Participants: Shelley Quinn (Host), Martin Weber
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000321
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00:30 Hello, I'm Shelley Quinn and welcome again to
00:33 Issues and Answers. Today I think we're going to 00:36 have a fascinating program. We are going to be talking about 00:40 the attrition of young people from the church. Why do they 00:44 leave the church? I wanted to read you a scripture that came 00:47 to my mind when I was thinking about this topic. This comes 00:51 from Jeremiah 3 and verse 19. This is the Lord speaking and 00:55 listen to what he says. I thought how I would set you 00:59 among my children and give you a pleasant land, a goodly 01:02 heritage, the most beautiful and best among all nations and I 01:08 thought you would call me my Father and not turn away from 01:13 following me. Can you hear the Lord's broken heart in that 01:17 scripture. He is saying I have such a good inheritance for you 01:21 and I've got a plan for your life and I really didn't think 01:26 you would turn away from me. Why do people turn away? Why when 01:30 children are raised in a godly home and in the church, why 01:34 do they leave the faith of their fathers? Well here to talk with 01:38 us today is Martin Weber and he comes to us from Lincoln, 01:42 Nebraska. Martin has just finished his doctoral studies 01:46 and your focus was on this issue, right? 01:50 Yes. Yes the attrition of clergy children, specifically within 01:54 the Seventh-day Adventist Church although the principles apply to 01:58 all clergy children and other children as well. 02:00 Now you did your studies at the Carey Theological School and 02:07 is a Baptist School. Yes. It's on the campus of the 02:11 the University of British, Columbia in Vancouver and it 02:14 was very interesting to work through them to study my own 02:17 denomination. That is interesting. Now why did 02:20 you choose that? Well they have a specialty with 02:23 reaching to the post modern world and so I was greatly 02:28 blessed through their approach and they also were very 02:32 respectful of my faith and we share, of course, a common faith 02:36 in Christ. So it was a delightful experience. 02:38 Amen, praise the Lord. Now I know that in the past you told 02:41 me that you were a chaplain for the law enforcement. You were 02:45 also a pastor, but currently you're serving as the 02:49 communications director for the Mid-American Region of Seventh- 02:52 day Adventist churches. What does that mean? 02:55 Well it's a big long territory. It stretches from Canada down to 02:59 Oklahoma, then from the Mississippi west through the 03:01 the Rockies. So yeah, a lot of territory to cover. 03:04 So what exactly does the communications director do? 03:07 Well we communicate the news of the church. Also if there's some 03:11 scandal or crisis, which, thank God there hasn't been for the 03:15 last three year since I've been there, not because I have been 03:19 but you know. That's how long you've been 03:21 there? I'm supposed to help deal with 03:23 that. Yes, well praise the Lord. 03:25 So what we're going to be talking about today is a study 03:29 that was done and this is with clergy and their children. 03:33 How many people did you study and tell us a little bit about 03:38 how you went about gathering this information. 03:41 Well there were actually 222 in the group that I reached out to; 03:48 clergy parents of children 20 years or older and about 113 of 03:56 them specifically responded, so almost half. 04:01 All right. What types of questions did you ask them? 04:04 We had a big long list, 111 questions, everything I could 04:08 think of; everything about the family background, basic profile 04:14 personality profile and then experiences regarding the church 04:19 regarding their own family which was kind of touchy actually. 04:24 Of necessity it was personal information, highly confidential 04:29 and all that. And then kind of a summary section as well, so 04:33 lots of information. So give us, Martin, if you will 04:38 kind of a synopsis and then let's break it down. Can you 04:43 put your finger on it and say here are some clear cut reasons 04:46 why children of the clergy actually leave the faith of 04:51 their fathers, where they leave the denomination and here's 04:54 some things that are positive influences, here are some things 04:58 that are negative influences. 04:59 Sure, sure. There are 21,000 data cells in my base of 05:04 information and out of that come 40 factors, some of them 05:10 positive, some of them negative as to why the kids growing up 05:16 will leave or stay. Now, of course, they make their own 05:20 decision. I studied the clergy parents. The question was, what 05:26 home environment is more likely to see the children stay versus 05:32 leave. Okay, give us a clue of what 05:36 those factors are. Most important of all is the 05:40 relationality of the family. The family can be like Noah's 05:44 ark sailing through some very troubled waters with lots of 05:48 dangerous stuff going on and nasty stuff within the community 05:53 or even the church family. But if there is relationality and 05:59 love in the pastor's home, love covers a multitude of sins. 06:04 So when you talk about having this relationship, it's not just 06:09 parent-to-child but parent-to- parent and parent-to-God as well 06:14 would you agree? Oh yeah. It's all this 06:17 relationality versus a kind of a silence, alienation, or people 06:23 going their own way. For example, if dad is so wrapped up 06:26 in the church, and I'm saying dad being the pastor because 06:31 in my survey almost all the older, in fact, indeed, all the 06:36 older clergy were male. Okay. If dad was all wrapped up in his 06:41 church and didn't take so much time with the family, yeah, that 06:46 was a major problem. So that was one of the major 06:51 things that you could see as a determining point that might 06:55 make a child then leave the church as they grew older. 07:00 But you know, that makes perfect sense because when you think 07:05 about it if a pastor and oh how we all, it doesn't matter or 07:09 just a parent who is working hard to make a provision for 07:13 your family, if we are preaching the gospel to our children and 07:17 we're trying to tell them this is the way in which to walk but 07:22 we don't model it, if we don't show that love and that 07:25 graciousness at home, if we're not there when our children need 07:30 us, then they really even lose faith in the Bible is quite 07:36 possible because they don't feel like it's real. Sometimes it's 07:40 called practicing what you preach isn't it. 07:42 Yeah, yeah. Now it's interesting one thing here, Shelley, is that 07:46 parents that talked about praying a lot were actually 07:52 slightly more likely to see their kids leave and the 07:57 emphasis there is talk. When they talked a lot about their 08:04 religion and didn't live it in practice, if the love wasn't 08:09 there, if there was a lot of talk and not so much love, that 08:15 was a negative factor. 08:17 I have a saying that I use all the time and that is rules 08:25 without relationship result in rebellion. You know as children 08:29 are being brought up and it would seem that it would be 08:31 particularly easy for a pastor's family to fall into this because 08:37 you know that you are under the microscope if you will, that 08:41 people are watching you and you should be modeling what you're 08:46 teaching. But if a parent brings a child up with a lot of rules 08:50 from the Bible and saying this is what you can and can't do 08:54 but they don't teach them that personal relationship with Jesus 08:58 Christ, then it seems that quite frequently those children rebel 09:02 and is this something that you found? 09:04 Oh yes, major, major. You touched on a couple of things 09:08 there. First of all, with the rules. The parents' conservatism 09:12 like if they were personally strict, that was not a factor 09:17 one way or another. It was not a negative if dad was kind of 09:20 real conservative and strict with himself as long as he was 09:24 nice about it and loving about it and he and mom didn't try to 09:30 impose it on the kids. Freedom for the kids to discover God for 09:35 themselves was an extremely major factor in escaping 09:41 attrition. I've got all these little 09:45 sayings, but the other thing I tell people is that you know 09:49 we don't try to beat somebody over the head with a violin to 09:53 convince them how beautiful the music is, yet sometimes parents 09:57 and all of us will take the Bible and just be beating 09:59 somebody over the head just to try to convince them how 10:02 beautiful God's word is. It just doesn't work when you stuff it 10:06 down their throats does it? 10:07 Right. Every generation has to discover God themselves and the 10:12 parents that a lot of the kids were younger modeled and taught 10:16 but then as the kids got to be teens stepped back and let the 10:20 kids have some freedom in experiencing God for themselves. 10:25 Those were the homes where the kids tended to stay and I think 10:31 this is consistent with scripture where the Spirit of 10:33 the Lord is there is liberty. Now there's a little interesting 10:40 side light in here that I could mention perhaps. There were 31 10:47 factors of issues with the church and with people in the 10:51 church that I asked the parents to talk about and I compared of 10:55 course the homes where the kids tended to stay versus the homes 11:01 where the kids tended to leave. One of these had to do with 11:07 movies and church standards. Now both parents, all pastoral 11:13 parents were kind of against going to the movies. But parents 11:18 whose kids tended to stay were more likely to approve home 11:23 videos, even home videos that might include some violence or 11:28 nudity. Now on the surface that seems, whoa there, what's going 11:33 on? But actually as you look at the data it's the parents are 11:38 recognizing that whereas when you go to a theater it's just 11:42 there, you can't do anything about what's on the screen 11:47 except walk out. But at home there's such a thing as the fast 11:50 forward button and so if you're watching a video that's 11:54 basically a good video but some thing bad comes on you just 11:58 skip on to the next section. The freedom to trust their 12:04 older kids to do that and to teach them that it's not just 12:10 clear cut all good or all bad. There are nuances in life and 12:16 you learn principles to make mature godly decisions and to 12:20 trust the teenagers to make those decisions. That was a 12:25 factor. So essentially the positive 12:30 influences were those parents who had that relationship with 12:33 the Lord who taught their children a relationship with the 12:37 Lord but who were not majoring in the minors. They actually 12:42 gave them some freedom to explore and I love the word you 12:46 used, experience God for themselves. So they were 12:50 training them up in the way they should go but once they got 12:54 those training wheels on they let them kind of go a little bit 12:57 instead of just constantly holding on. What about the 13:03 amount of time. You know, we're talking about pastors and their 13:07 families. Being a pastor is a very demanding job as you well 13:11 know because you've been one. What about the amount of time 13:15 that parents spent with their children? Was this a positive 13:19 influence? Yes it was and it wasn't just 13:23 vacation. Vacations were a factor but more important was 13:29 just the daily grind of life. Was dad available? Was there fun 13:36 in the family during the week? And even more that time set 13:42 aside; now we're going to have fun. We've had a real tough week 13:47 but now we're going to... All week long in the midst of all 13:52 the duties and burdens of life the parsonage can be a fun place 13:56 There can be laughter and fun throughout and those families 14:00 that somehow managed to do that tended much more to keep their 14:04 kids than those who kind of quantified or compartmentalized 14:08 joy. I can see that I'm guilty myself 14:14 in my marital relationship that there are times that when things 14:20 become so overwhelming in the demands of ministry that you 14:24 can say well we're going to put this afternoon aside for some 14:28 fun time but everything else is compartmentalized. So I can see 14:32 that that would be a difficult thing. What are the most 14:36 negative influences? What were some of the causative factors 14:41 that resulted in children leaving the church? 14:45 Huge in negativity was if there was a difference in expectation 14:52 because they were PKs (pastor's kids). Like because dad's a 14:57 pastor therefore you can't wear this or you can't do that. 15:02 Whoa, that was huge. That was a hugely negative factor. 15:07 And what are some of the others? 15:09 Some of the others were if there was an attack upon the pastoral 15:19 family which is, of course, predictable. When mom was 15:25 attacked in the church. That was bad for the kids, very bad. 15:32 But whether or not there were problems in the general in the 15:37 church was not a factor one way or another; statistically it was 15:41 not a factor. But whether some how whatever was going on in the 15:45 board room, whatever fights were going on or arguments in the 15:49 board room, if the church remained still a nurturing place 15:52 for the kids; maybe there was a youth director that really loved 15:56 the kids or some grandma or grandpa in the faith that really 16:01 loved the kids, that would overcome other problems in the 16:07 church. But when the overall church environment was not 16:13 nurturing, that was another highly negative factor in the 16:19 church. Totally understandable. We were 16:23 coming back from the GYC which is the General Youth Conference 16:27 and there was a young lady who had attended and was stranded 16:32 at the St. Louis airport. Was that up in Minneapolis? 16:34 Yes it was. Yeah we wrote about that... 16:37 No actually this is the one from California, this was several 16:42 years back. Sacramento. Yes Sacramento. Yeah I was there 16:45 too. In Sacramento. So we gave this young lady a ride back 16:48 from the airport. The car was just stuffed with people so she 16:53 was kind of in the hatch almost back in the back. I was sitting 16:58 in the back seat and I turned around and just looked back 17:00 at her and I asked her; I said, how can we keep our young people 17:04 in the church? She said, quit trying to entertain us and give 17:08 us a challenge. Did you find in any of your research that 17:12 some of the young people felt like they left the church just 17:16 because they couldn't find their place in the church? 17:21 Yes, yes. Just trying to entertain the kids is not 17:25 enough. There has to be a missionality. Those families 17:30 where the kids were able to see themselves as part of a mission 17:35 that was definitely a keeping factor. 17:40 You know, even speaking of that I always tell people that one of 17:44 the best things you can do for your children is take them on a 17:49 mission trip because it is life changing. But it is so easy 17:53 when you're in ministry full time... You know I want to 17:58 speak to the church right now. We have to remember that God 18:03 set it up so that there would be pastors, teachers, 18:06 evangelists, prophets and what am I leaving out, anyway. 18:12 The point is God set the pastors up in the and the plan for 18:17 ministry up so that they could train all of us lay people and 18:21 that we can go out and do the work. We have a tendency, and 18:25 did you find this even in your own church, to think that the 18:30 pastor is supposed to do it all. He's supposed to do the hospital 18:33 visitation, he's supposed to do the Bible studies. Some people 18:37 think that the pastor is failing as a pastor if he's not out 18:42 doing all of these things and some pastors get caught up in 18:46 this mentality, the expectation of the church, and they don't 18:51 spend enough time with their own family. They have their 18:54 priorities wrong. What kind of a factor, if it's not God first 18:59 then the family and then the ministry, if this gets out of 19:02 order where it's ministry before God or before family, 19:06 what kind of an influence did this have on children? Did you 19:10 find in your research that this affected anyone in a negative 19:15 way that might make them leave the church? 19:18 Yeah, yeah. The pastors had to look at their families as their 19:22 prime ministry. And I think for all of us whether pastors or not 19:26 marriage is a ministry. You know the family is a ministry. It's a 19:30 basic building block of a local church. So ministry starts 19:35 there but of course it doesn't end there and the pastor is not 19:40 the circus performer for the church or for the family but 19:44 rather and empowerer, an equipper. If the kids could 19:50 experience purpose, they could put up with a lot of stuff going 19:56 on in the church. If they through it all could experience 20:00 nurture and purpose and fun. I'm not talking about fun in 20:04 terms of ice cream fun, well that too, but joy, you know, joy 20:09 So that they saw church as something that looked forward to 20:15 attending. Yes. Now specifically I'm not sure that I got the 20:20 answer that I was looking for. The amount of time that the 20:24 pastor spends with their family, how big of an influence was that 20:28 I didn't quantify that. I didn't try to quantify that. I had a 20:33 question in there that asked for days off with kids and that was 20:37 not a factor statistically which kind of surprised me because 20:41 I thought that having days set apart, you know, father/son, 20:45 father/daughter would be statistically significant, but 20:49 it wasn't. What was more important that throughout life 20:53 not to have this compartmentalized thing, 20:55 but throughout life to have this relationality, this joy in the 20:59 family. You know, Martin, you just said 21:02 something that's flying in the face of pop psychology because 21:05 they talk about quality time compared to it's not about 21:09 quantity but quality. But now I've seen new research coming 21:12 out and they're saying, hey we're rethinking all of this. 21:17 Kids want you present in their life and it isn't just quality 21:21 time but it's the time that you're just side by side in the 21:25 same room. You may not even be talking, but you're there if 21:29 they need a quick answer from you or very important like to 21:33 eat dinner together and things like this. So what you found is 21:37 that it wasn't those vacation days or special dates set aside 21:41 so much as it was just being present for your children day 21:45 by day. Exactly, and in that family 21:48 togetherness, a big factor, a big factor, in fact this came up 21:54 twice in a major way in the data was being open about problems 21:59 in the church. Okay. A highly negative factor in attrition was 22:04 trying to block the kids from knowledge of problems in the 22:09 church, or if they became aware to just not talk about it; 22:13 trying to shield them, trying to shield the kids was a major 22:18 factor in attrition. That's interesting, that's a 22:22 really interesting comment. 22:23 Now which doesn't mean that everything that everybody does 22:28 was common knowledge in the house but age appropriate within 22:33 boundaries of confidentiality. But families that were able to 22:39 process the pain together, like this is a rose garden, yeah, but 22:45 there are thorns in a rose garden. And one pastor in fact 22:49 told me, he said, it was no secret to the kids that there 22:54 was a particular person in the church that was causing problems 22:59 and the kids knew it. I couldn't deny it and I didn't try to be 23:03 dishonest about it. But instead every time there was a board 23:08 meeting my wife gathered the kids around me and the four of 23:12 them prayed for me. They laid their hands on me and they 23:16 prayed for me that God would help me deal with this 23:18 particular person at the board meeting and that pastor, that 23:23 pastor, all three kids are adults and they are thriving 23:27 in Christ and in the church. But yeah they didn't try to block 23:31 out or pretend, but they processed. They weren't in 23:36 denial, they didn't excuse or enable, but they said well okay 23:39 this is what's going on. Let's talk about it and they processed 23:43 it and the kids could deal with it. 23:45 You know, it's been my experience that children are 23:47 innately intuitive and they pick up things. So it would seem to 23:52 me, if I'm interpreting this correctly, but what you're 23:57 saying is that when parents try to cover up, kids feel that 24:01 disconnect. They know, they recognize there's something 24:04 going on and they don't feel like there's this openness and 24:07 this sharing between the parents and them. 24:10 In fact, it leaves the impression that it's so bad 24:14 it can't even be talked about and they wonder what in the 24:16 world is going on that this is so bad that everybody has to be 24:20 in denial about. But when parents are able to be 24:24 realistic and to bridge over to something that we talked about 24:29 previously, realistic about their own struggles. When mom 24:35 and dad try to pretend that they are Moses on Mt. Sinai all the 24:39 time, instead of saying, you know kids, we struggle too and 24:44 they are willing to be appropriately vulnerable about 24:48 their own spiritual issues, the churches issues and their own 24:52 issues. These were the parents whose kids tended to stay. 24:56 But like I mentioned where mom and dad talked about prayer, 25:03 instead of praying. Yeah. Maybe they did pray but prayer in 25:08 itself... talking about God in and of itself, talking about 25:13 prayer in and of itself was not statistically different among 25:17 both groups. But what was different was being real about 25:23 it. I can't believe that our time is 25:25 already gone but in the minute that we have left, what advice 25:30 would you give to parents that would help them keep their 25:34 children in the faith? 25:36 I would say based on the data to be loving, to realize that 25:44 what's going on in the parsonage is more important than anything 25:49 happening anywhere else and a parsonage can be a Noah's ark. 25:53 There can be fun in the family, there can be joy, there can be 25:56 purpose, there can be togetherness, we can be open 25:59 about things. We're a team together and you've got problems 26:03 we've got problems. Just as we discover God for ourselves, you 26:08 discover God for yourselves. We'll give you some space. 26:10 We're not going to expect you to be super saints just because 26:14 you're pastor kids. 26:15 That's good. You know I think that's very good advice for all 26:19 parents. When we really think about it what we have to do 26:22 with our children is model a behavior for them. Train up a 26:26 child in the way they should go. When they're old they will not 26:29 depart from it. But part of that training isn't just verbal 26:33 instruction. It's what we live out in our lives. I want to 26:37 encourage everyone that's watching today, even though 26:40 we've been taking about PKs, pastors kids, this is no 26:44 different than your children, your family. Even if you old 26:48 enough that maybe your family's grown or if you don't have 26:53 children of your own, you can make a positive influence on the 26:57 children at your church by showing them what it's like to 27:01 have a personal relationship with the Lord by helping them 27:04 have some joy and understand how to have joy in the Lord. 27:08 You know it has been lovely having you here, Martin. 27:11 We want to thank you so much and we'd like you to come back and 27:14 discuss some more about these things. 27:16 Absolutely. I'll be thrilled. 27:18 Oh wonderful. Now for those of you at home remember that these 27:22 little ones are watching us and as they grow older they're 27:26 watching us even more closely. Sometimes we think these teens 27:30 are off in a world of their own. Let me tell you, they don't miss 27:34 a lick. They see everything that we're doing. So let's be real 27:38 with them and be real with god and teach them how to find 27:42 the love of God on their own. Now may the grace of our Lord 27:46 Jesus Christ, the love of the Father, and the fellowship of 27:50 the Holy Spirit be with you and your entire family. 27:53 Thanks for joining us. |
Revised 2014-12-17