Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but most likely no.
When I was a youth minister, I was haunted by the statistic that showed that 80% of children who grew up in the church, who were active in youth ministry, whose parents were Christian, who went on youth trips and mission trips and were baptized and the whole nine yards abandoned the church within six months of graduating high school.
So I knocked myself out trying to make sure we reached the kids in middle school and high school. I planned more and more events, did outreach to hundreds of kids, taught the Bible, took the kids on mission trips to let them experience their faith, and literally did everything in my power to DEFEAT that statistic. I even told my youth volunteers that the mark of success in our ministry was, "if these kids are still part of the church when they are eighty years old."
I failed.
I don't have hard data, but just an estimation is that the ministries I was in charge of had the same retention rate as everyone else. There are now quite a few kids, who are now adults, who are not only NOT part of the church but are militant atheists, mocking and scoffing at all things Christian. Many times, these were leaders- some of the most dedicated kids I ever saw.
Do I still believe in youth ministry? Yes. But I have learned one painful thing- it is incomplete. Woefully incomplete.
Converts may leave the faith. Church members may leave the faith. Baptized believers may leave the faith. Disciples, however, don't.
Disciples don't leave the faith. They don't leave the church. And this is what has been causing the 80% statistic- we have failed to make disciples out of our children and teenagers. But who, pray tell, is responsible for discipleship? Whose job is it to make disciples out of our children and teens?
Parents.
Christian parents, to be exact.
When Jesus gave the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20, He told all His disciples to "go into the world and make disciples." That is our job. That is our one task. It isn't to win the world. It isn't to be successful and rich. It isn't to have a large crowd. It is simply to make disciples.
Parents, listen- your first disciples are your children.
I am asking you, literally begging you, to wake up. I am tired of listening to heartbroken parents whose children have come home and said, "I'm not going to church anymore." I'm tired of beating my head against the wall trying to design ministries, sermons, trips, etc that will somehow make lifelong disciples out of your children. Guess what? I can't. No pastor can. God has given this task to YOU- and to me as a parent- to disciple our children.
Children's ministries and youth ministries are good things. In fact, they can be excellent things. But they are not enough to reach your child. Only you can do this. This is a task given to you and you alone.
Right now I am teaching my oldest daughter how to drive. It has been a scary experience, to say the least. Putting a teenager in charge of a 2000-pound vehicle going seventy miles an hour is enough to make even the toughest parent a little queasy. However, it is my job to teach her as well as I can so that she will be prepared to drive by herself one of these days. The job of the parent is to ride in the car with the teenager, letting her practice, giving her real-time feedback about what to do and how to drive.
However, every parent knows this is a temporary situation. The permit phase of driving has a time limit, and no parent is expecting to still be riding shotgun with his daughter twenty years from now. No, the purpose is to train them up and let them go out on their own. This is what discipleship is. It is walking with your child through life's decisions, training them in godliness and faith, with the understanding that they will be leaving the house and walking in faith on their own.
How many parents really do this when it comes to their Christian faith? Sadly, not many.
So parents, I want you to close your eyes and fast forward to the time when your child is graduating high school. He will be going off to college soon. He will have freedoms he has never had before. Have you adequately prepared him, from a faith perspective, to continue in his faith when he is no longer around you? Does he know how to walk with Jesus, to serve, to grow in faith, without you? Is he prepared to handle pressures of adult life, making decisions that honor God and will keep him firmly rooted in the faith he grew up in?
Now, parents, I want you to imagine that he comes home from school for Christmas break. Sunday morning rolls around and you are preparing to head to church. He is still in bed. You go wake him up to go to church as a family like you normally do. Through still-closed eyes, he mumbles, "I'm not going."
"But we go to church as a family," you say.
"Church was fine when I was a kid, mom," he says, "but I'm just not interested anymore. I'm not going."
You stand there shocked.
How do I know this?
This was a conversation I overheard in my home when my brother came home from Emory his sophomore year. I remember how upset my parents were. I remember being pretty mad at him. I remember my parents questioning their parenting, pleading with him over the next several years to come back to faith. By the grace of God, he's back, but only after life knocked him around and about destroyed him.
I don't say that to criticize my family. God has been gracious to us over the years. What I am saying is I pray that never happens to any of you reading this blog. However, unless something changes, about 80% of you WILL have that conversation with your children when they graduate high school.
Parents, disciple your children. If you don't, it's pretty much a guarantee that at some very soon date, they will abandon their faith. Their eternity will be in question. They will make decisions based on Hollywood's and the media's influence, not the Bible's. They will become no different than those around them- they will have the same values, the same goals, the same lifestyles, the same everything as any other non-Christian around them.
Nothing concerns me more as a parent.
God has given you a task. You are to make disciples. Your first disciples are your children. It is YOUR responsibility to bring up children in the faith. Church on Sunday isn't enough. Youth group and CIY trips aren't enough. Teach them the Bible. Lead by example. Discuss world events through a Christian lens. Believe me- they are listening. Constantly ask them, when it is time for a decision, what a Christian would do. Teach them to pray over big decisions- who to date, where to go to school, what sports to play, what friends to choose. Do all of those things through the lens of discipleship.
I'm tired of seeing undiscipled young people grow up and leave the church. I'm tired of comforting distraught Christian parents who are mourning their child's exodus from the faith. I'm tired of having to pray, again and again, for someone's grown child who "grew up in the church and should know better" as they abandon their faith and move in with a boyfriend or girlfriend before marriage. I'm tired of always dealing with the symptoms of a lack of discipleship in the home.
Let's take on the root- let's move our homes into ones where our main job is discipleship. Our main job as parents is to pass on a living, vibrant faith to our children. If that isn't happening, we are missing our main priority. After all, in 150 years, your children's faith, or lack of faith, is all that is going to matter.
When I was a youth minister, I was haunted by the statistic that showed that 80% of children who grew up in the church, who were active in youth ministry, whose parents were Christian, who went on youth trips and mission trips and were baptized and the whole nine yards abandoned the church within six months of graduating high school.
So I knocked myself out trying to make sure we reached the kids in middle school and high school. I planned more and more events, did outreach to hundreds of kids, taught the Bible, took the kids on mission trips to let them experience their faith, and literally did everything in my power to DEFEAT that statistic. I even told my youth volunteers that the mark of success in our ministry was, "if these kids are still part of the church when they are eighty years old."
I failed.
I don't have hard data, but just an estimation is that the ministries I was in charge of had the same retention rate as everyone else. There are now quite a few kids, who are now adults, who are not only NOT part of the church but are militant atheists, mocking and scoffing at all things Christian. Many times, these were leaders- some of the most dedicated kids I ever saw.
Do I still believe in youth ministry? Yes. But I have learned one painful thing- it is incomplete. Woefully incomplete.
Converts may leave the faith. Church members may leave the faith. Baptized believers may leave the faith. Disciples, however, don't.
Disciples don't leave the faith. They don't leave the church. And this is what has been causing the 80% statistic- we have failed to make disciples out of our children and teenagers. But who, pray tell, is responsible for discipleship? Whose job is it to make disciples out of our children and teens?
Parents.
Christian parents, to be exact.
When Jesus gave the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20, He told all His disciples to "go into the world and make disciples." That is our job. That is our one task. It isn't to win the world. It isn't to be successful and rich. It isn't to have a large crowd. It is simply to make disciples.
Parents, listen- your first disciples are your children.
I am asking you, literally begging you, to wake up. I am tired of listening to heartbroken parents whose children have come home and said, "I'm not going to church anymore." I'm tired of beating my head against the wall trying to design ministries, sermons, trips, etc that will somehow make lifelong disciples out of your children. Guess what? I can't. No pastor can. God has given this task to YOU- and to me as a parent- to disciple our children.
Children's ministries and youth ministries are good things. In fact, they can be excellent things. But they are not enough to reach your child. Only you can do this. This is a task given to you and you alone.
Right now I am teaching my oldest daughter how to drive. It has been a scary experience, to say the least. Putting a teenager in charge of a 2000-pound vehicle going seventy miles an hour is enough to make even the toughest parent a little queasy. However, it is my job to teach her as well as I can so that she will be prepared to drive by herself one of these days. The job of the parent is to ride in the car with the teenager, letting her practice, giving her real-time feedback about what to do and how to drive.
However, every parent knows this is a temporary situation. The permit phase of driving has a time limit, and no parent is expecting to still be riding shotgun with his daughter twenty years from now. No, the purpose is to train them up and let them go out on their own. This is what discipleship is. It is walking with your child through life's decisions, training them in godliness and faith, with the understanding that they will be leaving the house and walking in faith on their own.
How many parents really do this when it comes to their Christian faith? Sadly, not many.
So parents, I want you to close your eyes and fast forward to the time when your child is graduating high school. He will be going off to college soon. He will have freedoms he has never had before. Have you adequately prepared him, from a faith perspective, to continue in his faith when he is no longer around you? Does he know how to walk with Jesus, to serve, to grow in faith, without you? Is he prepared to handle pressures of adult life, making decisions that honor God and will keep him firmly rooted in the faith he grew up in?
Now, parents, I want you to imagine that he comes home from school for Christmas break. Sunday morning rolls around and you are preparing to head to church. He is still in bed. You go wake him up to go to church as a family like you normally do. Through still-closed eyes, he mumbles, "I'm not going."
"But we go to church as a family," you say.
"Church was fine when I was a kid, mom," he says, "but I'm just not interested anymore. I'm not going."
You stand there shocked.
How do I know this?
This was a conversation I overheard in my home when my brother came home from Emory his sophomore year. I remember how upset my parents were. I remember being pretty mad at him. I remember my parents questioning their parenting, pleading with him over the next several years to come back to faith. By the grace of God, he's back, but only after life knocked him around and about destroyed him.
I don't say that to criticize my family. God has been gracious to us over the years. What I am saying is I pray that never happens to any of you reading this blog. However, unless something changes, about 80% of you WILL have that conversation with your children when they graduate high school.
Parents, disciple your children. If you don't, it's pretty much a guarantee that at some very soon date, they will abandon their faith. Their eternity will be in question. They will make decisions based on Hollywood's and the media's influence, not the Bible's. They will become no different than those around them- they will have the same values, the same goals, the same lifestyles, the same everything as any other non-Christian around them.
Nothing concerns me more as a parent.
God has given you a task. You are to make disciples. Your first disciples are your children. It is YOUR responsibility to bring up children in the faith. Church on Sunday isn't enough. Youth group and CIY trips aren't enough. Teach them the Bible. Lead by example. Discuss world events through a Christian lens. Believe me- they are listening. Constantly ask them, when it is time for a decision, what a Christian would do. Teach them to pray over big decisions- who to date, where to go to school, what sports to play, what friends to choose. Do all of those things through the lens of discipleship.
I'm tired of seeing undiscipled young people grow up and leave the church. I'm tired of comforting distraught Christian parents who are mourning their child's exodus from the faith. I'm tired of having to pray, again and again, for someone's grown child who "grew up in the church and should know better" as they abandon their faith and move in with a boyfriend or girlfriend before marriage. I'm tired of always dealing with the symptoms of a lack of discipleship in the home.
Let's take on the root- let's move our homes into ones where our main job is discipleship. Our main job as parents is to pass on a living, vibrant faith to our children. If that isn't happening, we are missing our main priority. After all, in 150 years, your children's faith, or lack of faith, is all that is going to matter.
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