who memorizes formulas but can't fix a leaky faucet hasn't been educated—they've been processed. A teenager who gets perfect grades but can't identify their God-given gifts hasn't been formed—they've been manufactured for institutional 'success' that leads to personal emptiness.

China Warns Us What Happens If We Prioritize Test Scores

China perfected the Western ‘factory model’ education and demonstrates where it leads. Chinese students dominate international test scores while experiencing mental health crises that make American problems look more mild.

A 2024 meta-analysis estimated depression prevalence among Chinese high school students at 28.23%, with academic pressure like the gaokao exams as a major factor. Suicide is the leading cause of death for ages 15-34 in China, with spikes during exam seasons—highlighting how high-stakes testing intensifies these crises.

When identity becomes test performance and future salary, children naturally despair. They see no hope in a society designed around academic sorting mechanisms that determine life outcomes through standardized measurements.

The gaokao—China's ultimate sorting exam—literally determines students' entire futures. This creates unbearable pressure and teaches young people to see themselves as their scores rather than as divine image-bearers with unique callings.

American education increasingly resembles these outcomes: more testing, more ranking, more optimization for metrics that have zero correlation with the ability to build meaningful lives or contribute to human flourishing.

The Real Requirements of Formation

Properly forming a single child requires understanding what formation actually entails:

Holy household foundation: A family that serves as the main headquarters of formation—where parents model divine patterns of how to live, love, and raise children according to God's design. The household becomes a living demonstration of kingdom values, where children witness authentic faith lived out daily through marriage, parenting, work, hospitality, and community relationships.

Spiritual foundation: Deep love and trust in God. Understanding of their divine nature and God's design for reality. Knowledge of how they fit into His purposes rather than random existence.

Self-awareness: Clear recognition of their God-given talents and how those gifts complement others in community. Understanding of how their unique abilities serve larger purposes beyond personal success.

Wisdom about the fallen world: Honest assessment of the fallen world's condition. Skills for spiritual protection and discernment. Practical knowledge of how to build and do business while maintaining integrity.

Vocational preparation: Integration of mastery-level knowledge, God-given gifts, authentic passion, and spirit of service into meaningful work that honors God while meeting real human needs. Understanding how that vocation serves divine purposes rather than just personal fulfillment.

This formation cannot be fully automated or achieved through one-size-fits-all institutional programs. It requires intensive, personalized attention from adults who possess spiritual maturity and understand each child's unique design—with the family serving as the primary formation environment from which all other influences flow.

The urgency of this work cannot be overstated. As Jacques Ellul wisely observed:

"Remember your Creator during your youth: when all possibilities lie open before you and you can offer all your strength intact for his service. The time to remember is not after you become senile and paralyzed! Then it is not too late for your salvation, but too late for you to serve as the presence of God in the midst of the world and the creation. You must take sides earlier - when you can actually make choices, when you have many paths opening at your feet, before the weight of necessity overwhelms you."

—Jacques Ellul, quoted in Steven Garber, The Fabric of Faithfulness, 39

This truth cuts to the heart of why proper formation during childhood and youth is not optional—it's when the soul is most malleable, when habits of heart and mind are established, and when the fundamental orientation toward God or away from Him is set for life.

Building with Open-Source Wisdom: Modular Tools for Formation

The path forward isn't another standardized school model or single educational platform that onboards billions of kids. It's modular, open-source building blocks that families and communities can adapt to their specific needs and circumstances.

We can call this collaborative network the open-source formation infrastructure ecosystem—a growing collection of shared, reusable tools and resources, inspired by open-source software communities, designed to support faith-based child formation in diverse contexts.

Think Lego pieces for human formation rather than one-size-fits-all institutions. Legal frameworks that make starting schools easier. Curriculum modules that integrate faith and learning. Assessment tools that measure character alongside competence. Technology platforms that connect aligned families to share teachers.

For example, shared components in this ecosystem could include:

• An AI-based adaptive learning system to support kids in developing their understanding of the Bible, God's creation, and the foundational building blocks of reality.
• Open-source lesson plans on God-compatible careers of the future, with deep dives into diverse vocational paths that will be increasingly needed.
• Repositories on how to actually walk the faith walk, such as my own 'faith walk OS'—an open-source framework for understanding and following God daily.

These Lego pieces must enable us to create great vocational pathways for children that have been blessed with the hugely diverse range of gifts that God gives them—from heart-led caretakers who build compassionate communities, to visionary writers who articulate kingdom truths, natural leaders and organizers who inspire movements, and skilled movement builders who weave technology into flourishing human ecosystems. These pathways should leverage shared components across the ecosystem, maximizing reusability and adaptability for neurodiverse children, those with disabilities, low-income families, and beyond—ensuring every member of the body of Christ can thrive (1 Corinthians 12:12-27).

These building blocks must be developed by people who have been properly formed themselves—fathers and mothers who understand the difference between building for God's kingdom versus building for personal recognition or false idols.

The goal isn't efficiency or scale—it's effectiveness and faithfulness. Better to properly form ten children than to process thousands through systems that produce en masse spiritual degeneration and unwarranted intellectual arrogance.

Faith-Based Society Engineering Schools

One critical piece of this formation infrastructure must be schools designed specifically for extraordinarily gifted kids in science and mathematics—what I call society engineering schools, which should be grounded in Christian formation.

Right now, our most brilliant young minds in STEM get funneled into environments that are completely greed-oriented. The atheistic Silicon Valley culture produces technologists who are as of 2025 defaulting to building arms manufacturing systems or scalable engines for hyper-personalized immersive pornography. When everyone can make up their own moral systems, whatever generates the most profit is the work that people choose, not what serves God's purposes.

This is a catastrophic waste of divine gifts. We need Christian genius applying science and math skills in ways that please God—solving housing crises, creating abundant energy systems, building technologies that strengthen families instead of fragmenting them, creating discipleship infrastructure that makes it easy to follow the narrow path.

Our lack of engineering talent—atheist or Christian—is made manifest through America's crisis of dependency on other countries for manufacturing. As someone who's spent time with leading industrialists, I've heard them admit privately: the US is basically screwed when it comes to onshoring manufacturing to any meaningful degree anytime soon. The tax incentives and cultural shifts are positive steps, but the extent to which we've outsourced our capacity to build things—on both small and large scales—is shocking. Many of my most talented young engineering friends who want to manufacture innovative products are literally moving to Shenzhen because finding affordable manufacturing support in the United States is nearly impossible. And in the AI age, the challenge intensifies: managing AI systems that oversee factories demands a whole new level of skill and knowledge, making revival even more difficult without properly formed leaders.

Christian genius that follows in the footsteps of Christ doesn't happen by accident. It requires extraordinary mentorship from titans in their respective fields who are also fully driven by a mission to serve God. Young people with exceptional gifts in physics need to learn from brilliant Christian physicists. Future engineers need formation from builders who seek to innovate in construction as acts of worship.

These society engineering schools we need won't just be advanced STEM programs with chapel services added. These will be institutions where spiritual formation and technical mastery develop together—where understanding God's heart becomes inseparable from understanding His creation's design.

The goal is to produce graduates who are so Spirit-led and technically excellent that they can help unlock a future where there are more communities that reflect heaven's harmony.

Graduates of this caliber will require intensive, personalized formation that current institutions cannot provide. Small cohorts. Master-apprentice relationships. Real projects with eternal significance. Formation infrastructure specifically designed to unlock distinctively Christian genius.

Why Traditional Faith-Based Schools Fall Short

If secular schools are not the answer, what can a parent do today to support their kids' formation?

Before rushing to enroll children in existing faith-based schools—many constructed decades or even centuries ago, like traditional Catholic institutions—consider whether they truly meet the moment.

• Do they teach about today's 'sinfrastructure' that includes pervasive digital distractions, AI-driven manipulations, and new cultural pressures?
• Do they prepare students for modern challenges, such as ethical AI use, technological opportunities for kingdom-building, or the psychological warfare of social media?

The answer is almost certainly... no.

This is why I'm a passionate evangelist for Christofuturism—a vision that returns to the timeless core of Christ's Way on who we are called to be and do, while remaining deeply attuned to today's circumstances, technologies, and possibilities. At its heart: God reigns supreme, humans serve God, and technology like AI serves humans. See: Reserve the Pedestal for God for resisting false idols like AI.

So, don't pivot to conventional religious schools; they're not equipped for this era. Instead, we need fresh approaches that blend eternal truth with contemporary relevance.

Sadly, there will be no quick fixes, and the first Christofuturist schools will take years to build and show fruits.

Why Fixing The Formation Crisis Will Take Decades

Anyone promising quick fixes for America's educational crisis is either delusional or dishonest. We're dealing with the consequences of decades of spiritual decay that will require a generation of spiritual restoration work.

I learned this lesson painfully while consulting for an AI-powered school system that promises to reinvent education. Despite massive hype and funding, the reality was sobering: poor leadership and rushed hiring created a dysfunctional culture where every corner is cut, inspiring people who joined primarily for the mission to leave. What is left is a hyper-political atheistic environment where dishonesty is the norm and negative feedback is silenced because it gets in the way of scale.

The technology itself—the so-called AI adaptive tutor system—was shoddy and outsourced to agencies. The organization didn't feel it needed strong engineering leadership to manage engineers. This narrative around building AI-integrated schools just reminded me how overly hyped AI has become. Even if there's great potential for AI-based learning platforms, doing it in a rushed way while trying to scale to as many schools as possible is simply the wrong approach.

Most telling, this supposedly revolutionary school wasn't developing the people America desperately needs—engineers, scientists, builders. Instead, it churned out more hype men and presenters at exactly the moment we're drowning in hype men.

The gap between their marketing promises and actual delivery kept widening, with everyone who just wanted to collect a paycheck hoping no one would speak up. This is what happens when you try to build lasting institutions without ensuring the character of the leadership is rock solid (and grounded in God).

The people who can actually lead this educational revolution, as themselves products of broken systems, must simultaneously heal their own wounds while learning how to properly form society's children. This inner work cannot be rushed or skipped.

Much more infrastructure for proper formation—the technologies, legal frameworks, educational resources, etc—must be built. This requires patient investment from people who understand they're building for their grandchildren rather than immediate recognition.

The cultural shift from worshiping academic achievement to celebrating character development that pleases God will meet massive resistance from institutions whose existence depends on current metrics. Be prepared for the spiritual warfare ahead.

Yet while we build for the long term, faithful parents need practical steps they can take today.

Practical Steps for Families Starting Today

While we build long-term solutions, faithful parents need actionable steps today. Most will continue using secular schools and haven't fully curated their child's digital environment—that's okay, it's where we start.

Essential questions every Christian parent should wrestle with:

If your child attends secular school: How do you ensure they never forget their foundation? Daily conversations connecting their learning to God's truth. Family devotions addressing secular worldview challenges. The goal: consistent spiritual reinforcement.

If you've given your child a laptop or smartphone: How do you prevent deeper sin patterns? Intentional digital discipleship through reporting and/or activity-limiting software, regular consumption conversations, and modeling healthy habits. The goal: building wisdom and self-control.

Building parent networks: How do you connect with families who understand both perils and opportunities of Christian parenting today? Start small groups, share resources, find parents who prioritize spiritual formation alongside academic achievement, and host family events together.

As you reflect on these questions, remember that we should call on divine wisdom beyond our human understanding. Bring these challenges to God regularly—seek His guidance on schooling choices, digital boundaries, and family priorities. Talk through these concerns with your trusted prayer network and spiritual community. See: Make God Your Best Friend for building the kind of intimate relationship with God that provides clear guidance for complex parenting decisions.

This piece paints the long-term, north star vision. Your job is to take faithful steps from wherever you are today, trusting God to honor your efforts and fill the gaps.

The Stakes are Infinitely High, But Our God is the God of Miracles

The children being formed today will either rebuild society on Godly foundations or preside over its continued collapse. There is no middle ground—children either learn to see themselves as divine image-bearers with callings from God or as sophisticated animals competing for temporary pleasures.

The most important work of our generation is creating conditions where children naturally develop into adults who know their divine nature, understand their gifts, and apply those gifts faithfully in service to God's kingdom. Everything else is rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.

Yet amid this crisis, our God is a God of miracles. These formation challenges require divine intervention, but that's exactly who we serve: a Savior who turns water to wine, raises the dead, and redeems the irredeemable.

If these convictions stir in your heart, God is planting similar seeds across His church. The point isn't despair but awakening action. Through faith, not fear, let's build the formation infrastructure our children need, trusting that God will multiply our faithful efforts into a harvest of properly formed image-bearers who reflect His glory.

Explore Collaborating With Me On Next Steps

If this vision resonates with you and you're ready to take action, I invite you to reach out to me via DM on X at @garysheng. This is probably the best way to connect and figure out exactly what the next steps could look like. I'm fully committed to running experiments in formation programs, schools, and technology—let's explore building an experiment together.