Churches need to acknowledge faith transmission across generations often fails and minister to parents accordingly, argues B.C. scholar Matthew R.S. Todd
I recently attended a Father’s Day service at a large church. Four fathers were selected to sit on chairs on the stage. The pastor said, “I want to interview four successful Christian parents of young adults who serve the Lord and are in the Church.”
The dads on stage then spoke of what they did in parenting and what their young adults were studying or working at in various professions. I could almost visualize these dads patting themselves on the back.
I gasped because I had been researching statistics that suggest around 60% of youth leave the church in high school or after. That doesn’t mean all of them never come back, but still I suspected most of the parents sitting in the pews hearing this presentation would have felt left out or unrepresented.
This could well have induced a guilt trip, and my guess is that some parents probably didn’t feel great leaving the church that day.
My recent research with about 100 Chinese Canadian parents suggests 62% of impacted parents were not over the impact of their youth dechurching 10 years later. This is a reality that needs better pastoral care.
Perhaps unintentionally, the presentation supplied a defective or incomplete definition of a successful Christian parent and misrepresented the long-range outcomes of godly parenting. This congregation lost an opportunity to instruct parents on the biblical mandate of parenting and equip them to deal with the risks and probable outcomes of parenting.
The pastor was implying that if a child has stayed in the faith and the Church, and if the child has been successful as a student and in a vocation, then that is an indication of a successful Christian parent.
The pastor appeared to be oblivious of the fact that he was stigmatizing the parents of dechurched children, giving the impression the parents were failures because they had not succeeded in handing on the faith.
Defining successful parenting
Let’s consider this question: Is handing on the faith the biblical definition of a successful parent? What does that say to all the parents who did their best to be an intentional godly parent and yet have kids who don’t go to church? Is the definition of what makes successful parents determined by whether their youth or young adult children stay in the faith or the Church?
Can God never say to such parents, Well done, you good and faithful parent? Can parents be blamed for the rebellion and sin of a youth or young adult?
I want to introduce a better definition of what it means to be a faithful parent. Yes, parenting influence is real, but good, godly parenting is not a guaranteed loyalty program. The outcome is based on the free will of the young adult. Let me make this case by looking at families in the Scriptures.
Biblical examples
We can find examples in Scripture of godly parents who had godly children. Think of Jesse’s son David, who was said to have served God’s purpose (Acts 13:36). Think of Hannah, persistent in her faith and willing to surrender everything to God and seek His will for her son Samuel.
We can also find godly parents who attempted to hand on the faith but in the end had ungodly children.
- Noah’s son Ham was judged for sexual sin and dishonouring his father.
- Samuel’s sons were not like him – they cheated, took bribes and judged unfairly.
- Job’s ten children worried him with their partying.
- Hezekiah was a great and godly king, but his son Manasseh was extremely evil.
We can also find portrayals of inconsistent parenting.
- Isaac and Rebecca played favourites.
- Jacob was a follower of God, but Esau was a fool and disregarded God.
- Eli’s parenting fault was not addressing his sons’ immoral practices, and he had two sinful sons.
- David was a neglectful parent. Only Solomon showed promise, but he drifted later in life.
- Solomon the wise had no known good children.
We can also find portrayals of sinful parents whose children, by the grace of God, learned from what happened to their parents and became godly children. A prime example of this is the sinful Exodus parents in the Sinai, who were followed by the godly generation who entered the Promised Land under Joshua.
The point of this biblical review is this. Parents do have firm direction from Scripture to direct their children in the ways of the Lord, and God tells them to do this, regardless of what the outcome will be.
But we should be cautious of making judgments on the basis of whether a youth stays or leaves the faith. God won’t assess your parenting based on the outcome and the choices of your children, but He will assess whether you tried to consistently and faithfully influence your children to follow God.
The biblical mandate
We don’t begin Christian parenting in a vacuum. If you are new to the Christian faith, you’ll want to integrate your Christian faith into your parenting. If the Christian faith has been handed down to you from your ancestors, you’ll want to grab hold of a Christian vision for your family because you know parenting influence matters forever.
When my wife and I married, our maxim was: “We are going to fear God and work hard.” We weren’t thinking about children yet, but when they did come, the “work hard” part really kicked in. Then it became urgent for us to ask ourselves: “Why did God give us this family?” Part of the answer is the opportunity and responsibility to participate in God’s redemptive and missional plan of salvation. It was our turn to bridge the gospel to our children and grandchildren.
Some of us got into parenting with careful planning, and others of us didn’t. And yet the sovereign hand of God is present in both situations. “Children are a heritage from the Lord” (Psalm 127:3).
Scripture conveys God’s intention for the faith community and the family. God has the generations in view, that one generation would pass on the faith about God’s faithfulness to the next generations (Deuteronomy 4:8-9; Exodus 10:2; 13:8,14; Psalm 78:1-4; Genesis 12:3; 17:4,7; Galatians 3:8).
The Bible advocates for a multigenerational transmission of the faith – through parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles – and we are seeing this backed up in sociological research. Psalm 145:4 tells us: “One generation commends your works to another.” Training is parents’ first obligation in raising children, and this includes spiritual formation.
Personal experience
Since the day my first child was born, I began learning what it means to parent through a variety of developmental life stages. I thought I had a good handle on my job description as a new parent. I had psychology and theology undergraduate degrees and experience as a youth pastor. I had seen a wide range of issues with Christian youth and different parenting styles, and I thought those experiences gave me an advantage.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was in for a truckload of adjustment, new learning and recalibration. As my parenting experiences unfolded, I found that there is what you know, but also what you know you don’t know – and what you don’t know about what you don’t know.
I had inherited ideas on parenting that I would default to but that would need to be deconstructed and adjusted in order to align with biblical values and interdisciplinary insights. I came to realize I’m not a super parent, I’m broken and a sinner saved by grace, and that I’ve stumbled to parent correctly.
I have had joys and challenges in every stage of my children’s growth. Some of my experiences with my children have been precious, especially when they were younger. And then the teen years hit, and the emerging young adult stage.
Church programs not enough
If you had asked me 20 years ago about how I would hand on the faith to my children, I would have told you about all the activities and programs I would be bringing them to. We were intentional in having our children regularly be a part of the church, with ministries relevant to them such as children’s church, Sunday school, youth groups, youth camps and being a part of our family groups.
We worked hard to get our hands on resources that could nurture the spiritual growth of our children in our home. I really thought that if I just brought my kids to church and to children’s and youth ministries, supplemented by camps and retreats, they would pick up the faith contagiously like a common cold.
Part of my problem from the start was that I was bequeathed a deterministic behaviourist approach to parenting. The idea was that raising Christian children was like baking a cake – just do A, B and C, and add water, and out would come the finished cake.
Somehow I felt I could determine the spiritual outcome of my children despite their free will. Shockingly I began to discover parenting can feel more like walking through a labyrinth as we come to recognize the dispositional differences of each child. I needed to revise my thinking on parenting because some of my ideas were shallow, unbiblical and ineffective.
The role of the Church
Parents could greatly benefit from reviewing the teaching and ideas we have inherited and embraced from our family and church.
Do those teachings reflect a deterministic or a free will perspective on a child’s spiritual trajectory and outcome?
Some parents experience heartbreak and anxiety when they discover raising their children in the church did not guarantee the desired outcome of handing on the faith. My recent research with about 100 Chinese Canadian parents suggests 62% of impacted parents were not over the impact of their youth dechurching 10 years later. This is a reality that needs better pastoral care.
The history of some churches has been marred by badly interpreted texts such as “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not turn from it” (Proverbs 22:6) and “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household” (Acts 16:31).
These texts are not a guarantee, but merely a reminder that the influence of parents can produce lasting good.
Proverbs 22:6 refers to helping to shape children’s will and cultivating an appetite for right. It is about adapting our training to a child’s disposition (inclinations, interests, bents, gifts). It refers to helping children in the process of discovering how God made them, something Psalm 139:13–18 refers to as well.
Parents can study, talk about and listen to what is of interest to their children, observe what they are good at and help them develop their gifts. These things are God-given. Parents also need to address, correct and confront sinful bents in their children.
But the bottom line is to look for ways that God is already at work in your children’s lives and help them understand and cultivate their giftings and inclinations as they make life choices.
Gardening a better metaphor
It is encouraging to picture our lives as trees which will benefit our children’s and grandchildren’s lives. But this is no guarantee of the outcome.
Rather than blaming parents when things go wrong, churches should support parents in their difficult task, instructing them on the biblical mandate of parenting and equipping them to deal with the risks and probable outcomes.
I remember pastoring in a church where a wealthy and successful couple struggled with a son who had mental health issues and was frequently hospitalized. I admired the fact that various parents in the church were supportive of this couple.
There have been times when I have been fighting the battle for other parents’ children at the church but losing the battle at home with my own child. Some of you reading this have been there.
I have always treasured times when friends would take time to listen to an area of parenting that I was struggling with, offer some supportive words or tell me they would include the concern in their prayers.
Matthew R. S. Todd formerly taught at Pacific Life Bible College in Surrey, B.C. His latest book is Silent Exodus – Parents' Silent Suffering: Empowering Chinese Canadian Parents in Ethno-Religious Communities Impacted by Generational Assimilation and Dechurching (Wipf & Stock, 2025). Photo by Đào Việt Hoàng on Unsplash.