Want to help your kids hold onto their faith through college and beyond? Introduce them to your friends.
It’s no secret that a tragically high number of teens (young adults) abandon the faith after growing up in the church. In her recent book, Sticky Faith, Dr. Kara Powell offers some insights as to why, and – more helpfully – an idea about how to address it.
According to Powell, the most important factor in determining whether young people in the church maintain their faith into adulthood is “the number and strength of relationships that they have with Christian adults.” Are children and teens regularly worshipping and building relationships with adults in the church? Powell suggests that parents surround their children with five adults who are “on their team” – they know their name, pray for them regularly and show up at their sporting events, music recitals, etc.
Powell also pointed out that parents themselves play a crucial role in the spiritual development of their children. While the church is there to help and support the parents, it is in the context of the family that lasting spiritual maturity is developed. It is not enough to merely drop the kids off at youth group once a week and expect the youth ministry to do the rest of the work.
One of the best ways for parents to remain influential in the lives and faith of their children is by keeping open lines of communication. Many parents have found that the best conversations take place in the car – when their kids have nothing else to do but sit and talk. When teens get their driver’s license, frequent communication becomes more challenging – and the parents who stay connected with their children are those who are willing to fight hard to maintain that connection.
And while an addiction to technology may be a factor in the breakdown of relationships between parents and their teens, the fault does not lie only on the young people. Teenagers typically use social media to say connected with their closest friends. Adults, however, often use the same technology to interact with people with whom they are not very close – either relationally or geographically – and end up ignoring their families and closest friends. We would do well to learn something from our children in this area.
So how do we keep our children from abandoning their faith in their teen years and beyond? We stay connected with them and keep them connected with other adults in the church. The task is not always easy, but the payoff is worth the effort.