Empowering Your Student’s Faith
Amy’s decision crushed her parents. Although she was only 18, she had just announced to her parents that she was going to do one bad action for every day her parents were away on a 3 month missionary leave. Needless to say, her parents were crushed. They had done everything possible to help Amy to follow Christ with her life. She was a student leader in her youth group. She went on mission trips to Mexico and Canada. She led numerous friends to Christ. But when the time came for her to be on her own, she chose to go her own way. Within two years of Amy’s declaration to rebel, she was pregnant out of wedlock and the logical course of her earlier decision had come to pass.
Parenting is a risk. When Amy’s parents were bringing her up, probably the last thing on their minds was that she would one day turn her back on their faith, but she did. Over my 21 years as a pastor to youth, I have repeatedly been asked by parents how to encourage their student to take steps of growth in their faith. Often the question comes during a time of stress and challenge to the parent’s influence in their student’s choices. This multi-part blog post is born out of a desire to see each of our families at Rolling Hills be more effective at empowering their student’s faith and raising them to make an impact for Christ in today’s world.
Be A Positive Example To Your Student
With so many parents coming back to church and the faith of their own youth, a dilemma has begun to manifest itself. Parents who walked away from their own parent’s faith during college because of being forced to do religious activities while they were growing up, are now coming back to the church in droves. Money, status and position in life did not meet their inmost needs, so most adults are finding renewal in seeking Jesus on their own terms as they head into their 30’s. As a result, they are taking their children along with them, but without the earlier mentality to force the faith on their kids. This is a good perspective in many ways, but it tends to leave too much responsibility in the hands of kids who do not have the years of experience to draw on. This swinging of the pendulum the other direction means that parents must demonstrate faith in a visible way to their students, or risk losing the key opportunity and time to influence them before they leave the home after high school.
You may be wondering how to be a good example without nagging and forcing the faith on your student like your parents may have done to you. Be visible and faithful in spending time each day in prayer and reading of the Word of God. Don’t just attend church, but progressively increase your participation by serving according to your various gifts and abilities. Model that how you spend your money is the best way to see God’s ownership of your life by giving faithfully 10% of your income. Be a good neighbor and witness by your life and testimony so your student sees that your faith is active both inside and outside of the church walls. These are just some of the many ways you can be a good example of faith to your student.
Pastor Mark
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