A Pastor’s Take on Why Kids Leave the Faith

THEM: We let our kids decide whether they come to church or not.

ME: Really? Wow. I’m shocked they aren’t here.
@FailingPastor

I‘m amazed at the choices parents make with their kids.

For my entire pastoral career I have had kids at home. My eldest was a baby when I began pastoring. Her birth was, in fact, one of the reasons I took the job: I needed money!

Parenting is hard. I know, “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it” is a promise in the Bible. Proverbs are extreme statements that are not always true. There are proverbs in the Bible that contradict other proverbs in the Bible.

Parenting is hard. Pride goes before destruction. I’ve heard many a parent of young children brag about their parenting skills, even some who wrote books on parenting while their kids were still at home. I’ve seen many a proud parent become a weeping parent.

Since I’ve observed this trend, I have tried to avoid it in my own life. I try not to brag about my kids and certainly don’t go public in comparisons, nor assume that the way I raise my kids is how everyone should raise theirs. I once heard it said, “If God wanted you to raise my kids, He would have given them to you.” Amen.

I only give parenting advice if someone asks me. Very few have asked me. Even fewer have done what I said. I have taken this as further proof that no one really cares about my parenting theories.

My kids are older now. One is in college and the other two are very close to college age. I’m about done with the full-time parenting stuff. My kids were in subjection for the years they lived in my house. What they do now in their lives and with their faith is up to them. I and their mother did our best. We weren’t perfect, but we took stands and our kids know we love them and they know we love the Lord.

I think the evidence says I might know some things about parenting.

My kids fit into our schedule more than we fit into theirs. This one rule has guided many of our decisions.

I’m amazed at the number of parents who let their kids and their kids’ schedules dictate their church attendance. They skip for every excuse in the book: sports, homework, sleep, work, chilling, and various other things. They let their kids decide not only if the kids will go to church, but if the whole family will go!

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Sermon Illustrations Get in the Way

Failing Pastor Poem:

My biggest preaching frustration
Is that all they heard
Was the Illustration.
@FailingPastor

Advertisements for salads all look the same. Each one shows a young, beautiful woman with large eyes and a huge smile with beautiful white teeth, about to slide a fork of green salad into her mouth. Salad eating looks so fun! It looks like the most thrilling and exciting activity on the planet in these ads!

The reason they make salad eating look so fun is because no one is that happy eating a salad. They are lying, making what is drudgery at worst and slightly tasty at best, into the most thrilling event of a person’s day.

The Church is selling salad. The Gospel is salad. It’s good for you, but wow, no one really wants to eat it. The Church, knowing that no one wants to eat Gospel Salad, uses bait and switch; we use marketing to make the Gospel look more appealing.

“Hey, if you believe our Gospel, you’ll have your best life now!”

“Hey, if you believe our Gospel, you’ll have health and wealth!”

“Hey, if you believe our Gospel, God will work a wonderful plan for your life and when you die, it gets even wonderfuller!”

Come and eat our happy Gospel salad and be happy with us!

The Gospel is tough; it is hard, it leads you into a fight that needs to be fought and a race that needs to be run. You need armor, you need spiritual rebirth, and you need Divine power if you want to survive it. Don’t lie to people about the Gospel. Tell them the truth. Let them know there’s a good chance this Gospel might mess up their lives. Tell them what Jesus Christ said to those listening to Him: Count the cost!

_______

I used the above as a sermon illustration one week. I thought it was brilliant and was perfectly delivered with comedic timing and everything. It made an excellent point, one that needs to be made by more people in the church, if you ask me.

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How To Leave A Church

ME: Hm, John isn’t here today.

BRAIN: Oh no, he left the church.

ME: It’s just one Sunday.

BRAIN: He hates you.

ME: It’s fine.

BRAIN: He’s gonna start a church split. *sees John walk in*

ME: Hey John! Good to see you.

BRAIN: Stupid jerk, trying to split my church.
@FailingPastor

The only thing worse than having someone leave your church with noise and fury is having them leave in complete silence.

A number of people have left the church without saying a word to me. It is then my responsibility to call or visit them and find out what’s up. Even then, they often won’t say if they have left the church or why. They make me probe and dig. Or, as I like to put it, they make me be the bad guy.

I hate being the guy who has to chase down disgruntled people to find out why they are disgruntled. But I always do.

I’ve heard people say, “I didn’t go to church for a month and not one person contacted me.”

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How Pastors Should Respond to Gifts

Gifts for the pastor are a form of Evangelical Penance. Don’t be flattered by them, pastors. They are guilt offerings.
@FailingPastor

Let me preface this by saying, “OK, not always.” There was this one time that a very faithful member of my church very graciously gave us a number of things, one of which was very expensive. It was appreciated and was purely given out of a pure heart as far as I can tell. To this point. So far.

I even told this person, “Oh man, I know this huge gift means you’re going to leave the church now. I just want you to know that you can leave the church if you want and you don’t have to give me anything.”

My house is filled with gifts that people who have left my church gave me before they left.

I don’t know what it is, or what comes first: the thought of giving a gift or the thought of leaving the church, but people who leave your church will give you things before they go. Maybe years before, not necessarily associated with their leaving. It’s uncanny how many things I’ve been given by people who later leave the church.

Perhaps they gave it in hopes of a kickback. Maybe it was a bribe. Maybe I didn’t reciprocate enough. Maybe I didn’t play their game and they got tired of me.

Maybe it was guilt on their part. They had a problem and the problem gave them guilt. Feeling guilty in church makes a person not like church. But they want to stay, they like the people. “So here, guy who makes me feel guilty, here’s a gift, an offering, some penance to assuage the guilt you make me feel.”

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I’m A Pastor, Not A Doctor

Sometimes the hardest part of my day is remembering which medical condition goes with which old lady.
@FailingPastor

In my thoughts, dreams, plans, and preparation for ministry, I never assumed I would know so much about medical conditions.

Seriously, seminaries should offer classes in basic biology and nursing. Talking about diseases and physical ailments will be approximately 67% of all conversations pastors have with people.

Good Lord.

This is especially enjoyable with those old ladies who no longer have any sense of decency. They’ve been through it all, they are old, and they don’t care anymore. They just tell you everything.

EVERY THING.

I know more about some women’s physical problems than my own wife’s. The number of women who tell me about their bowel movements and their gas, I just. I don’t know. Why?

Men are never as bad. Probably because men don’t go to the doctor. Or it could be that men don’t talk about anything personal. I don’t know. But God bless men.

There is also a notion that if the pastor prays for physical problems, then those problems have a higher chance of being healed. Therefore, whenever there is any slight ailment, the pastor is called.

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