Before I had children I had a thousand theories on how to raise the perfect child. Now I have three adult children, and NO theories. Each day I used what worked for that day, the only consistency is found in God’s Holy Word. Be found in it continually, not often. Influencing our children for Christ is the most important task in our lives. They are influenced by both the good and the bad they see in us and in those we allow to influence them. So speaking from this basis I advise others, Pray MUCH, Peek into their affairs often, Preach MORE through actions than words, Pause twice before telling them how they MUST do it, and Plead with your heavenly father to somehow do a Romans 8:28 thing over the stupid thing you just did.
Michael, your essay ministers, your thoughts help but it is your evident personal relationship which enables you to rightly divide the truth and the error before you.

Amen. Because too often that’s really what the teenager is rejecting- the composite picture we’ve put together of what we think a Christian should look like, smell like, and talk like. We want to reproduce a little junior who fears no evil, sees no evil…and junior has seen way too much already in this world to play naive and blind.

Thanks for sharing such a sober minded, realistic understanding of the battle kids face…when they grow up in Christian homes.

Having been a counselor at a Christian camp now and having a brother, sister and cousins all going through the camp, youth group and children’s church rounds, I wonder if the the proper good influence can be found easily. Christian camps are all too often rand on the emotion-driven sort of Christianity- I’ll never forget the scenes of my childhood (and the scenes I saw fellow counselors try to create) of crying kids at altar calls. In short, there’s no quicker way to breed resentment against Christianity than sending a kid to the wrong camp.

The kids who didn’t believe, or didn’t care as much that I saw go in camp were often embittered at having to be there, and were very hard to reach as a result. Many of my coworkers tried to move them by shame, which made me sick and upset. Once, at a group activity, instead of forcing a kid who felt alienated into it, I sat at the table with him and played chess and talked to him. A once alone kid was begining to feel a little better. As a result, I was harassed by two coworkers for not making him go play games and listen to music with the rest of the kids. And this was a camp that was better-run than any I attended as a kid.

Of course, a camp with good thoughtful counselors and more could be a great influence- but where are they?

- K.B.H., Louisville

A point that needed to be made, but I have probably participated in over 50 camps in my ministry, and I really saw very little to be concerned about FROM THE STANDPOINT OF ALEX. Keep my context in mind here.

The Kentucky Baptist camps that I was part of were not perfect, but they were professionally done, ethically done and aside from the Thursday night cry pretty dull.

I am big on the relationships these camps encourage. My kids were both positively influenced by camps. Just the “nudge” that was needed.

If there are “bad” camps out there, avoid them. Parents should only send a child to a camp they have checked out. We did, and it worked well. I would recommend the same for anyone else….with due caution.

- K.B.H.

We pray for the boys and we talk about our christian activities, and occasionally talk about the gospel, but we don’t want to “harp.”

Our daughter also tries to share with them, but seemingly doesn’t usually get very far.

I use the analogy of a hand of cards. When we have small children at home, most of the cards of “influence” in their hands are parental. As they get older, they deal away parental cards and pick up other cards.

By the time they are adults, the “parental” cards in the hand are important cards, but there aren’t as many of them and they don’t hold the influence they once did. We did what we could, now we are relating to adult children, and they will make up their own minds. Which is exactly what I want from my kids—I want them to choose for themselves what they believe. Integrity is important. And God will work as God chooses as well. I would never despair.