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Raising Kids Who Love the Local Church, Not Just Attend It · Equipped for Impact

• 0:00
  Nate: If you ask one of the students at our school why their family goes to church, what do you think most of them would say?
• 0:06
  Luis: Honestly, I think a lot of them would say something like, Because my parents make us or it's just what we do on Sundays.
• 0:12
  Nate: Right.
• 0:13
  Nate: And neither of those answers are wrong necessarily, but neither one of them says anything about belonging.
• 0:20
  Nate: They're describing attendance.
• 0:22
  Nate: Nobody said anything about being needed there or missing it when they're gone or having a role to play in the church.
• 0:29
  Luis: And I think that gap matters more than we like to admit.
• 0:32
  Luis: A kid can sit in the same church for 18 years and never once think of the church as theirs.
• 0:40
  Nate: Which means we can raise a kid who never missed a Sunday and still send them into the world with no real category in their minds of what the church actually is.
• 0:51
  Luis: And that's what we want to dig into today.
• 1:02
  Nate: Welcome to Equipped for Impact, the podcast designed to assist Christian parents, leaders, and educators to raise up the next generation to stand firm in their faith and influence the world for Christ.
• 1:13
  Nate: We're your hosts.
• 1:14
  Nate: I'm Nate.
• 1:15
  Nate: And I'm Lewis.
• 1:16
  Nate: And today we're talking about just that raising kids who actually love the local church, not just showing up to attend one.
• 1:26
  Nate: And I think a lot of good faithful parents are doing uh the right thing on paper and still ending up with a kid who sees church as something that happens around them instead of something they are a part of.
• 1:39
  Luis: So let's talk about why that happens and and what we can do about it.
• 1:44
  Luis: So if we do an honest diagnosis, right, we're gonna see that a lot of Christian families measure faithfulness by attendance.
• 1:53
  Luis: Were we there?
• 1:54
  Luis: Did we show up?
• 1:56
  Luis: Did we sit through the service?
• 1:57
  Luis: And if we did, great, we can check that off.
• 2:00
  Nate: Yeah, and and attendance matters, right?
• 2:03
  Nate: Because I think we've talked before on here about you know you need to be there in person, you know, online, watching the video.
• 2:10
  Nate: It's got a it's got a place, right?
• 2:12
  Nate: Yeah.
• 2:12
  Nate: Because it's you know, it it's a an embodied experience.
• 2:16
  Nate: So we're not knocking attendance, right?
• 2:18
  Nate: But attendance is the floor, it's not the ultimate goal.
• 2:22
  Nate: That's really good.
• 2:22
  Nate: Right?
• 2:23
  Nate: A kid can hit that floor every single week and never develop any real sense of ownership over what's happening in that auditorium.
• 2:32
  Luis: And as a former youth pastor, we see this in youth ministry all the time.
• 2:37
  Luis: You have a student who ages out of the youth group, they graduate, they move away for college or work, or maybe they even stay in the area, but because the church was never really theirs to begin with, they just start going somewhere different, or maybe not at all, because the church that they attended as children and teens, that was their parents' church.
• 3:02
  Luis: And so the moment that the parent stops driving them there, there's nothing that pulls them back into that local body of believers.
• 3:09
  Luis: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 3:10
  Nate: Yeah.
• 3:10
  Nate: And also I I think you mentioned something else that was important.
• 3:14
  Nate: And again, this is not necessarily a podcast on youth ministry, right?
• 3:17
  Nate: It's just for parents and and leaders and all of that.
• 3:21
  Nate: But like if you as a parent see that your church, like your youth group, is almost a mini church.
• 3:26
  Nate: Oh, yeah.
• 3:27
  Nate: You know, they belong to that youth group.
• 3:30
  Nate: Yeah.
• 3:30
  Nate: But then when they age out of youth group, then what?
• 3:33
  Nate: Right?
• 3:33
  Nate: And so you want to make sure that your child is connected to the church, not just the youth group.
• 3:38
  Nate: There's a trend in our area where the youth groups all have different names, you know, like you can name your youth group.
• 3:45
  Nate: Yeah.
• 3:45
  Nate: And I've actually talked to kids where we say, Where do you go to church?
• 3:48
  Nate: Yeah.
• 3:48
  Nate: And they name their youth group.
• 3:50
  Nate: They don't actually name the church.
• 3:51
  Luis: Yeah, because they're connected to the youth group, not necessarily the bigger body of believers.
• 3:56
  Luis: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 3:57
  Nate: Right.
• 3:57
  Nate: Which so for you as a parent, if you're listening to this, like that's another thing, just kind of a warning warning sign for you.
• 4:02
  Nate: Like make sure your kid is connected to the church and your youth pastor is ensuring it's a whole church thing.
• 4:08
  Nate: Right.
• 4:08
  Nate: It's not just I'm building my own little church of teenagers, because once there's no longer a place for them, they won't they're not connected.
• 4:16
  Nate: So it's really good.
• 4:17
  Nate: So that's kind of that's just kind of all preliminary information, right?
• 4:20
  Nate: And you know, let's just say most families, you know, love their church deeply, but your love as a parent of your church doesn't automatically transfer just because your kid, you know, watched You Love Your Church and and came and sat in the pew for a few years.
• 4:36
  Nate: Yeah, that's really good.
• 4:38
  Luis: It has to be given to them on purpose, right?
• 4:41
  Luis: Like ownership isn't c isn't transmitted from parent to child, it's handed over and it happens deliberately and it happens over time.
• 4:50
  Nate: Aaron Ross Powell, which raises the real question for today, okay?
• 4:54
  Nate: What does a family actually do to move a kid from attending church to belonging to the church?
• 5:01
  Luis: Well, let's start with scripture.
• 5:03
  Luis: That's a good place to start.
• 5:04
  Luis: That's right.
• 5:04
  Luis: First Corinthians 12.
• 5:05
  Luis: In this chapter, Paul spends his time on this image of the body, right?
• 5:10
  Luis: And many of you listening are probably familiar.
• 5:12
  Luis: Many parts, one body, every part matters.
• 5:15
  Luis: And then in verse 27, he says that you together are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
• 5:24
  Nate: Yeah, and and it's important there, he's using that.
• 5:26
  Nate: He's saying you are a part of it, not a spectator, not an attendee.
• 5:31
  Nate: Like you're a part of it.
• 5:33
  Nate: You're connected, which means the local church is never designed to be something you watch, which is why we've talked about like online services while they have a place, and it's great we need them, but if that's all you get, you're not part of it.
• 5:47
  Nate: You're just watching a sermon.
• 5:49
  Nate: And so the church is designed to be something you're organically connected to in the way your hand is connected to your arm.
• 5:56
  Luis: Yeah.
• 5:57
  Luis: And that's a hard image to reconcile with a kid who's sitting in the back row on their phone for an hour a week.
• 6:05
  Nate: Yep, yep.
• 6:05
  Nate: And and in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 24 and 25, it fills that in even more.
• 6:11
  Nate: It specifically gives instructions.
• 6:13
  Nate: It says, Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day approaching, right?
• 6:25
  Nate: So the purpose of church is encouraging each other, stirring each other up to do good works, not just gathering together to receive something.
• 6:35
  Nate: Yeah.
• 6:35
  Nate: Right?
• 6:36
  Nate: You're stirring it up.
• 6:37
  Nate: Every person in that room has a job, and it's not just the person preaching the message on the platform.
• 6:43
  Nate: Yep.
• 6:43
  Luis: And then Paul in Ephesians says something very similar about the whole body building itself up in love as each part does its work, right?
• 6:52
  Luis: So notice that part there, right?
• 6:53
  Luis: Each part, which means that a 12-year-old sitting in your church has a part to do, even if nobody has ever told them exactly what that part is.
• 7:05
  Nate: Yeah, and I think that's the piece most families miss, right?
• 7:07
  Nate: We wait until a kid is an adult to give them a job in the church.
• 7:12
  Nate: But scripture doesn't wait for adulthood.
• 7:15
  Nate: It doesn't put an age limit on anything, right?
• 7:18
  Nate: It's it's just part of it.
• 7:19
  Nate: This is really fun, like because m my kids are getting to that age where like even when they were little, you know, they'd help out in things little kids can do, you know, carry stuff and whatever.
• 7:30
  Nate: But like now they're getting to the age, you know, as as teenagers, they can actually start taking a little bit more responsibility.
• 7:37
  Nate: So there was a day, like my wife teaches a little twos and threes Sunday school class, and she was out, but we were still there, and so it was like there was another adult covering for my wife, but then they're like, Hey, you know, can your daughter come help out in Sunday school?
• 7:53
  Nate: And so she like she was able to be in there with the twos and the three-year-olds helping out, and she's like providing service.
• 7:59
  Nate: Yeah, you know, she wasn't leading it, she wasn't teaching a lesson, but she was there filling in, and it was it was a ministry for her.
• 8:06
  Nate: She's connected, and she's, you know, she's not an adult yet.
• 8:09
  Nate: Yep, yep.
• 8:10
  Luis: And the theology here isn't complicated, right?
• 8:12
  Luis: The local church is a body where every believer belongs to and where every believer contributes to, starting the moment that they're in and not waiting until they're grown, like Nate just shared with his daughter, right?
• 8:25
  Luis: Like that is preparing her.
• 8:27
  Luis: One day she may be the teacher in the Sunday school class, but we're not waiting for her to turn 16, 18, 21, 30, 35.
• 8:36
  Luis: Yep.
• 8:36
  Luis: Yep.
• 8:37
  Luis: She's learning those skills now as a young girl.
• 8:41
  Nate: Yep.
• 8:41
  Nate: So so let's get practical, right?
• 8:43
  Nate: What does this actually look like?
• 8:46
  Nate: A parent is listening, you know, you're out there, you're sitting here, you're driving, maybe you're driving to church while you're listening to this, but whatever it is, you're listening and you're wondering what does this actually look like on a normal Sunday or Wednesday or Thursday, whatever day your church meets.
• 9:01
  Nate: Well, here's what I would say.
• 9:02
  Luis: Start by making sure that your kid has a real job at the church, not a fake one, right?
• 9:07
  Luis: It's not just busy work to keep them occupied, but an actual role that somebody would notice if it went undone.
• 9:15
  Luis: So they can hand out bulletins, they can run a slide deck, maybe they can help in the nursery once they're old enough, maybe they can serve on the welcome team, maybe they can help teach a Sunday school or assist their their mom or dad in a Sunday school class or children's church, right?
• 9:29
  Luis: But do something with actual responsibility attached to it that if they didn't do it, it would be missed.
• 9:37
  Nate: You mentioned uh running the slide deck.
• 9:39
  Nate: Like uh talk about a perfect job for a younger, you know, a preteen or a teenager or something like that.
• 9:45
  Nate: Because most presentation software, you literally all you have to do is click the next button.
• 9:51
  Nate: Yes.
• 9:51
  Nate: It is one button and you just click through as you're singing.
• 9:54
  Nate: And that's something, one, they're already in there singing the song.
• 9:57
  Nate: Yeah.
• 9:57
  Nate: So just read on the screen and click the next button.
• 10:00
  Nate: Two, they don't have to be seen.
• 10:02
  Nate: In fact, most churches either it's like up on a balcony or like way hidden in the back.
• 10:07
  Nate: Nobody sees them.
• 10:08
  Nate: So it's not like, oh, everybody's looking at me.
• 10:10
  Nate: No, you're just clicking the button.
• 10:12
  Nate: But if they aren't there to click the button, people notice.
• 10:16
  Nate: Absolutely.
• 10:17
  Nate: And the kids notice that distinction.
• 10:18
  Nate: Like it they can tell if it's just something that's just invented to keep them quiet or if it's an actual task that's gonna matter, right?
• 10:27
  Nate: If it's fake, they're gonna treat it like it's a fake job.
• 10:29
  Luis: And here's the second thing, right?
• 10:30
  Luis: Talk about your church by name at home and talk about specific people on it.
• 10:35
  Luis: Like, don't just say we're going to church, right?
• 10:38
  Luis: But maybe something like, I've been praying for the Andersons this week, or did you see how Miss Carroll handled that situation in children's ministry?
• 10:47
  Luis: Being specific begins to build attachment.
• 10:51
  Luis: They get to see and know people in their church.
• 10:55
  Luis: Yep.
• 10:55
  Luis: I I listened to a podcast and several years ago.
• 10:59
  Nate: You mean Equipped for Impact is not the only podcast you listen to?
• 11:02
  Nate: It's not the only one.
• 11:02
  Nate: Okay.
• 11:03
  Luis: No, it's not.
• 11:03
  Luis: It's not.
• 11:04
  Nate: It's a good one though.
• 11:04
  Nate: It is a really good one.
• 11:05
  Nate: You should hit subscribe so that you don't miss our next episode.
• 11:08
  Luis: Give them a rating of five stars only.
• 11:10
  Nate: Yep, only five stars.
• 11:12
  Luis: And so, but this pastor was talking about at his church how they part of their small group ministry, they create a small group of an older man, a middle-aged man, and usually the son or relative of one of those men, right?
• 11:29
  Luis: And so that way you have a teenage boy being poured into by his middle-aged father, or maybe by a a a father who who or maybe a guy who's not his father, and then maybe his grandfather.
• 11:42
  Luis: And so it builds that interconnectedness.
• 11:44
  Luis: And we we've talked about that before, right?
• 11:46
  Luis: Like it now you have this multi-generational church where an older man knows the name and hobbies of a teenage boy, and a teenage boy knows the name and hobbies and life of a 60-year-old man.
• 12:01
  Luis: And your kids now know people by name, they have attached, and it prevents this vagueness that doesn't create attachment.
• 12:10
  Nate: Yeah.
• 12:10
  Nate: That's really that's really good.
• 12:11
  Nate: So so let's add a third one to this list, right?
• 12:14
  Nate: Let your kids see you serve somewhere in the church.
• 12:18
  Nate: Right?
• 12:18
  Nate: And it has nothing to do with them.
• 12:21
  Nate: Now that's key, I think.
• 12:22
  Nate: Pause Pause here for a second.
• 12:23
  Nate: If your kid's in youth group, yeah, absolutely volunteer in youth group.
• 12:27
  Nate: Like you should be involved in your child's life.
• 12:28
  Nate: Yeah.
• 12:29
  Nate: But they should also see that you're not just following them along.
• 12:32
  Nate: Right.
• 12:33
  Nate: That's really good.
• 12:33
  Nate: Like it's really cool if you're in the children's ministry when they're in children's ministry and then they age out and you stay in children's ministry because you're serving the kids and the families in the church, not just because your child is in the industry.
• 12:45
  Nate: And so then they see that like if if every ministry you're involved in is just your kids' class, like they don't get to see you serve in other ways that's not about them.
• 12:56
  Nate: Yeah.
• 12:56
  Nate: They also are not necessarily developing those connections like you just talked about with other men and women in the church.
• 13:04
  Nate: And so, you know, if they see that we're serving even when it doesn't necessarily give us kind of a kickback, but it teaches them that the church isn't just a service provider for families, right?
• 13:16
  Nate: It is the family and we're serving the family.
• 13:18
  Nate: Yeah.
• 13:19
  Luis: And I think it's for for some of us, it's really easy to only ever be present at church when our kids are in those activities, right?
• 13:26
  Luis: And so this one may be challenging and it may cause you to have to step out of your comfort zone because it's easy to say, hey, I'm gonna step up and help with the teens because my teen's there.
• 13:38
  Luis: So I'm there on a Wednesday night, or I'm there for a teen lock-in, right?
• 13:43
  Luis: Because your kids are already there.
• 13:44
  Luis: So it doesn't create any inconvenience, right?
• 13:47
  Luis: But how about when you step up and say, hey, I'm gonna help serve in the senior ministry, or I'm gonna help serve in the children's ministry, or I'm gonna help serve in the kitchen ministry or whatever ministry your church has, and your kids not connected to that.
• 14:01
  Luis: So now you have to give up a Thursday night in your home and go do something at the church where your kid's not there.
• 14:10
  Luis: But here's what's really cool is they get to see you serving that and maybe just maybe connecting back to giving them a real job, they come with you.
• 14:21
  Luis: And now they're helping in the kitchen wash dishes or clean up, and it's a different ministry than one that they're necessarily connected to.
• 14:29
  Nate: Yeah, that's good.
• 14:30
  Nate: That's good.
• 14:30
  Nate: And and this fourth one is a little different because it doesn't necessarily have to do with you serving, but it's about being vulnerable.
• 14:38
  Nate: So the fourth one that we're gonna say is when your family walks through something hard, a job loss, a health scare, a hard season, whatever it is, you need to share that, be open yourself with your church family and let your kids watch the church actually show up for you, right?
• 14:58
  Nate: A meal train, a phone call, a card in the mail, someone showing up to help with something that's practical because they see it's you're connected, right?
• 15:07
  Nate: It's not just a building you go to, it's people that you have a relational connection with and you serve them and they serve you because that's what I love about that Ephesians 4 passage you mentioned.
• 15:19
  Nate: It says in there, it you know, it nourishes itself with every joint with which it is supplied.
• 15:25
  Nate: Like, and if you go through and and read the the original language on that, it's literally like a conduit of nourishment would be a good like kind of translation there.
• 15:37
  Nate: And so the church, it's a conduit of nourishment.
• 15:39
  Nate: You are nourishing the other members of the body, yeah, and they are providing nourishment to you.
• 15:44
  Nate: Sometimes that's real, like when they bring you bacon and pancakes for dinner.
• 15:48
  Nate: Yeah.
• 15:49
  Nate: Or sometimes that's spiritual encouragement or emotional encouragement that is nourishing your soul.
• 15:55
  Luis: That would actually be a good opportunity to share with your kids the importance of I don't know, not eating breakfast for dinner.
• 16:04
  Luis: So, like if the church brought it and you have to sacrifice and be like, I know we don't do this, I know this isn't part of our family, I know this is wrong, but because I love my body and I'm gonna be able to do it.
• 16:13
  Luis: You're gonna sacrifice for it.
• 16:16
  Nate: Would you eat breakfast for dinner if I brought it for you?
• 16:19
  Nate: If I was on my deathbed and you were showing me love as a Christian, okay, maybe take a bite.
• 16:25
  Nate: So, fun fact we do have a five-star review from a listener.
• 16:30
  Nate: And he said that he was going to meet us at Waffle House for dinner.
• 16:34
  Luis: Oh, you know, I think I know who gave us that five-star review.
• 16:36
  Nate: Anyway, it's it's on there.
• 16:38
  Nate: So shout out.
• 16:39
  Nate: Thank you for that review.
• 16:40
  Nate: If you want to leave us a fun review and have it read on air, go ahead and do that for us.
• 16:44
  Luis: Absolutely.
• 16:45
  Luis: And here's what's important to know, right?
• 16:47
  Luis: Is it's not always easy for us to accept help.
• 16:49
  Luis: Like, you know, we you know, we we kind of live in that age, but a kid who watches their church carry their family through something hard builds a connectedness to that church beyond just the youth group.
• 17:04
  Luis: And so let's also make sure that we name something here that we want to be careful to look out for, right?
• 17:10
  Luis: Because I think that some families may hear this and they think that the goal is going to be to get their kid busy at church.
• 17:18
  Luis: You might be hearing this and say, Okay, all right, I'm gonna sign my kid up to serve in ministry, they're gonna be helping me in children's church.
• 17:23
  Luis: You know, we're gonna stack up these activities, we're gonna stack up these events, we're gonna stack up the and then you're so busy you can't actually have any family time together.
• 17:32
  Nate: Absolutely, right.
• 17:32
  Luis: And we have an episode for that, right?
• 17:34
  Luis: Yep, we do.
• 17:35
  Luis: So, but that's not the same thing, right?
• 17:36
  Luis: Because that can actually work against you because a kid who becomes so overscheduled at church but never understands why it matters can burn out or just feel like they weren't even involved at all.
• 17:54
  Luis: And we've seen that happen in churches, we've seen it happen with kids in our school.
• 18:01
  Luis: They might be busy at church, but because they're so busy, they're exhausted by it, and then they eventually become resentful of it.
• 18:10
  Nate: Yeah, and busyness isn't the goal, right?
• 18:13
  Nate: Belonging is, and belonging comes from being known and needed, and not just from being put down on the schedule.
• 18:21
  Nate: Which means the question a parent should be asking isn't how can I get my kid more involved?
• 18:26
  Nate: It's does my kid know people here who would notice if they're gone?
• 18:30
  Nate: Yeah.
• 18:30
  Nate: And does my kid know people there they would miss if they were gone?
• 18:35
  Luis: And that's a much harder question to answer.
• 18:36
  Luis: But it but it's the right one, right?
• 18:38
  Luis: Like that's the one we need to be asking.
• 18:40
  Nate: So that's the that's the challenge for us is to get our families connected to the local body, because that's really what it's all about.
• 18:49
  Nate: So, Lewis, any final words before we wrap up this episode?
• 18:53
  Luis: You know, sometimes I hear from parents and and I hear from church members who are older in years, right?
• 19:01
  Luis: And they kind of lament the fact that their children aren't a part of their local church.
• 19:08
  Luis: Maybe their children go to a different church, maybe their children don't go to church at all, right?
• 19:14
  Luis: And so if you want your kids to love the local church someday on their own without you dragging them there, then give them a real connection to the church.
• 19:28
  Luis: And it may start right now by just having them get a real job within the church this fall.
• 19:34
  Luis: And I'm not talking about a placeholder, but but something that really matters.
• 19:39
  Luis: Ask your pastor, ask your children's pastor or your family pastor or somebody in the church where where can my kid at this age, where can they genuinely help, and where are they genuinely needed?
• 19:53
  Luis: And I think that that single step is gonna do more to build belonging than just showing up for the next 15 years.
• 20:02
  Nate: That's excellent.
• 20:03
  Nate: Uh, a great challenge.
• 20:04
  Nate: And I hope you all enjoyed this.
• 20:06
  Nate: If you guys found this episode helpful, please share it with another parent who could hear it this week.
• 20:12
  Nate: Um, and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss our next episode.
• 20:16
  Nate: And like I said, leave us a review.
• 20:18
  Nate: You might hear it in the next episode of this podcast on the air.
• 20:21
  Nate: But until then, keep leading the next generation to stand firm in their faith and influence the world for Christ.