PREVENTING SPIRITUAL DROP-OUTS

Growing a Great Family: (Part VI)

PREVENTING SPIRITUAL DROP-OUTS
Proverbs 22:6
6) Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

2 Timothy 3:12-17
12) In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
13) while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
14) But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it,
15) and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
16) All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
17) so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Joel 1:3
3) Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.

One of the greatest challenges for Christian parents is keeping their children interested and active in spiritual matters. There are many families who have experienced the heartache of children dropping out of the church and drifting away from their heritage of faith. Statistics bear out that nearly 90 percent of evangelical children leave the church after high school. And many of them never return. According to an article put out by New York times in October 6, 2006, entitled, Evangelicals Fear the Loss of the Teenagers, if current trends continue; only 4 percent of teenagers will be "Bible-believing Christians" as adults. In contrast, this would be a sharp decline compared with 35 percent of the current generation of baby boomers, and before that, 65 percent of the World War II generation.
Why do you think this is this happening? Through extensive research, author Tom Bisset in his book Why Christian Kids Leave the Faith, identifies four major reasons why "Christian kids" become dropouts (p. 20-21.).

1. Intellectual Skeptics leave because of unanswered questions about faith. These skeptics doubt the simplicity of the gospel to address the tough questions of life.
2. Disillusioned Disciples leave because their faith doesn't seem to work. The grand promises of love, joy, and peace do not match their actual experience. Unmet expectations produce doubt and departure.
3. Pursuers of Pleasure leave because the lure of the worldly pleasure and material possessions consume their life.
4. Clones leave because they were never converted. These individuals never possessed authentic faith. They know the facts of the gospel. Church attendance was part of their childhood experience, but they never personally embraced the claims of Christ.
With these information, I believe, we as Christian parents should be more informed and we need to be proactive in discipling our children and preventing spiritual drop-outs. Allow me to share some specific strategies we need in order to counter spiritual dropouts:
I IMPLORE FOR CONVERSION
One of the most-quoted Bible verses by Christian parents is "train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6). In the process of accomplishing our sacred duty of training our children in the ways of the Lord, parents must implore or pray that their children will have a genuine encounter with Jesus Christ which will lead to their salvation. Without it, all the Biblical knowledge, the church attendance, the prayers, and other Christian involvements are useless.
You see, it is so easy for parents to assume that because their children participated in all sorts of church activities that they are already saved. Perhaps, it would serve us best not to assume, instead commit ourselves to seriously praying that God will open their hearts to Christ. Here are some items you can include as you pray for them:
A. Pray for your child's Sunday School teacher to teach with passion and clarity.
B. Pray for your child to develop a spiritual appetite, a hunger and thirst for the things of God.
C. Pray for your child's heart to be sensitive in obeying the Lord.
D. Pray for your child to have the courage to follow Jesus.
E. Pray for your child's protection from the traps of evil.
F. Pray for godly friends to influence your child to live for the glory of God.
I trust that all of us parents will recognize that whenever we pray for our children, we are making investments for their lives. When God responds, our children will receive the temporal and eternal blessings that no worldly wealth can buy.
Mark 8:36
36) What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?

II IMMERSE THEM IN THE BIBLE:
Another responsibility we need to faithfully fulfill to our children is helping them grow in their knowledge of the Bible. Consider 2 Timothy 3: 12-17. The context of this passage is living in the last days. The apostle Paul was in a way predicting that as the church was moving closer and closer to the second coming of the Lord Jesus, it would be more difficult for Christians to live godly lives. In this kind of an environment, Paul reminded Timothy that he should continue in learning the Scriptures, which has brought him so much wisdom in life. Then, Paul in verses 16-17, explained the fact that the Word of God is sufficient to fully equip a believer in living a godly life.
As parents, we all want our children to be smart. You see, to be truly smart a person needs to have the ability to see life from God's perspective and then know the best course of action to take. Literally this ability is what the Bible refers to as wisdom. This kind of wisdom is imparted through God's Word:
Psalm 119:97-98
97) Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.
98) Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me.

The psalmist declared his love and devotion to the Word of God because it gave him more wisdom and understanding than his enemies. In the same way, all the Bible lessons, Bible truths your children are learning will come handy especially in times when the enemy wants to lead them astray.

III INVOLVE THEM IN THE CHURCH
Thirdly, we also cannot overemphasize the importance of church involvement to the children. The study, conducted by the Barna Research Group of Ventura, California, found that 71% of children who consistently participated in church during children still attend regularly. Apparently, old habits die hard. While majority of those who never seriously plugged themselves in a church, 78% of them are still absent from churches today.
Convinced about the value of the church, George Barna in his book, Transforming Children Into Spiritual Champions, wrote:
The local church should be an intimate and valuable partner in the effort to raise the coming generation of Christ's followers.

We as families need to pour ourselves into the church. We need to become active in the ministries, build relationships with the people and use our gifts to serve the Body. When we do this, we'll be blessed. We can't just sit on the sidelines or only come Christmas and Easter and expect that to be enough to help us as a family.
Jesus states in Matthew 5:6, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." Are you hungry and thirsty as a family to be blessed and filled by God? Then, you need to learn how to live a righteous life. You do this by involving yourself in the right kind of community, the church, where the people are learning together how to live a "right" kind of life.

IV INSTILL GODLY CONVICTIONS
Finally, we also need to pass to our children godly convictions. The convictions comes from convictio, which literally suggest strong beliefs or truths that one is fully convinced of, having been persuaded by evidences and not merely subjective feeling. Simply we have a conviction when we are thoroughly convince or fully persuaded that something is true. Having conviction is being absolutely convince that something is true that you are willing to take a stand for it regardless of the consequences. Paul had exemplified such a conviction:
2 Timothy 1:12
12) That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.

Rick Warren, in one of his articles to pastors, "Training the Next Generation," wrote, "If kids don't have convictions, they'll be captivated by culture. This culture basically has four values: pleasure ("I want to feel good"), possessions, ("I want to make a lot of money"), prestige ("I want other people to envy me"), and power ("I want to be in control"). We can't allow the next generation to be captivated by these values."

I absolutely agree. In a society surrounded by people who do not accept, believe, or live according to the truth of God's Word, but rather believe that everything is subjective and relative, parents should be more passionate in sharing their convictions. And then model these convictions to them. Paul understood the importance of modeling his faith to Timothy:
2 Timothy 3:10-11
10) You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance,
11) persecutions, sufferings--what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.

Coming from the same context of our main text, Paul in a way was telling Timothy - Yes, it would be difficult to live for God, but don't be afraid to stand for Him and live a godly life in a godless society because you have seen how the Lord has delivered me from everything. This is exactly what our children need to see from us parents! We can show them they can stand on their godly convictions and please God. And reap the blessings of living a godly life.
In closing, I really hope and pray that our children will never be a spiritual dropout; instead they will continually embrace the faith we have received in Jesus Christ. Parents, let's all be diligent in doing whatever it takes so our children will never fall prey to the error and deception of the devil.