Perhaps, the scariest thing to me about parenting is the fear of my daughter rejecting God. Many of my parenting decisions were made because I wanted to be able to honestly say I did everything I knew how to do to help her be strong spiritually. And yet there are no guarantees your child will be a faithful, productive Christian as an adult. Or are there?
The new book Abandoned Faith by Alex McFarland and Jason Jimenez examines why many young people are abandoning their faith and what parents can do about it. I won’t lie. This is one scary book. If your children are still at home, it will scare the pants off of you – and it should. As someone who works with kids and teens on a regular basis, I can tell you very few parents are doing what they need to do to prepare their children to live an active, productive Christian faith as an adult.
Most of you will lose your kids – watch them reject God and His teachings – because you aren’t doing what you could do now to greatly lessen the chances it will happen. This book does a great job at pointing out the main mistakes parents make when helping their kids develop a strong spiritual life.
Continue reading Great Resource on Why Young People Abandon Their Faith
You may not know this, but Parenting Like Hannah and its parent ministry Teach One Reach One actually began with the writing of a study for parents and Bible class teachers to do with young people who were expressing an interest in being baptized and becoming a Christian. I wrote it, because at the time my own daughter was interested in becoming a Christian and I couldn’t find anything I liked. As we studied together, I crafted the study from what we discussed and the questions she and some of her friends had on the topic.
It happens to us all. We think we are doing something routine like grocery shopping. On a good day I can get in and out of the grocery store in a few minutes. It never fails though. If my day is packed with so much I have little wiggle room, I will run into everyone I haven’t seen for years in the store. And they want to talk. A lot. About everything that has happened in the five years since I last saw them.
Acts 2:38 is a verse I have heard quoted thousands and thousands of times in my lifetime. “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (NIV) When I place this scripture beside all of the conversion accounts in the New Testament and the meaning of the original Greek word for baptism, two things become clear. Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins is clearly a command and the person who is baptized must understand and be capable of repenting.