from Fuller Youth Institute, article by Brad M. Griffin
“I’m not going to church.”
Perhaps you’ve heard those words in your own home, from the mouth of your teenager.
When it comes to church attendance, parents tend to resort either to authority, bullying, or bribery. “You’ll go because I say so,” “If you don’t go, you won’t get to use your phone for the week,” or “If you go, you’ll get extra screen time this afternoon.” Or exhausted parents simply walk out the door and drive to church in peace, without a fight but without a teenager in the car.
The good news is that these might not be the only two options.
Author Eugene Peterson reminds us that in this season we are invited to become more honest about our own faith with our kids in response to these kinds of pushbacks. He quips, “No parent is required to mount an advertising campaign on behalf of the Deity.” Rather than talking up how great God is or how great it is to be a Christian, let’s live out our faith journey honestly in front of and alongside our kids.
This fits squarely within our Sticky Faith research findings that young people with parents who share about their own faith journeys tend to stick with faith after high school.