[NewCovenantMama]

Reading this thread with interest as it's a topic which has been on my mind lately.

I made a committment to Christ through a youth club when I was 11. My parents came through to faith when I was 22, after my brother was healed of ADHD. So all through my teen and part of my preteen years I was the Christian kid in a non-Christian home. My parents preferred me to be involved with church than into the disco scene with my cousins, but they were sceptical and periodically tried to convince me all roads led to God and that the Bible was a collection of stories which had been distorted in the telling before being written down. My home was quite dysfunctional, and the excellent youth work and good relationships I had at church were a refuge from that. I find it hard to relate to the whole "church kid" culture, because I wasn't one! I went to church because I wanted to.

I've seen kids from Christian homes who rebelled, and kids from Christian homes who didn't, and I've been thinking a lot about the differences between the two groups. It seems to me that the two factors which keep kids in the fold, so to speak, are the quality of their relationship with their parents and whether they are personally experiencing God or just experiencing church. I also think quality relationships with other Christians than their parents as they grow up is important. How to give my kids the opportunity to experience the realities I experienced is something I'm exploring at the moment.