A Startling Statistic

Check out what I just read this afternoon:

Both parents attending church is the single largest indicator of whether a child will attend church in adulthood. (According to a recent study, when both parents attend church regularly, 72 percent of children continue in the faith. When only the father attends, that percentage drops to 55 percent. But when only the mother attends, just 15 percent of children remain involved in the church.)

Can you imagine that? When only the mother attends church, only 15 percent of the children are likely to keep going to church in adulthood! Look at it like this: for every twenty kids who are dragged to church to sit in the pew with mom, statistically, only three of them will be regular worshippers as adults.

That's a really sobering thought -- especially in small rural Newfoundland communities, where
20 children might be the full extent of the under-16 set in the whole congregation. Which three will be the ones to grow up to be regular attenders? It scares me to even think along those lines!

In fairness, there are a lot of issues that this number doesn't address: Single-parent families, conversion experiences where a young adult comes to faith without ever having been brought to church at all as a child, and others. But even if the father takes the kids to church without mom, it's still just a 50/50 chance...But try looking at it like this: our children are almost five times more likely to keep going to church if regular Sunday worship is a family affair. If we have worries about attendance, older folks like to remind us how they were never given a choice about whether they were going to church. Is part of our problem the fact that in recent years, it's been only one parent who has made this a priority? We like to talk about 'bringing families to church' when all we're really talking about is getting the children. Common wisdom says that 'if you can get the children, you'll get their parents as well,' but maybe we should focus our attention on getting the parents, so we'll be able to get their children . . . and when they're grown up, getting the children's children as well!