Spiritual Casualties

Why is it that many of the churches young people leave the church once they are out on their own? What causes our young people to become spiritual casualties? Who is to blame? Unless parents and churches begin to seriously address this problem, this problem will only grow worse.

Perhaps one of the reasons is associated with the home environment. God has given the primary responsibility of raising children to parents (Eph 6:4 NKJV), but in this fast paced world, this often neglected. Often, when a parent sees their child baptized, they give a big sigh of relief and think their job is over. That is a very big mistake; there is much more to conversion than just being baptized! The teaching and the training must continue on until the child becomes an adult and leaves home, and even then it is not finished.

Unfortunately, many young people do not receive the teaching and example setting they need while they are at home. At this time lets give some consideration to some of the problem areas some families experience.

One of the things that children see is inconsistency. This is perhaps one of the greatest failings parents often suffer from. They say one thing to their children, and then do something else. Many times children see their parents lie, cheat others and use vulgar language. Do you really think such behavior will result in a child wanting to aspire to be a faithful Christian their entire life? And parents wonder why their children don't want to attend services when they themselves use every excuse in the book to miss. The problem is that children can see right through their parent's hypocrisy. In time, a child usually decides that they want no part in the religious farce of their parents.

Another thing that causes children to turn their back on service to the Lord is the criticism of the congregation they hear constantly. Through out their childhood they constantly hear their parents rant and rave about what is wrong with the local congregation, always ripping the preacher apart for something, ridiculing the Elders for their decisions and on and on. Rather than constant criticism, children need to hear some positive things about the church. If they are constantly fed a steady diet of negativism, they will never develop into strong mature Christians.

In Col. 3:21 we can read, "Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged." Some parents are entirely too critical of their children, always running them down. Nothing the child ever does is good enough. This develops into a low self-image and will result in a lack of confidence in parents. These negative feeling tend to carry over in the child's attitude toward God and get in the way of his/her future salvation. God did not intend for children to be the recipient of all of the parents pent up emotions and hostilities.

There are occasions when congregations must shoulder some of the responsibility of young people leaving the church. When congregations are always arguing and fighting about some trivial thing, children will often conclude that they want nothing to do with the church as an adult. When children are subjected to 16 years of Bible classes that are boring and dull, children will often conclude that the Bible can do them no good. When children observe Christians in the congregation doing things that are immoral, and nothing is ever said or done, they will conclude that immorality is no big deal.

In too many cases, parents and congregations place all the blame for a spiritual failure on to the young person that has left the church, saying such things as, "They were never really converted" or "They are just to stubborn and willful." Sometimes these observation may be valid, nevertheless, parents and congregations still need to shoulder some of the responsibility. Accepting responsibility is necessary so that in the future improvement can be made to prevent additional spiritual failures.