Christians parents should have no greater objective in life than to lead their children to heaven. If there is a parenting priority above that it is misguided. I remember the morning our daughter was born looking at that perfect gift God gave us and my immediate prayer was that she grow up to be a faithful Christian and go to heaven. I have a lot of other hopes for her life, as any parent would, but none trump that purpose. None.
But more and more statistics are showing that our children are growing up to resent Christianity and leave it behind entirely. They either turn to the looser standards of denominations or they abandon religion altogether. And honestly, that scares me to death. There is hardly a day that passes that I don’t feel some degree of fear that despite our best efforts that Kenadie could grow up and leave it all behind. To combat that there are many things that we do to encourage her natural interest in God, church, and the Bible and teach her what is right. But at the same time we try to be conscientious to avoid some things that I believe can easily be at fault for causing children to grow up and turn their backs on Christianity.
Maybe you’re of a different mindset. Maybe you’d like your children to grow up and turn from Christianity. Here are some sure fire ways to make sure they do:
- Openly complain about every inconsequential disagreement you have about something said or done at church. If your children grow up assuming that one person’s opinion trumps the greater direction of the church they will get the idea that Christianity is all about them and their wants. When their demands are not met their self-centeredness alone will walk them out of the church forever.
- Use lunchtime every Sunday afternoon as an opportunity to gripe and nit-pick about everything you didn’t like about Bible class or the sermon that morning. Talk about how it was too long, too preachy, too controversial, or too boring. If you can convince them that the preacher or Bible class teacher is there purely for their own entertainment then they will leave out of their own dissatisfaction.
- Skip church services at the least sign of inconvenience. Have a ballgame that is scheduled when you’re supposed to be at church? Let them go play ball. On vacation? Skip church services so you can have more time to sleep in and have fun. Show them that worship and Bible class is secondary to everything else. When they are convinced of that they will come to despise the notion that they have to go to church services at all.
- Don’t encourage them to get involved in anything more than sitting in the pew. Don’t encourage them to go to youth devotionals or participate in service projects, special classes, or even fun activities. Help them keep involvement in the church at arm’s length. We don’t want them to get too heavily invested in their spiritual lives. After all, that might lead to a life long commitment.
- Push them to be among some of the most popular, sociable, and visible kids at school. Steer them toward dressing like the world and participating in worldly activities. Convince them that school dances, parties, experimentation with drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, and other things the rest of the kids are doing are perfectly normal and that they should enjoy their younger years. They have the rest of their lives to straighten up and fly right. If you push them in that direction now they will likely follow it the rest of their lives.
- Never read the Bible or pray with them at home. In fact, don’t even let them see you read the Bible or pray yourself. That type of behavior could develop into a habit…a habit that encourages a deeper relationship with God. Let the Bible be a dust collector now and it will remain a dust collector to them the rest of their lives.
- Don’t be an example to them of what true Christian commitment is supposed to be. It’s still true that a child’s number one influence is their parents but you need to shed that influence. Let them look up to athletes, actors/actresses, musicians, etc. Let culture be their model of reality. Give them free reign in what content they consume. Don’t monitor their internet activity, what television they watch, what music they listen to. Don’t pay any attention to what friends they have or who they date. Don’t give them any standard of morality to live up to. If they have no restrictions from their parents they will live that way.
Of course no one wants their children to grow up and turn their backs on Christianity. But when we engage in the type of activities or behaviors I’ve mentioned above (or any number of others I haven’t) then we are leading them in that direction. Let’s be extremely careful of the subconscious, lazy, or inattentive habits that can lead them to do just that. If we have no greater parenting goal than to help our children get to heaven we have to know that it won’t happen by accident – we have to be deliberate about it.
-Andy Brewer
So Sad, I have seen parents do exactly this and they simply do not care about the consequences. Thanks for the thoughts