I recently read an article by Jim Daly in which he gave 10 reasons kids leave the church. My pastor's mind was spurred into thinking about this subject as I reviewed my time as a pastor and asked what common practices distinguished families that had children leave the church and families that had children raise the next generation in church.
Here is my list:
1. The church tried to entertain rather than disciple. We wouldn't admit it mind you. We would rather say we were relevant or engaging or evangelistic. The truth is, we were so desperate that they would enjoy church, that we turned it into a show. When they ceased to be amused by our trite antics they searched for the genuine outside the bounds of their Creator's character.
2. We didn't teach them anything. They do not know what righteousness, atonement, justification, sanctification, or any of a number of other Biblical words or concepts mean. We bought them fancy Bibles with colorful covers and interesting pictures, but never took them by the hand and dived in. We confused discipleship with entertainment. When the atheists came around with their worldly philosophies, our children were unarmed and unprepared.
3. We turned them against our elders. We created a spirit of generational conflict in our church. We sided with our children when our parents warned that things were not going in a good direction. We ignored wisdom from our elders and listened to the "wisdom" of youth. (Didn't Rehoboam do that too?) We convinced our children that their enemy was the elderly of the church rather than "the spirit of the age."
4. We made them consumers rather than contributors. We treated them like royalty and they grew up to believe the church was suppose to serve them rather than them serving the church. If they whine about something we "fix" it. If they complain about something, we change it. We expected the church to be formed around their need to be amused and entertained. They became dead weight; then they cut themselves loose.
5. We did not distinguish between the holy and the common. We were content when they didn't embarrass us in public, get arrested, or cuss at church. We told them all the things they were not suppose to do (although we never told them 'why'). But we never told them the things they really should be doing. We never showed them the difference between common lifestyle and holy living. They never desired to live a holy life, because we were content that they didn't live an outright wicked one.
6. We focused more on them than Christ. Our children became idols. Some of us tried to live our lives vicariously through our children. All of the perceived injustices of our childhood we would correct through our kids; all our dreams would be fulfilled through our kids. Instead of seeing us bow before the King of Kings they saw us trying to live out the "American dream."
7. We criticized and complained in front of them. Every Sunday afternoon we critiqued the pastor's sermon. We aired all of our frustrations with our brothers and sisters in the church. Following each committee meeting we blasted those with different opinions. We highlighted the problems of the church regularly. And we did all this within ear shot of those who were inflicted with more damage than we ever realized.
8. Church was just on the to-do list. It was a Sunday only event. It never permeated our lives. The rubber never met the road. We never connected the necessity of a church family with our biological family and our relationship with God. It was just something we did when convenient. There was no joy in it, no fun, no expectation, just dead, dry ritual.
9. We nurtured (probably unintentionally) a love of the world. By our actions we showed sports, good grades, and entertainment were more important than honoring and living for Christ. Sacrificial living was ignored for comfortable living. Our children became more at ease in the world than among the people of God. Church attendance, family altar & prayer time, and spiritually nurturing disciplines were always second to the demanding schedule of a sports, entertainment, and other activities.
10. We never really had anything to pass on to begin with. I know, this one stings maybe more than any of the others. We have played the hypocrite too long. We never really loved Jesus ourselves in any meaningful way. We passed on ashes instead of a fire upon the altar. Our children didn't know what to do with ashes so they threw them out.
Karen Burton Mains: "Do you rush, push, shout and become generally unpleasant on Sunday mornings? Do you complain about church? Are you irregular in your attendance? Are you over-conscientious about matters that are not really important? Do you always criticize the pastor, the choir, the length of services and the usher crew? Then don't be surprised if your children grow up to look at Sundays as the worst day of the week."
Anything you might add?
Check out these other articles:
Sad, but mostly true - in my pastoral experience. I had a family in our church with two young boys. They were in Little League (with Sunday games), summer soccer league (with Sunday games), and more. Sports were much more important than church. They would either leave church early or not come on the Sundays they had games - teaching their boys that church, and thereby God, was not really all that important.
ReplyDeleteIn doing research on child abuse at Colorado State, I came across an article on the different kinds of abuses and which were worse. I was shocked to find that the very worse abuse on a child was what I call hypocrisy abuse, which is when the parents don't show consistency between what they say and how they live. That really tears a watching child up.
ReplyDelete