When our kids were younger, the task of getting to church on time was our biggest challenge. In fact, there was a period when our middle daughter, six years old at the time, would only go to church wearing her favorite shoes—clogs. The service predictably started at the top of the hour, and we predictably showed up late. Our strategy was to always head stealthily to the back balcony to blend in behind the choir. The biggest obstacle? Walking up the wooden stairs with a clog-wearing daughter. “The Lord be with you.” Clomp, clomp, clomp. “And also with you.” Clomp, clomp, clomp. “Be still and know that I am God.” Clomp, clomp, clomp. The choir got to know us really well. Some of them smiled. Others shook their heads. We were the late-arriving clog family. But we made it to church. And if you’ve been a parent of young children, you count that a win.
We fondly chuckle over those early churchgoing memories. As hard as those events felt, they feel easy compared to ways we have to navigate church with our teenage and young adult kids now. We still believe church matters. We believe that connecting with faith communities enhances personal faith. But now, our kids are becoming their own persons—who make more of their own choices, including choices about church.
We don’t want them to go to church to please us or anyone else. We want them to go because they want to go for themselves. Through the hundreds of conversations my wife, Jen, and I have had with our friends, as well as the research our Fuller Youth Institute team has collected through our Growing With project, we’re learning a few things that have shaped the ways we talk about church with our growing teenage and young adult kids.
It’s important to remember that if your family has connected with a church community, these spiritual habits and relationships stick with your kids. Even in periods when your growing kids seem less interested in church, it’s still part of their story.1 Practicing faith has a consistent tempo to it. Yet consistency alone can’t fend off your teenager’s inevitable resistance to church. In fact, their familiarity with church might encourage more open critique. They may start asking questions or making comments that feel rebellious or disrespectful, like “Why do we even go to church?” or “I don’t get anything out of it.”
The parenting reflex, often fueled by fear, is to get combative—blaming them, shaming them, or discrediting their questions and assessments. In these moments, the courageous parenting approach is to listen to their questions and critiques while recognizing that their commentary is less about protest and more about ownership. They are starting to consider how your family’s churchgoing practice (your choice) now becomes their own (their choice). They need their own reasons, not just ours.
Listening first helps parents ask better questions for fruitful dialogue. Our teenagers need our empathy, honesty, and support while they navigate their increasingly complex and stressful lives. Focusing only on their church “attendance” drives shortsighted behaviors that only last as long as you shame or bribe them. Keep listening and remain consistent with your own church-connecting practices while they find their own paths toward church. Grow with them by helping them choose church for themselves rather than choosing it for them.
Popular news stories of young people leaving church once they leave home do not help calm parents’ anxieties about their kids’ faith. But often, these stories are overplayed and create unfair perspectives. While it is true that post-high school young people typically attend church less, many adults misinterpret why this is happening. As Jen and I took a closer look at research and listened to our kids and their friends, we recognized that young people’s absence from church often has less to do with theological reasons and is more likely tied to practical ones. We’ve discovered that:
• Young people often feel overwhelmed with this new chapter in their lives and don’t feel like they have time to commit to a church right now.2 So we encourage them to do less rather than more their first year out.
• Young people often are faced for the first time with choosing their own church rather than the church their parents chose for them.3 So we encourage them to take their time to experience different church expressions.
• Many churches still hold Sunday morning services, which can be out of sync with most young people’s lives.4 So we encourage them to think about their own daily and weekly rhythms of work, play, and rest.
Grow with them by broadening your church-oriented conversations in ways that acknowledge their emerging life rhythms and values.
Our growing kids’ participation in church requires a relational journey, not a quick fix. I’ll be honest: as a parent, it feels better when they do go to church. But people attend and leave churches for all kinds of reasons. If we rest on whether they go or don’t go to church, we will miss their reasons, motivations, or spiritual quests. Our parenting challenge is to let them experience it all firsthand with less and less parental interference. So our conversations about church must shift: Instead of, “Do you attend church?” try, “What kind of church do you think is worth connecting with?” Instead of, “You should go to church,” try, “How might you try using your gifts and working out your world concerns through your faith community?”
What we know to be true and what we have experienced with our own daughters is that, while their church attendance varies, they are seeking to make sense of their world, relationships, spirituality, and selves. Our goal is to engage in more nuanced conversations with them and let go of our optimism or pessimism over their church attendance. Grow with them by taking your conversations beyond attendance and toward the opportunities and challenges of living out their faith within community.
Church is not about clogs. It’s not even about attendance. Instead, allow your teenage and young adult kids’ winding roads of participation be less contentious and more an opportunity for you to grow with your kids through dialogue and discovery. Let it be a springboard for the significant conversations about life and faith everyone—young and old—longs for.
This article was originally published on the Fuller Youth Institute blog in February 2019.
Steven Argue is associate professor of youth, family, and culture and is the applied research strategist at the Fuller Youth Institute. A thought leader and researcher, he has served as a pastor and has also led parachurch organizations that focused on youth ministry strategies and leadership development. Dr. Argue has numerous publications ranging from book chapters, blogs, and articles, and he is the coauthor of 18 Plus: Parenting Your Emerging Adult; Growing With: Every Parent’s Guide to Helping Teenagers and Young Adults Thrive in Their Faith, Family, and Future; and Sticky Faith Innovation: How Your Compassion, Creativity, and Courage Can Support Teenagers’ Lasting Faith.
When our kids were younger, the task of getting to church on time was our biggest challenge. In fact, there was a period when our middle daughter, six years old at the time, would only go to church wearing her favorite shoes—clogs. The service predictably started at the top of the hour, and we predictably showed up late. Our strategy was to always head stealthily to the back balcony to blend in behind the choir. The biggest obstacle? Walking up the wooden stairs with a clog-wearing daughter. “The Lord be with you.” Clomp, clomp, clomp. “And also with you.” Clomp, clomp, clomp. “Be still and know that I am God.” Clomp, clomp, clomp. The choir got to know us really well. Some of them smiled. Others shook their heads. We were the late-arriving clog family. But we made it to church. And if you’ve been a parent of young children, you count that a win.
We fondly chuckle over those early churchgoing memories. As hard as those events felt, they feel easy compared to ways we have to navigate church with our teenage and young adult kids now. We still believe church matters. We believe that connecting with faith communities enhances personal faith. But now, our kids are becoming their own persons—who make more of their own choices, including choices about church.
We don’t want them to go to church to please us or anyone else. We want them to go because they want to go for themselves. Through the hundreds of conversations my wife, Jen, and I have had with our friends, as well as the research our Fuller Youth Institute team has collected through our Growing With project, we’re learning a few things that have shaped the ways we talk about church with our growing teenage and young adult kids.
It’s important to remember that if your family has connected with a church community, these spiritual habits and relationships stick with your kids. Even in periods when your growing kids seem less interested in church, it’s still part of their story.1 Practicing faith has a consistent tempo to it. Yet consistency alone can’t fend off your teenager’s inevitable resistance to church. In fact, their familiarity with church might encourage more open critique. They may start asking questions or making comments that feel rebellious or disrespectful, like “Why do we even go to church?” or “I don’t get anything out of it.”
The parenting reflex, often fueled by fear, is to get combative—blaming them, shaming them, or discrediting their questions and assessments. In these moments, the courageous parenting approach is to listen to their questions and critiques while recognizing that their commentary is less about protest and more about ownership. They are starting to consider how your family’s churchgoing practice (your choice) now becomes their own (their choice). They need their own reasons, not just ours.
Listening first helps parents ask better questions for fruitful dialogue. Our teenagers need our empathy, honesty, and support while they navigate their increasingly complex and stressful lives. Focusing only on their church “attendance” drives shortsighted behaviors that only last as long as you shame or bribe them. Keep listening and remain consistent with your own church-connecting practices while they find their own paths toward church. Grow with them by helping them choose church for themselves rather than choosing it for them.
Popular news stories of young people leaving church once they leave home do not help calm parents’ anxieties about their kids’ faith. But often, these stories are overplayed and create unfair perspectives. While it is true that post-high school young people typically attend church less, many adults misinterpret why this is happening. As Jen and I took a closer look at research and listened to our kids and their friends, we recognized that young people’s absence from church often has less to do with theological reasons and is more likely tied to practical ones. We’ve discovered that:
• Young people often feel overwhelmed with this new chapter in their lives and don’t feel like they have time to commit to a church right now.2 So we encourage them to do less rather than more their first year out.
• Young people often are faced for the first time with choosing their own church rather than the church their parents chose for them.3 So we encourage them to take their time to experience different church expressions.
• Many churches still hold Sunday morning services, which can be out of sync with most young people’s lives.4 So we encourage them to think about their own daily and weekly rhythms of work, play, and rest.
Grow with them by broadening your church-oriented conversations in ways that acknowledge their emerging life rhythms and values.
Our growing kids’ participation in church requires a relational journey, not a quick fix. I’ll be honest: as a parent, it feels better when they do go to church. But people attend and leave churches for all kinds of reasons. If we rest on whether they go or don’t go to church, we will miss their reasons, motivations, or spiritual quests. Our parenting challenge is to let them experience it all firsthand with less and less parental interference. So our conversations about church must shift: Instead of, “Do you attend church?” try, “What kind of church do you think is worth connecting with?” Instead of, “You should go to church,” try, “How might you try using your gifts and working out your world concerns through your faith community?”
What we know to be true and what we have experienced with our own daughters is that, while their church attendance varies, they are seeking to make sense of their world, relationships, spirituality, and selves. Our goal is to engage in more nuanced conversations with them and let go of our optimism or pessimism over their church attendance. Grow with them by taking your conversations beyond attendance and toward the opportunities and challenges of living out their faith within community.
Church is not about clogs. It’s not even about attendance. Instead, allow your teenage and young adult kids’ winding roads of participation be less contentious and more an opportunity for you to grow with your kids through dialogue and discovery. Let it be a springboard for the significant conversations about life and faith everyone—young and old—longs for.
This article was originally published on the Fuller Youth Institute blog in February 2019.
Steven Argue is associate professor of youth, family, and culture and is the applied research strategist at the Fuller Youth Institute. A thought leader and researcher, he has served as a pastor and has also led parachurch organizations that focused on youth ministry strategies and leadership development. Dr. Argue has numerous publications ranging from book chapters, blogs, and articles, and he is the coauthor of 18 Plus: Parenting Your Emerging Adult; Growing With: Every Parent’s Guide to Helping Teenagers and Young Adults Thrive in Their Faith, Family, and Future; and Sticky Faith Innovation: How Your Compassion, Creativity, and Courage Can Support Teenagers’ Lasting Faith.
Alesia Starks, instructor in the practice of marriage and family therapy, shares lessons she’s learned from her children about Christlikeness, faith, and humility.
