I have to get on my soapbox today on a topic I've been mulling over. Lately in our adult Sunday School class, one of our elders has been speaking on raising teens. He got into some trouble with the class one day when he started describing various ways to involve your teens with the elderly in the community, including taking them to visit retirement homes or having elderly friends over for dinner. Now I'm not criticizing the way he raises his family; he's a good and loving father and I expect most of our congregation would agree that his children are turning out well. The odd thing was, his family doesn't homeschool, and everyone in the church probably knows how busy his own kids are with school, sports, work, and social life, and the likelihood of seeing any of them visit a retirement home in their teen years or being home for a leisurely family dinner is rather small. In fact, the church runs an academy at which these kids attend, and the activities there and the social life among the students pretty much precludes significant time with parents. Immediately a lot of comments arose about how unworkable and unrealistic his advice was for most of the parents there, and he basically had to go on to the next subject.
I recently worked for a year in our youth ministry. At the beginning of that year, I had high hopes to see the spiritual effect of the ministry among the students who attended it. During the year, though, I saw various scenarios that underscored the lack of parental involvement in the students' lives, and also the resultant lack of accountability and teachability among the students. It was very depressing, but it taught me a lot about the vital role of parents and the questionable role of a youth ministry that is separate from parents.
There is a good reason why the clear biblical pattern is for parents to be primary as spiritual leaders in their children's lives. If the parents don't know what their children are being taught, the children don't feel the impetus to apply the teaching to themselves, and the parents don't even have a vague notion of what information to reinforce. I saw the youth pastor give a sermon on putting aside the noise such as music and other media from one's life, and meditating on God and praying and listening to His input...and then we broke away into small groups to discuss it. Out of the 12 girls in our group, 10 immediately gave their reasoning why the sermon didn't apply to them. "I can't go without music for two hours," one whined. The others chimed in similarly, not seeming to catch that it was a challenge that they ought to face rather than dismiss. Those who responded in a receptive vein seemed to have had more parental impact in their lives. Had the parents of all these students been listening to the sermon with them, I would hope that the results would have been different. It was an eye-opener for me regarding just how great the need is even among teens for strong parental impact in their spiritual upbringing. There is simply no substitute for parental involvement for most kids--I'd expect that the only exception is in a family where the parents are not Christians.
My daughter went through our church youth ministry and benefited from it--but we wouldn't consider it her primary spiritual training ground for that period of time. She has always been very communicative with us regarding what she experiences in our absence, and so the teachings came home with her to us. For that matter, the one year I was in it was her graduating year, so I knew that year what was being taught. Still, I don't think we'll have our son, who is currently 9 years old, go through any youth ministry without parental involvement. And if he did, I would be all the more on the alert with questions for him and for his youth leaders, not only to make sure that things are going right but so we can reinforce the teaching at home and keep him accountable for applying it. All in all, it was a good, vivid parenting lesson for me; I'm thankful for it, and I hope not to waste it.
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