What has happened to our youth: The Way Ahead

In a recent article on American ignorance of Christianity, Janice Shaw Crouse gave this troubling assessment:

"The Pew Forum on Religious Life reports that a third of American adults under the age of 30 have no religious affiliation whatsoever — less religious involvement than either their parents or their grandparents. That shouldn’t surprise anyone because Sunday Schools — one of the major means of Biblical instruction in the past — have been declining since the 1980s. With religious instruction also prohibited in public schools, where would people learn the Bible stories, Biblical history, and Biblical doctrine?"

You know what is most troubling about this assessment? Not the one-third of youth who have no religious affiliation, nor the decline of Sunday Schools (though that does concern me), nor the prohibition of religion in public schools. Rather, it is the assumption in that final question about who will provide religious instruction to our youth: Others. Not the children's own parents. Others.

The Church is charged with the nurture of our children as well as parents, but it starts in the home.

To this point, we have explored what most youth are coming to believe ("moralistic therapeutic deism") and several of the reasons why that may be the case. Recognizing that salvation belongs to the Lord, what are some ways in which we can inculcate our children with the truth, in God's grace?

1) Treat our children as sophisticated, responsible moral agents. Children, as fallen image-bearers of God, have both an inherent dignity and capacity to learn as well as an inborn sinful nature. They must give their own account to God, and their ability to learn that fact as well as many others can begin early. This principle gives rise to many of the practices below.

2) Restore the catechism to its rightful place. Children may stray from the truth, but they shouldn't be able to misrepresent the truth. The former is rebellion problem and reflects more on the children; the latter is an ignorance problem and reflects more on the parents. A child can decide that happiness is his or her purpose in life, but if he/she knows the first question and answer of the Shorter Catechism, he/she will not claim that such a belief is a Christian belief.

The sad truth, as noted by the writer above, is that Sunday School is on the decline in many churches. And this isn't even the worst of it--most Sunday School classes teach children little about Jesus and the core truths of Scripture anyway. Our responsibility as parents is to see that our children are catechized regardless. We can start them on the Children's Catechism, and move on to the Westminster Shorter when they're a bit older.

We can also prod our churches in the right direction. Your elders are not only charged with feeding the flock with preaching, but with teaching (Matt. 28:10-20). Our youth belong to Christ and the elders will be held to account for their shepherding of our youth as well as their parents. If your church lacks catechetical teaching for the youth, encourage them and actively support their efforts to implement such a program.

3) Maintain regular family devotions. I must again confess that I need to master this concept, by God's grace. At bare minimum, this should involve some Scripture reading and prayer with your children each day. And fathers must spearhead this effort. They have greater responsibility as head of the household. Most people I have read or have talked with recommend either mealtimes or bedtime (or both). We will also include the singing of hymns, and based on some recent reading I have done, I would like to incorporate daily Psalms. There is a great deal of freedom in this practice. Tailor it to your family's unique needs, centering it on Word and prayer.

4) Guard the Lord's Day. More than ever, I am convicted concerning how I arrange my priorities. Children not only notice what you say and what you do, but they notice how much you say and do some things, relative to other things. If my son sees me working on my laptop more than he sees me paying attention to him, he will learn that my laptop is more important than him and that he must get between me and the laptop in order to get my love.

In the same way, when we treat the Lord's Day as the Lord's hour, we are communicating to our children the practical point that we neither God nor our weary souls should have the entire day that God has appointed for His worship and our rest and growth. We should pray with our children before Church, ask them questions about the Sunday School class and sermon over lunch, and bring them back for evening worship. In the DC area especially, nothing says "the Lord is my priority" like giving Him our entire day of rest.

5) Work closely with your Church in nurturing your children. It's a tag team effort. Parents and elders both bear a responsibility before the Lord for Christ's little ones. Make sure to track what your children are being taught at Church and make sure to let the elders know how your children are doing. As a practical point, be willing to open your home to the pastors and elders for shepherding visits, and ask them to do so if they are not already.

6) Add the "adversity funnel" to your "freedom funnel" as paradigms for raising children. A wise man once explained to me the concept of a freedom funnel for raising children: You start out with a strict system of rules, and as your children mature, you gradually expand their freedom and responsibility. If the funnel is reversed, going from lax to strict, major clashes will ensue.

In the same way, our children must be exposed to funneled adversity. When they are very little, this might mean just letting play with other toddlers in the Sunday School class or at the playground. As they get a bit older, maybe they can start serving in the community with their parents and wrestle with harder realities (like death). Eventually (preferably before college), we want our children engaging with a wide swath of the local community, whether at school, work, recreational league programs, etc.

As mentioned in the first point, they are responsible moral agents who are accountable to God. We must strive to impress upon them this reality and teach them as best we can to exercise that responsibility on their own. The more they own their faith before others, the safer they will be from a future crisis of conscience that comes when a child has simply ridden upon his/her parents coattails.

7) Model love, repentance, and grace. It is very easy to become legalistic and formulaic in parenting. Part of what makes it so scary is that there is no formula, nor inevitable results. With this in mind, children need to see their parents model unconditional love, repentance, and grace. Rules must be made clear, violations swiftly punished, obedience swiftly praised, and the punished child swiftly reminded that he/she is unconditionally loved.

If your child watches you sin, be quick to repent. It may be humbling to repent to a two year old, but such humiliation points to the Savior who became obedient to death upon a cross for the sake of His people. And we should ground our love, repentance, and grace in the Gospel, working to turn everyday situations into opportunities to further instruct our children in the beauty of the Gospel.