Godly Parents or World-like Churches

A recent post on Boundlessline caught my attention. Steve Watters references Dr. Christian Smith in an article in Books and Culture on the widening gap between teens leaving churches and returning when they start having children.

As I read some of Dr. Smith's article I sensed that the prevailing sense is that such a "leaving" is the normal thing to happen, due to several social forces on youth. I do not doubt that these forces may be there. However, I wonder if this is more the result of parents not cultivating the strength in their youth to deal with the forces than the church dealing with its own relevance to these young adults. I do not dispute that churches, in dealing with our culture, must be aware of the forces being brought to bear on the people. But this is true for adults and youth.

In my experience, the more significant force in the life of youth and young adults, is the life-long influence of their parents. It is from Mom and Dad that the value of the fellowship of the saints, and the value of the teaching of God's Word comes. It is here that youth and therefore young adults grow to understand the value of serving God, by seeing Mom and Dad do it, and then doing it with them.

In the early church, the youth ministry was not about having fun, and parties. It was about challenging youth to godliness, and even to such deliberate action that would lead to martyrdom. And the early church flourished, in the midst of the most self-centered and hedonistic culture of its day.

I want the youth ministry here to reach young people, and help them prepare to be young adults. But it seems to me that trying to figure out how we can be relevant to their worldview is missing the point. We may have to do some of that with the young adults we have today. But, this will just continue to spiral down if parents do not seek to pass on their value of God and His church to their children.

How is this done? No room for an extensive treatment here. However, when our families only attend church when there is nothing better to do, when recreation takes the place of the Lord's church, when the attitude is that all we need to do is show up once and we've paid our God off, then we will continue to see the gap widening. And it will not merely widen on an age vector. It will continue to widen in the spirit. Soon, we will have a whole generation, raised by "Christian" parents, who do not know God, nor will they care.