My Kids Have Left the Faith. How Do I Respond?

Intro

Series recap (available on our youtube channel):

How Do I Share My Faith?

Does God hate LGBTQ+?

Why does God Condone Violence in the OT?

What is the Point of Church?

How Do I Hear God?

Today’s question is “My kids have left the faith - how do I respond?

Why it’s a great question

It’s commonality - we all know someone who left the faith (replace “kid” with “friend,” brother,” sister,” “husband,” “wife”, etc.). As we go through this teaching today, although the language and the direction is towards people with adult children, there are some principles for anyone who wants to engage with those who used to be in the faith and have walked away. And for those of you with young children, may you hear the cautionary tale that this sermon is and discern ways to help your kids discover and persevere in the faith.

Close to God’s heart - Israel kept walking away from God over and over again thRoughout its history. To the point that in Luke’s gospel, Jesus said,

Luke 13:34 NIV

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.

2 Peter 3:9 NIV

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

3. It’s confusing - We read of God’s promises regarding our kids in the Bible, and then we see them (at this moment) unfulfilled. And I want to take a minute and address that confusion for just a moment.

In the book of deuteronomy, Moses writes this:

Deuteronomy 7:9 NIV

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.

Things we need to remember:

This covenant was given to Israel as a nation- not to any one individual or to all of humanity. It wasn’t a promise made to the Amorites, the Jebusites or Perrizites. It’s not a covenant with Ninevah, Babylon, Greece or Rome. It was for Israel because they were God’s people, the nation he chose to reveal himself through.

This covenant is a renewal of the covenant of the law - it is a conditional, ongoing, covenant - each generation of Israel had to obey all the law and then God would be faithful to them to bless them. If Israel turned away from God, then God would bring calamity on them. But in Jesus, there is a new covenant - one that t isn’t rooted in our obedience to God’s love as a requirement to experience God’s blessings, but one rooted in Jesus’ sacrifice. We couldn’t obey the law because of our sinful nature but Christ, who did obey the law sinlessly created a new covenant where we relate to God by faith, not by obedience. Does that mean we don’t have to obey God? No, it means that we choose to obey because God has shown us love, not in fear that God will punish us for not being good enough.

So I don’t see this promise in Deuteronomy as applying to me. I am not Israeli and I am not under the old covenant. I am Canadian and under the new covenant, which wasn’t given to a nation, but to individuals, the apostles upon whom Jesus built the church. So I look at this promise to Israel and I marvel at God’s love and faithfulness to them. I worship a God who chose to love Israel the way he did. But I don’t take it as applying to me.

And so I hope this helps clear up some confusion around reading these covenant verses that indicate that because of our faithfulness, our kids spiritual future is secure. God, in Christ, relates to us differently than he does to Israel. Instead of relating to the world through a nation - Israel - he now relates to us as individuals.

Common Reasons Why Kids leave the faith

1. Legalism in church/home - Christian legalism is when you believe that in order for God to love you, you have to do certain things. Depending on the background and history of your family and church, that list can be quite extensive. I remember talking about this to a group of Christian seniors in Saskatchewan while I was there. One woman told me that she group up being told that using playing cards was evil, because of the faces of the royal cards. Others told me that they grew up believing that going to the movies was a sin. One man posted online that in his former church, guys had to have their shirts tucked in and belts on in order to be true believers. One post I saw was that someone refused to help move a crate of stuff because the crate was originally a wine crate. And that kind of ridiculous, over-the-top, rules-oriented religion turns most people away from God. Especially, when Jesus came to give us the opposite.

Galatians 5:1 NIV

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Romans 8:1–2 NIV

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

When people grow up believing that God is against them because of sin and they have to live perfectly for God to love them, sooner or later, many of them will walk away from the faith.

2. Performance based versus faith based Christianity - related to the issue of legalism, many people walk away from the faith when the Christian faith they grew up in is based on performance, not faith. When you grow up in an environment that values what the other church people say about you more than what God says about you, you are in a performance based church. When you care more about avoiding the appearance of evil than you care about avoiding actual evil, that’s a problem and and what it does is create an atmosphere of hypocrisy. And that hypocrisy has pushed more people out of the faith than anything else. People who claim to follow Jesus are called to live differently - but not as a performance to gain acceptance, or even out of fear of other’s judgments, but out of faith in Jesus.

Matthew 6:1 NIV

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

3. Trauma - Far too many people experience a trauma in the church. It might be something along the lines of being singled out in front of a group of people for something you did, or it might be something far more sinister. Each person will experience the church differently and if something happens there that is traumatic to them, then it becomes that much harder for them to hold on to their faith. The church is supposed to be a bastion of love and safety where people encounter Jesus in positive ways that leads to spiritual transformation. This should be the safest place, and we should be the safest community to be a part of on the planet. But, to many people, we aren’t the safest place, we’re dangerous. And if you’re watching this, and you have experienced trauma at church, whatever it was, I am so sorry that the church failed to protect you and love you properly.

4. Irrelevant faith - If the church is irrelevant to real life, the chances of people wanting to stick it out diminishes. If the teaching is only about making people feel good and not about how to live out our faith in real, practical ways, young people end up leaving the church. But beyond just teaching, the church has to be relevant to the community and to the world. If the church acts like it exists only for itself, but people know that Jesus calls us to love our neighbors, then they get turned off of God and the church. They wonder what is the point of Christianity if it’s only a club that’s about who’s already here.

5. Ill-equipped to make their faith their own - churches and Christian families that don’t prepare people to embrace faith for themselves, often see people walk away. Youth groups that only play games and have fun can build a great community, but very few of those students will remain in the faith when youth group is finished. Churches that aren’t intentional about discipleship - about helping people discover faith and implement it in their lives - usually struggle with high numbers of young adults in particular leaving the faith. When we don’t teach people how to understand God’s goodness in light of the suffering in the world, we fail them. When we teach them that science is evil and religion is right, we fail them. When we tell them what to think, but not how to think, we fail them. When we teach them what the Bible says, but don’t teach them how to read the Bible for themselves, we fail them. When people are ill-equipped to handle the collision of faith with life, many walk away.

I read a blog by a woman named Jessie Golem about why she lost her faith. She talks about seeing the hypocrisy of pastors screaming at each other, threatening to quit, minutes before an easter service. She talks about the church raising money to re-pave the parking lot, just after she got back from Ghana and saw the poverty there. She talked about how the protestants told her that because she was Catholic, she wasn’t a real Christian, and how the Catholics thought the same thing about the Protestants. She talked about wondering why people of many different religions experienced the same joy and peace that she had felt in Christianity. She talked about how she struggled with understanding how a good God could allow her to be sexually assaulted after her first year of university. And she talked about how the church continuously fails to love the social outcasts like Jesus loved them. And those are just some of the highlights of the things that drove her to give up her faith. And I know for a fact that she is not alone in her experience and that many other people have left the faith for the same reasons. What saddens me the most is that the primary culprit of derailing people’s faith is the church.

What can we do?

How can we help our kids (or whomever you know that has walked away) re-engage with the faith? I have five things that we can do that, whether or not they come back to the faith or not, will at least help you be closer with them. But I will tell you, that while it may seem like these are simple things, they are gut-wrenchingly challenging and they are not for the faint of heart.

1. REFLECT

Matthew 7:3–5 NIV

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Before we can step into this with our kids, we have to, HAVE TO, do some real and deep reflection. We need to reflect on the church environment that they grew up in and evaluate it honestly. Was it a church full of grace and life, or bordem and rules? Was it a place where Jesus was not only taught, but he was demonstrated through the lives of the people and ministries of the church? Was it a place where your kids were valued and loved by the church body? Reflecting on these questions will give you some insight into how your kids still look at the church, even today. But in addition to reflecting on the church, we need to reflect on the spiritual climate at home and upon your own hypocrisy. Was home a place where people talked about God and faith? Was there freedom to make mistakes and ask questions? Did you help equip your kids for the faith struggles they would endure later? Was faith and Christ-likeness demonstrated at home? We need to deeply reflect and identify our hypocrisy and I’ll share why in a couple of minutes.

2. LISTEN

Perhaps the hardest part of this whole process will be truly listening to your kids. You need to start a conversation with them and invite them to be honest about their experiences. You need them to tell you about what Church was like for them growing up. You need them to share what kind of Christianity they saw demonstrated at home. You need to hear from them why they chose to leave the faith. And it’s going to hurt, deeply. Your heart will break as they tell you about what it was like for them, how the church failed them and how you failed them as well.

James 1:19–20 NIV

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

James gives us some great wisdom here because we need to be quick to listen to kids but slow to speak back. It may feel like they are attacking you and the natural response will be to defend yourself. Don’t. Empathize with their experiences and their feelings, don’t try to justify yourself. If you try to justify yourself, you will just shut them down emotionally, they will stop talking and nothing will ever be resolved. Buf if you can resist the temptation to get defensive, you will understand your kids in a new and deeper way than ever before and you just might help them take a step towards reconciliation with God.

3. APOLOGIZE

Now that you have reflected deeply on their spiritual formation and you have listened to their experiences well, the time has come to apologize. My wife recently reminded me that most parents want a “thank you” from their kids and most kids want an "I’m sorry” from their parents. But as the parents, I am challenging you to let go of your desire to be thanked and offer genuine apologies to your kids.

If they describe a bad church environment, apologize for taking them to that church.

If they tell you about a trauma, apologize for not protecting them better.

If they talk about hypocrisy, apologize for how you were hypocritical.

One of the key things about this apology will be taking proper responsibility. Don’t apologize that they experienced something, apologize for your role in it. Apologize for your sins of commision (what you did) and your sins of omission (what you didn’t do). Try to hold their hands, look them in the eyes and tell them you’re sorry and I think you will have a relational breakthrough with your kids that might change everything.

James 5:16 NIV

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

There is nothing that heals relationships better than the two phrases of “I’m sorry” and “I forgive you.”

4. LOVE

The fourth thing is probably the easiest. Keep on loving your kids, no matter what they believe. Because God is love - because love is who he is - every time you shower your kids in love they will experience God in that moment, even if they aren’t aware of it. So call your kids and ask how they are doing. Send your daughters flowers for no reason. Treat your sons to a round of golf. Offer to babysit so they can go on a date night. Help them with money with they are struggling financially. However it works for you and them, go out of your way to love them like Jesus loves them. The more they experience love from you, the more likely the chance they will believe that God loves them too.

5. SHARE

Don’t try to persuade your kids to come back to the faith by sharing Bible verses with them. Most likely, that will just push them away farther. Instead, tell them about what God is doing now. Tell them about how God is transforming you. Tell them them what you are struggling with in your faith journey. Tell them when the church does something good for the community. They already know that you believe in God so you don’t have to convince them about what you believe. And you don’t even have to try to convince them to believe either. You just need to share how you see God working in you and around you because it shows them that Jesus is relevant to our lives and to our world. It helps take Jesus out of the church and helps them see the good things the church does. Show them that God is not dead, he is alive and he is on the move!

Conclusion

We all know someone who started out strong, but then walked away from the faith. And as much as I wish I could give a guarantee that what I said today will work, I can’t. You can do everything right, and they may still reject Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. And then, all you can do is pray and ask God to soften their heart and draw them back to himself. But we serve a God who is utterly amazing. I know someone who had walked away from the faith in every tangible sense and yet, lately, God has been working in their heart and it seems to me that He is drawing this person back to himself. If we are alive, then our story isn’t finished yet. So, don’t give up on them yet. And if you have the courage to step into the messiness of their faith journey, then reflect deeply on their spiritual environments, listen attentively to their story, apologize authentically for your actions or your inactions that hurt them, love unconditionally and generously, and share good news with them - tell them of what God is currently doing in your life.

This is a hard challenge that will break your heart but if you have the strength to go through it, you will deepen your relationship with your kids and you just might open the door for them to come back to Jesus.

Pray.