"I don't want to go to church anymore." That phrase from a son or daughter can strike terror in the hearts of faithful parents. It may mark the beginning of family arguments, feelings of failure and hostile compromises. Worship or Christian education attendance can become the litmus test of faith in a family. When that happens family relations are inevitably strained and the child's spiritual development takes second place to the family's/parents' values and discipline. Even if the daughter or son continues to come to church, faith is not necessarily increased. Such a scenario need not be.
To sort out the tension of church attendance in family life we need to look at several dimensions of the problem: the nature of spiritual or faith development, family rules or discipline, needs of children and youth, and parent advocacy for children.
Faith Development
When a child is baptized or dedicated, that child's parents and sponsors promise to raise the child to have faith in God and to participate in the life of the church. For many parents what that promise essentially means is taking their child to Christian education or Sunday morning worship. It is their hope and belief that the church will somehow enable their child to develop faith in God. Therefore, when their child says: "I don't wanna go!" they find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having their chief means of raising their child in the faith taken away. For ordained or lay professionals in the church there is the added tension of having their ability to nurture faith in others judged by their ability to bring their own children happily to church. It is no wonder then, that some parents will coerce, bribe, threaten or shame a child into going to church. For that to change it is necessary for parents to consider another perspective on what raising a faithful child means.
Participation in the worship life of the congregation is one of the ways that faith is expressed. It is also one of the key ways faith is formed. But it is not the primary way. The fundamental formation of a young person's understanding of the world and faith in God takes place within the home. When parents are enabled to pray with their children, create household rituals to mark key family and congregational celebrations, work together on issues of justice, peace and earthcare, and take their own spiritual development seriously, their sons and daughters learn a great deal about what it means to be a faithful person. Young people learn very early whether or not asking questions about God, life and death make their parents uncomfortable. They know whether their parents allow their questions and take their comments seriously.
In a home where parents nurture the faith of their children in day to day life, participation in the worship life of the church is but one, albeit very important, aspect of faith expression. Worshipping together can still have its own tensions but attendance will not matter as much to the parents as will the developing faith of that young person. Within that framework it is easier for parents to hear their children's dissatisfactions with church as problems to be discussed and potentially solved rather than as a sign that their children are reflecting them and rejecting faith in God.
Family Rules
It is not unusual for it to take some negotiation in families to establish the "church going rules." Does the parent go with his/her children? If there are two parents do they both go? Does everyone go every Sunday? What happens in the summer? Does the family attend church away from home? Usually it is the parents who workout the family pattern initially. When children become part of the scene the rules may need to be renegotiated from time to time as different concerns emerge. Do the children stay in the worship service or attend church school? Can they decide what to do week by week? If the child wants to go and the parents do not, do they enable the child to get there? Is the older child or adolescent allowed to attend amid-week service and miss Sunday morning? For what reasons? Often it is a matter of trial and error to determine what suits the child's and the parents' needs best. Negotiating attendance, however, is a particularly difficult issue because raising it calls the whole enterprise into question.
Add to that the age consideration. When a four-year-old says, I don't wanna go to church today. I want to play with my friend," it will not take much effort on the parents’ part (provided they really want to go themselves) to help the child realize that going to church and worshipping God with other Christians is an important thing to do in their family and that there will be time to play with the friend later. Four-year-olds generally want to be with their parents and do things with them. What is important to the parent is important to the child---church included. The child's needs are met and the problem is solved.
This is not so easily done when the child is older. As a young person matures from the infant in the nursery to the articulate person of faith, different needs and concerns emerge at different ages. If parents and other adults take seriously the needs of the young person they do two things. They let her/him know that, as an individual, s/he is important in the family and the Christian community. They also model concern, flexibility and a willingness to grow that will stand in good stead as a model of God's continual faithfulness to us. While each stage of a young person's life has its own needs, early and mid-adolescence are particularly important in relation to church participation and attendance.
Age Appropriate Unrest: Two Examples
When a young person of 11 or 12 says that church is boring, that he doesn't know anyone there (even if he has been attending that church since he was two), and that no one goes anymore, a parent is hearing that young adolescent declare his discomfort, often appropriate, with church. Congregations often fail young adolescents and our sons or daughters are just letting us know how. Perhaps not enough attention is being given to providing him with a social group to which he can belong. It could be that his Christian education class is not taking into account, among other concerns, his greater concern with day to day life, desire to discuss relevant short-term topics and need to have some say in setting the agenda. There is no room for his contribution in the worship service and the language is not explained or the concepts made applicable to his daily life. No wonder he is restless!
His sixteen-year-old sister is also declaring that she doesn't want to go to church anymore. She says the minister pays no attention to the issues that concern her, that everyone in the congregation is too rigid and that the talk about Jesus as the Son of God makes no sense to her anymore. She wants to go with a friend to visit some of the other faith communities around and see what other groups are saying about faith in God She rather likes what she hears from some of her friends at school who are Buddhist. They sound like they have a more open understanding of God.
It would be a mistake, however, if the parents of these two listened to their complaints and immediately said either "you must attend no matter what" or "okay stay home." Instead the first step would be to have conversations with the two of them that centered on what they were learning spiritually and how they wanted to develop. What someone like the boy of 11 or 12 wants and needs is to find significant ways to contribute to and be recognized by the congregation. He wants to understand what belonging to the faith community means for him. He is not asking to find his own way; he is asking how to belong. His 16-year-old sister, however, is in the midst of finding her own values and way of faith. She wants to be able to explore alternative systems of belief knowing that she has the freedom to reject the path chosen by her parents. The question is whether the church community and her parents will honor her quest.
The parents of these two are in a wonderful position to help young people develop spiritually by engaging with them in the tasks at hand. To do so may mean reexamining their own beliefs and engaging with their own questions of faith. It may mean, especially with the older one, giving her the freedom to pursue a separate path. (Can we as parents give our "emerging adult" children any less freedom than God gives us?) It may also mean they need to push a little within their own church community.
Parent Advocacy
Too often parents privatize their family faith struggles out of the mistaken belief that they are failing as parents or that their children just don't like church. But the needs of their children are usually the needs of other children as well. If the parents of the imaginary twosome above took their concerns to others in the congregation they might be able to advocate successfully for the changes their son and daughter’s needs. Perhaps the 12-year-olds' Christian education session could be livened up and their contribution integrated in the worship service. A weekend away, a sleepover, or Sunday afternoon pizza parties could help him in finding a circle of friends and a place to belong. Perhaps one or two other adolescents or young adults might want to have an informal group discussion of other faiths. The 16-year-old daughter along with others could visit other faith communities and have a place in her own congregation to talk about what she learned. The parents might even find their own faith enhanced by engaging with others, including their children, to make the church community responsive to the needs of its participants of all ages.
Conclusion
The faith journeys of all God's people are to be taken seriously. Participation in a worshipping community enables children and youth to express through ritual the faith they currently have and to explore how that faith can influence their values and actions. Seeing their parents and other adults worshipping God gives them images of how they might live out their faith when they are older. Attendance is a secondary issue to being a family and a congregation that strives to enable people to express their faith in God, their concern for humanity and our earth home, and their support of one another as companions on the journey.
Adapted from an article by Cheryl Kristolaitis, The Practice of Ministry in Canada, September 1992.
© 1996 The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society PECUSA
This article is from Handbook for Ministries with Young Adolescents, a publication of the Ministries with Young People Cluster of the Episcopal Church Center, New York, NY. Permission is granted for congregational use and use by diocesan youth coordinators. You may order this resource from Episcopal Parish Services.
