“My kids have left the faith. What do I do?”

Steve Brown:
“My kids have left the faith, what do I do?” The answer to that and other questions, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. Our host and teacher is Steve Brown. He’s no guru, but he does have honest answers to honest questions about the Bible. God’s grace changes everything, how we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, purchase, and worship. So, here’s Steve and Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com with street-smart Bible teaching for real life.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. Happy Friday. How you doing?

Steve Brown:
I’m doing good too. You know, we’ve got kids that stayed in the faith.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. I know.

Steve Brown:
That’s cause we’re so spiritual and we’re ordained.

Pete Alwinson:
Mostly the latter. Right?

Steve Brown:
You know, they were, we’re just bigger than they are. You leave the faith. I’ll break your face.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh man. Oh boy. But it is a blessing that our kids are still following Jesus, but it is, it is a big challenge.

Steve Brown:
And you and I both know cause we’ve been gone so much that it’s our wives that have made that happen. And I rise up and call Anna blessed and you rise up and call Caron blessed.

Pete Alwinson:
For sure.

Steve Brown:
That’s Pete Alwinson. And he comes in on Fridays as you know, and we’ve been doing that for over 25 years. Every Friday, sitting down and answering questions. We’re sometimes right, we’re sometimes wrong, but never uncertain. By the way, when, and check out ForgeTruth.com if you’d like some information on what Pete does. It’s amazing and it’s different and it changes lives, be sure and check, that’s ForgeTruth.com and by the way, we do love to get your questions. You can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, and we record your voice and sometimes put that on the air. You can write to

Key Life Network
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in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
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or you can e-mail us at [email protected] and those are touch places where if you are moved to do so, you could help us financially. And if you do, I promise we’ll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. And if you can’t, we understand, do stop and say a prayer for this ministry. By the way, you can give on your phone. I bet you didn’t know that, you can text Key Life at 28950 that’s 28950 and then follow instructions. Hey Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
Sounds good. Our Father, we do come to you today on this Friday, the end of the week, so thankful that we can just come right into your presence, but we honor you Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We lift up your Holy Name. How easy it is for us to treat you just like someone who owes us. And we feel so entitled sometimes. And yet we come to you humbly today. You loved us before we loved you. You did all that was necessary to bring us into a relationship with yourself. Jesus, you paid the price fully for our sins. And so, we honor you and praise you for your power and love and mercy, for our great salvation that cannot be surpassed and we lift up your name. And we do ask this week-end that as we attend church and be a part of being with your people, that you would use those leaders that you’ve ordained to be over us, to teach us to lead us in worship, to lead us in the sacraments of your church. And Lord, we do ask that you would be with our leaders, bless them, use them in a powerful way. And now use this time of Q&A, we ask that you would glorify yourself through a great increasing our knowledge of you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, I started to say that this first question was a phone in question, let’s go to phone lines, but Jeremy who produces this program and goes to the phone lines and garners the questions and edits them, make you sound better then you do sound. Jeremy said, we’ve got a caller who said, I don’t want you putting my voice on the air. So, I asked Jeremy to read the question to us, and this did come on the phone lines. Would you do that, Jeremy?

Jeremy Birdsall: I sure would. Hey guys. Hey Pete. Hey Steve, how you guys doing? So, this was a lady who called in and she said, we have two adult children that are doubting their faith and have pretty much left their faith. And we would like some advice on how to deal with this as parents. We don’t want to be on the defensive with them, but we still want to have open communication without making them feel uncomfortable or rejecting us as parents.

Steve Brown:
That’s a good question. And you’d be very surprised at how often it comes up. In fact, it’s almost a pattern. And it always has been, but it’s different today. The pattern has been that young people start challenging their faith and then they kick the goads and do things they shouldn’t do. And then as they get married and as children come along, they come back to the faith and come back to the church. And for the first time in a long time, that’s not happening in a number of situations. They’re not coming back.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. So, when they have kids, they say, well, we need to get our kids back in church, but why do you think Steve?

Steve Brown:
I don’t know. I think it’s our culture. I think our culture is anti-religious and anti-Christian, and it becomes intentionally so, in our time. You know, there have always been people who were unbelievers, who didn’t like believers, but they wouldn’t say so. But with social media, a lot of other things that are taking place, it’s getting verbalized and people are seeing, you know, I don’t have to do this. I don’t want my kids to go back to church. Christianity is evil and I can understand that, that may be because we are finally being who we are. And you know, what we are is a challenge to unbelievers, because that means that everything they think is important isn’t. And every god they worship doesn’t exist. And every road they walk is the wrong road. And so, they just don’t want to talk about it, but going back, that’s a common problem and it happens a lot with people. What would you say to somebody like that?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, you know, I would say, continue to nurture your own faith, spending time in the word. A lot of adults, plateau spiritually, and are not really enjoying, being close to God anymore. They get older and they’ve heard it all. And it’s, so continue to nurture your faith, stay connected to your Christian friends, get them to pray. And then, just try to engage your kids in conversation. Tell me what you’re experiencing, what you’re thinking. Do a lot of listening, try to get their input as to why they’ve rejected or why they are rejecting.

Steve Brown:
And don’t obsess on fixing it.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
Cause you’ll make it worse.

Pete Alwinson:
Exactly.

Steve Brown:
You know, we have parents, I have parents, friends who are parents, who do obsess on it. And they’ve made it a lot worse. They won’t even, I mean, the kids won’t even come to their house anymore.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. This is, you know, you remember transactional analysis, TA. You know, a lot of parents, what they do is they continue to hammer. They parent their adult children. And they’ve never learned that they have to move with their adult children to an adult, adult relationship. So, they parent them, they hammer them. They speak down to them. No, you’ve gotta develop an adult, adult relationship, listen, pray, model it still. And you’ll have opportunities.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. And there will be real opportunities of discussion in a very open and unjudgmental way, about what people believe and what they think. And by the way, don’t forget the covenant family covenant. It’s real. And your kids, if you bring up a child in the way of the Lord, they are in a sense blessed in a deep way. And you have to trust that, that God loves him more than you do. And you don’t force anything, you’re just aware of what God is doing. And you thank him for it.

Pete Alwinson:
I love that. That’s so true. Don’t forget the covenant, because those covenant children are covenant children. They’re different from the children of unbelievers.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
And they’re around the faith, use that and trust God.

Steve Brown:
And see what God does. You might be surprised at what happens.

Pete Alwinson:
Right. Never give up. Never give up.

Steve Brown:
If that doesn’t work, just say, look, you guys are going to hell. And I’m cutting you out of the will.

Pete Alwinson:
I don’t give money to people that are going to, no, come on.

Steve Brown:
This is an e-mail question. What do you guys do for your personal devotions?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s important. What do you do? We both have them.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, we do. I, you know, I think there are a lot of Christian leaders who say they do, but don’t have time and don’t. But you and I both are early risers., that morning time is really important to me.

Pete Alwinson:
Crucial, crucial. Yeah, it really is. And I think it, I think morning is the time to start that rhythm of following Jesus.

Steve Brown:
But I wouldn’t universalize that if you are just it’s not a

Pete Alwinson:
It’s not a legalistic thing.

Steve Brown:
No, my wife doesn’t do morning devotions. And we’ve switched roles on that.

Pete Alwinson:
Interesting.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it used to be, it was the other way around, but I’m up early. Of course you use Scripture. You ought to have probably a methodology of reading Scripture, maybe sticking with a book or doing it with a commentary or, and then there’s also the intercessory prayer for your friends and your family. And then, find some devotional books, for me that’s been really important. I used to teach at the seminary, section in one of my classes on devotional literature cause I said to the students that if you, one of the bad things about seminary is that normal devotions have been ruined for you. I mean, it’s too superficial, it’s not, you’ve got to go deeper than that. And I would give them maybe 20 or 30 different books they could read, all the way from the church fathers, to the desert fathers, to modern day people who write devotional literature. And I think that’s true of most mature Christians. I think sometimes you have to get a hold of something that goes deeper than where you were when you first became a Christian.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. With the guys I hang out with, we talk about the DAG, the daily appointment with God. That I need that morning time, but I’ve got to make the appointment otherwise I’ll squeeze it out. It starts really the night before, going to bed a little bit earlier. And then, and then getting up earlier. And start out with 15 minutes. And just start reading the word.

Steve Brown:
That’s right. And add to it as you feel the need to add that. A lot of people operate out of guilt, I mean. And end up not being able to pull it off. So, start short, let God increase it. And then you’ll be a spiritual giant the way Pete and I are spiritual giants. I think before this gets deeper, we need to leave. By the way, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.