9. Stop protecting them. “As a parent, your goal should not be to teach your kids how to flee from evil. Your goal should be to show them how to engage it. For the glory of God. In those spaces, they will see the gospel. And it will become real.”
10. Show them that God is more than rules and church attendance. “If you boil Christian living down to church attendance and morality, your children will notice. And who wants to follow a God who is nothing more than rules and showing up to a building? I sure don’t.”
11. Be authentic with your struggles and doubts. “Parents, your kids have doubts. And they need to see that you have doubts as well. Otherwise, when questions about God come, your kids will either internalize them or turn to another source for answers. Both are bad options.”
12. Pray for them. “Plead for God to build and sustain their faith. Parents, in the journey to lay a foundation of faith for your children, nothing is more important than prayer. Pray for your children. Pray with your children. Every day.”Our final point comes from an article by David Simms of Alpharetta, Georgia, who wrote “A Preacher’s Kid’s Deconversion Story” for Patheos.com. It’s worth the read. One of the most compelling thing we can learn from Simms is this…
13. Your reputation does NOT depend on your kids. Simms writes, “Besides being potentially more indoctrinated than your typical Southern Christian, growing up as the pastor’s son came with an additional albatross. I was consistently reminded that anything I did directly reflected on my father’s character and his ability to lead his flock.”
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Let your kids off the hook–your profession and calling is yours. Not your kids’.
For my career–I’m a journalist. I know grammar and punctuation inside out. When my kids were younger and I edited their papers (they asked), they were chagrined by all the marks I’d make. If I believed for even a second that their skill and commitment to things grammatical reflected on me, our home would’ve been much more stressed.
Work to separate your “career identity” from the work that God is doing in the lives of your kids. Remember: You are NOT responsible for the outcome of your kids’ decisions related to faith in Christ. That’s up to God.
And if your church members don’t understand that, help them learn that for the sake of their own children as well.
Whatever you do, don’t buy this lie from GotQuestions.org: “When preachers’ kids, so-called PKs, walk away from the faith in which they have been brought up, it is a sad thing and a poor testimony to the truth of Christianity.”
What your kids decide about Christianity is what your kids decide about Christianity. And what they’ve decided today is not what they’ll decide five years from now. Ask God to help you partner with Him through grace and unconditional love–and your own passionate faith in Christ. Then leave the outcome up to God!
Oh, and by the way, the testimony of the truth of Christianity does NOT revolve around your children’s path of faith. If you have them on the hook for that, please take them off the hook!
