Raising children of faith - A word of warning and hope

I’ve been thinking lately about how to raise Christian children. Recently, an influential sociologist of religion named Christian Smith released a new body of research examining how religious parents pass on their religion to their children. He didn’t just study Christians, but also interviewed and surveyed Catholics, East Asian Buddhists, South Asian Muslims, and Hindus. And across his wide-ranging research, he identified a few key factors that strongly contribute to the success of raising children with faith. 

Isn’t that something that we all deeply desire as parents? Don’t we all want our children to grow up with genuine faith? Don’t we want them to own their beliefs? To truly know Jesus, to love God, to have a real relationship with God? And don’t we want them to go to church, not because they are forced to, but because they truly belong to the Christian community? 

This is my deepest desire for my kids, and from the bottom of my heart it is also a great fear as well, that they would grow out of the faith when they become teens. I’ve been a part of many different churches, and it might surprise you to know how many pastors end up with faithless children. 

The latest research about raising religious children gives us insight on what works best, and I’ll give you the magic secret here right now. Are you ready? The secret to raising religious children is…

…for their parents to be genuinely religious. 

And that’s pretty much it. Yes, of course I am greatly simplifying it, otherwise there wouldn’t be a new book released on the subject and reams of research (read a summary here), but honestly all that scientific investigating has just confirmed what common sense tells us and what the Scriptures say. Common sense tells us that children are great at noticing disingenuity and they can sense hypocrisy or lack of authenticity in their parents. Nothing turns a kid off to faith quicker than a father or mother who acts one way in church but a different way at home. Nothing creates a loose, lukewarm commitment to God within a child than observing the same lukewarm commitment in their parents. Nothing repels a child from genuine spiritual practice faster than family life which is deeply religious on Sundays and profoundly secular from Monday to Saturday. 

This scares me. Because my children see the worst of me. Of course Dan is always kind and godly at church; he works there! But at home, when my guard is down, I am snappy, impatient, lazy, slow to pray, and quick to prioritize other things in life over worship of God. And I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one who feels this way.

But even despite the harsh warning, there is profound hope for us here. Because the flip side is that if I genuinely love God and seek to grow as a disciple of Jesus in my life, my children will pick that up and naturally learn to imitate me! There is no complex twelve-step method or high-falutin multi-level discipleship strategy to worry about. The simplicity is the beauty.

To add to the hope, it also means that I don’t have to be perfect. The beautiful thing about the Christian faith is that being religious doesn’t mean that I am always good. Moral failure is built into our belief system. A Christian expects to fall short of God's standards over and over again, and part of sincere religiosity in the Christian faith is humility and repentance and trust.

To put it in simple terms, failing and asking for forgiveness IS genuine faith practice in the Christian life. When I lose patience with my kids and yell at them or ignore their tantruming to continue watching the Sunday night football, I am not being Christlike at all. But later that day, when I realize what I've done and I repent and ask their forgiveness and lead them to pray together, THAT is the kind of genuine spirituality that deeply imprints the knowledge of God into their hearts and souls.

When I practice repentance and faith as a forgiven sinner, I teach my kids to do the same. At once I buckle at the fearsome responsibility and I rejoice at the awesome privilege. And I take heart that I do not have to worry about two tasks: Growing as a disciple and discipling my children. They are one and the same.