Question of the Month-March 2008

Our question this month comes from someone who asks, “Do you have any suggestions on what to do to get my children interested in the Lord. My kids tell me church is boring and it is a struggle to even get them there most Sundays?”

I am so thankful for your question. It really must express the struggles of millions of Christian parents. I hope some of my suggestions will help you AND give you some peace of mind.

Perhaps the best place to begin our discussion on this issue is to remind ourselves that we CAN’T get anyone interested in the Lord in our own strength. Only the Lord can ultimately get anyone interested in Himself through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus reminded the disciples of this truth in John 6:44 where he stated, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him…” What was true for our Lord’s Day is just as true for our day as well. We have to trust that the Lord will do His work in our children’s lives in His own way and in His own time. That is easy to say, but harder to accept. The Lord has a plan for our children’s lives and we must rest in that truth.

Over the years, I have studied hundreds of conversion stories of people from all walks of life. Some of them are dramatic, some of them are quiet, but they are all DIFFERENT! The Lord never deals with any two people the same way. Some people ignore and reject the Lord as a child, only later to become a missionary or pastor. I have personally seen people who could care less about the Lord as young people, only later to turn into an “on fire” Christian. Honestly, I have never been able to figure out any pattern to all of this because it is the Lord’s work and the Lord just hasn’t let me in on the details. The reality of that truth is humbling, but also freeing. Simply put, our children’s spiritual interests and life is NOT in our hands.

However, while it is important for us to affirm what has just been said, the Lord DOES use parents and other influential people to do His work in our children’s lives. The Christian family is the greatest missionary agency in the world. More people become Christians through the witness of their families than any other way. We can certainly be thankful for evangelists like Billy Graham and so many others, but in reality their ministry accounts for few conversions compared to what happens at home.

From my perspective, the best way to get our children interested in the Lord is incredibly simple. The way to get our kids interested in the Lord is for us to be interested in the Lord. Nothing so affects a child as seeing mom or dad excited about their faith. If we are genuinely interested in the Lord and demonstrate that through the things we say and do at home, it can’t help but powerfully influence our children. When we read the Bible, pray, talk about the Lord, watch Christian movies, listen to Christian music, say things in our everyday speech like, “praise the Lord’, it will make a big difference.

One of the biggest mistakes we can make as Christian parents is to just take our children to church and hope something “rubs off” on them. There are multitudes of Christian parents who “drag” their kids to church, but show little real interest in the Lord themselves outside of Sunday. Once a child sees that the Lord is just something to do on Sunday, but the rest of the week is unimportant, they spiritually begin to disconnect the Lord from daily life and see us as hypocrites….which we might be. Sometimes our children’s lack of interest in the Lord and/or church is a big mirror to our own faith. That fact can be very revealing and a little scary.

The last thing I would say about this subject is to talk to your children about WHY you go to church. I have been shocked over the years to talk with many children in our church and elsewhere that really don’t know what their parents believe about the Lord. This is a tragedy! Every Christian parent needs to share their testimony and experience of the Lord with their children. We all have some sort of story to tell. It shouldn’t embarrass us to tell our children how we became a Christian. Our children shouldn’t have to hear the Gospel from the pastor or a Sunday school teacher. We should be able to tell them that “Jesus died for my sins”. This is not only a duty, but a privilege and it can be fun.

I hope these brief thoughts have helped you. Pray for your children, model the faith in your life and leave the results to the Lord. We can trust the Lord to do His work in our children’s lives even when we fail them at times. Rest in that truth and enjoy your children’s spiritual development as the Lord unfolds it before you.

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