Navigating Spiritual Crises & Apostasy in Kids – Discipleship for Dads

There’s no greater joy to see your kids walking in the truth; no greater sorrow to see them abandon it. Yet 66% of 20 year olds will abandon the churches of their teen years. What contributes to this? What can dads do to prevent it? What are the safety nets we can put in place…how can we cultivate openness in our kids…how can we set boundaries and avoid bad influences…how do we effectively nurture and disciple?

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:06

Welcome friends to the Generations broadcast, Kevin Swanson with you today with another segment of Discipleship for Dads. And with me Todd Strasser, Bill Roach, and Danny Craig. Welcome, my friends. Good to have you here. Uh we're gonna hit a difficult one today, navigating spiritual crises of faith, deconstruction, children, spouse, in-law, friend dealing with apostasy. How do we do how do we deal with this? And to some extent, this is gonna be surgery without anesthesia. I mean, in a sense that this is a painful, painful thing. And we'll trust the Holy Spirit of God to provide the anesthesia that's necessary as as we pull this thing apart and analyze. Um we are we are fallible men. You know, we we cannot regenerate the hearts of our children. That that's the first thing. And yet, God has assigned the responsibility for each of us as fathers to raise our children in the nurture and the admonition program of the Lord Jesus Christ. So so that's it. We don't do that, there may very well be consequences. Right. Uh so we're gonna take this thing apart, and here's some stats. I just found this this morning, brothers. Before we get into it, LifeWay's most recent research on this was done in 2019. Initially, I think the numbers were a little bit higher. They're a little bit lower now, but still extremely painful on a fairly large sample size of 2002. American young people age uh 23 to 30. 66 percent of teenagers who attended a Protestant church dropped out by 20 years and beyond. So we're at two-thirds. So two-thirds of kids at 16 or 17 years of age attending a Protestant church, they're gone in their 20s. Uh age-by-age breakdown at age 17, 69 percent were attending regularly, by 18, 58 percent, by 19, just 40 percent, and by 20 and beyond, about 33 percent. So you're looking at, and and this was analysis of kids who had been raised in the church, at least somewhat. 66 percent, two-thirds, are walking away from the faith, which means this is going to affect a lot of people. And we were just at the Czech conference here in the Denver, Colorado area for the homeschoolers, and uh and I ran into folks who's, yeah, they've lost their kids. And uh and and pastors' kids, I mean, I would say the majority of pastors I run into just sort of randomly out there, um, how are your kids doing? Not good. So I mean this this is extremely common, extremely common. It's almost baseline these days. Um falling off on church attendance is only one indication of apostasy. Uh church attendance for many is just a cultural externalism. Anyway, so keeping that in mind, you know, that church attendance is important, right? True believers will be a part of the functioning body of Jesus Christ. And that's what we want for all of our children, that they're not forsaking the assembling of themselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another so much the more as you see the day approaching, for if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there is no longer remaining a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. These Hebrews passages, chapter three, chapter ten, chapter twelve, there are these warnings about apostasy and this leaving and abandoning the the church. So it's it's a very serious thing. So so in just introducing the subject, no greater joy than to see our children walking in the truth. But it's almost like the corollary is no greater sorrow for uh for parents than to see their children heading the wrong direction. Nobody wants their kids going to hell. And uh I think we can all say that's sort of one of those really obvious things uh to lay on the table first. But uh but the first thing is, you know, uh the one of the key questions is what what's going on here and uh and I I think just in terms of what scripture says about apostasy, can you lose your regeneration? Well, if you're regenerated and you begin with everlasting life, eternal life, I think the obvious thing to me is is if life is eternal, it's hard to say that you're gonna lose your eternal life.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

It begins right away.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

Yeah, it it seems to me that, yeah. You know, John 3.16, you shall have eternal life if you believe on Jesus. So true faith and true regeneration, true life will will yield an everlasting life. And uh you can't lose it. Now the Lutherans, the Catholics, and others say, yes, you can lose your regeneration and the eternal life that you are given by regeneration. So so but I don't I don't believe you can do that. Right. Uh nevertheless, there are branches that have received an external graft into the body of the local church, and the graft somehow doesn't take. And we we we see instances of this in scripture, the branch is expelled from the vine, some mysterious element to it, but that's what happens. The key parable to me is the parable the sower, where they believe for a while and yet they have an appearance of life, but there's no depth of soil in the heart. So the heart was not adequately transformed by the Holy Spirit work, right? And uh, so in other words, I guess I'm bringing all of this theological stuff and biblical stuff to bear because I want to be sure that we're you know working off of scripture. Um but uh but you know, at the end of the day, we're absolutely dependent upon the Holy Spirit of God doing work in our children's hearts and lives. Um but but but but we as dads and moms secondarily are responsible for the raising of our children, the nurture and the admonition of the Lord Jesus Christ. Are there are there points at which things go wrong in the home that could contribute uh to this walking away from the faith? You know? Now in the parable of the sower, I'll just throw this out and guys I want to turn it over to you as quickly as possible. The the two catalysts are this one, uh, they cannot handle this, I think the thorny ground, they cannot handle the trials and tribulations that come. Often there are trials we face in the local church, and they can't handle these trials. Sometimes the personal trials, sometimes they're trials that affect the family, sometimes the trials that affect the local church, and and they just walk away embittered towards the church because of these trials. They can't handle the trials. The second catalyst is they just love the things of the world. They're drawn into the pride of academia, the worldly wisdom of you know, high literary, liberal arts colleges, the lustful baubles and trinkets, uh, the world dangles in front of them, and uh those sorts of things. Hollywood, I guess, might draw them away. So so those are the catalysts that the scriptures give to us. But what we are attempting to get into here is you know, what can we as dads do as we begin to see the seeds of doubt or the seeds of worldliness or the seeds of this or that affecting our children? So I guess I'll throw that on the table. Bill, why don't you jump in on this?

SPEAKER_01 7:00

I I appreciate what you just said about the seeds. This is this is something we're we're watching for, right? Yeah we're not we're not jumping in when when the weed is this high. Well, it'd be great if we can see it when it's just a seed in the ground before it even starts to come up. But according to Hebrews 3, uh, you know, in 12 through 14, take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God, but exhort one another every day, as long as it's called today that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. So this is something that we're looking at every day in our own hearts. I mean, when a man gets ready for devotions, family worship, he's got to be looking at his own heart and seeing how his heart hardened before the day before. Start maybe with some confession of that, maybe. Yeah. And then you're looking at looking for the seeds maybe of the hardening, but you're also, you know, you're also in a positive way looking for the good things that are happening too.

SPEAKER_04 7:58

Trevor Burrus, Jr. It does appear from that passage, Bill, that there's a preventative thing that's going on there. Yeah, yeah. Like as you exhort one another daily, you can prevent some potential hardening of heart that's going on with yourself or your family.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

This is what we have to know we're up against. That's what I think this is a warning of. It's good. Know what's possible. Todd, your thoughts on what dads should do, could do in this.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

You know, I think a lot of dads are zealous, and I appreciate that. They really want to lean into the family. They have these children, praise God for that. And uh they want it to go right, and we all know that temptation to to control everything and have it all sorted out. But really, ultimately, I think what we need to do as dads is we need to trust God. This is a faith element. This is trusting God, hoping in God, looking to God, being being a real man, being genuine, like confessing, yes, I sin. You know, just having this sort of more org more uh the home environment should be more organic than more strict order. You know, it has to that has to because uh because that's how David was, that's how Peter was. We see that. You know, the classic uh text, you know, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure. We need to do that as dads. Right. But what does he say? How do you do it? He says, therefore, well, you go back and say, for this very reason, giving all diligence, add your faith, virtue to virtue, knowledge, knowledge, and self-control. Well, what's that based on? It's based on the fact that God, God, his grace and his peace has been multiplied to us and given us all things for life and godliness, which takes us right back to I'm dependent upon God. If you're a dad and you're just dependent upon God, that will set the tone in your household for a love of God for children.

SPEAKER_04 9:41

Something you said, Bill, offline was that uh we we need to be calling out to God. We need to be crying out to God. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

This whole idea of uh I don't just deconstruction the words here. I I'm not quite that word makes me nervous. First of all, because I think who thought they constructed it in the first place that you have to deconstruct it. This is a God doing all this work in. And if you're struggling with what God is doing, then you need to cry out to him and ask him to help you.

SPEAKER_04 10:09

Yeah, and and dads need to be dependent upon God for his truth and for his work, his Holy Spirit working in in the family. Any other thoughts on that, uh, Danny, in terms of you know, what should dads be doing to prevent apostasy with the kids? You you you saw some of this at the Denver conference this weekend. You work with the young people, you were there, and you had some conversations.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

I did a session on uh the key to a significant life, which is you know, take up your cross, deny yourself, follow the Lord. And I did another session on honoring your father and mother. And that was actually where I got more feedback and a little bit more. Well, wait a minute, what about this situation where I have uh you know an older sibling that rebelled, and now my parents are cracking down even harder on the rules and the guidelines because they don't want that to happen again. Uh, but I am 18 and my dad's treating me like I'm 13 and and then I said, you know, I went through the questions. I said, well, you know, can you have a conversation about this with them? And and there were some yes, but like my parents aren't even on the same page. And I said, Is there can you go to your church about this? And no, we don't really participate in a church. Ooh, that's a challenge.

SPEAKER_04 11:29

Huge.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

So it would you kind of walk through the relational context and you just see that well, though the there's some uh if you if you might say safety nets that God has put in place to help us through some of these difficult things, and we need to lean into those in in terms of number one, openness with your children, and number two, other godly counselors that can speak into these situations. One last thing. Uh I went to another homeschool conference recently with Katie, and I did a session for the teens on a little bit of apologetics, and I talked to her about it afterwards, and I said, You know, did you learn anything? She says, Well, that actually helped me. I I've been struggling with some questions at night. And she's not a teenager quite yet. She's eight. She's like, I I was I've been thinking at night, like, how do we know this is all true? And this is brothers, this is the first time I I heard that. Good. And I'm like, how is you know, do you have any more questions? She said, No, they're they're resolved now. I said, Well, sweetie, if you ever have any questions, let's talk. Let's talk. Please feel free to come. So my point is, uh, how do we cultivate that openness early? Uh, where we're, by God's grace, one of the first people they want to come and talk to. That's Chris questions.

SPEAKER_04 12:37

That's critical. I I want Bill to comment on this thing situation. Let's say these parents in this situation approached you and they were teachable, they were open. You know, let's let's let's hope that they would be open for some counsel, given given that they're already meeting some crises right now with their older children. Bill, well, how would you counsel them on this?

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Well, I think you the first thing is how approachable am I? I have to have to take a serious look. Do my children come to me with questions? If they're not coming to you with questions, then you have to take a look at how approachable you are. Are you humble enough to receive the questions? Are you shocked at the questions? You know, are you are you are you ready for the questions? Is is your home a place where questions are part of it? It's okay to ask questions. Questions is different than doubt, I believe. Yeah, I mean, there there are sincere questions I think every child goes through. And I think, Danny, maybe you can even speak to it later on about what what happened with you since you're closer to those younger years, too. Um I think all these children have have have questions. Do you have a culture where we we we talk about things and it's okay to ask questions? Because if the children are afraid to ask you, they're gonna go ask somebody else. Because they're going to ask the questions of somebody.

SPEAKER_04 13:52

Todd, let's let's say that you're counseling this this couple, and they're saying we are doing everything we can possibly do to keep our kids from apostatizing for the faith. We have controlling, controlling, and more control of every aspect of their lives. We will get them saved. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

To which what you would say, you know, counsel them for just on the wrong track there. Yeah. Yeah, this is this goes back to hoping in God, not hoping in ourselves and our programs and our order and our solutions. You know, I would just say to that dad, you know, you I know that you feel like you have all the answers, but this is that's not what we're called to have all the answers. Our God has the answers. We're we're called to hope in him and trust in him and uh and and and lay this down and and realize you you don't have you really don't have control over this. This is this is up to God. We are here to faithfully uh love and steward and disciple, and we do those things faithfully and we hope in God. We trust in God.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Can I can I piggyback on that? So let's let's go into well, hey, my my daughter's hanging out with people that are gonna start handing her drugs, yeah, and you know, she's going to this community college right now, and I don't want her to stay out past a certain time. I I I I'm with you on the hoping in God piece. But how does a dad wade into some of these things while still hoping in God? Is there a place for drawing lines, creating boundaries?

SPEAKER_02 16:00

I think he can, but he's gotta have he's gotta dive into the relationship foremost and and gain that. And I mean, if he hadn't been doing that for the last 18 years, you know, okay, that's okay. You know, he needs to do that now. Dive into the relationship, gain that trust, that passport. I think it's hard hard to just call out stops. There's we need to do that at times when it's yeah, when it could be very much a last ditch effort. Last ditch effort, yeah, that kind of thing. But um, if there's a way to do that, and I think it can come through humility uh and confession. Not every time. I mean, there there are Esau's out there. Sometimes that happens, but he needs to approach it as as Christ approaches us.

SPEAKER_04 16:37

Aaron Powell The analogy I'll like you use is of course the farmer. You know, you can't force the fruit. Yeah, you can't force the fruit, you can't yell at the plants, speed that up. Grow, grow, grow, and give me fruit. Yeah. Okay, you can try that. I suppose the oxygen coming out of your mouth might, you know, or no, that's carbon dioxide. So yeah. I'm not sure that's gonna be all that helpful. But the point is, you can plant, you can water, you can pull weeds. Sure. I think that's all legit. You know, like what you're saying. There may be some weeds, we can pull some weeds, right? But we can't control the outcome. I think that's that's the tension here.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Be a faithful farmer. And to the extent that you're bypassing the relationship, that's maybe a good an indication that you're in control mode.

SPEAKER_04 17:19

That yeah, it's a good point.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

You're bypassing the relationship. I'm I I don't really need to do this on a basis of trust. I'm just gonna put the boundaries in. And and and put them in a greenhouse, you know.

SPEAKER_04 17:31

I mean, you know, hail, et cetera, et cetera, could really ruin stuff. So so root and ground them in the truth, a Bible-saturated curriculum, uh generations, obviously. Uh and then, you know, just family worship every day, uh, prayer, reliance upon God, setting the example, not being the hypocrites, uh, you know, walking in the faith, living the faith as parents. And then don't set them before bad teachers. If you send them to a Muslim I mom every day, don't be surprised if they come back touting the Muslim religion. Or same thing for the man-centered humanism in the public schools, or the man-centered existentialism taught by Katy Perry, pop music stars, Hollywood producers, et cetera, et cetera. Their peers also can lead them astray. So bad discipline, like, don't give them to bad disciplers, but be a good discipler, raising them in the nurture of the admonition of Jesus. So so I guess those those are the fundamentals uh that that just we have to be watching out for. You have to add something.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

I was just gonna, and your example, just real specific to that example and maybe real practical, is you know, a lot of times as dads, we just like the daughter who might be ex, we just say no, like stop. Instead of, we need to seek alternatives, like and and really pray to God. God, you know, this is doesn't not seem to be the best path, but if just the no really hurts relationship and everything, instead of, hey, maybe God, please open something else, another path, another door. And I've I've seen that happen many times. And so we just need to say, God help me.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

And I think the child may be crying out for the relationship. You know, children are very good at at bringing shock and awe, right, when they're feel like they're not being paid attention to. So, like if a teen comes forward and says, you know, I'm not really sure that God exists, you know, and and instead of dad just going, What? What did you just say? You know, say, you know what, that's a really good question. Let's go out Friday night and we'll take a drive and we'll talk about that. Rather, just like settle down on the shock part. Because I and what what what dad should be hearing is my child needs my time and attention right now. And and this question is a way of him to draw. And this, I think, it happens sometimes with bigger families too, that they have to be careful about.

SPEAKER_04 19:49

One of the things that I think we always want is the truth about uh where our kids are. I mean, the idea that you know all these hypocrisies, all these facades, and and everybody's faking it like they believe in Jesus, but they really don't. I mean, I don't think any of us want that. No. I mean, amen. We want to know what the real deal is. Right. And to the extent that our children can display, you know, what's happening, uh, it's helpful. It certainly is gonna direct our prayer life as well. I mean, Lord, we need help here. And and we remind us that, you know, it's gonna be the work of God that will make a fundamental change. On the one hand, we don't want to encourage doubt in God and His Word and Jesus' salvation. We don't want to quench the little bit of faith that's there by saying, Of course you don't believe. I I've always doubted your faith. You know, that's not helpful either. Uh but on the other hand, I think we can ask them if they understand or if they believe in the promises of God, uh set the promises before them and challenge them to believe the promises. You know, God said these things. Jesus said he will save you from your sins if you believe in him. Do you want to be saved from your sins? Yeah. Do you believe Jesus' words? I mean that's okay. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

David did it a few times, I think, through the Psalms throughout some pretty serious questions.

SPEAKER_04 21:10

And doesn't Peter say, or Paul said, make make sure your your your election makes sure that you believe the sorts of things you say you believe. So that's appropriate. So at the one hand, on the one hand, you know, we don't want to encourage doubt. On the other hand, if they do have doubts, ask them which would you rather doubt? Would you rather doubt yourself or doubt God? Would you rather doubt smart men who make mistakes all the time, or would you rather doubt God when it comes to you know the latest scientific evolutionists that come out of the laboratory of the rock and say, trust me, it's four billion years old. I I I believe this and you should believe this. Um maybe we should doubt that guy. Maybe we should not doubt God. Right. And and and and the other the other aspect of this also is should we believe in God or should we believe in ourselves, trust ourselves? You know? And uh so you're gonna trust something. You either trust yourself or trust God. The other thing that I've noticed with young people, I've had them come to me a number of times and they just say, you know what, I'm just you know, I have a lack of faith in my own faith. I'm I I'm I'm I'm I'm watching my knuckles to see if my knuckles are clinging to Jesus. Well, the problem now is you're you're staring at your knuckles. You're not staring at Jesus. So, you know, the object of faith is important. If if your faith is in your own faith, then you're gonna be a little wobbly. In terms of your faith. So those are some of the sorts of things that, you know, I've I've used with young people talking about.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

Yeah, and we have to be careful with that. I think sometimes that comes about because it can be a very honor mom and dad, obey mom and dad, and sure, and and and life seems to go well whenever I just do what I'm told. But you know, we as fathers have to have to transition that from yes, from the three-year-old who needs to be there to trusting God, depending upon God, loving God, doing this not out of just an obedience, because that's a reward sort of situation, but this is this is my father in heaven. This is what he's calling me to do, and I'm doing this in faith, and I love the Lord. I love God. And we need to come back to our own epistemological authority.

SPEAKER_04 23:27

Yes. It is the epistemological authority, believe this because I said this. Right. Believe this because the church says this, or believe this because God said it. Right. Um, you know, I I think oftentimes we're we're thinking that we're we're trusting in God's authority, but actually we're sort of trusting in our own authority in sharing whatever we're sharing with our kids. So be careful with that. I think it's important to give them good, solid worldview stuff, apologetic stuff. We offer that with my book, Worldview, what we believe, what they believe, and why they're wrong. So some of those resources can be helpful. I think reading them together as a family, especially with your teenage kids, could be a very helpful thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

I was I had the opportunity to close out that that homeschool conference after three days of hearing all these things about how you can do this and do that and do this better. So I Hebrews 3 and 20, now may the God of peace, and that's an important word, God is the God of peace. He wants peace in your home, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will. That's what they just heard for three days. All this stuff that would equip them, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ. It's not of their own strength. Yeah. To whom be glory forever and ever. So, yes, there is this equipping. Yes, we have to do things, but if we don't realize it's in the power of Christ and live as if it's in the power of Christ, then we're gonna fail our children.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

And I was gonna add uh to that, Papa, that I think you know, so much of this is caught as opposed to taught in terms of children's perception of what is real. And man, I just have to believe that one of the greatest ways we teach them what is real is when they see that real faith demonstrated in our lives. So when they see the real transformation of the gospel at work in dad and mom. That that has to be uh one of the greatest things that gives them the indication, oh, God is real. I see him at work in this family. And secondly, um not only our lives uh demonstrating the gospel, but I do think maybe even dads in particular have a special role in conveying something about God the Father in the way that they father. And so may we uh present uh a father who is daunting who is who is present present uh uh an image of a father who's approachable, who is good, who is loving, who is gracious, who is honest, who is truthful. Um those are those are things that I hear in stories from young people who have left the faith.

SPEAKER_04 26:08

Aaron Ross Powell And one of the big tests for us fathers is when crisis hits us, and it may be the crisis that's affecting them, then that crisis affects us. And do we respond in faith and hope that's right and looking to God ourselves in the midst of the storm? We're hit by the 400-foot tsunami. Uh you know, what's dad doing now? They're watching us. And so our response in faith matters. The other thing I was gonna say about this doubt thing is these intellectual arguments can be excuses to avoid the real conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I want you to talk to that. But I think the answer is be constant with the basic gospel message. Hey, you know what? Let's stop making excuses here. We're all sinners. We know that. We have a guilt issue, and we need a savior, and we're not saving ourselves. So so just you know, God's savior is our only savior. That's right. Amen. And and to just keep coming back to the gospel message, you know, it's speaking to the heart on those issues is important.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Well, I was just gonna share with that. When I was 12, I had some really serious doubts. Um, like very self-conscious. I'm gonna be careful how I pray this prayer because I don't want to give the idea that I actually believe in the God that I'm praying to, you know, that that kind of thing. Um but simultaneous to that, I was struggling for the first time with really significant rebellion against mom and dad. And it was just the kind of rebellion that was rooted in I just don't want to do what they want to say because what they want me to do because they're the ones saying it.

SPEAKER_04 27:44

So you're the problem. You were the problem. You had to come to that.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

It was a sin issue. That my doubts in God of God were rooted in the fact that I didn't want to believe in the God who was telling me to honor my father and mother. And so I think uh being honest about the fact that in many cases these doubts spring from sin and habitual sin. So I'm thankful for parents who leaned into that, who did not just excuse, oh, this is what every teenager does. You know, they they came in a little closer, the way of the transgressor got harder for a period of time. Um, but by God's grace, uh they they leaned in and I I I repented of that. And at the same time, those doubts just kind of dissipated. I remember telling mom, mom, I don't have all the reasons for God's existence figured out, but I know when I believe in him, I'm a lot happier. This is my kind of my simple 12-year-old conclusion on the matter. And that leads me to one other thing I would say is aren't our homes joyful? Yeah. Um, sure. Our children are going to, I think, in many ways, sort of judge the validity of the truth of the message by that bottom line output of joy. And where the kingdom of God shows up, there's righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. And if joy isn't present in our homes, man, I think we're putting a huge stumbling block before our children.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

What happens, Danny, too, and I think that's a great point, is what happens is we put up these facades in our home, right? And the world puts up facades. And the children say, I these facades I don't like. So let's go try the other facades. They may not know, but that's what draws them is they're both facades because they're not seeing anything strong at home. And if there's no joy, that's usually the facade issue, too.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

Yeah. It goes back to we just have we have to be real, we have to be authentic, genuine people. We are, which means confession. We've said that before on this program many times, but wow, we've we've got to we've got to confess as dads. We've got to praise God. We've if we don't love God, I mean we shouldn't be too upset if our our our children don't. And we we have to display that and show that love of God, the and pointing to God and looking to God in in all things. It's so important.

SPEAKER_04 29:59

We've talked about prevention, we've talked about dealing with kids on the path towards apostasy or deconstruction today. And but I'm gonna end on this. We we need to get perhaps a little bit more into this this second subject, and that is how do we talk to the 66% of parents who are losing their kids. Yeah. This is this is a massively difficult thing. So I at least want to spend a moment on this. And and the first the first thing I'd like to say is that uh the first thing that usually comes to mind for the average parent is was this my fault? And when we go through trials like this, uh it does no good for Job's comforters to show up and say it was all your fault because you did this, this, and this. Uh the Bible does not assign the specific causes of spiritual crises for parents. But I think the the better thing to ask in in every trial that we go through, that is Hebrews 12, what is God teaching me? Because you know that he is teaching you something. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think this is helpful. Instead of sitting around and worrying about the cause, at the end of the day, God hasn't regenerated, so we know that that is a cause, an important cause. Uh but but the important thing that God wants us to go through is is you know, what are we learning in all of this? How can I reassess my own faith, my own life, my own hypocrisies, my own obedience or lack of obedience, my own coolness to the things of God, my own coolness to the church, my own lack of love towards my kids or towards the body of Christ. I mean, the Lord's gonna teach you things. And by the way, you're not gonna learn it all in like 10 minutes. It's probably gonna work its way out over the next five, 10, 15 years. You're gonna be going over the things God's teaching you. And this is a big part of how I've responded to my trials. For years, I would say every day, God, what are you teaching me? Please teach me. Speak, Lord, for your servant hears. That was, I mean, it was almost like a mantra. I just went over that every day, whenever I'd have a quiet moment. I'd just say, God, I'm here. I'm I'm I'm I'm teachable. I I need to learn so I know there's some things that are wrong with me. I'm missing something, my my weak spots, my blind spot here. You know, just going over and over that. Uh, this trial, God's teaching us in this. He's not punishing me, he's teaching me because he cares for me. And I think that that that's the first response for every parent. Right. That means, you know, God may be working in you first. Right, right. He may have to do something in you first before he works with your children. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

So that that's helped me tremendously. Any other thoughts on this? It goes along with my thought on that too, is a lot of times when we get in that situation, you have a child that's turned away, it's very heavy, it's very significant. Yeah. You've poured your life into this child, and then and a lot, we do this with we can do this with any crisis. We're focused on the child. And we're thinking all day long, oh, the child, the child. We need to focus on Jesus. We need to focus on Christ. And we need to sort of turn our head and our attention towards him, uh, to hear from him, to receive, to learn and grow from him. But it's also it it can kind of be a matter of worship. Like we can even turn this child that's in into an idol, into a fixation. And we need to go, okay, I'm I'm that's in God's hands. I have to worship God. We have to turn there. Thoughts on this?

SPEAKER_04 33:25

What would you say to these parents?

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Well, I think usually what happens is you have a child that's gone, and you might still have you're gonna have more children at home. So your your heart turns like, why? What are we gonna do now to prevent this? I'm thinking like of a garden. You know, do you build 10-foot fences and lock the gates harder, or do you start looking at what are you pouring on the plant? You know, is are we giving it enough water? Are we giving it enough nourishment? Are we getting the weeds that are directly around it gone? Or uh it would be dangerous to be like, okay, we've got to clamp down more. You mentioned that at the beginning of it. But you know, I I I would I'll take those parents that have that passion, as opposed to the the the dad that just says, Oh, oh well, you know, that's the way they're gonna choose their own path. Give me the pro the parent with a passion, and we'll redirect their paths. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:16

Danny, thoughts on this? What what would you say to parents that are going through these crises?

SPEAKER_00 34:21

You know, I was looking at the parable of the lost son this morning. And uh at the beginning of that chapter, um, the Pharisees are all upset about the fact that Jesus is hanging out with sinners. And that's the whole context of the parable of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the lost son. And it says that Jesus uh was sitting with the sinners.

SPEAKER_03 34:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

And so I take from that uh two things. One, uh, proximity. Uh how do you get into as much proximity of relationship as possible?

SPEAKER_03 34:49

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

And then the father. Honestly, I I believe that in all three of those parables, it's the searcher that is sort of the hero of the story. And it and I believe in the parable of the lost son, it's the father, it's the father's heart uh waiting for his son, uh, so hopeful that he was down at the end of the driveway. He's expectant, expect expectant. So uh try to get that proximity of relationship and convey that sense of expectation of return.

SPEAKER_04 35:18

You know, I think you're gonna find if you obviously lifeway survey doesn't go on into the next 30, 40, 50 years, but so many of these kids actually do come back. That's right. And um, and it's a matter of prayer, it's a matter of timing, it's waiting on the Lord, hoping in his goodness, uh knowing that uh eye has not seen, ear has not heard the good things that he has for us. Amen. Um and also I here's one more thing. Let's pray for a return of the Holy Spirit upon ourselves, upon our families, upon our churches, that the hearts of the fathers were turned to the children, children to the fathers, our hearts turn back to God. And I do think we need to get back into the upper room as churches. When we begin to see this apostasy metastasize across the teenagers in a church, we need to get into the upper room and pray for 40 days that somehow the Holy Spirit come back and our children would prophesy again.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Kevin, you know, at the conference we had a speaker, Rosaria Butterfield. I've never seen anybody do this. But she's she set aside an hour and invited people to come to pray for prodigal children. Yeah, a speaker didn't say, Come listen to me for another hour. What she said was come into the room and pray for our children who've gone away. And it was powerful. In fact, Brandy, the conference coordinator, said Ken Ham wanted, you know, his handler said, And we need to do a sound check. She said, Sorry, they're praying in there. You're gonna do your sound check later.

SPEAKER_04 36:51

That's the priority. Yeah, we're gonna pray. And I think that's where we need to end is because God is good and God's gonna bring the prodigals back home. That's right. We've seen this over and over again, and we can expect it. Um, one of the counsels I like to give people is think about being the parents of the man up in the Gatarenes, you know, who is just, you know, a thousand demons. I mean, this is like the worst of the worst case. Those parents could get up over those cliffs over the Sea of Galilee and just wait for a little boat to come over. And eventually that boat comes. And and and that Jesus climbs up onto the cliff and tosses a thousand demons into the pigs, and the man becomes one of the first gospel witnesses to his whole village. Um so you wait for the boat, you wait for Jesus to show up. Amen. I think that's the best uh advice to give to those who uh are facing these crises. It's becoming more real for us too as parents. We begin to see we need Jesus to do this in us and in them. Well, friends, uh wow, this this is this is a big subject, and we need to come back to it. I I think that's something we need to talk to some more because this is a 66% right now in our churches and with our families. Today we've been talking about apostasy and uh the walking away from the faith and from the church on the part of our children, but let's leave it with a spirit of hope. Uh God is good, uh, God is working in us, and we believe that God will work in our children too. And this is Kevin Swanson as well, Todd Strasser, Bill Roach, and Danny Craig. Thank you, brothers. And we all invite you back again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation. This has been a production of the Generations Media Network. For more information, go to generations.org/slash media.