The best inheritance a father can leave his children is a good example.

God’s Little Instruction Book

Chapter 9

My Husband and I Took Our Children to Sunday School and Church

“And let us consider one another . . .not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.”

Hebrews 10:24–25 nkjv

Setting the Right Example

It seems there have always been young adults who, at some time earlier in their lives, decided that Sunday school was just for children. Therefore, when they became parents, they did not see the need to be a part of a Bible class on Sunday mornings. Many of these parents, especially the dads, would drop off their kids at a church or send them with someone else. Some of them would join their children for the church service; others didn’t attend at all. What a colossal mistake this was! These parents were building into their ­children’s minds the idea that Bible study was just for kids. Their kids would probably come to the conclusion that they didn’t need to incorporate Bible study into their adult lifestyles either.

Although many churches no longer have Bible study groups on Sunday morning, I encourage everyone to find a way to study the Bible in a group every week. It might take the form of a cell group or a Bible study at church, school, or the office. This will be a valuable part of the week, even if one’s church does not provide for adult Bible study on Sunday mornings.

Ignorance and Indifference

Today, many young adults have turned their backs not only on Sunday school/Bible study but also on regular church attendance. A minister once shared with me that in the fifties and sixties, many Christian parents centered their lives around their churches—around the work of Jesus Christ. But today it seems that church attendance is just one more thing on their long list of things they do. If it fits into their busy schedules, they will attend. If it doesn’t fit, they won’t come. Their lives are centered around themselves and their families—not around their churches or the Lord Jesus Christ. As a result, we are witnessing a generation ignorant of biblical information and indifferent to spiritual things.

We as parents have a tremendous responsibility to educate our children in spiritual matters. Some evangelical seminaries call this “spiritual formation.”I believe that the spiritual formation of our children should begin in the very earliest years of their lives. For this to happen, we must set the example for our children. We cannot expect them to be interested in the things of God if we have communicated the opposite messages with our lifestyles.

Church Attendence:

A Requirement at Our House

My husband and I took our children to church; church attendance was a requirement at our house. We required them to brush their teeth, go to bed on time, be honest—all of these things were for their good. Why should we not require them to go to church? It was certainly an exercise for their good! But we went a step further. We tried never to make them feel it was a duty to attend church, but rather a privilege. We loved our church—we loved our pastor and the people there. We centered our lives around our church and its ministries. We taught our children to do the same. Today both of them are actively involved in their churches—not because they have to be but because they want to be.

Home and Church Working Together

In his book Children and the Christian Faith Cos Davis points out: “The home and the church should work together to teach religious values to children. They are partners, not competitors in this venture. The home is the informal center for teaching values. The church is the center of formal instruction.”1

I believe every Christian family ought to seek a church they can love, one in which they can invest their time, money, and talents in the service of their Lord. It should be a church that preaches the Word of God and magnifies Jesus Christ in all of its programs. We should want our children to hear the truth from the pulpit and in the Sunday school classes, to be in a loving environment where Jesus Christ is praised and exalted. There are wonderful Bible-believing evangelical Christian churches throughout the world. It is essential to find such a church.

Fellowship

Why do I think that church attendance is so important for a family? First of all, because God commands us not to forsake “the assembling of ourselves together” (Heb. 10:25 kjv). This verse in the New International Version is translated in more modern terms: “Let us not give up meeting together.” We need to meet with other Christians in fellowship and worship on a regular basis. We need the support of our Christian friends. They need our support. What a blessing it is to spend time with other believers in worship, study, prayer, and praise. The psalmist declared in Psalm 5:7: “But I, by your great mercy, will come into your house; in reverence will I bow down toward your holy temple” (niv).

Getting Fed Spiritually

Another reason—and a major one—for attending a Bible-believing church is for the spiritual food received there. It is important to hear from God on the first day of the week. There are so many other messages bombarding our senses all week long; the world gets its messages across day and night. Above the clamor of the world, God wants us to hear and understand his message to us. Henry Blackaby, in the workbook Experiencing God, says: “You cannot know the truth of your situation until you have heard from God.”2 We need to use every opportunity possible to focus on his Word—to hear a Word from God. The only way we can keep the world from “squeezing us into its own mold”3 is by consistent worship, study of God’s Word, and quality time in prayer. When we spend time with him, God will give us the courage and strength to face the many onslaughts the world heaves at us day after day. Spiritual nourishment is essential for a Christian to stay spiritually strong. A wonderful verse in Colossians gives us a formula for a strong Christian faith: “And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to live in obedience to him. Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught” (Col. 2:6–7 nlt). A good church helps to provide this nourishment. Rick Warren, speaking of the church family in The Purpose-Driven Life says, “We grow faster and stronger by learning from each other and being accountable to each other.”4

Role Models

There are some other reasons I advocate regular church attendance. Through the years I have seen that one of the most effective instruments God uses to accomplish his purposes in our lives is the Bible-believing, Bible-preaching, Christ-honoring local church. For example, what a tremendous positive influence Sunday school teachers can have on your child’s life. In a day when so many negative forces seek to engulf our children, drawing them away from God, a godly Sunday school teacher can have quite an impact. When we look back at our own childhood days, my husband Roland and I both can recall women teachers who told captivating Bible stories that whetted our appetites for spiritual things. Roland often speaks of the godly influence of the male Sunday school teachers under whose teaching he sat as a teenager. They were men of strong Christian convictions who loved kids and were excellent role models in their businesses as well as with their families. They truly impacted his life. The direction of my life was greatly influenced by some gracious and godly women Sunday school teachers under whose teaching I was privileged to sit as a teenager and young adult.

In our own children’s lives, I praise God for the many godly young men and women in our church who were such positive examples to them. These young people were the kinds of role models we so longed for our children to have. Melanie speaks of the many women whom God sent to counsel and mentor her. One young woman in particular encouraged my seventh grade daughter to remain pure until marriage. She studied the Bible with Melanie for many months. Melanie followed her example. Today our daughter is a popular speaker for junior high and high school girls on the very subject of purity.

Our son had two youth workers in our church who helped to steer the course of his life. One was a junior high youth minister who spent time with our son as a seventh grader. I can still see them working in our driveway on the minister’s old car. Alan was a superb mechanic. It was what he enjoyed doing. While they were working on his car, Rusty was sharing strong Christian principles and ideas that reinforced what we were teaching at home.

Later on, the singles’ minister in our church had a greater impact on our son’s life than anyone else other than Alan’s dad. (Alan has always said his dad was his number one hero!) This minister truly understood young adults and knew how to relate to them. He talked straight with them, and they listened. Today that minister is one of the outstanding pastors in our denomination. Our son still looks up to him and is grateful that God put him in his life just when he needed him. Had we not been active in this particular church, they probably would never have even known each other.

Regular Church Attendence Sets the

Stage for Future Generations

Ruth Ann VanderSteeg states: “The greatest benefit I can tell that my children received from regular church attendance and participation is to see them raising their children, my grandchildren, in like ­manner.

• It has given their families consistency and ­stability.

• It teaches the family discipline.

• It teaches the family to worship the Lord together with other believers.

• It teaches them gratefulness for a godly pastor who continually teaches the truth of the Word of God.

• It gives them confidence in knowing the Word of God so that they can share with others—not out of pride but out of gratefulness for what God has done for them and how much he loves mankind.

• It has helped them to realize their own spiritual gifts and has given them opportunity to use them.

• It has also been a great benefit to see them find their friends among the body of believers and in some cases their spouses.

• It has taught them the benefits of walking with the wise.”5

George Barna always has interesting relevant statistics. He once asked teens to evaluate the church-based ministry they received as children. Here are the results:

A majority of teenagers—56%—said that they attended church-related activities an average of two or more times per month prior to turning 13. When asked what they learned from their exposure to the church’s ministry while they were young children and adolescents, 8 out of 10 identified something that they felt was an important insight or category of lessons.

Three of the outcomes were claimed by nine out of ten teens:

• having had exposure to Bible stories (95%)

• learning about the lives of great people in the Bible (92%)

• having fun or positive experiences related to religion (89%)

Nearly as many young people said they felt they had

• developed meaningful friendships at church, (85%),

• developed a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ (85%),

• had opportunities to serve needy people alongside of their churched peers (85%).6

Help Wanted

Parents need all the help they can get in raising godly offspring. When my husband and I were growing up, our parents received reinforcement at school and at church. In the public schools Roland and I attended, Christian principles were upheld and honored. Today many fine Christian teachers are in the public school system, but they cannot read the Bible or overtly teach Christian principles to their classes. The church emerges as an even more important force in the lives of our families, serving as a reinforcement of what we are trying to impart at home.

The Electives

There is one more thing I would like to add about the importance of family church attendance and participation. I am so grateful for the outstanding programs our church provided for our kids’ physical, mental, and emotional growth and development. There were sports programs; teams of all kinds were sponsored by our church. There were fantastic music programs—choirs and choir trips, orchestra, handbells, etc. All of these activities helped to work against the everflowing pipeline of evil and negativism our kids were hearing day after day. So much of secular music sends unbelievably bad messages to our kids. Good Christian music helps to counteract this godless influence.

The Bible memory program our church started was in response to our request as parents to equip our children over and above what we could have done on our own. Men’s and women’s ministries provided support groups and valuable seminars on marriage and family for us parents. Vacation Bible schools have long been a fantastic training ground—an integral part of the summer’s activities for the children.

Surely you can see why we thought it was important to take our children to Sunday school (or Bible study) on Sundays and to participate in the activities of our church all during the week. Listen to what George Barna discovered in his survey about taking children to church: “Adults who attended church as a child are twice as likely as others to read the Bible during a typical week; twice as likely to attend a church worship service in a typical week; and nearly 50% more likely to pray to God during a typical week.”7

The Accountability Factor

This is another survey of Barna’s however, that is disturbing. The Mississippi Baptist Record reported: “The words of George Barna ought to be a wake-up call for parents in the twenty-first century. In speaking to a group of ministers in Mississippi in the fall of 2003, Barna reported that his research shows: ‘Only 9 percent of born-again adults have a biblical world view. Another 6 percent have the foundation—a belief that there is absolute moral truth and that the Bible is the source of truth. That means 85 percent of all born again adults have neither the foundation nor the theological perspective required for a biblical world view,’ he pointed out.”8 What a sad commentary! This should make us parents sit up and ask some probing questions: Is my church’s program for young people having the impact it needs to have? Are my kids really learning and internalizing biblical truths? Am I, as a parent, supporting the youth leaders of my church?

Josh McDowell also addresses this problem in his book entitled Beyond Belief to Convictions. The subtitle reads: What You Need to Know to Help Youth Stand Strong in the Face of Today’s Culture. He says:

While we need to fear what our kids could be tempted to do, we need to be more concerned with what our kids are led to believe. You see, the way our kids behave comes from something. Their attitudes and actions spring from their value system, and their value system is based on what they believe. . . . Our kids, even those from solid Christian homes and churches, have distorted beliefs about God and the Bible, beliefs that are having a devastating rippling effect into every aspect of their lives.9

It takes both a Christ-centered home and a Christ-honoring church to instill within a child a strong ­biblical worldview. Christian education must begin at home at a very early age, and the church must reinforce the beliefs that are taught at home. As important as the praise and worship services are, if our churches are to have a lasting impact on our kids, they must provide weekly opportunities for deep and life-changing Bible study. If kids do not know what God’s Word teaches, if they do not know what they believe and why, how can they counteract the onslaught of false teaching that constantly bombards them?

Parents and churches have the responsibility of seeing that their youth do not grow up with “distorted beliefs about God and the Bible.” Both need to seek to develop within each child a strong biblical worldview. I am truly grateful for the evangelical Christian churches in our nation that are standing firmly against the tide of secular humanism and post­modernism. All of us must be accountable to one another.

We did not “forsake the assembling of ourselves” with other Christians on a regular basis. It was a habit formed years ago, which our children are continuing in their own families.