Three different studies reached the same conclusion. The example set by parents is one of the most important influences in a person’s life.
The first example was reported in the Jan. 4 issue of The Alabama Baptist. The conclusion of the year-long study financed by the Lilly Foundation was that the number one factor influencing older teens’ commitment to church attendance and faith values is the personal behavior of their parents.
The study was primarily about church attendance by young people once they leave home. But, in the course of the study, the researcher concluded that “the bottom line in the transmission of faith values is primarily influenced by parental role modeling.”
Obviously, a parent’s participation in church is important but a parent’s example is much more important than just getting a child to church on Sunday morning. Parents must model faith values if they want their children to live by those values in years to come.
The second study concerned parenting. This study, done by Barna Research, focused on influences in the way one rears children. Nine out of 10 members of the study group identified themselves as Christians. Two-thirds attended church at least monthly and half the group considered themselves as born again.
Among all segments in the study, the result was the same. The largest influence on one’s parenting style is the style used by one’s own parents. Even though 80 percent of all Protestant churches offer specific family-oriented ministry, most adults indicated that those programs and ministry efforts achieve only a marginally positive influence on their families.
In fact, only one-third of all respondents listed any religious factor at all as a major influence on their parenting. Among born-again parents, the influence was even smaller. The influence of relatives, friends, books and magazine articles outstripped church and faith and more than tripled references to guidance received from the Bible.
Again, there is no doubting the influence of a parent’s model on their children today and for years to come.
The third study was reported in the June 1999 issue of Psychiatric Services, a journal of the American Psychiatric Association. The study examined 143 young people to determine the influence of mothers who attended religious services at least once a week. The result was amazing.
The study reported that young people whose mothers attended church have “a greater overall satisfaction with their lives, more involvement with their families and better skills in solving health related problems and felt greater support from friends compared with youths whose mothers had lower levels of participation in religious services.”
The study concluded that the religious participation of a mother was as important or more important than other traditional demographic variables.
While such a conclusion may be surprising coming from Psychiatric Services, it only illustrates what God’s Word teaches. If one trains up a child in a way that child should go, when the child is older, he or she will not depart from that way. Of course, the term “train up” does not mean academic knowledge alone. Nor does it mean to push a child or preach at a child. Rather, the clear reference is for parents to live out the way of life taught by God’s Word in their daily lives as well as instruct the child in the ways of God.
The impact of that example, together with the knowledge of God gained through study, will be so profound that it will impact the feelings the child has about himself or herself. It will impact the way the child relates to the church and the God of the church. It will impact the way the child lives when the child becomes the parent.
There is one more part of the study that haunts this reader. Eight out of 10 born-again Christian parents said their church should be more involved in helping them be better parents. And, as mentioned above, at least that many churches have family-oriented ministries. Unfortunately, the ministries are not deemed effective according to participants. The programs do not seem to make a difference in family life.
If this is true, the church must move beyond preaching about family issues and provide programs and ministries that empower parents to be better examples to their children. If the church fails at this point, parents will continue to turn elsewhere for help.
The example of parents is important. God’s Word teaches it. Experience confirms it. Recent studies document it. Now it is time for parents and the church to recognize it and do something about it.
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