CHAPTER 4: The 2nd Identity Marker- Faith
The next key marker from my survey on where kids find their identity is faith. This influence was seen scattered throughout the groups but was overwhelmingly evident in the kids who attended a private Christian school. While this may be my second chapter on identity markers, it is no way second in importance. As a Christian, my greatest hope for my children is that they would find their identity in Christ first and then filter all of the other contributors through that reality.
I have been thinking on this piece for months now as I personally evaluate how I am doing at applying these principles to my own parenting. Our family is actively involved in the ministry of Pine Cove Christian Camps and we attend their family camp every summer. One of our favorite things about Pine Cove is that they employee faith-filled college students as their counselors. I had an interesting conversation with one of those students while sitting poolside at camp a few years ago. She was telling me her story of her family leaving the church after her parents divorced and how she came back to the church on her own as a 17-year old. I asked her what internally brought about the desire to own her faith, to make it hers, at that stage of life. Her answer was as powerful as her testimony. She said, “I realized that I was a stranger to the identity I had been portraying.” Let me just write that one more time so it can possibly land on you like it landed on me. This student, as a teenager, returned to the church on her own because she realized that she was a stranger to the Christian identity she had been taught to portray. She claimed to be a Christian but she had no idea what that really meant.
I would be willing to bet that her statement is true not only for a large percentage of other teens but probably a lot of adults as well. How many people do we know who are strangers to the identity that they portray? Unfortunately, helping our children authentically find their identity in Christ is not as simple as sending them to Sunday school or private Christian school. The kids at the private school that I polled had all of the right language but what we have seen in the church is that the language of faith and identity can be learned but never truly personalized. Like any other culture, speaking the language does not make us that nationality. My son is learning Chinese and can speak it quite well but he is still the whitest kid in his class and a stranger to what it means to be Asian. I am okay with that in his Chinese class, but I want something far more transformative for his identity as a Christian.
Did you know that 70% of kids drop out of church when they go off to college? One might argue (and they have) that those kids did not truly personalize their faith but instead identified more with the activities surrounding it. When the events and friend groups were no longer present, neither was their faith. A 2017 study of Protestant churchgoers found that the single greatest predictor of if your child will stay in the church to adulthood is if they regularly read the Bible while growing up. I believe we could take this information and apply it two different ways. A potentially less rewarding way would be to require our children to read the Bible daily so that they would end up like the kids in this study – a cause and effect response. A better, and I believe more fruitful way, to apply this finding is to see Bible reading not necessarily as much as a prescription for change but more as an indicator of authentic transformation that has already occurred and led to a genuine desire for spiritual growth. So getting back to our kids, if I want to raise a Jack in a world of Johns, a kid who doesn’t walk away from his faith when he no longer has a weekly activity to practice it with, I have to have my own identity firmly rooted in a transformative relationship with Christ, instead of a performance-based relationship. It is the only way I will be qualified to help him do the same. I can’t be on the bandwagon of those who claim Christianity but actually are a stranger to it. That’s a lot to unpack but we have to start there because we cannot teach what we have not experienced. I love lists so I made a short one for you on living a transformed life.
5 CHARACTERISTICS OF PEOPLE WHO LIVE OUT TRANSFORMED LIVES:
1. RELATING TO OTHERS: They are more grace-filled then performance-measured when relating to others. They are more concerned about their children’s growth than their children’s performance. They will not be angry when their child messes up and embarrasses them but instead thank God for the teaching opportunity that they have been given while their child is still under their roof. I have a good friend whose son said something insensitive to a girl at his school. The school responded rather aggressively and took action against him that kept him from receiving some honors that he otherwise would have been eligible for. His mother was momentarily embarrassed but then quickly changed her view to the one I am referencing here. She settled with great relief that he made that mistake as a teenager at school and under her roof instead of as an adult in the workplace. It was not her kid’s job to make her look good with a spotless high school performance. It was her job to grant him grace as she helped him navigate the rough waters of high school and learn the lessons that he needed in order to be more successful in later in life. She modeled this so well for me that I will never forget it.
I believe this concept of grace-filled v. performance-driven living is even more complicated for our children to walk out personally because of the messages that they encounter through social media. They exist in a day where value gets measured in number of likes, follows, and virtual friends. In order to achieve those, our children feel as though they have to portray a digital reality that is based more on perfection than authenticity. When they stop writing their own script long enough to relate to someone else’s, it is near impossible to walk in biblical principles like grace and mercy. It is our charge as their parents to help our children learn to see beyond the stories that people tell on social media and into the reality of their messed up lives. This way our children can stand among the few who will be equipped to meet people where they truly are. People who live transformed lives relate to people through authenticity and grace.
2. RELATING TO GOD: Kids who are on the path to not being a stranger to the faith identity that they portray genuinely desire to have a personal relationship with God. I remember the day when Jesus went from being a historical figure we paid homage to every Sunday to a person that I wanted to know. My ninth grade Algebra teacher told me, “Our parents and our friends are only with us for a season but Jesus is the only one who will never leave you.” It clicked for me in that moment. I wanted to know that Guy who knew everything about me and would never leave. I am not suggesting that we all sit down and try to craft the right sentence to reach that place in our child’s heart that convinces them to pursue God personally. That’s not our job. Our job is to model that relationship for them and help them understand that Jesus is not just a historical figure worth studying but personal being worth knowing.
3. RELATING TO THEMSELVES: People who have a healthy identity in Christ, are self-aware enough to know their limitations and the priority of restful peace with God over exhausted service for him. It’s the story from Luke 10 where Martha is slaving away to serve Jesus and Mary just wants to sit at his feet. Service is good and needs to be done but knowing Jesus is better. We need to help our kids appreciate that balance by modeling it for them. Can I confess for a moment that this is where I struggle the most. I’m not any more of a master at these than you are. It’s a journey but one worth pursuing.
4. RELATING TO THEIR RESOURCES: Perhaps the greatest test of if we are truly linked to the identity we portray is if we are willing to commit our resources to it. People who find their identity in Christ prayerfully and sacrificially give of their resources to ministry because they truly see God as their provider. We are training our children to hold their stuff with an open hand. I don’t know about you, but I tend to find that generous adults raise generous kids and entitled adults raise entitled kids. In my house, we have a saying: “We are entitled to nothing.” I think we need to raise our kids to be both generous and intentional. Generosity flows from the heart and intentionality flows from good stewardship. We do a lot of shopping from ministry fundraisers and fair-trade organizations. It’s generous but even more, its intentional. Intentionality is not just dropping $ toward the next envelope but determining which opportunities would yield the greatest benefit to the kingdom. Several years ago, Trent and I started a giving fund (an idea we stole from another friend) that we could allocate from when we saw places were support was needed. We then involve our kids in that opportunity and explain how we decide what to participate in and what not to. I want to raise my kids to be both generous and intentional in their generosity.
5. RELATING TO ETERNITY: People who have their identity in Christ and are not strangers to that identity and they live for an eternal impact over momentary satisfaction. They truly get it – life on earth is not about life on earth. Eternity begins for us the moment we decide to follow Jesus. I want my kids to walk in light of eternity today and the reflection of that to be seen in how they sacrifice momentary security and comfort for eternal impact. I want them to see their struggles as just a speck of time in light of the expanse of eternity. I want them to desire to finish well and hear, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”
So to wrap this up, our children are growing up in an age where they are being taught how to superficially portray their identity through the help of organized religion and social media. Our goal is to parent in a way that our kids see genuine faith in action, are equipped to understand it, and are challenged to live up to it. Then maybe, they won’t find themselves a stranger to the identity that they portray.
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