Push Your Kids To Embrace Faith

By Lane Palmer, Christian Post Guest Columnist Monday, January 02, 2006

There’s been a theme in the media lately … how much should we push our kids? Are we pushing them too much – or perhaps too little? Obviously this is a debate that’s probably been raging ever since there have been kids: the seemingly ever-elusive balance between “pushing” and “not pushing”. God gives us our precious little ones, and before you blink your eyes twice, you realize you have precious little time to complete the task of preparing them for the big, bad world … so the click of the parenting clock sets off an internal alarm reminding us that we better get cracking!

When you think about it, every area of raising children has a potential “pushing” aspect built in. is involved in this one- mentally in school, physically in sports, and emotionally in just about every other area of life.

Except for this one area that so often gets pushed to the side, because heaven forbid we venture into the often-uncharted waters of our teenagers spirituality, lest we stir the waters too much and get them off course. Or perhaps it’s that we’re afraid we’ll burn them out by over challenging our kids, so perchance it would be better to let them design their own spiritual journey and hope they end up at the right destination.

As it turns out, this is not only not the better thing to do; it is also a sinful thing to do. God’s word never changes, so check out His word about parenting in Deuteronomy 6:4-9:

"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again. Tie them to your hands as a reminder, and wear them on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

God expects you to use common sense when it comes to pushing your kids in temporal areas (school, sports, etc.) and He also expects you to use uncommon encouragement when it comes to spiritual areas (God’s commands and desires, etc.). If you look carefully at these verses, you see phrases like “repeat again and again”, “talk about them”, “tie them”, and “write them”…what is “them”? God’s commandments! So in other words, God expects parents to be proactive and directive when it comes to their kid’s spirituality.

When you think about it, this makes perfect sense, because if we succeed in helping our kids get scholarships and awards but fail in helping them achieve eternal rewards…what have we accomplished? What doesn’t make sense to me is the typical American parenting logic that goes like this:

“Daddy, do I really have to go to practice?”

“Of course, son, you made a commitment, and you’re going to stick with it.”

“What about school?

“Don’t be silly, you can’t skip school.”

“What about family devotions and church?”

“Yes, you can miss those, because I would never want to shove religion down your throat resulting in you rejecting your faith.”

“Huh?”

On the surface, I guess that might seem rational, but I can tell you from two decades of youth ministry experience and contact with hundreds of teenagers that the main reason they evacuate the church after graduation is NOT because they were forced to go. Pure and simple, it comes down to one word:

Hypocrisy. As in double standard and two faced. As in “amen Pastor- loved the sermon” then raking him over the coals on the way home.

That’s why God instructs us to “push” our kids spiritually and live it out consistently. He does not expect us to be perfect, but He does dictate that we live and give an authentic faith.

The bottom line is that parents today need to think through the whole area of “pushing their kids” very thoroughly. Obviously it is not a good thing for mom and dad to surreptitiously live their lives through their children, but it is also not a good thing to sit idly by while their teens crash and burn their spiritual beliefs on the cultural wall of tolerance and relativistic values. Our adolescent Christian children are putting their traditional Christian convictions in a competing marketplace of spiritual beliefs, which creates a critical juncture in their journey through life. Why on earth, then, would any parent step back and watch as their own flesh and blood attempts to navigate through a quagmire of competing worldviews? If you don’t push your teens into the truth, I guarantee you someone else will be glad to pull them into a lie.
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Lane Palmer is the Youth Ministries Specialist for Dare 2 Share Ministries in Arvada, Colo., where he works with youth leaders and students, equipping them to be effective in sharing the gospel. For more information on Dare 2 Share Ministries, please visit www.dare2share.org. Find out how Dare 2 Share Ministries and Focus on the Family® are working together to capture the hearts of this generation of teenagers, visit www.capturetheirhearts.com Send feedback to lane@dare2share.org.