A national survey of Christian parents commissioned by Good News Holdings and conducted by The Barna Group discovered that four out of every ten Christian parents of children between the ages of 3 and 18 said they do not face any spiritual challenges in their life.
Among those who identified the presence of any spiritual challenges, the most common issues related to the spiritual development of their children.
In total, one out of every seven parents (14%) who identified themselves as Christian listed this as their spiritual challenge. Only one other response – the need to personally invest more time in religious activities, such as reading the Bible or praying – was mentioned by at least one out of every ten parents (10%).
What else are they concerned with?
- to more consistently exhibit faith-driven behavior (8%)
- the need to be more involved in a church (7%)
- effectively dealing with the declining moral values and inappropriate media content in our society (6%)
- handling various lifestyle challenges that weaken their faith (5%)
- confidently coping with health matters (4%)
- and having a deeper or more substantive faith (4%)
This tells me that we are not effectively reaching the already reached. If we are unsuccessful at helping the individual in the pew define the significance of their faith, we are pulling the cord of the bell that is tolling our demise.
