1656. Faithing Together
6. Faithing Together
Searching for Communities That Support Our Faith Journeys
If you grew up in a churchgoing family—and if you’re honest—you might remember those times when you faked sleeping in on Sunday mornings. I (Steve) will admit it. On those sleepy Sunday mornings, I would strategize that if I just stayed in bed long enough, my parents would overlook that I wasn’t up or would sleep in themselves and give me a pass on church. Our own kids have tried the same tactics, but we were on to them!
But let me continue to be honest. As parents, we face that go-to-church/not-go-to-church dilemma every weekend. In the past few months . . .
There have been mornings when our kids didn’t want to go to church and we really wanted them to go.
There have been times when they wanted to go to church and I wanted to take the day off.
There have been surprises, like when our high school daughter visited her older sister at college and, instead of sleeping in after attending a concert the night before, they went to church on Sunday.
There have been moments when they wanted to go to church and I really wanted them to stay home, rest, and recover from their dizzying schedules.
And continuing in this theme of being honest about weekend worship services, church creates all sorts of tension within us as parents, as well as in our relationships with our kids.
Relationally, this is often where fights break out between parents and children. Parents think their kids need to go to church, and kids are resistant.
Practically, we often get frustrated when all that our kids experience at church is a program—no relationships or integration beyond the peer-specific group.
Emotionally, we get nervous when our kids attend less frequently or stop attending church altogether, because we worry they’ll lose their faith.
Adding to our anxiety are the less-than-promising reports on the decline of young people’s religious lives that hit the headlines and crowd our social media feeds:
Millennials Are Leaving the Church in Droves
Young People Are Biblically Illiterate
Religious “Nones” Are Atheists and Agnostics
What Will We Do About America’s Empty Churches?
These headlines about young people are generally a bit exaggerated. Writers, bloggers, and marketers are trying to attract your attention and your dollars. Alarmist headlines often do the trick.
While we need to take such headlines with a grain of salt, we also need to recognize the truth that beats behind them. Many young people, including perhaps your own teenagers and young adults, are distancing themselves from the church today. While 18- to 29-year-olds comprise 17 percent of the US population, they represent only 10 percent of US churchgoers. As people who love teenagers and young adults, Kara and I are deeply concerned by how young people are missing from churches. We hope you are too.
But in the midst of our worries, what fills us with optimism and inspired our Growing Young research project is all the amazing faith communities loving and attracting young people today. In the midst of the discouraging bare spots in churches, there are some hope-inspiring bright spots.
Further, let’s remember that the faith journeys of young people are more complex than their church attendance. Dr. Nancy Tatom Ammerman, sociologist at Boston University’s School of Theology, gives insightful perspective that if “we do not find as much of [religion today] in those predictable places as we did before, we cannot assume that it is disappearing.”
As a parent, you may wish the church was different and feel frustrated that you don’t have much influence over your own church. That’s why we focus this chapter on what you can do to encourage your kids’ faithing in community. If we stick with our terminology that describes faithing as an ongoing journey, we suggest that when people are faithing together, they’re churching. Church, then, is less of a place young people seek to attend and more of a community with which young people participate.
We might be tempted to direct our cheering or blaming over the current state of our kids’ belief in God onto ourselves. All of us—including Kara and me—have made mistakes in how we’ve helped teenagers and young adults come to love the church. But the good news is that it is never too early and never too late to take positive steps toward encouraging the faithing journeys of your adolescents and emerging adults. Our hope is that your church can be a supportive community both to you and to your growing kids.
Faithing Insights
Looking Out for Young People
During our Growing Young research, we discovered that churches doing great work with young people tend to “prioritize young people everywhere.” Making young people a priority means that churches do more than empathize, relate, or say they care about them. Instead, these vibrant faith communities move beyond rhetoric to reality by making strategic choices in their buildings, schedules, budgets, and programs to position themselves to advocate for young people. Adults in Growing Young churches turn their focus outward, putting the needs of young people ahead of their own.
Prioritizing young people doesn’t mean that older generations don’t matter. In fact, our Growing Young research revealed that when young people are prioritized in the church, everyone benefits. Members of all generations learn from each other, help each other look beyond church culture, and develop new relationship muscles they have not exercised before.
If—Not When—They Return
We explained in chapter 1 that young people are taking longer to develop their careers, get married, and have children. Many eventually achieve these personal goals, but we must not extrapolate that this is the same for church. We cannot assume young people will just come to their senses and return to church at age 30. This false hope is rooted in studies of previous generations who returned in part to church once they got married or had children.
But this generation is different and less likely to return when they become parents. Their educational and vocational pursuits require emerging adults to be more mobile, extending the time it takes for them (should they choose) to settle into a community, get married, and start a family. Thus, if the stabilizing factors that may encourage them to reengage church are occurring later, their church non-attendance may lengthen. If this is true, churches must consider that young people who return to church may be coming back not from a short hiatus but after a decade-long absence. Let’s not assume that reentry is easy for them.
In addition, while overall church participation numbers have only declined slightly, when we look at the data by generations, those in their twenties are more likely to identify as not religiously affiliated. Pew research findings reveal that by generation, 35 percent of Millennials identify as religiously unaffiliated, compared to 25 percent of Generation Xers and 17 percent of Boomers.
This rise in religiously unaffiliated Millennials seems common across race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and gender. It does not mean that today’s young people are anti-God, however. Of the unaffiliated, two-thirds report that they believe in God, and a majority believe that religious institutions can be a force for good. Yet, 88 percent of these unaffiliated say they are not seeking to be connected with churches.
Learners and Their Relationship with Church
It is common to think that the only real connection teenagers have with church is through youth groups. We remain convinced that youth ministries play an important role in the life of Christian teenagers and their families. However, we also believe the whole church plays a crucial role in supporting and impacting adolescents’ faithing. In fact, research supports that faith transmission from parents to children increases when family connections with churches are tighter. When families engage with faith communities, there are more opportunities for intergenerational support, spiritual modeling, and the development of religious practices. Churches remain faithing greenhouses for teenagers where intergenerational relationships are cultivated, conversations about God are sparked, and faith development is extended into their real lives.
The promising insight for our learner kids is that churches can offer significant support to our adolescents, support that is appreciated by their parents. In our nationwide sample of family interviews, parents of teenagers consistently reported that their churches helped them parent their kids. In particular, they were grateful for the support of other adults from their churches who invested in their children’s lives or served as mentors to them.
One father of two boys from the West Coast explained it this way: “I feel like over the years, each of our kids has had significant individuals in our church who have invested and connected with them deeply, whether that be a Sunday school teacher, youth group leader, or a small group leader somewhere along the way. That was huge in their spiritual development.”
Thanks to the wisdom of our friend Chap Clark, we suggested in our Sticky Faith research that teenagers benefit from a five-to-one ratio where they can name five adults in their lives who support them with no strings attached. This does not mean that there are five adults following one kid around everywhere they go! It means that a young person can name five adults supporting them—an aunt/uncle, grandparent, church leader, teacher, coach, or family friend. Our parent interviews confirmed that the most significant way parents felt their churches helped them parent their growing teenagers and emerging adults was by providing adults who invested in their kids.
CHURCH IS WHERE THE CONVERSATION STARTS (NOT ENDS)
During our nationwide interviews, many parents reported that church events such as confirmation, catechism, or worship services provided them with opportunities to talk about God with their kids. One mother of four teenagers from California reflected: “When we drove home together from church, we would quite often have great conversations. I’d ask, ‘What did you think?’ I enjoyed letting them form their thoughts and responses.”
From our interviews as well as research on religious transmission, we see that church programs are not merely an end in themselves but can be sparks that ignite more faithing conversations between parents and their teenagers.
FAITHING THROUGH (AND BEYOND) YOUTH GROUP
Perhaps some of our young people struggle with attending church because they do not feel that church addresses the topics that really matter to them. Half of 13- to 17-year-olds desire to pursue science-related careers, yet only 1 percent of youth pastors report addressing any science-related subject in the last year. While some youth leaders may attempt to address “faith versus science” debate topics, young people are often more interested in harmonizing their faith and science convictions. Many who aspire to work in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math) seek to have generative conversations about global warming, genetic engineering, the sanctity of life, fighting diseases, and alleviating poverty.
As leaders deeply connected with the trends in US youth ministry, we remain concerned that church leaders at times fail to help young people make faithing connections between their beliefs and their life experiences. Our work at the Fuller Youth Institute provides portraits of youth group graduates who now seem unable to translate their youth ministry experiences into college, the military, or the workforce. Youth group often prepares its graduates for more youth group, not life after youth group. For many young people, they need help moving faith from an abstract religious term to everyday good news. Perhaps it is time for parents to have new conversations with our ministry leaders about our children’s search for identity, belonging, and purpose and the support churches can provide for them.
Explorers and Their Relationship with Church
Traditionally, the explorer period immediately after high school is when churchgoing drops most dramatically. Christian Smith and Patricia Snell’s study of the religious lives of 18- to 23-year-olds revealed that their regular religious attendance decreased by 25 percent, and those young people who reported that they “never attend” church increased by 25 percent. In our national interviews, parents of explorers noticed shifts in their kids’ spiritual lives and church engagement, and expressed their own conflicting emotions as they watched their kids make their own choices. For example, we heard statements like:
“And then I don’t think he really went to church in college, despite me really harping him about it.”
“I am praying that my kids would trust God. I am praying that they would trust that God loves them and is good, and the same for myself.”
“But I think as a parent, you sit back and you are awed by how the Holy Spirit can just work in them. And there are a lot of parents who have done exactly what I have done and prayed with them every night and prayed for them and coached them and worked with them, and still things happen and your kid can walk away from church.”
“I think it is always a challenge when your kids are living away from home to know how much do you push and say, ‘Are you going to church? Do you have a church?’ Do I care if they just go to church? I do not care as much if they go to church as that they are plugged in to a Christian community. What does that look like? Maybe that is harder to do than to just go to church on Sunday and check that box.”
DECLINING CHURCH ATTENDANCE (BUT STILL FAITHING)
Explorer young people are starting to learn to take responsibility for their decisions, including how they will engage church on their own. Some religious leaders misinterpret college students’ decline in church attendance as evidence of the anti-faith agendas of university campuses and professors. This perspective isn’t supported by the newest data. Recently surveyed college students were 2.7 times more likely to report that their religious beliefs were strengthened during their college experience rather than weakened. Further, there is evidence that those who do not attend college are more likely to experience declines in religious service attendance and affiliation. Another study reinterprets statistics of declining church attendance of first-year college students as a by-product of learning to manage one’s daily life more than rejecting God or religion. More studies need to be conducted about the effects of college on a young person’s faith, but while it’s understandable that parents bemoan their undergraduate’s drift from church or small group, it doesn’t necessarily mean their beliefs, or their affection for those beliefs, have waned.
FAITHING FACES DISRUPTIONS, DISTRACTIONS, AND DIFFERENTIATION
Adults may push back on the findings above and suggest that young people have a responsibility to develop their own walk with God. While we aspire for young people to own their faith journeys, churches must recognize that young people still need support. Smith and Snell observe that explorers participate less in church because of “disruptions,” “distractions,” and “differentiation.”
Disruptions are the social, institutional, and geographical transitions that upend the familiar religious practices of their once settled lives. Hence the transitional states of most college-aged young people require a tremendous amount of effort to reengage in a new community, making it logistically more difficult for them to find a new church. It’s quite likely that for our explorer children, religious practices diminish due to life changes as much as, if not more than, changes in religious beliefs.
Distractions reflect the increased activities and involvements that pull explorers in more directions. College-aged young people are busy—and feel busy—which often means attending church gets sidelined. As with disruptions, it again appears that lower church attendance may not be because of young people’s unbelief but rather because they feel overwhelmed by life’s demands.
Differentiation is a central life task of explorers as they gain a sense of identity based not just on their family, faith, and cultural background, but also from the way they lean in to or push away from that background. For example, a college-aged young adult who has been told all their life to go to church may decide not to go to church on the first Sunday after they move away from home. In situations like these, our children’s actions may reflect how they are expressing their autonomy, not their disbelief.
The compounded power of disruptions, distractions, and differentiation is evident in one nationwide study of college students’ drop in religious participation. While one-third of young people with a faith background in high school reported religious skepticism as a reason for being nonreligious in college, 50 percent reported other vague reasons such as losing interest, just stopping participation, or not knowing why.
Let’s be clear, however, that while there may be many reasons for our explorers’ declining church attendance, stepping away from faith communities can be harmful for their faith journeys. In our Sticky Faith research, we learned that college students who found connection with off-campus churches or on-campus Christian fellowships demonstrated greater faith maturity, attempted to live out their Christian faith narrative, and sought God for support during their freshman year. Additional studies report that those who both value religious participation and prioritize religious practices have a great sense of meaning, purpose, and flourishing.
FAITHING’S FIRST TWO WEEKS
In our interviews of over 500 college students for our Sticky Faith research, we were struck by how students repeatedly pointed to the importance of their first two weeks in college. During these first 14 days, students make key decisions about sex, drinking, and other high-risk behaviors along with their potential allegiance (or lack thereof) to a local church or on-campus ministry. An explorer’s decisions during this short introductory period can set them on a trajectory that lasts for the rest of their college experience. Given this trend, conversations about college decision-making must begin long before the first day of orientation.
Focusers and Their Relationship with Church
As focuser kids approach adulthood (generally ages 23–29), they likely feel confident in some of their acquired competencies while still remaining uncertain about others. They need adults’ support in more customized ways pertaining to their vocational choices, long-term relationship decisions, financial advice, and even input for their own parenting. In our national interviews, one mother from the Northwest highlighted common worries and desires she had for her child who was becoming a focuser: “I wondered, are they going to get a job? Are they going to get married? You know, no one can do it for them. We still want to be there for them in some way. And I think this is the biggest tension we feel—that communication gap between us believing that our kids can do it for themselves and us accepting that sometimes our kids want us to know that they cannot.”
As we observe our focusers moving toward adulthood, perhaps churches can offer another layer of needed support, but that will require reorienting the ways churches see and relate to them.
THE DTR
At one time or another, you’ve probably had to define the relationship (or DTR) with someone. It’s that moment in a significant relationship when you ask, “Who are we, together?” “What can I expect of you, and you of me?” and “Where is this thing going?” Relationships that don’t have one (or more) DTRs live in ambiguity and eventually dissolve because neither party is clear on how to relate. Relational ambiguity can lead to a breakup.
We use this DTR metaphor with ministry leaders to help them consider their churches’ relationships with focusers. Those working through the second half of emerging adulthood may find their relationships with churches less defined and more ambiguous. As learners or even as explorers, their experiences generally match those of their peers, making it easier for the typical church to provide a cohesive and meaningful social environment. But the variability in late twentysomethings’ lives and experiences creates ill-defined and awkward connections with churches.
For example, some focusers may not be married, but they do not want to be relegated to a “singles ministry.” In fact, one of my (Steve’s) graduate students told me, “Singleness is not an issue in my classes or my work. It’s only at church that I feel labeled this way.”
Or some may be married but have friends who are not, and they don’t want church programs to divide them by marital status.
It’s not easy for churches to work with focusers to negotiate a new, defined relationship that gives both emerging adults and church communities clarity and the relational support they need. But we think faith communities need to have a DTR with their focuser young people before more blame is launched or another “young adult program” is created. I often tell ministry leaders that they do not have to guess about what their focusers need. They only have to do one thing: ask them. Invite them to coffee or dinner and start to get to know them. This is where the DTR begins (and grows).
QUALITY MENTORS
“The closest thing I have to a mentor is my boss.” Over coffee, a 27-year-old summarized his connection to older adults with this phrase. His statement got me (Steve) thinking about the role and availability of older people in focusers’ lives. From what I gathered from subsequent conversations with this young man, while he was grateful for what he learned from his boss, he wanted—and needed—something more significant.
Researcher and former Harvard professor Sharon Daloz Parks underscores that it’s crucial for young people who are asking big questions and searching for worthy dreams to find good mentors and faithful mentoring communities. Parks believes that when it comes to twentysomethings, the most effective mentors possess the following qualities:
Mentors recognize young people. As people in general, we have a need to be seen and known. Mentors see focusers for more than what they do but also who they are in their entirety.
Mentors support young people. Jen and I have been hosting monthly chili nights for emerging adults. It is a low-key night where we gather at our home, talk, and take the last portion for a “question of the night” discussion. I asked them recently, “What is your gift to the world, and how are you trying to develop that gift?” For the next few moments, you could have heard a pin drop. No one wanted to share their gift because, as they explained, “We’re not that confident in our gifts yet.” Their hesitation and inability to name their own gifts confirmed that focusers need mentors who support them and call out the gifts we know (and we want them to know) are there.
Mentors challenge young people. A mentoring relationship is most alive when both mentor and protégé are working on the edge of new knowing and possibility. Mentors bring a vigilance that challenges young people to grow and not just play it safe vocationally, relationally, or spiritually.
Mentors inspire young people. A good mentor is an antidote to mere cynicism. I remind my graduate students, many of whom are focusers, that every paper they write and every class they attend has the potential to change the world. Mentors inspire young people by reminding them of the bigger picture.
Mentors hang in there with young people. Mentors ask questions to nurture an open-ended dialogue rather than give quick answers that shut down their process.
MENTORING COMMUNITIES
Parks’s emphasis on effective mentoring is situated in an equally important opportunity for focusers and the church: mentoring communities. Emerging adults often need more than great mentors, they need mentoring environments. In a world where focusers feel like their every move has little margin for error, mentoring communities become safe laboratories where they can try, grow, receive feedback, and know grace.
For a focuser starting her first job after graduate school, working 80 hours a week . . .
For the focuser who is a new father, anxious about every parenting situation . . .
For the single focuser who just got dumped by “the one” . . .
For the focuser newlyweds navigating accrued debt on a shoestring budget . . .
For the focuser who just transferred to this new community . . .
Mentoring communities embody good news.
Kara and I often muse with our students, “Where might we find mentoring communities who care for families, advocate for young people, or make transplants feel at home?” Together we reflect on the incredible potential that churches have to be the very communities that young people long for and need. We believe churches can embody very good news for young people who crave support and mentorship.
Learners, Explorers, and Focusers Faithing Online
Technological advances have made online interaction between users much more “human.” While we have witnessed the advantages of technology connecting us with the world, we also have suffered from what Dr. Sherry Turkle, professor of social studies and technology at MIT, describes as existing “alone together.”
Does “going to church” online count? Tim Hutchings, a sociologist of religion, media, and culture who has tracked the development of online ministries, observes that most online engagement stems from existing churches taking their worship services online. Thus, churches in geophysical locations are simply using the internet to extend their ministries in various online forms. Young people still have opportunities to connect with local communities either at the main church or, as I (Steve) saw in our previous church, through small groups that gathered around the world and listened to our church’s podcast. Though these groups were nowhere near our local church, they felt connected and saw our church as their own church. Dave Adamson, the social media pastor at North Point Ministries, emphasizes that his main pastoral goal is to ensure that he is building community around the content their church develops. He also suggests that because of the online options now available, “Church attendance is not declining, it’s decentralizing.”
Online spaces are more than gimmicky tricks to make religion cool again. For digital natives like the teenagers and young adults we’re raising, “online” is a valid space for connection and community. Twentieth-century church leader and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer asserts in his book Life Together that “the physical presence of other Christians is a source of incompatible joy and strength to a believer.” But our learners, explorers, and focusers experience “presence” in more diverse ways than previous generations. While embodied relationships are essential, might even our current local church congregations lack consistent connection when parishioners only gather for Sunday services or once-a-week programs? Is not presence also found in the daily online interactions people have within their communities? Nancy Duff, associate professor of Christian ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary, suggests that online faith communities have the potential to “promote human understanding, combat loneliness, and share the Gospel.”
Furthermore, Duff observes that some people attend online services not because they are unwilling to attend physical churches but because they are unable. Author and editor Emma Green writes that for some Millennials, church attendance decline may be because fewer young people own cars. Perhaps young people attending online church isn’t about laziness but rather reflects faithfulness. Maybe they attend online church because of their desire for consistent community rather than their avoidance of it.
While we grew up in an age without digital connection to the world through the internet, social media, and smartphones, it’s the only world our kids have ever known. What we learned to navigate as adult “digital immigrants” they’ve been breathing as natives since birth. That means we tend to see and experience technology differently, which makes this yet another area in which we can grow with our kids as they grow into adulthood.
Certainly there are limitations to online churches, and we both encourage our own kids to experience face-to-face faith community. But physical Sunday morning church services in their current forms may have seasons when congregations are just as “alone together.”
The Best Church for Young People
Our Growing Young research made it resoundingly clear that the churches young people appreciate are not uniquely new or old, large or small, urban or suburban, rich or poor, cool or not. Instead, they are diverse churches who share common values that position them to be committed to young people. The good news is that when we are asked what type of church is the best for young people, we usually quote the answer given by our FYI colleague and Growing Young coauthor, Brad Griffin: “Your church.”
As parents, spend less time trying to find the “perfect” church and more time leveraging the strengths and beauty of your own church. Chances are you have a compassionate minister, a professional who is willing to talk with your child about their desired vocation, or a senior citizen who cares about young people. Our default is often to think about what “programs” churches offer our kids. As our learners, explorers, and focusers mature, the people who will grow with them matter more than the programs they’ll grow out of.
So start taking advantage of the unique beauty of your church by reflecting on these questions:
Attendance, Participation, and Exchange Zones
Kara and I admit it—we feel better when our teenage and young adult kids go to church! However, let’s not assume that their attendance means they are participating.
Think of attendance as opportunities for young people to simply connect with other believers. Participation, on the other hand, means more than showing up; it means our young people are relationally investing in others and becoming part of the work of the church (in worship and in ministry to the community and world). To help your kid get the most out of attending—and hopefully eventually move into true participation—try asking the following questions:
Further, don’t assume that your kid’s lack of attendance means that they have turned off their spiritual dial. Regardless of your child’s church involvement, tune in to their spiritual quest by asking the following questions:
Let’s take this concept of participation further. Using the metaphor of a triathlon, what if we envisioned church more as an “exchange zone”? The exchange zone is where triathletes transition from one discipline to another—from swimming to biking, or later from biking to running. In the exchange zone, the goal is to gear up efficiently for the next leg of the race. Exchange zones can make or break the race for athletes, but exchange zones are not the whole race!
If we envision churches as triathlon exchange zones, then the difference between attendance and participation becomes clearer. If all we encourage is attendance, our young people may show up for brief exchange zones (e.g., worship gatherings and church activities) but have little vision for the race they are part of all week long.
But if we encourage participation, then our goal is to support, equip, heal, and send our young people on to the next leg of the race. They are most faithful to the course set out for them not by loitering in the exchange zones but by pouring themselves into the goals to which they have been called. Coming to the exchange zone (church) now has purpose beyond attendance. Its purpose is participation. Church isn’t the destination. It’s the exchange zone—for ourselves and everyone around us. We each have something to offer one another. This is churching.
Teacher Parents Who Support Their Learners’ Churching
Last year, my (Steve’s) high school senior was “so done” with high school. Regularly she came home reminding us that she was ready to move on to college (which at the time she had “narrowed” to ten options). We knew that she did not hate school, but she was growing out of the form of the high school environment and setting her sights on what was coming next.
Jen, a counselor, reminded me that part of the leaving process is to critique what we leave as a way to cope with transition. Thus, telling ourselves (and our parents and everyone else within hearing distance) that we are leaving a “boring, immature, annoying” high school is much easier than leaving a happy, perfect one. Likely, there are similar moves our learner kids make when they get closer to graduation that help them emotionally prepare for life after high school youth group. They may say it’s boring, immature, or less interesting. Instead of assuming that our kids are “falling away,” let’s celebrate that they are growing up and engaging with our churches in new ways that match their growing maturity. Teacher parents can work with their kids by:
Guide Parents Who Support Their Explorers’ Churching
Through our youth ministry work, we have recognized that many parents (and youth leaders!) assume that graduating high schoolers know where and how to connect with churches. For those who move for school, job, or the military, finding a new church is not always easy. For those who remain in town after graduation, their post–high school connection with church can also feel disruptive, especially if many of their church friends leave town or if their church (like most) doesn’t have a vibrant college ministry. Parents can help their explorer kids find church connection during this phase in their lives by trying the following.
Role-play. Invite your explorer child to walk through how they plan to find a church connection. For some of our kids, this is the first time they have ever had to find a new church or have felt the freedom to do so. Give them space to find a congregation and diffuse the anxiety they may feel to get connected in a few weeks (likely it will take at least a whole semester). Discuss some potential answers to the following questions, and maybe even come up with a short written plan they keep on their phone:
Be patient. While your explorer kid may take time to find a church, do not wait to ask them about their process. Shift from asking them, “Did you go to church?” to “How has your search for a church been going?” Help them process their experiences and remember that their search can itself be formational. In their quest for a church, your child inevitably will bump against questions about their own identity, faith, and sense of belonging that are worthy of exploration and conversation.
Send cookies. Keep in mind that their transition away from your home church does not mean that your church doesn’t matter to your kids anymore. As parents, work with your ministry leaders to reach out to young graduating high schoolers. Based on what we’ve learned in our Sticky Faith research, we believe that recent high school grads need tangible expressions of support from adults those first two weeks in their new setting. Send a note, prepare a care package, or make a phone call. Every text and box of chocolate chip cookies reminds explorers that though they’re moving on, your church and your family haven’t forgotten them. And we think they want to be reminded.
One Sunday, a father from my (Steve’s) church rushed up to our youth pastor. Our youth pastor thought he was in trouble, but the father, choking up, shared: “I visited my son this weekend. In his dorm room I saw an opened UPS box on his desk shelf and asked him why he didn’t throw it away. My son smiled and said, ‘That’s the box they sent me. It was filled with cookies and personal notes. My youth group remembered me.’”
Resourcer Parents Who Support Their Focusers’ Churching
We assume that our focuser kids are on their way toward establishing their own relationships, careers, and habits. While that is at least somewhat true, focusers are in a unique stage of learning how to connect with church. During the monthly dinners when my wife and I (Steve) open up our home to emerging adults, the majority of those who show up at our doorstep are in the focuser stage.
Recently, in the midst of our chili and cornbread, the topic of “home” came up. Most all of them, both married and single, shared how their lives were in so much transition that the concept of home felt elusive. Some were trying to establish their own traditions but felt the tension to please their parents. Others admitted that they didn’t see their current context as long-term, so they were prone to remain detached from people here and instead dream of a future home. I found their confessions powerful as I began to understand the extra stress they felt about family relationships, holiday expectations, and their decisions to go home or to create home right where they live. Perhaps resourcer parents can help their focuser kids by nudging them to discover home again, especially when it comes to their church connections.
Accept that the faith community they join may be different from yours and that they may attend it for different reasons than you attend yours. While we always encourage good and even robust discussions about God with your growing kids, ensure that your conversations do not turn into divisive debates. Start with where you agree, and learn to appreciate the way they are finding relational and spiritual connections.
Recognize that for many of our single young people, church is not always a welcoming place. Avoid “feeling sorry” for your unmarried child or trying to match them with a “nice Christian” boy or girl. (And try to convince their grandparents to avoid the same pitfalls!) Encourage them to connect with a church that values them for their gifts and talents, not their marital status.
Invite your focuser to use their gifts, skills, or profession to express their faithing within or alongside churches. In my former church, we had a grassroots program that enabled young people to apply for small grants to implement their great ideas. Some projects worked better than others, but our entrepreneurial invitation freed young people to let our church support their best ideas. In our church’s case, some of these grassroots ideas turned into full-fledged established ministries that made clean water available in African countries and opened a homeless youth drop-in center that filled a gap in social services within our community. Young people don’t need a church simply to attend as much as they need faithful people who are willing to support their great ideas, which leaves all generations inspired.
When Church Gets Tense
DO I MAKE MY HIGH SCHOOL LEARNER GO TO CHURCH?
Remember that learners need teacher parents, but our invitation to grow with our kids means we do more than either make them go to church or throw in the towel. Further, let’s remember that at its core (and in the original Greek term for “church” used in the New Testament, ekklesia) church is about a people we gather with, not a place we attend. So part of our job as teacher parents is to help our learner kids reimagine their connection with church through the following ideas:
Ask why. Help them articulate their reasons, and work with them to understand the validity of their feelings and opinions. Perhaps there will be times when you agree they can stay home and other weeks when you will point out that their attendance is not only good for them but also encouraging for those who care about them. Periodically (and not just 30 minutes before your weekend worship service begins) ask them why they go to church and why they think you go to church.
Seek advice. If your learner kid doesn’t want to attend youth group, seek out other people (a youth pastor or small group leader) who can shed light on your child’s past experiences. It may be that they had a bad experience at youth group or they are struggling to connect with friends. A clearer picture of what might be driving their behavior will impact how you handle your learner’s resistance to church.
Plan ahead. It is easy to assume that our kids will know how to connect with others, but that may not be the case. Talk about what they will do when they go to youth group. Anticipate scenarios and pre-plan some questions they could ask their peers. Help them think about how to find and develop new friends. When our kids are entering new social situations, Dave and I (Kara) encourage them to look for other kids who seem to be standing on their own, who may feel just as awkward and eager to meet new friends as they are. In preparation for Sunday morning, discuss appropriate etiquette for interacting with and showing respect to older generations.
Find their best points for connection. If they think the church service is boring, are there ways they can serve in the church (kids’ ministry, tech support)? If youth group isn’t their scene, are there groups in your church that share similar interests (art, music, homeless ministry, sports team)?
Brainstorm other options. For some of our kids, our churches may not be a good fit in their current season of life. If that’s the case, brainstorm with your learner kid about trying a different church or youth group. Perhaps they will want to attend with a friend. Or, if they are curious about other churches, offer to visit with them.
HOW DO I NAVIGATE MY EXPLORER OR FOCUSER’S WANING INVOLVEMENT WITH CHURCH?
As our explorer and focuser kids navigate their life and faithing, some may choose not to go to church. As parents, what do we do when our kids say, “I don’t like our church” or “I’m not going anymore”? At our growing kids’ ages, they’re too old for us to just pick them up and make them go. And given our own ages as parents, we often are too tired to keep fighting. So what do we do? While the uniqueness of each child and family (not to mention church) makes it impossible to give a universal one-size-fits-all answer, we hope you keep the following principles in mind:
Don’t make church attendance a battleground. Fighting over going to church probably won’t make your relationship with your kids better, since someone always loses. Take time to talk with them about their choice not to go. Seek to understand their perspective. Expect them to give valid reasons and help them process what’s going on in their spiritual lives. Don’t turn church into the goal itself. Don’t make church into a magical panacea, somehow thinking that if they come to church their angst will disappear. After all, church attendance is not the ultimate spiritual litmus test.
Give them space to try another church. At some point, they will likely choose their own church when they move away, live on their own, or want to attend church with a different group of friends. Again, talk about this with them. Use this as a chance to talk about their, and your, spiritual journeys. Celebrate any inclination they have toward being involved in the faith community, even if it’s not your own church or your own denomination.
Give them room to take a break from regular church attendance. Remember that it is natural for young people to suspend going to church as they learn to live on their own. It is possible that they will access church online. It is also normal for some to leave the church where they grew up and take time (often more time than you would wish) to find a faith community that resonates with them.
Encourage them to stay in the conversation. If their reasons for avoiding church seem to center on differences in belief, positions on social or political issues, or critique of church practices, you might offer the perspective that the church needs them. Their ideas, questions, and even new experiments just might be the breath of fresh air the church has been needing. If they pull out of the community altogether, the church misses the gifts and perspectives they can bring. Leaning in to the church presents the possibility that everyone might experience a faithing opportunity.
Invite them. It’s okay to invite them occasionally to your church. Think about how it can be a true invitation and not one laced with guilt or shame.
FAMILY CHURCHING: BEYOND SLEEPING IN
Your kids (and maybe you!) will continue to feel the urge—even the need—to sleep in instead of attending worship. As parents, let’s keep this tension in perspective, recognizing that our kids’ connection with church is essential for their spiritual lives but does not represent the entirety of their spiritual journeys. We need the church and the church needs us to grow with our adolescents and emerging adults. Together we can be the churching exchange zones that encourage and support their lifelong faithing.
Growing With Parents’ Faithing and Churching
Embedded in our Growing With parenting philosophy is an emphasis on not just our kids’ faith journeys but also our own faith journeys. Laced throughout the research insights and practical ideas presented in this chapter is a shift away from asking the church to provide programming for our young people and toward supporting our young people in making their own authentic connections with faith communities. As parents who are part of these churches, each of us also has something to give to and receive from young people (both inside and outside our family) as we make the following commitments.
Stay connected. As much as we believe in print and online tools for parents, often our most helpful sources of support are each other. Too often parents can feel isolated and overwhelmed. We can change that by making time to cultivate friendships that mutually care for each other and our families. Meeting with other parents of learner, explorer, and focuser kids provides implicit empathy, needed support, and safe places to process as we all attempt to parent well.
You don’t have to make this a big production. Find another parent or two and meet for coffee. Connect periodically with another couple over dinner. Celebrate parenting wins as much as challenges. Every good parenting moment is worth celebrating, and every parenting struggle needs an ear, a hug, and a prayer.
Be a bridge. Family friends of the Argues have a daughter who graduated one year ahead of our youngest daughter. Their church encouraged graduating seniors to ask one adult outside of their families to pray for them in their next chapter of life. Allie asked my wife, Jen, to be that person. Jen loves it, and Allie gets periodic notes and texts from Jen. Allie came home for her fall break and met with Jen for lunch. What we love about this experience is that Allie’s church set us up to be the church rather than developing a program for Allie and Jen to attend together. Their church is setting up their graduating young people well by asking other adults to be important bridges of support beyond high school. You can bet we’ve done the same for our daughters.
Value belonging before belief. Relational connection, more than religious instruction, keeps kids connected to faith. Young people need to know the unconditional connection they have with their parents. Treat differing beliefs as opportunities to get to know your kid, help them grow in their own convictions, and fine-tune your own faith. Work to sustain a close relational connection with your kids throughout their teens and twenties.