I wasn’t raised in a Christian home so I don’t have the frame of reference my wife has in raising our kids to live for God. Can you give me some tips on how to instill a strong faith in my children?

Bringing up our children to know, love, and serve God doesn’t happen automatically—even in a Christian home. Sadly, fewer than one out of every five parents of young children believe they are doing a good job training their children morally and spiritually. In a national survey of adults on parenting performance conducted by George Barna, out of 15 indicators parents ranked their efforts related to morality and spirituality at the bottom of the list. The bright side to these gloomy statistics is that today more and more parents like you are stepping up to take an active and intentional role in nurturing the faith of their children.

Regardless of your current career or ministry, parenting must be your primary job in life. This job has been called by more than a few family experts “the most difficult job in the world.”

God attaches great importance to how we instruct our children about life and faith. According to the Bible, the responsibility for the spiritual nurture of children belongs to parents. Organizations such as the church and people from outside the home can and do support those efforts, but the responsibility is squarely placed at the feet of the family. How can this demanding task be accomplished?

Many parents didn’t have adequate role models growing up themselves. To gain helpful insights for parents, George Barna conducted a nationwide study where he focused on children who grew up to be spiritual champions and the parents who raised them. In his book Revolutionary Parenting (Tyndale House, 2007), Barna shares these insights into how parents can train up their kids to be “spiritual champions.” A spiritual champion is an individual who has “embraced Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord; accepted the Bible as truth and the guide for life; and seeks to live in obedience to its principles while continually searching for ways to deepen his relationship with God.” Here are two tips we gleaned from Barna’s eye-opening research.

Your impact on your children’s lives is proportional to the depth of the relationship you have cultivated with them. Expecting your children to follow you simply because you are their parent doesn’t work for long. Think about the relationship you have with each of your children. Is that relationship built upon trust and unconditional love? This implies devoting substantial amounts of time to building your relationship with each child. Once you have created a heartfelt relationship with them, they will be open to your guidance.

You must wholeheartedly embrace the outcomes you are trying to impress upon your child. As a parent you need to define what you want your child to become as an adult. Having that picture clear in your mind will enable you to develop a plan and stick with the plan when life gets messy. Whenever Bev and I teach the Becoming a Love and Logic Parent course we challenge parents to think through what success looks like in their kids’ lives. No one can hit a target that is undefined. So begin thinking through what you want your kids to look like as they mature into adults. Make a simple list of what you want to see happen in your child’s life. Do you want your children to become responsible, independent, loving, and fully devoted to Jesus? Then start taking baby steps in that direction. The important thing is to begin with the end in sight and work toward that end.

Moses made it clear that parents who want their children to love God and follow his commandments must take these actions to heart themselves (Deuteronomy 6:5-7). If you want your children to have authentic faith, they need to see genuine faith lived out in your life. No one expects perfection, but a “do as I say, not as I do” approach is not likely to produce the desired lifestyle and faith in your child’s life either. For better or for worse, a parent is a child’s role model for faith. Make sure the example you are setting at home is for the better.

Training your children in the way God wants them to grow is a process. There are no guarantees that if you do these things we listed above you will raise a child to know, love, and serve God. However, we believe you can certainly raise the odds in your favor if you stay focused on God’s highest calling—parenting. |L

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