Can skipping church adversely affect your children?
In a recent question and answer time with his audience Carl Trueman, a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, was asked why churches are losing their young people.
Trueman made a keen and convicting connection between parenting and apostasy.
He said – quoting now – “The church is losing its young people because the parents never taught their children that it was important. I think that applies across the board. It applies to family worship, and it also applies to whether you are in church every Sunday and what priority you demonstrate to your children church has on a Sunday.”
Trueman wasn’t making a connection between church attendance and salvation but rather about parenting and the weight of the responsibility behind how mom and dad prioritize their time and lifestyle choices for their families.
He suggests the reason why our children have no love for Christ is due to the fact that we as parents do not show any love or passion for Christ, evidenced by how we prioritize our time both on Sundays and during the week.
A blog on the website “Truth With Love” pointed out that when television, sports, school, hobbies even family itself are elevated to a place of idolatry and replace the vital Christian responsibilities, then we tell our children that Christ is secondary to all these things.
We tell our children that it is not necessary to take up your cross and die to yourself daily in order to follow Christ.