Research Reveals the 5 Biggest Influencers on Your Child’s Spiritual Health

This is pure gold for Christian parents from Eric Geiger . . .

What do you think makes the biggest impact on a child’s spiritual development? Dinner as a family? Parents who don’t miss special events? Having church friends? Being at a good Christian school? Being at a church with a vibrant kids and student ministry?

While surely those are all good things and things I want for may daughters, none of them showed up in our recent LifeWay Research study on how kids really grow spiritually. We must be careful we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about things that don’t make the biggest impact. The study analyzed 2,000 Protestant adults who finished their parenting journey with one or more kids now between 18-30. The study looked at faith characteristics of those kids now, all grown up, and looked at the parenting practices and habits of the children as they were growing up. Jana Magruder masterfully unpacks the research in her new book, “Nothing Less: Engaging Kids in a Lifetime of Faith,” which I highly recommend to parents and leaders in kids/student ministry.

So what did show up in the research as the biggest influencers? Jana spends time in the book unpacking the 10 biggest influencers of spiritual health, but I am going to briefly offer the top five. If you care for your kid’s spiritual journey, this research is gold:

1. The child regularly reads his/her Bible while growing up.

This, not surprising to me because research on adults has concluded the same thing, was the largest impact on a child’s faith journey. Quite simply, kids who regularly read the Bible are much more likely to walk with Christ as adults than those who do not. More important than a family meal, more important than the school the child attends, more important than the church or the kids ministry or the youth group, is helping children fall in love with reading their Bibles. If there is one thing, and only one thing, we as parents and ministry leaders should do, it is this: Live Bible reading in front for our kids. Show our kids how to read the text. Read the Bible with them. The research says, “Do whatever it takes.”

2. The child regularly spends time in prayer growing up.

Similar to reading the Scripture, a child who looks to Jesus in the Word and in prayer is going to be continually changed and set on a trajectory for a lifetime of faith.

3. The child regularly served in church while growing up.

The research also revealed that the family attending church is very significant for the child. From a research vantage point, each drop in frequency of a family’s church attendance correlates to a drop in the child’s faith development. Bottom-line: an infrequent, church-attending family is adversely impacting the faith development of their children. So attending church matters. But even more than attending, serving in the church while growing up makes a profound impact on a child/teenager.

4. The child listens primarily to Christian music.

Okay, I did not expect this to be the fourth biggest influence and there will be some haters on this one. Some folks think Christian music is cheesy or creates a bubble or is commercialized. Still others think it is worldly. Do what you want with this point, but the research says that it was the fourth biggest factor on a kid’s spiritual growth. So if you pay attention to the research you may end up singing hymns as a family, loading up a minivan and going to a concert, and being happy when your kid’s room bumps loudly with Christian rap.

5. The child participates in church mission trips and projects.

Serving in the church impacts the development of a child/teenager, but so does serving in the community. Mission trips and mission projects ranked high on the list.

So what do we do with this research? I find it liberating because it reminds us of simple truths we already know. We should work hard to help our kids spend time with Jesus—in His Word, in prayer, and in what they put in their minds. And we should help our kids serve others, in the church and outside the church. Those are the biggest influencers on their spiritual maturation.

From Discipleship.org . . . 

Kids largely act, think, and display attitudes that are imitative of their parents. Yet, churches spend nearly one hundred percent of their efforts to be the greatest spiritual influence event each week for one to two hours. Research has shown the top spiritual influencers of teens today are (and in this order) mom, dad, pastor, grandparent, Sunday School, youth group, and then church camp. Parents teach their kids—good or bad—more than anyone else from the earliest stages.

If parents bring to bear more influence in shifting the worldview of children and teens, can the parents in our churches carry the weight of weighty questions of life? Does the church set parents up to consistently help their kids successfully grapple with tough topics with the grace of Christ’s heart to reach people? Or, does the church continue enabling the drop-off and expect the church to do it all?

For the last three decades, parents have delegated the spiritual coaching of their kids to the church, the ministry leaders and teachers. The result finds families in a compartmentalized world, the church one and the real one with minimal overlapping.

Deuteronomy 6 (D6), establishes God’s command for parents and grandparents to be the primary spiritual influences of their children and grandchildren. Ephesians 4 teaches the role of the church as equipping the saints, which include parents and grandparents who ultimately help to dress their kids in the armor of God (Ephesians 6).

Discipleship may begin at church but must be lived out in the intentional moments of the home. D6 Ministries helps church leaders engage parents and kids so that discipleship is not an event only at church, but a way of life to be lived out in the teachable circumstances of life.

Written by Ron Hunter Jr.

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Since 2002, Ron Hunter Jr. Ph.D., has been the executive director & CEO of Randall House and D6 Family Ministries, the publisher of D6 Curriculum. He is the co-founder and director of the D6 Conference and an international speaker who has authored several books, most recently The DNA of D6: Building Blocks of Generational Discipleship, which has been translated and distributed in France, Korea and Singapore.

The Importance of Teaching the Big Story, Not Just Morals

Sometimes someone will say to me that they want more practical teaching. What they usually mean is that they want me to tell them specific actions to take or do. That is an easy thing to do but usually leads to moralism. My goal as a preacher is not to tell people what to do but to paint a picture of the grandeur and glory of God and what he has done for us in Christ. It is my conviction that as one sits under this latter kind of teaching, the mind and the heart are shaped and transformed which frees up the will to obey God as a response to the beauty and joy one finds in Christ (Rom 12:2). This is particularly important for us in regards to teaching our children. If we take the moralistic route of teaching children rules we can end up raising up good little moralistic church kids that have no interest in Christ! Here is a good article from Christianity Today on the importance of how to teach children.

A few weeks ago, I was on a conference call with six church leaders from around the country to talk about their ministry efforts. They all use The Gospel Project to teach their children about the Scriptures, so they come at it from a similar perspective, though they come from Redeemer Presbyterian, Valley Baptist, 12Stone (Wesleyan), and more.

Here are the six ministry leaders who joined me on the phone:

Karen Dolan—Redeemer Presbyterian Church's Downtown New York City Congregation

Ned Gable—12Stone Church (Wesleyan) in Lawrenceville, Georgia

Kate Neighbors—Valley Baptist Church (SBC) in Bakersfield, California

Sam Luce—Redeemer Church (Non-denominational) in Utica, New York

Lou Cha—Kenwood Baptist Church (ABC) in Cincinnati, Ohio

Kathie Phillips—Central Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Baltimore, Maryland

Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be posting parts of our phone call during which we addressed all sorts of issues including the importance of teaching children more than moralism, why it's crucial that we teach children the big story of Scripture, and more.

Today, in our first peek into the phone call, we we look at why it is important for kids to know the storyline of the Bible and why it is important to teach more than moralism.

Ed: Why do you think the storyline of the Bible itself is important for kids to know? Why do they need to know the big story?

Lou Cha (Kenwood Baptist Church, Cincinnati, OH): As a congregation, we value the whole counsel of Scripture...

It’s like a puzzle and the kids do not see the whole picture. It’s important for kids as they are growing and learning God’s Word to be able to put the puzzle pieces together to see how they connect and that the God of the Old Testament is the same God as the God of the New Testament. And that since the creation of the world and the fall of humanity, He’s been redeeming people to Himself. This is what God has been doing all along.

It provides a more consistent picture and image of who God is. It also demonstrates to the children the character, the faithfulness, the compassion, and also the righteousness of God throughout the different historical periods of the Bible and the different people in the Bible.

I think it really helps children to be able to piece the Bible together to see the whole picture, and not just have missing pieces and missing parts of their Bible knowledge and understanding.

Kate Neighbors (Valley Baptist Church, Bakersfield, CA): One thing that I love about the idea of the story is that children are learning at younger and younger ages a worldview that is contradictory to the Bible. I think by telling them the story, even though it’s taking us three years, we’re showing and teaching them truth, absolute truth about the Bible. And we’re equipping them to understand what the Bible says versus what the world is telling them.

I love the idea that The Gospel Project takes it a step further and says here’s Christ in creation, here’s Christ in the Judges, here’s Christ in the Prophets, and here’s Christ’s actual life. And then they see how once Christ died, His followers didn’t stop. So I just love that from the beginning in Genesis 1:1 to Revelation, we’re seeing what Christ has to do with everything.

Ned Gable (12Stone Church, Lawrenceville, GA): I had the benefit of growing up with my dad teaching me at children’s church, and he taught us through the Bible. He taught chronologically and how everything built upon the next and would literally repeat a year of Old Testament, a year of New Testament, and then cycle back through. So we got that over and over and over and over. I grew up with a framework of the Bible. And when I would step into a sermon, or when I was older and hear a sermon taught from Scripture, I knew where it fit. I knew how it plugged in and I was able to take that and learn from it.

My first year in Bible college was a review of what I had learned up til sixth grade because I literally had a big picture framework that I could hang it on. It wasn’t just random ideas and random stories at all. It played into a bigger idea and a bigger picture and a bigger plan of what God was doing.

So I was so excited when this came out that we had the opportunity now to take that same type of thing that I had the benefit of growing up with, and give that to kids as well so that they can have that framework that puts it all together. The Bible is not just a collection of random things, but is one big story and one message and one plan.

Sam Luce (Redeemer Church, Utica, NY): I would say that I think one reason it’s so important to teach [the whole story], is that oftentimes we tend to teach kids disconnected facts about the Bible that can be—on their own—refuted. And when kids get older and go to college those disconnected points of information can be brought into question. But when they see them tied into the larger story of what God is doing, and the larger story of who He is and what He’s done in the earth and what He’s done in their life, it ties all those points together for them and creates a much tighter web—net—of truth that is much harder to be refuted by others.

Kathie Phillips (Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD): One of the things that drew me to The Gospel Project was that the whole scope of the Bible being presented—[it] offered a different perspective then I think a lot of our kids had gotten who had really grown up in church. I think digging into the Old Testament, which is where we fell when we started to subscribe to it, was a section of the Bible that not many of our kids were familiar with. And I think it gave a different picture of the cutesy kind of God who made the world and Noah and those kind of things and then just skipping over to the New Testament. I think that they were able to see a different side of God through the hard things that happened in some of those Old Testament passages.

Karen Dolan (Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York, New York): I would say obviously that’s something that I don’t have all figured out or have all the answers to, but something that I think we do at Redeemer from our congregation to our children’s ministries, is that what we’ve focused on is making all of the curriculum and all the stories point back to Christ, our need for Him, and why we’re talking about this. Why are we learning these Bible stories? Why do we study the Bible?

And even if you are learning a story in the Old Testament or something that doesn’t seem like it directly has a tie-in to Christ and our need for salvation, we always try to make it point back to that. Because I think from a young age kids are getting that life is more about just being good. We’re trying to tell them and instill in them that we are sinners in need of a Savior and there’s nothing we can do on our own apart from Christ to learn that. So that’s something that we try and really put into all of our curriculum.

On Thursday, we'll continue this discussion and I'll post the next part of our conversation, in which we talk about why it's important we teach children to have their own faith and love Jesus for themselves—not just because their parents told them to do it.

3 Reasons Not to Homeschool

I think homeschooling is a great idea but not for everyone.  I have seen disastrous results of homeschooling in some families both in terms of failing to educate their children and failing to spiritually influence their children positively.  Here are some wrong reasons for homeschooling.  Another article from Gospel Coalition.

When I meet someone new and they learn we are homeschoolers, I get a variety of responses. Some simply stare at me, perhaps wondering why I’m not in standard homeschool uniform. “Where is her denim jumper?” they might think. Others respond with “Good for you!” and begin asking questions with genuine curiosity about how our family homeschools. Still others share with me all the reasons they could never homeschool. And then there are some who mutter “That’s nice” and look at my children with a mixture of pity and a disdain.

Homeschooling Times Are Changing 

The responses I receive have a lot to do with widespread perceptions of homeschooling. Perhaps the diversity of responses reflects the fact that homeschooling is changing. It’s not what it once was. More and more people outside the church are choosing to homeschool. And no two homeschool situations look the same. In some families, two kids might be homeschooled while another two might be in a traditional school. In other families, children might participate in a homeschool hybrid program where they attend a school setting once or twice a week and are home the rest of the week. Some families use public school online education at home. In our family, my kids are homeschooled four days a week and attend public school one day a week.

Homeschooling is also growing in numbers. In 1999, more than 850,000 students were homeschooled in the United States. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Education reported an estimated 1.77 million students were homeschooled. In North Carolina, more children are homeschooled than attend private schools.

This time of year, as we begin to transition out of vacation mindset back into school mode, you may be considering homeschooling for the first time. And there are many good reasons to consider it. You get to choose the curriculum for your children. You’re able to teach every subject through a biblical worldview. You can take time to study things your children enjoy learning about, at their own pace and on their own level. Homeschool allows for greater flexibility in your schedule. Since it doesn’t take as long as a typical school day to complete lessons, there’s plenty of time for extracurricular activities, sports, clubs, additional classes, and hobbies. Homeschooling also provides more time for families to spend together. I could go on.

But there are also reasons not to homeschool. If the idea of homeschooling has been on your mind, here are three reasons you should not homeschool your children.

1. Because you are afraid. 

Fear is a lousy motive for anything. Scripture is clear we are not to live a life of fear, whether it’s fear of people, circumstances, the future, or anything else. We shouldn’t homeschool because we fear something bad will happen to our children. Our children will have bad things happen to them whether we homeschool or not. We live in a fallen world where sickness, injury, crime, and other things occur around us all the time. The only fear that ought to motivate us to do anything is the fear of the Lord (Prov. 1:7).

2. Because you think it will save your child. 

Homeschooling won’t ensure your salvation. The Holy Spirit is the one who awakens your child’s dead heart and gives a soft heart of flesh (Ezek. 36:23–24). So don’t pursue homeschooling because you think it will guarantee their salvation. It’s true that homeschooling affords you plenty of time and opportunity to discuss the things of God with your children, and that’s great. There’s time to dig deep into God’s Word, memorize it, and learn how to apply the gospel to all areas of learning and life. But homeschooling in and of itself will not save your child.

3. Because it’s what all your friends are doing. 

In some Christian communities, homeschooling is popular. If everyone around you is homeschooling and you’re not, it can feel like you’re less of a Christian for not doing so. To homeschool because of some outside pressure is not a worthwhile reason. Additionally, your Christianity does not hang upon your method of schooling. Your salvation comes by faith in the work of Christ, and such faith is a gift from God (Eph. 2:8). Someone is not a better Christian because they homeschool. Homeschooling is something you do because you believe it’s best for your family. It’s a decision made after much prayer, study, and research. It’s a decision made for God’s glory, not to please others, not to fit in, and certainly not to appear more “Christian.”

Research and Pray

As a parent who’s gone through the difficult decision-making process to homeschool, I know what a big decision and commitment it is. As homeschooling continues to grow and change, I imagine more families will consider it.

If you’re contemplating homeschooling your children, I encourage you to spend time in thorough research and prayer. I also encourage you to not base your decision on fear, your children’s salvation, or peer pressure.

Christina Fox is a licensed mental health counselor, coffee drinker, writer, and homeschooling mom, not necessarily in that order. She lives with her husband of 18 years and two boys in sunny South Florida. You can find her sharing her journey in faith at www.toshowthemjesus.com and on Facebook.

HELPING CHILDREN BENEFIT FROM THE SERMON

We have the option of children participating with their parents during the preaching of the word on Sundays and this is great advice by Erik Raymond from The Gospel Coalition site . . .

As a pastor I often get the question, “Do you have any advice for helping my kids to benefit from the sermon?”

This is a question that I really appreciate because it recognizes the importance of the preaching of the Word of God and our reception of it. It recognizes that even the children are to hear, and to best of their ability, understand what is being preached.

What follows are some things that I have done as a Dad and also as a pastor.

Parents before the Sermon

Read the Passage as a family before Sunday morning. This is easy and so very important. They hear the passage read by Dad or Mom and see your commitment to the Word of God. This goes further than you can imagine.

• Ask and answer questions about the passage. As you read it ask questions that help them to see connections and other important features.
• Highlight key themes.
• Make particular notes about the context. A good study Bible is helpful here (my favorite).

Pray for the pastor and those who will gather in the morning. After reading take some time to pray for the pastor and the service. Beg God to showcase the beauty of Christ and strengthen people’s confidence in the Bible.

Ask the kids (especially the little one) to listen for one key point. If they can hear one thing and really get it then you are winning.

Pray before you leave the car. After driving to church take a brief moment to pray as a family. Pray that you would hear, heed and love God’s Word.

Parents during the Sermon

It is very important to not only train your kids to sit “still and quiet” but also to be attentive to the preaching of the Bible. As parents we don’t simply want well-behaved quiet kids but rather Bible-loving, gospel-saturated, promise-claiming, world-changing, kids. This starts with preaching.

• Provide the kids with paper, pencil, and a Bible.
• Restate important things during the sermon.
• Point to verses in their Bible.
• Smile –don’t just give them the stink-eye, it’s not a root-canal!
• Be engaged yourself. You undo all of your work if you are nodding off, checking Facebook, or the scores of the game.

Parents after the Sermon

• Look at their notes (or doodles).
• Ask follow-up questions.
• Help to make personal application.
• Pray for gospel growth.

Pastors before the Sermon

• Provide the sermon text a few days in advance. I know this is extra work, but I have found it to be very much worth it. We post the outline and text a few days before Sunday and encourage folks to read and prepare (here is an example).
• Provide the sermon outline in advance. See above.
• Highlight some “words for kids.” In one sermon you might note: “Holiness, Endure, Discipline” in another it may be “Grace, Sin, Faith.” You get the picture.
• Pray for the children and young people in your church.

Pastors during the sermon

• Remember that you are preaching to a wide variety of people, including young people. This helps in preparation and prayer.
• Address them. Recently I tried to make a point that all of the promises of God are fulfilled in Christ (2 Cor. 1:20). I talked about how they were tied to his finger so to speak. I used the example of Curious George having all of the balloons on his finger and all of the promises, like balloons are connected to Christ. As he goes so go the promises. Adults may laugh but kids seemed to get it.
• Try to make big points sticky. We can say things a lot of different ways. If you can put your point on something they already do (Legos, Elsa, sports, heroes, etc) then you are helping them to understand.

There are many other things you could do, but this is just a list of items that we have found helpful in our family and church. Perhaps you have others; feel free to list them in the comments so that others may benefit from them.

Raising Kids in a Pornified Culture

Found this article here.

A recent article in The Telegraph highlights the tragic symptoms of a disease that's infecting our worldwide culture. The piece focuses mainly on teenagers and the dysfunction that has become normative in their lifestyles as a result of consuming porn.

In light of this, how can parents raise children in a pornified culture? Here are eight suggestions for this ever-increasing problem. 

1. Aim to give our kids a huge view of God who is gloriously delightful.

We can't simply tell our kids to stop doing certain behaviors; we must also teach them to delight in what God has made. I've been trying to make a discipline of pointing out all the good in God's creation. A few weeks ago it was a blessing to watch my two older kids spend hours picking the wild raspberries that grow in their grandma and grandpa's huge backyard. They need to be reminded of God's goodness in giving us such amazing created blessings, like raspberries. If we're not careful, we can become functional gnostics (flesh and matter are bad; only what's "spiritual" has value) in our communication about sexual ethics with our kids. A helpful verse for them to memorize is 1 Timothy 4:4.

In short, I want my kids to know that sexual perversion is the height of idolatry (Rom. 1), but also that sexual integrity is the height of beauty. This demands we talk about it, probably more than we're comfortable with or experienced when we were kids. But it's a new world, and a new world demands new communication to train our children.

2. Teach them the gospel. Our kids are spring-loaded legalists.

They have to see us model gospel truth through active repentance and forgiveness. They have to know their acceptance before God isn't based on their performance, but on Christ's. They have to know their standing as a family member doesn't depend on their obedience, though their standing does imply a certain type of living.

For example, when we're disciplining our kids we often say, "Since you're a member of this family and since I love you so much, you will not do this." Consider the difference from saying, "If you want me to love you and if you want to keep living in this house, you better stop doing this." The indicatives of our faith must precede and inform the imperatives. Don't reverse the order.

3. Teach them that boundaries bring freedom and obedience is a blessing.

When I was a kid I thought if I screwed up, God was going to whack me with a big stick. No one ever taught me this, but it's what I felt. Obedience wasn't motivated by love, but fear of punishment. This didn't get me very far.

When my kids are age appropriate I plan to communicate that sexual sin will never provide the freedom we crave. They can choose to reap the harmful consequences of disobedience, but I'll warn them from Scripture and experience that they don't want to start down that path. Obedience leads to blessing.

4. Talk to them sooner than later about sex and internet porn.

When I was 8, I remember going next door to our neighbor's garage. Like any curious kid, I enjoyed snooping around a bit. I soon discovered he had boxes full of pornographic magazines. Sometimes a friend and I would sneak over there, grab a few, and go sit in the bushes to look at the naked women. Back then, this risky endeavor filled my stomach with butterflies for fear of getting caught by my parents or the neighbor. But all you need today is a closed door and an internet connection. The vilest perversion imaginable is only two clicks away.

We must communicate in general terms what's available and why it's so destructive. Some would contend this discussion will just stir up their curiosity, but what's the alternative? I'd rather have them be warned by me so I can offer reasons and means to fight than to have them innocently stumble on pornography someday on the internet.

5. Begin to train your kids how to interact with the opposite sex.

We've already started to "date" our kids. We feel it's crucial for them, at an early age, to begin experiencing what it's like to be treated well by a member of the opposite sex. Especially for girls, a lack of healthy male attention from dad will often prompt them to seek it in unhealthy ways from younger men more than happy to provide it. My boys need to learn women aren't objects to be consumed but image-bearers of God to be loved.

6. Guard who your kids spend time with.

Since sexual exposure is much more accessible today than 25 years ago, we're much more aware of whom our children spend time with. There will come an age (sooner than I'd like to think about) when we won't be able to guard them as tightly, but hopefully the foregoing points will have taken root in their lives such that they'll be equipped to make wise decisions.

Be careful, though, you don't take this too far and communicate an unhealthy fear of unbelievers. The older our kids get, the more we have to let them go and pray our training has taken root. There's really no other choice. We must train our kids so they're sheltered enough to be age-appropriately safe but informed enough to make wise decisions on their own. Just don't hide your kids behind the fortress of your supervision until they're 18.

This demands great wisdom. There's no manual. We must be parents of prayer.

7. Guard the computer and turn off the television.

We have Covenant Eyes on all our computers and, via the AppleOS, our children can only access the websites we've approved. Certainly this will change as they get older, but hopefully they will have internalized the gospel and tasted the blessings of obedience.

Victory over porn is finally a heart issue, but that doesn't mean we should forsake preventative structures. You'd never say, "I want to know my obedience is motivated by more than just following the right rules, so I'm going to dive into unwise situations to see if I'm strong enough to withstand sin!" That's absurd (1 Cor. 10:12-13). We need right hearts so as not to be legalists, but right boundaries can help us taste the blessing of obedience.

The TV will show your kids functional soft porn all the time. There are countless better things to do with your kids than watch TV. Read with them, play sports with them, enjoy creation with them, tell them a story, or just serve them in an activity of their choice. The key phrase here is with them. If they spend more time with the TV than with you, you're all in trouble.

8. Seek to cultivate a relationship with your kids such that they feel they can be open with you about anything.

As a young dad, I'm not totally sure how to make this happen, but I know it'll come through modeling openness. I try to draw out their hearts and show them that if they're honest with me, I'll be fair, loving, and compassionate. If they see me as guarded and reserved, why would I expect them to be any different?

Last, do you ever repent in front of your kids? If they never see you repent, what makes you think they'll come to you for help after seeing internet porn for the first time? Modeling repentance for our kids is probably the quickest way to show we believe the gospel and are a safe refuge in the midst of their sin.

Zach Nielsen (@znielsen) is one of the pastors at The Vine Church in Madison, Wisconsin, where he serves in the areas of preaching, leadership development and music. He is a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa and Covenant Theological Seminary and blogs at Take Your Vitamin Z.

- See more at: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/02/27/raising-kids-in-a-pornified-culture/#sthash.5CfJ7Vep.dpuf