Why are our children leaving the Church? (Part 2)

Last month, I suggested some possible reasons why Biblical faith is not being consistently passed on from generation to generation in Western nations. This month, I want to come at the issue from a more positive angle, looking at what we can do to pass the faith on to them.

I have to admit to writing this with a sense of fear and trembling. My children are all still pretty young, so I am not for one moment claiming any great experience or wisdom. Yet it seems to me that there are a few general things that I ought to be doing in order to pass on the faith to my children so that they might walk in it all the days of their lives. I hope that these things might be of help to you, too.

It goes without saying that we ought to be praying for our children, praying with our children, and teaching them regularly from the Bible. Some of these issues were dealt with in the two Family Worship articles I wrote last year. But what else is important? This is a vast subject, but here are just a few of the things which seem to me to be most crucial:

We need our Christianity and our homes to be joyful

You may well be familiar with the description of Laura Ingalls’ grandfather’s Sabbath day in Little House in the Big Woods, when laughing, joking, and even smiling was banned. We are probably pretty far removed from that type of thing these days, yet we Christians can still sometimes do a remarkable job of portraying Christianity as a largely joyless religion which frowns heavily on anything that might look like anybody was having a good time.

Yet the Gospel is described in Isaiah as something inspiring celebration, not sadness: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined” (Isaiah 25:6). Rightly understood, the Gospel is joy, laughter, and liberty, not mealy mouthed, grudging legalism. It ought to look like life and health in our homes, and so it should be the aim of every Christian parent to make the very idea of continuing in the faith a no-brainer in our children’s minds—by which I mean that they should so come to love the atmosphere and fragrance of joy and hope that resonates through the home and their lives, that the thought of exchanging those blessings for the cheap thrills of Vanity Fair leaves them frigid.

We must give our children a sense of purpose for their gifts

I have come across instances where children who have a particular aptitude for what is a perfectly lawful pursuit have been discouraged by their parents from pursuing it because it was not considered “spiritual”—by which they meant it was not a “church activity” or evangelism. At the other end of the spectrum, I have come across instances where children who have an aptitude or gift have been encouraged in it, but they have not had the gift set within a Christian worldview and so have come to see it as something outside of their Christian life. In both instances, it often winds up with a teenager going out into the world and finding out that where Christianity apparently looked down on their God-given gifts or just wasn’t interested in them, the world does in fact recognize their gifts and talents. And so the world gets the kudos in their eyes.

Both attitudes fail to recognize that all lawful gifts and talents are given to us by God and are therefore part of His sovereign purposes. Sure, lawful gifts can be abused and overused. But it is our job as parents to spot the gifts and talents that our children have, nurture them, and channel them in the right direction, teaching them how to use their gifts to glorify God. Failure to do so can leave children quite bitter, and may very well be one of the many ways we can provoke our children to anger (Ephesians 6:4).

We really need to talk with our children

This might seem like a statement of the obvious, but it is surprising how many Christian parents really don’t do this. While we need to be careful not to become too buddy-buddy so they end up losing respect for us and the authority God has given us, and while we need to be careful to speak to them in a manner fitting for their age, nonetheless we should seek to be friends with our children so that they feel free to come and talk to us about anything.

If they are having doubts about something in the Bible—talk to them about it. If they are having problems with understanding why your family does certain things—talk to them about it. If they are acting in odd ways which cause concern —talk to them. Whatever it is, we should be prepared to talk to our children, listen to our children, and to show ourselves as best friends to them. If they can’t come and talk to us about what is bothering them, rest assured they will go and talk to somebody else.

We need to encourage our children and give them assurance

This comes back to the point made in the first piece about the subjective Gospel. If the Gospel is presented subjectively, our children will react subjectively to it. Where this happens, children often spend years morbidly and introspectively examining themselves, wondering whether they are Christians or why they don’t seem to have a certain type of “experience.”

Part of our job is to get them to look objectively to Christ, not to themselves. Assurance does not come from looking at our hearts, but rather simple faith that this is true: “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Romans 8:34). So, encourage them to believe in Christ; encourage them to repent and seek forgiveness when they sin; and encourage them in the progress they are making as disciples of Christ. In short, don’t lead them into Doubting Castle, where they are led to question themselves, but rather lead them to the Delectable Mountain where they are fed and nourished and grow up in the faith.

Give yourselves to your children

This perhaps encapsulates everything I have tried to say above, plus a whole lot more. It can be really easy to go through days, weeks, and even months without realizing that you have been so wrapped up in your “adult stuff” that you have hardly even noticed these little ones around you. And then you suddenly realize that they have been seeking your attention all that time, but you have been too busy or too selfish to give them the time of day.

The remedy to this is repentance and then resolution to give yourselves to your children. So go play with them. Get down to their level. Cuddle them. Assure them of your love. Treat them as real people with feelings and hopes. Be interested in them. Seek their forgiveness when you fail them or when you lose your temper with them. In short, give yourselves to them and repent when you fail.

I fully believe that sincere attempts to give ourselves to our children, along with true repentance when we fail, will be blessed by God, and will once more see the faith being passed from generation to generation.

When the Apostle Paul exhorts fathers to bring their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, he is of course not suggesting that parents are the bestowers of grace upon their children, but neither is he asking us to do something that is irrelevant, because ultimately the question of whether we have faithful children is entirely down to God’s sovereignty. Rather, he is acknowledging that fathers are instruments of grace to their children. In other words, yes it is the grace and the sovereignty of God, but He uses you—the parent—as an instrument in bringing His sovereign and gracious purposes to bear.

Rob Slane lives with his wife and five home-educated children in Salisbury, England. He is the author of The God Reality: A Critique of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, contributes to the Canadian magazine Reformed Perspective, and blogs on cultural issues from a Biblical perspective at www.theblogmire.com.