Forcing Kids and Teenagers to Attend Church

I can say from experience do not force your children to go to church if they really don’t want to. Expose them to it at a young age, but if as they grow they honestly have no interest in it whatsoever; there is no sense in forcing them to go. I realize, however, some parents have no choice but to bring their kids to church; if the parent is going, the child must go also because he can’t be left at home alone.

I was raised being told “You need to go to church” (why?) and I was sometimes forced, but I remained relatively “lukewarm” for Jesus and the gospel regardless of how much I attended church. I can tell you when I did go to church I usually did not like the people, I was extremely bored, could not pay attention to the sermon, and definitely did not feel any closer to God (if not the opposite). Eventually my parents gave up on me.

I know parents who forced their children go to church every week and now that they are grown up and in college they can care less about Christianity. For example, one mother who recently divorced her alcoholic husband and decided she needed to return to church brought her daughter to a church dinner I was attending. Some lady asked if her daughter would help with the children in another room. Apparently the girl was helping blow up balloons for the little kids. Some guy (who is way too pushy) came up to his mother and said something like, “You should see your daughter, she is blowing up balloons and really enjoying herself!” By the time the service was about to end, and the girl was about to come back into the main room, that same guy said, “You couldn’t get her in here but now that it is time to leave I bet she won’t want to.” Ironically, the girl walks up to her mother right at the moment and says as if she has been in jail, “Mom, can we please go!” The man who should have realized he had just eaten his words foolishly comments, “Come on, you know you had fun!” Well, I can just imagine that this girl was more put off from Christianity and church before she even was introduced to it.

I believe there is a certain age for each child when he realizes what Christianity and church really means. Some never do. Some do and ignore the significance of it all and go on with their lives living in the bondage of sin. Some people expect this specific age to be early, when almost always it is in fact not. People expect their kids to be “born again” at the age of ten when these kids don’t even know what the heck “born again” means and how significant it really is. They instruct these kids in Sunday school that Jesus is “Lord,” “Savior,” “God’s son,” and so on, but some of these kids are not yet old enough to know what those titles mean and imply. Sure, Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, a kid might repeat, but what does that mean for the world? Some kids might not even know what death is let alone resurrection!

I later, of my own will, developed a serious interest in Jesus and the gospel. Now I go to church willing more than once a week. In fact, I was complaining the other day there are not enough church services during the week in my area. Sometimes my mother says, “I should have made you go to church more often.” And I comment, “I’m glad you didn’t.”

While I think it is important to introduce our kids to the gospel and a Christian community, I also think it is almost vital we do not force them to go to church once they reach the age they realize they truly are not interested. I mean, kids are kids. Nothing personal to Jesus, but church is not a fun place for a kid who wants to be outside running around or at home playing with his toys, and when adults try to make it fun for children, it usually ends up worse; never have I seen them think to ask what the children would enjoy. Church is not a place of fellowship in a renewed, Spirit-filled community devoted to the Lord Jesus for a child; church is a boring place where everyone smiles at you because you are young, some old guy stands at the pulpit and blabs on about some nonsense you cannot understand or even want to understand, and where you have to go to go every week (on the weekend no less!), sit still, and do nothing for an hour.

Teenagers are another story and it honestly depends on each individual. In High School, I began realizing the significance of Christianity and fellowship. But then again, I was a pretty motivated student who took English classes serious; once I began taking literature seriously, the Bible made much more sense. On the other hand, other, I would say, typical teenagers do not fully appreciate their schoolwork let alone church. Some, as I did, have that one passion in High School, like music, or English, but most never learn about Christianity from those passions. Most teenagers are very social; they are thinking about their friends and the opposite sex. The weekend for the average teenager is an escape from the labors of school, a time to go hang out with friends, and most of all, a time to sleep in! Most teenagers do not want to wake up for church on Sunday when they could be doing something better with that time.

Some people try to get teenagers involved with youth groups, but most teenagers (myself included) do not want any part with that. They want to hang out with their own friends, not some people they do not know. Plus, I imagine there is a cliché, stereotypical image engrained in the teenager mind of the way Christian teenagers act, the ones who attend those young groups.

Then also, there is the weirdness of some churches. For example, my one friend has a chronic illness, and his parents keep trying to talk him into going to church for prayer. He refuses. Why? Because the whole thing freaks him out. Most prayer services, especially charismatic services, involves speaking in tongues, laying on of hands, more of those smiling, drunk looking people we have grown to fear from our childhood. No teenager wants some stranger touching him, smiling at him, and speaking in tongues at him, myself included. So if you are trying to get your teenager to go to a charismatic church, you have the “weirdness-factor” to consider.

Of course, I do not have children myself, and I imagine my opinion is somewhat biased because it is based on my own past expierences. I’d be interested to hear what a parent says.