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| (Monroe county) |
This is a reality check.
If you are a Christian parent but don't have time to gather with other Jesus-followers (which means: "church"), don't expect your children to be Jesus-followers. They will grow up to be like non-attenders or sporadic attenders like you.
"Non-churchgoing follower of Jesus" is a self-contradiction. This is because Jesus came to establish "church" and work through this community of his followers. The person who says, "I'm a follower of Jesus but don't go to church" is misguided. Every real Jesus-follower is the church. "Church," therefore, is not something you either go to or not.
If you are a Christian parent and follow Jesus (which means you know you are "church" and gather with Jesus' church), then the odds are your children will do the same. This is the conclusion of Notre Dame University's Christian Smith. "Parents are the #1 influence helping teens remain religiously active as adults."
Smith writes:
"The holy grail for helping youth remain religiously active as young adults has been at home all along: Parents.
Mothers and fathers who practice what they preach and preach what they practice are far and away the major influence related to adolescents keeping the faith into their 20s, according to new findings from a landmark study of youth and religion.
Just 1 percent of teens ages 15 to 17 raised by parents who attached little importance to religion were highly religious in their mid- to late 20s.
In contrast, 82 percent of children raised by parents who talked about faith at home, attached great importance to their beliefs and were active in their congregations were themselves religiously active as young adults, according to data from the latest wave of the National Study of Youth and Religion.
The connection is “nearly deterministic,” said University of Notre Dame Sociologist Christian Smith, lead researcher for the study.
Other factors such as youth ministry or clergy or service projects or religious schools pale in comparison.
“No other conceivable causal influence … comes remotely close to matching the influence of parents on the religious faith and practices of youth,” Smith said in a recent talk sharing the findings at Yale Divinity School. “Parents just dominate.”"
Smith adds: "One of the strongest factors associated with older teens keeping their faith as young adults was having parents who talked about religion and spirituality at home."
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My three books are:
Leading the Presence-Driven Church
Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God
Encounters with the Holy Spirit (Co-edited with Janice Trigg)
Smith adds: "One of the strongest factors associated with older teens keeping their faith as young adults was having parents who talked about religion and spirituality at home."
***
My three books are:
Leading the Presence-Driven Church
Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God
Encounters with the Holy Spirit (Co-edited with Janice Trigg)
