Identity Project

I distinctly remember a student asking me how to respond to her friend who was struggling with gender identity. She was heartbroken because her friend kept getting mad and telling her that if she really loved her, she would accept the “real me.”

In my little over a decade in Christian education, I have witnessed a significant shift in the type of questions students asked. What began as “What is on the test?” or “Do I really need to know this to get into college?” evolved into something much deeper and more complex.

Students today are now verbalizing more existential questions: Who am I? What is my purpose? Am I enough? These questions of identity are not peripheral concerns that might surface during a Bible class or chapel service. These are core to what it means to be human, and, therefore, they permeate every dimension of student life. As such, students are seeking answers in the hallways, at home, on their sports teams, and online.

Furthermore, these questions do not emerge from a vacuum. They reflect the cultural moment in which we live that has fundamentally altered how an entire generation thinks about truth, identity, and purpose. This shift has created a view of the human person that is untethered from any stable foundation, elevating personal feelings and subjective experience as the ultimate arbiters of truth and reality.

The ramification of this shift is not just a philosophical matter, as students are no longer asking questions isolated to single disciplines such as biology, philosophy, or theology. Instead, they are navigating a complex collision of these disciplines without realizing how answers in one area inevitably shape and inform their thinking in the others.

Even more concerning, I have also observed a growing inability among educators, school administrators, parents, and even pastors to identify the root issues beneath these questions and provide answers consistent with a Christian worldview. This has left well-meaning educators with confusion and doubt and an apprehensiveness about responding. We have become adept at addressing the symptoms, but not the underlying cause.

To be fair, today’s Christian educators are finding themselves thrust into a role they may have never anticipated: they are now front-line guides for a generation attempting to navigate unprecedented confusion about fundamental human questions. The challenge is not that students are confused, although they certainly are. The deeper problem lies in that the cultural narratives they hear are fundamentally deconstructive in nature. Contemporary education itself has undergone a revolution of ideas that systematically deconstructs the very notion of what it means to be human by placing the mind in opposition to the body and pitting individual autonomy against objective truth.

These philosophical shifts have produced devastating consequences—epidemic levels of anxiety, loneliness, and despair. As educators, we often find ourselves caught in an impossible position, as we are expected to speak wisdom into these issues with minimal guidance or preparation. We are unsure of what to say or afraid to do so for fear of the backlash that might come from saying the wrong thing.

Yet, here is the truth we cannot ignore. If we get anthropology wrong—when we misunderstand what it means to discover, live, and lead others to their God-given identity—everything downstream suffers. Education becomes directionless; ethics are arbitrary, and reality itself shifts from a place of formation to a space of personal expression where truth is relative and identity is self-defined. It is a bleak picture, one where students are burdened to construct their own meaning, identity, and purpose.

This is why we need something more than just another curriculum—we need a resource that can help us as Christian educators lead students to ground their identity in God. We need tools that help us step into these opportunities with clarity, confidence, and courage.

The Identity Project is designed to help you teach students who God has made them to be. Through over 200 biblically grounded videos from trusted Christian voices, this can help equip you, as educators, to step into difficult conversations with grace, truth, and courage.

This is more than teaching, it is about transformation. This is a call to disciple students who desperately need mentors who can speak truth without alienating them in the process.

In this time of cultural confusion, Christian educators bear a weighty calling. The Identity Project assists us in fulfilling that calling, giving us the wisdom necessary to be faithful to the mission to which God has called us.