Many people often ask the church to pray for their children who have gone astray. This article is the answer to your prayers. Your children (or at least your grandchildren) may be recovered, if you will obey the scriptures.
First: You must accept responsibility for your actions. "God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, this will he also reap." (Galatians 6:7). When a child grows up and forsakes religion, the fact is, the parents are simply reaping what they have sown. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old, he will not depart from it." If a child departs, you didn't train him right! Children do what they are taught to do. If you teach them to hate the church (by slander and gossip, for example), they will learn to hate the church. If you teach them that church is cold and legalistic, not warm and loving as the Bible commands, they will believe it. They will leave the church, and look in other places for the love and acceptance they need. They will ensnare themselves in bad relationships, seeking the affection that you and the church should have given them.
Obeying God's commands is not legalism. Legalism is enforcing commands that God did not give. The worst kind of legalism is giving commands that violate God's commands. (Mark 7:1-13)
Children are excellent hypocrisy detectors. When church people talk about love, but tell the children "sit down, shut up, and don't bother me," they will feel that they are not loved. And they are right! (There are times when all must sit still and be quiet. The way to teach a child this is to sit still and be quiet with them. Be a mentor. Be a friend. Your behavior must tell the child, "Come, be quiet with me," not, "Shut up and don't bother me!") Many parents habitually take a shortcut in child rearing: They constantly tell their child, "Sit down, shut up, be still, don't bother me!" They treat the child like an inconvenience they'd rather not have. Children are not stupid. They know when they're not loved.
This does not mean there is no place for spanking. It is necessary at times. But spanking should not be the primary means of communicating with your child. When you want your child to do something, use positive reinforcement. When you want your child to stop doing something, use negative reinforcement. Sometimes, the negative reinforcement will be spanking. There is considerable randomness in a child's behavior. Always watch for opportunities to show pleasure. Children can tell if you'd rather hug or spank them. When a spanking is done correctly, the child will know that you'd still rather hug them. You won't have to tell them.
You can't push a rope. Likewise, you can't train a child other than by leading them, and welcoming their natural desire to accompany you. Matthew 18:3 says, "Unless you are converted and become like little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of Heaven." Children have the personality God gave them, until you mess it up! Children are overflowing with the joy of the Lord, until you beat it out of them! The Bible commands you to become like them. By nature, children want to learn. They want to grow. They want to be a part of what's going on. Do you accept them into your activities? Do you welcome them, as Matthew 18:5 commands: "Whoever welcomes a little child in my name welcomes me." Or do you treat them like you'd rather not have them around? If you do, they will comply. They will grow up and leave you. Permanently.
If they do, you should hope and pray that they find relationships and churches that are better than the ones they left. But when a child is desperate to leave a bad experience at home, they usually jump at the first chance that comes along, and don't hold out for a good one. They jump from one bad relationship to another, hoping to find the love their parents and their church should have given them to begin with.
Many churches don't show their children proper relationships between men and women. Most churches practice a sort of "Christian feminism" (a contradiction in terms) that teaches that men and women are to be kept separate. It's easy to tell if your church is a feminist church. After the service, do all the women gather together and ignore the men? If so, the women are practicing feminism, not Christianity.
It's okay to have some special events just for the ladies or just for the men. But it's wrong for them to be separated all the time.
The church needs to teach the right relationship between men and women, not act like there's not supposed to be any relationship! God created men and women to need each other. God created families first (before government, before the church) to show children the right relationship between men and women. Ephesians 5:22-33 and 1 Peter 3:1-7 clearly define the right relationship.
Ephesians 6:4 and Colossians 3:21, as well as many passages in Proverbs, make it abundantly clear: children need a father!
Children themselves instinctively know that! They feel their need for a father. Children derive their entire sense of identity and self-worth from their relationship with their father. Proverbs 17:6 says, "the glory of children is their fathers." If their family or their church doesn't give them a father, they will eventually seek one in places they should not be looking.
Children who don't have a relationship with a father grow up warped. A study was done on homosexuals, both male and female, asking them hundreds of questions, looking for possible causes of homosexuality. They found a correlation with only one factor: Every single one of them lacked a close relationship with a father while growing up!
Many churches believe that "rearing children is women's work." The Bible clearly says that is false! 1 Timothy 3:4,5 says that the father is responsible for training his children. Having a child who has left the faith disqualifies one from being a leader in the church! (Titus 1:6) If you can't teach your own child how to be a Christian, you're certainly not going to be able to reach anyone else! Anyone whose children have left the faith has no place in any position of authority in a church! Anyone whose children have left the faith needs to repent of their pride, sit down, and learn to act like a Christian!
When families fail, the church is to serve as a backup. It's better when families don't fail. But when they do, the church is commanded to fill the gap. And families that don't fail are stronger when they're in a good church that reinforces them. This especially helps the children. It's no longer just Mom and Dad saying do this or that. The child can see an entire community confirming what is right and wrong.
The most important command in the Bible is to love God with everything you have. The second is to love your neighbor as yourself. "Upon these two commands hang all the law and the prophets." (Matthew 22:34-40) Matthew 25:31-46 makes it clear that these two commands are really the same! If you don't love your neighbor, you don't love God! (1 John 4:20)
This is the first lesson children must learn in church. Everyone in the church should practice love at all times. Not just preach love to the children, but show it to them. Children know what love is. They know when they're loved and when they're not. Sadly, many adults don't know the difference between love and lust. They actually punish children for learning to love! They punish their children for obeying God! Get a clue! Young children are not capable of lust! The worst thing you can do to a child is punish them for doing good! You will either drive the children away, because deep inside, they know they're being punished for doing good, or the child will become just as big a hypocrite as you are! Saying that you believe in love, but punishing others for practicing it!
Well, enough about what churches are doing wrong. How can we make it right? How can we repair the damage?
First of all, as I said up front, you must take responsibility for your own actions. You must acknowledge that you have done wrong. Confess to your children that you did wrong. Apologize to them. Ask for their forgiveness. You'll never get your children back until you get to the root of the problem.
Second, if you have a lot of experience at losing children to the world, seek someone who has experience at winning children from the world! Seek them, don't shun them! Don't reject them because "we just don't do things that way!" Judge people by the Bible, not your tradition! There's a big difference between having fifty years' experience and having one year of experience fifty times. If what you've been doing doesn't work, change! If what you've been doing doesn't work, you're not obeying God! God's way works! If your way doesn't work, it isn't God's way! The proof is in the pudding. "A tree is known by its fruit." (Matthew 7:16-20)
It's easy to spot people who can win children from the world: look for someone to whom children are attracted! Watch what they do. If no such person is around, watch children. Matthew 18:3 says, "Unless you are converted and become like little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of Heaven." Watch them, learn from them, become like them!
Children are like a spiritual transfusion. They can restore to your spirit what God put in you to begin with. Of course, it would have been better for you to have never lost it. Or for it to have been beaten out of you by people who thought they knew what they were doing!
If you have lost your children, you might still have a chance with your grandchildren. But don't just keep doing the same things that lost your children! Many parents have lost an entire generation, and are now driving away a second one! Learn from your mistakes! Take responsibility for your actions! Don't keep sowing the same bad seed!
If you follow the instructions in this article, there is hope of restoration, both for you and your children. If you reject the words of this article, don't get any illusions about being right with God! You are nowhere near him! (Matthew 7:21-23) To save your children, first you need to get yourself right! "How can you see to remove a speck from someone else's eye when you have a log in your own?." (Matthew 7:3-5) "You must become like little children, or you shall not enter the Kingdom of God!"
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