“I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth” (III John 1:4).

Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis (AIG), wrote Already Gone, a book that examines why so many of our children leave the Christian faith.  Too many parents today do not know the joy that the apostle John describes in his letter.

Most people would guess that college has the most to do with the fact that young adult Christians stop attending church regularly or reject Christianity all together.   I have heard many speeches at home school conferences which lead the audience to believe that college is the catalyst for the rejection of Christianity.  It just is not the case according to Answers in Genesis. 

College-aged adults might physically stop attending church for a variety of reasons. Even though, some college professors have planted seeds of doubt.  Further digging reveals that these young adults were already gone from church and/or Christianity long before attending college.  They were sitting in the church pews every week, but not believing a word of what they were hearing.

I was personally shocked by Mr. Ham’s findings.  So as a parent what do you do?  If one of your goals in life is to share your faith with your children, to raise godly men and women, and to pass on a Christian heritage to future generations, then you need to arm yourself with this book.  You can lose your children to the world long before they are accepted to an institution of higher learning. 

Home-schooling families are not immune to this trend.  In fact according to AIG’s research, there was little difference between youth educated in public schools versus those educated at home.  Either way parents have to counter anything that contradicts the Bible.  Whether it is evolutionary theory or any other example of man’s wisdom, we have to be proactive and teach the Bible.  Paul writes, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ” (Colossians 2:8).

Teaching the Bible as fact, as history, as truth is the only way to contradict our culture.  We make a common mistake of teaching Bible stories.  I looked on my bookshelf and I have several Bible Storybooks.  Calling them stories is so engrained in me that I have to consciously change the words that I use.  I now try to say Bible lessons.

Since you cannot teach what you do not know, we have to know the Bible ourselves.  We have to study it, meditate on it, change our thinking to conform to God’s Word, and apply it to our lives.  We must practice what we preach.  And, don’t forget the power of prayer.

Parenting is an extremely hard job.  It is not easy at all.  God tells us to teach our children about Him diligently.  To teach our children about God as we sit in our house, walk, lie down, and rise up (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).  It is a 24/7 job.

We cannot sit back, relax, and pat ourselves on the back because we take our children to Sunday school.  Our churches were never supposed to be in charge of our children’s spiritual development.  Parents were assigned that job.  In many ways I could argue that churches have usurped parental authority and enabled parent’s to shirk their God-given responsibility.

But, Sunday school itself is not the problem.  Colleges are not the only problem.  Most parents probably did not even realize the enormity of the situation.  Read Already Gone by Ken Ham so that you can arm yourself with pertinent information.  It is a problem with eternal ramifications.

Tags: AIG, Already Gone, Answers in Genesis, Ken Ham, rejecting Christianity, youth leaving church

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011 at 11:43 am and is filed under Homeschooling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.