"Kids will likely abandon a faith found at church if they don't inherit a faith found at home."
Recently on Facebook I posted the above quote I had written for an upcoming sermon and one of the comments I got said "
I'd love to see your research on that. At first glance, I'm not sure if that's entirely true." Well, I'm definite don't ever want to be someone who throws out provocative statements like that without backing them up, so here's my response:
Entirely true... I'd agree, no, thanks to the powerful grace of God anyone can find faith despite any failures in their upbringing. But like so many things in today's culture, the biggest problem is that our kids' spiritual formation tends to be outsourced to "the professionals" in the church, which I believe by itself is ineffective and not God's design.
In a recent survey I took of the teens in my youth ministry, 73% of them said that spiritual matters were not a regular topic of discussion in their home, even though 50% of them have families that are faithfully apart of a church. Most of my research concerning kids who've grown up in church, but then abandoned their faith have names and I know their stories personally. I've seen it more than I'd like to admit. Kids dropped off at church that seem to be catching on to the truth of God, but aren't hearing that same message at home and when they "graduate" out of my ministry they fade away. Or on the other hand, kids who we're faithfully brought to church every Sunday and Wednesday by their parents, who we're Christians, but when they reach college and adulthood, they drop out and they're parents are left wondering what went wrong. They went to the best churches with the most exciting kids ministries, dynamic youth pastors, winter retreats, professional sounding worship bands, you name it, they had it. But in the end, they abandoned church and ultimately their faith.
But by way of numbers, an American Research Group survey conducted in 2009 found that 95 percent of twenty- to twenty-nine-year-old evangelicals attended church regularly during their elementary and middle school years, but by the the time they reached college, only 11 percent we're still attending church.
Part of the reason I attribute some of this decline to the matter of faith at home is based on what I've seen and experienced of these numbers showing themselves to be true in the lives of people I've known. It's also based on what Reggie Joiner calls the 3000/40 Principle that highlights the fact that on average a church only has 40 hours in a given year to influence a child's life, while the average parent has 3000 hours a year to influence their child's life. That's taking in calculations for holidays, sick days, custody issues, vacations, and other factors. So the same fourth grader that might spend 400 hours a year playing video games and studying math, will only spend 40 hours a year in our kid's church environment. It's sobering to youth pastors like me, but my reach and influence into a child's life is very limited compared to parents.
It's also based on what I've noticed of the lack of God's design for discipling children set out in Deuteronomy 6 and 11 being put into practice. Here, Moses was introducing the law and commandments of God to the Israelites before they took possession of the Promised Land. He lists the ten commandments, the greatest commandment, and more. Then, he says "And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."
So, Moses the leader of God's people at that time stood up said "bring your kids to the temple every week so the priests can instill God's truths in you children." No, wait. That wasn't quite how it went. Instead, he put the responsibility on squarely on the parents to talk about their faith to their children "diligently", "when you sit at your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." Moses seemed to have a handle on the 3000/40 Prinicple that we mentioned earlier and realized that if their faith that had been sheltered in the wilderness was to stay alive in the next generation as they entered into the "real world" of the Promised Land, it was the parents who were going to have to take an active role in passing it down.
Deut. 11 gives almost the exact instructions word for word, but also mentions something important that comes to bear on this issue. He says to the parents "Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God... But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the LORD has done" (vs. 2,7). What Moses is saying is that those children's best chance to catch the faith and make it their own was to learn it from parents who had experienced God for themselves and could testify to His majesty. But weren't the temple activities going to continue? Yes, and by God's command, even if they didn't talk about their faith at home, they would have to come the temple regularly to offer sacrifices. But if they wanted their children to
inherit their faith, it was going to come most effectively by following God's instructions to parents than by witnessing the temple activities.
I believe the same is true today in the church. Although, our commission is to "make disciples of all nations", including children, God's design is still for parents to be the primary spiritual leader in their kids life. Not the youth pastor. Not the Sunday School teacher. Or the children's pastor. Although their roles are still important.
So, to summarize why I believe that "kids will likely abandon a faith found at church if they don't inherit a faith found at home", here's the driving ideas behind it:
- The fact that more and more we see church-going children and teens abandon their faith when they reach adulthood.
- The fact that by many more factors than just the time element in the 3000/40 principle, no one has more potential to influence a child's relationship with God than parents.
- Also, that no one has more potential to monitor a child's relationship with God than parents.
- God's design in Deut. 6 and 11 (and many other places in the Bible) for children to be primary discipled by their parent's rather than "the professionals" at church.
- The reality that kids will learn more and internalize more from a lesson given by a parent that backs up their faith by the way they daily live alongside their children, than they'll learn from an hour lesson on Sunday from someone they may not ever see during the week and may never really get to know.
I hope this sheds some light on why I made that statement. My passion is to see the next generation discover and embrace a growing relationship with God and I believe parents are the key to making it happen most effectively. Sorry this is so long, I am a pastor so I tend to get long-winded, especially when it's something I'm passionate about.
In Christ,
Ryan Fillinger
Fusion Church
Fountain, CO
2. It Starts At Home - Written by Kurt Bruner and Steve Stroope, the pastors of Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall, Texas, this book emphasizes that "faith must be nourished in the rich soil of a God-honoring family. The church's role is to provide the water. But lifelong faith requires deep, abiding roots." As they share the strategies they see as essential to be intentional about developing a lifelong faith in your children, they also include several practical ideas and activities that you can put into action immediately to start being intentional. As a new parent, I've found this book very formative to how I plan on passing my faith my own children.
