I need you to use your imagination this morning. I would like for you to imagine 10 young people standing here before me. They can be of any age—toddler through teenage, boys or girls. Imagine they are the children you see around here in Sunday School or youth group or serving communion. Can you see them?

As you look upon those faces, I have some questions for you to think about. Twenty-five years from now, will these children have a vital, saving faith in Jesus Christ? Will they be worshipping God on Sunday mornings? Will they know the Scriptures and the life-giving wisdom they offer? Will their lives reflect the joy of knowing Jesus as Lord? Will they serve those who are
hungry, hurting and homeless?

Will they have a vital, saving faith in Jesus Christ?

What do you think? How many think it will be that way with all 10? 8? 5? Fewer?

I would like to think that it will be all 10, but I have to tell you that the odds are against it.

Benton Johnson, Dean Hoge and Don Luidens are sociologists. A few years ago, they interviewed 500 Presbyterians. These were folks who were reared in the church. They had been baptized and confirmed. They had gone to Sunday School and youth fellowship. Yet half—five of our 10 here—had dropped out by the time they were 35. Only 50 percent expressed any type of substantive faith. While those interviewed were Presbyterians, other mainliners, like Disciples, track closely to them.

Another researcher studied hundreds of church-going youth—young people in mainline congregations like our own. He found that we are sending them into the world ill prepared in the faith. His study found that 63 percent—a sixth member of our group of 10—were graduating from church education and youth programs without a basic understanding of what we believe and how we live in the world as Christians. They didn’t know basic things like the fact that Moses is in the Old Testament and Jesus is in the New Testament. Their ethics were determined more by popular notions than foundational faith. The prediction? They will soon fall away not just from the church but from a vital life in Christ.

And it can get worse. The Church of Norway discovered that a full 85 percent—eight of our 10 children—lost contact with the church soon after high school graduation. This was in spite of years of worship and Christian education, confirmation classes and youth groups. Some suggest the day will come when we too might well lose 85 percent of our own children.

I am not just talking about dropping out of church. I am talking about children who grow up to believe that they are saved not by God’s grace but by their own efforts. I am talking about people who reject the idea that God really cares for them. I am talking about people who no longer believe we have a God-ordained calling to help people in need. I am talking about people who believe God is irrelevant and faith in Christ is pointless.

The fact is that it is becoming harder and harder to rear children of faith and harder and harder for them to sustain it.

So what are we to do?

We have talked about some of it—better programs for children, worship that is more meaningful to them, and so on.

But the single most important factor in determining whether they will have faith is not what happens here. It is what happens at home.

The likelihood of a child having a vital, saving faith in Jesus Christ when they grow up is directly related to his or her parent’s willingness to share the faith with them. Now hear me—it is not ultimate. Some people grow up in homes where the faith is not practiced and come to faith. Others grow up in homes of great faith but then reject it. That happens. But the chances of our children having a vital faith rest more on their parents than on any other person or program. They are likely to have faith if we—their parents—give it to them in word and deed.

That reality is one long recognized in Scripture.

The Hebrew people had long been slaves in Egypt. Their life was miserable as they sought to meet the ever-increasing demands of the king. So they cried out to God, and God heard their prayers and set them free. Freedom was God’s gift to them.

But as they prepared for their new life, God wanted to help. God gave them the Ten Commandments. They were the rules by which they could—in gratitude—respond to God. They were the guides for living with God and one another.

What is interesting is that God charged not the religious professionals but ordinary parents with keeping the commandments and teaching them to their children. "Teach them to your children," God said. "Talk about them when you are sitting in your house and walking along the road. Talk about them when you get up in the morning and go to bed at night. Write them down and tie them to your hand and forehead. Write them on the doors of your homes and the gate to your yard."

Notice the emphasis. God directs the parents to take responsibility for the spiritual nurture of their children. They were not simply to take their kids along to worship, although that is important. They were not simply to make sure their children attend the ancient equivalent of Vacation Torah School. They were to immerse themselves in the faith to the point that they spoke and lived it before their children every moment of every day. Communicating the teachings of God to their children was to be central to their lives. Nothing—nothing—was more important.

That model has been confirmed time and time again.

Do you know the name Andrew Greeley? He is a Catholic priest and sociologist. He is also a novelist of some note. In the mid-1960s, he carried out a major study of the religious effects of parochial schools. He wanted to find out just how effective Catholic schools were in communicating a vital, active faith to their students. Do you know what he found? Parents make the difference. He discovered that only those students whose parents were devout, who talked about and shared the faith with their children, grew up with faith. If the parents weren’t doing it, the school’s affect was minimal.

Remember that study of Norwegian young people? Do you know what they found? They found that parents make the difference. They found that the 15 percent who maintained a vital faith tended to grow up in homes where their parents—where mom and dad—talked with them about the faith, prayed for and with them, held family devotions or read Scripture together.  They found that the children who grew up to have faith were children whose faith was deliberately nurtured by their parents.

And those three American sociologists? They found the same thing. They discovered that those who left the church for good, who abandoned any substantive Christian faith, had "only the vaguest idea what their own parents—or more commonly, their fathers—believed." But those with a vital faith had parents who were committed to Christ and shared that commitment with their children.

Or consider the results of a study of more than 1700 adults. The researchers asked them to think back to high school and to recall whether or not their parents expressed their faith during that time. 54 percent said no; 46 said yes, that their parents did talk about the faith. Do you know what they found? Parents made the difference. Four times as many of those whose parents regularly expressed their faith in Christ trusted Jesus Christ as Lord. Twice as many of those who had parents of faith prayed regularly, read the Scriptures, participated in church or sought to help the hurting, homeless and hungry in the world. And twice as many of them possessed a hopeful and positive attitude about the world. Their faith makes a difference and their parents made that faith possible.

It is really quite simple. Parents whose lives include religious practices and discussion in their home are twice as likely to have children who grow up to have a vital faith in Jesus Christ.

So what does all this have to do with us?

For those of us who are parents, the implications are clear. If we want our children to have faith we are going to have to be deliberate about learning what it means to be a Christian and living that in front of them. It means making our homes what Pope Paul the Sixth called "the domestic church," a place where we, as a family, worship, pray, study and serve God together.

Of course, not all of us here have children at home. What is the call for those whose children are already grown or may have no children at all? The call for the communal church is to partner with families in this holy work. That means mentoring parents and children, allowing them to learn from our wisdom and our mistakes. It means providing them opportunities to grow, play, laugh and love together. It means ministering to them so that 20 or 30 years from now the children who stand before this congregation will be the children of those who today grew up to have the vital, life-giving, saving faith that we have in Jesus
Christ our Lord.