This article by S. Michael Craven discusses a study that reveals the following:
In short, if a father does not go to church, no matter how faithful his wife’s devotions, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshipper. If a father does go regularly, regardless of the practice of the mother, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children will become churchgoers (regular and irregular). One reason given for this distinction was that children tend to take their cues about domestic life from Mom while their conceptions of the world outside come from Dad. If Dad takes faith in God seriously then the implication for children is that God should be taken seriously.
Read the whole article here! Happy Father’s Day!
That ought to be preached at every wedding.
As much as I agree that Fathers are an important and huge influencing factor on many things, I don’t know if I completely agree with these stats. Especially the fact that if the father doesn’t go to church regularly that only 1 in 50 children will be regular attenders. What about single mothers? What about families where the mother has become a Christian but the father is not? What about families where the father is away for work for long periods at a time(like deployed)? Does that mean us mothers should just forget about taking our children to church regularly because it’s not going to make a difference anyway because we are not the father? As much as this was probably meant as an encouragement to fathers to realize their influence, it is extremely discouraging for a mother in this situation (where her husband does not attend church with his family on a regular basis) to read! I think God can work through mothers and fathers alike!