Handing on the faith to the next generation

I recently attended a Father’s Day service at a large church in my city. 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 in various universities and colleges 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 revealed that 60-66 percent of youth leave the church in high school or after. I suspected that 60 percent of the parents sitting in the pews hearing this presentation would have recognized that they were not being represented on the platform. 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. Perhaps unintentionally, the presentation had supplied a defective (or incomplete) definition of a “successful Christian parent” and misrepresented the long-range outcomes of godly parenting. This pastor 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. That is, 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 de-churched children, giving the impression that they were failures because they had not succeeded in handing on the faith.

Let us consider this question: Is handing on the faith the biblical definition of a successful parent? What does that say to the 60-66 percent of parents, many of whom did their best to be an intentional godly parent? 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: Jesse’s son David was said to have served God’s purpose (Acts 13:36). Hannah was persistent in her faith and was willing to surrender everything to God and seek His will for her son Samuel.

We can also find in scripture portrayals of 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 dishonoring his father. Samuel’s sons were not like him – they cheated, took bribes, and judged unfairly (1Samuel 8:1-9). 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 scriptural portrayals of inconsistent parenting:Isaac and Rebecca played favorites. 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 had no known good children.

We can also find in scripture 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. A very important point here is that 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 will want to integrate your Christian faith into your parenting. If the Christian faith has been handed down to you from your ancestors, you will want to grab hold of a Christian vision for your family because you know that your 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 was time 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 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.

Our 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 that I am not a super parent, that I am broken and a sinner saved by grace, and that I have 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.

If you had asked me twenty 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 behaviorist 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 that parenting can feel more like walking through a labyrinth, as I discovered that each of my children had dispositional differences. 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 that they have inherited and embraced from their 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 that raising their children in the church did not guarantee the desired outcome of handing on the faith. The history of some churches has been marred by badly interpreted biblical proof texts such as Proverbs 22:6 (“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not turn from it,” NIV) and Acts 16:31 (“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household.”). 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.

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. And 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 one very 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 in my own life 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.

This article is based on research outlined in Matthew R. S. Todd’s new book, Silent Exodus—Parents’ Silent Suffering: Empowering Chinese Canadian Parents in Ethno-Religious Communities Impacted by Generational Assimilation and Dechurching (Wipf & Stock, May 2025).