My sister in Michigan contacted me the other day, saying a friend had posted something like this on Facebook: “How could God have allowed the shooting at Las Vegas? Easy: He didn’t. There is no God.” My sister wanted to know, “How do I answer that?”

She’s a strong Christian and she’s seen God at work through an awful lot of pain in her own life, so she wasn’t rocked by the question herself. A whole lot of other people are, though.

The Spiritual Shrapnel of Crises

American Christians are amazingly good at responding to crises like this year’s hurricanes. USAToday reported recently on how churches have outstripped the federal government in providing aid, but that’s hardly news; Christians have always been quick to help.

But we’re not as good at responding to the other damage that accompanies crises like these. This damage isn’t localized. Like far-flung spiritual shrapnel, it reaches everywhere. It’s the damage done to faith when questions like, “Where was God? Does he care? Does he even exist?” go unanswered.

Questions We Can Answer

There’s a local version of the question, certainly. It’s the one we ask if we’re right in the middle of it all, if we’ve suffered the direct effects of an attack or a disaster: “Why do I have to hurt so badly? How am I ever going to make it through all the pain?” When we ask those questions we’re not looking for explanations, we’re crying out for help. We’re wondering if there’s any out there for us. We’re just crying out, period.

But it isn’t just those close in to the disaster who have questions. I’m sure you’ve seen it in social media this week, just like my sister did: “Where was God? How does he let these things happen?” If they don’t hear good answers, they’re bound to think there are no good answers.

Eternal Effects

And that’s a tragedy with eternal consequences.

It hits youth especially hard. I’ve been asking youth pastors what questions their students ask most often about the faith. Every pastor I’ve talked to says the same thing. The top question kids ask is how a good God could allow evil to happen.

There’s a substantial body of research showing that 50 to 80 percent of young people leave the faith after high school, and “unanswered questions” always shows up as one of the top two or three reasons.

It isn’t just young people, though. Working with Tyndale House, author Mark Mittelberg commissioned a survey asking Christians, “What are the top questions you hope no one will ask you about the faith?” The question on God and suffering made the top five. Christians don’t like this question. They hope it has an answer (it does!) but they know they’re not equipped to give it. When something happens like Las Vegas, though, or even the recent spate of hurricanes, what question do you suppose Christians get asked?

Churches Can (and Should) Prepare for Spiritual Shrapnel

So I’ve got a radical proposal to offer. I propose that just as churches have structures and plans in place to jump into high gear to help meet physical needs following disasters, so should they put structures and plans in place to provide urgent answers to urgent questions.

It doesn’t take much. That’s the beauty of it. All it needs is pastors or lay leaders who have prepared themselves to teach basic messages on a limited set of questions that are likely to pop up in the news (Mark Mittelberg’s book is a good source), and to lead follow-up conversations on those questions.

That’s the only hard part. The rest is easy: churches need to be ready to drop those messages and conversations into the church calendar on short notice. The church I attend just made a quick decision to do it next Tuesday evening — with prayer included as part of the plan, too.

Prayer is always a good idea, certainly, provided that leaders take care not to let the familiar urgency of prayer shut down the potentially risky yet often equal urgency to let people open up and ask all their questions.

Note that there are two parts, not including the prayer portion. There is the basic message, and there is the conversation. The message is important because it conveys the basic information that answers the question. But the message isn’t enough. The conversation is crucial because people care whether their questions are actually heard; plus, there are always further questions to follow up on.

It’s an Act of Love, Too

I’ve already said it, but it bears repeating: When churches let urgent questions to go unanswered, even church members are bound to wonder whether those questions even have answers. They lose clarity; they lose confidence. Some of them lose so much confidence they leave the faith altogether.

Every Christian knows it’s an act of love to carry aid to disaster areas. Isn’t also an act of love (from Is. 35:3 and 1 Th. 5:14) to “strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees,” to “encourage the fainthearted, help the weak”? That’s what we can do even in times of crisis, if we’ll only prepare to explain how God is real and God is good in spite of the questions that come our way.

Tom Gilson is a senior editor with The Stream and the author of Critical Conversations: A Christian Parents’ Guide to Discussing Homosexuality with Teens (Kregel Publications, 2016). Follow him on Twitter: @TomGilsonAuthor.