3 Ways to Help Your Children's Faith Grow This Summer

Summer break is around the corner, and I, like many other parents, find myself in this strange tension of excitement and trepidation. My children aren’t “littles” anymore. Long gone are the summers of splash pads and afternoon naps. Now, I’m juggling a full-blown teenager and another one just on the cusp. In response to all the “church ladies” who told me “not to blink” when I brought my babies home, I have to finally acquiesce and agree that they do grow up too fast—though in the throes of sleep deprivation and getting spit up on I didn’t find that advice all that helpful. Nevertheless, here we are, somewhere in the messy middle of parenting where there aren’t organized mommy groups to support and feed middle school and high school moms; but if you’ve arrived at this season of parenting you know just how vital it is to tend to your child’s spiritual growth.

Hopefully, you’ve already given your preteens and teens a good start. You’ve read them their children’s Bible, their Action Bible [which is a fantastic version for engaging boys], you’ve brought them to Sunday school, watched Veggie Tales with them until your eyeballs fell out, and spent time with them in prayer. You’ve sent them to your local church’s Vacation Bible School and maybe even gone the extra step and done some mission work with them.

All signs point in the right direction, but then the hormones, relational confusion, growth spurts, fatigue, eating everything in the house, acne—all of these things hit seemingly at once, and then we are left wondering if we ever parented these young people a day in their lives. Oh, and this doesn’t even take into account the incredibly confusing worldviews being shoved down their throats by public schools, popular media, and their peers.

As parents, we might be tempted to double down on all of these good things: More Bible! More prayer! More church! More Christian music and worship, church camp and youth group, books by Christian authors, and every Jesus-y thing that we can get our hands on. All of these inclinations are great, but as our children are rapidly on the cusp of adulthood, it is also time to consider some new ideas.

As parents, hopefully, we are all concerned for our children’s spiritual growth. I’m assuming you’ve read this far into this article because you want tangible ways to nurture this growth. The great news is that caring is half the battle. You’ve cared enough to lay the foundation in their formidable years, but now, as our children enter their adolescence it’s time to pivot. Our children and now critical thinkers and questioning their worldviews. They have serious questions about faith, the world, culture, and themselves. It’s time to create a culture within our homes for conversation and even doubt.

In her book Saving Leonardo, Professor Nancy Pearcey references a Fuller Youth Institute study that backs the idea that when adolescents are given space to wrestle with their doubts, it actually deepens and strengthens their faith. Becoming a safe space to wrestle with doubts might sound scary to us as parents, but it turns out that our children really need this.

So, how do we brave the waters of becoming a safe place for doubt without accidentally wading into deconstructionism?

I’m glad you asked, but first, a story:

Our home has become “the house.” You know, the one all the kids come to for plentiful snacks, open doors, and rides to youth group. In full confession, we’re literally just around the corner from the Middle School, and have enticed our son’s friends with tacos. My husband and I have created an environment with firm boundaries: kids have learned that they are to leave phones on the entryway console when they come over, and they have learned to respect the inhabitants of this home and to watch their mouths (because goodness, middle schoolers and their language). We are pretty firm, but we’re also as absolutely hospitable and welcoming as possible, which means we have lots of food and that when the kids are over we’re floating around and occasionally inserting ourselves into their conversations.

A couple years ago a new kid started coming over. This child vehemently told me that he was an atheist. I remember how dogmatic he was in telling me this. I smiled at the kid, told him that he was welcome here and asked if he likes pico de gallo on his tacos. Within a few months he started catching a ride with us to youth group. A few months after that he asked me what Easter is all about. A few months after that he asked me how to pray.

I don’t think this young man is a follower of Christ by any means, but I do see a spiritual hunger in him. And he is not the only one. In order to help satiate this spiritual hunger, I’m learning to incorporate three simple and important elements into my parenting. As you head into the hot summer months, I encourage you to do these three things intentionally, and in so doing, you might just change the spiritual trajectory of your children’s lives and the lives of their friends. These three things are going to sound wildly simple and almost laughably easy, but in application they are going to require you to be inconvenienced, likely irritated, and in a position of taking initiative. In order to take seriously the spiritual growth of your children this summer, remember these two words, “Open Up.”