Today I took my friend Mark (A leader on our church team.) to the airport. He is a younger dad (37 years old) who has 5 children. His oldest from a previous relationship is 15 and his four others from 2-10 years of age. During the week this man takes care of his family, whether he is doing dishes, cleaning the house, helping his children with home school or taking them to soccer and dance. He is an awesome dad and I value his friendship.

Recently (The last month or so it seems.) I have had a burden for men and the lives they live. Whether walking through being a son, a husband or a dad. I was not the greatest son to my parents nor was I always the greatest husband at times. God knows my kids might have something to say about my parenting skills or lack of them. My grandchildren by far are getting the best of my life so far. I am super blessed that I get to spend so much time with my children and grandchildren.Life was not always like that. But thanks to Jesus and some awesome men in my life over the years I have done well.

And that brings me to church and the men. As I said in a previous blog I believe the next move of God’s grace is going to affect men. Now I have seen some pretty powerful things over the years amongst men, going back to Promisekeepers in the early 90’s. But this I feel is a season that will eclipse. Even as I write I see men of Islam getting saved!!!

How important is a dad in the spiritual life of a child? In 1994 a study was done in Switzerland

It is about the connection between the churchgoing habits of fathers and mothers and the effect on their children when they are grown.

Here’s a summary:

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). If a father goes but irregularly to church, regardless of his wife’s devotion, between a half and two-thirds of their offspring will find themselves coming to church regularly or occasionally.

A non-practicing mother with a regular father will see a minimum of two-thirds of her children ending up at church. In contrast, a non-practicing father with a regular mother will see two-thirds of his children never darken the church door. If his wife is similarly negligent that figure rises to 80 percent!

The results are shocking, but they should not be surprising. They are about as politically incorrect as it is possible to be; but they simply confirm what psychologists, criminologists, educationalists, and traditional Christians know. You cannot buck the biology of the created order. Father’s influence, from the determination of a child’s sex by the implantation of his seed to the funerary rites surrounding his passing, is out of all proportion to his allotted and severely diminished role, in Western liberal society.

A mother’s role will always remain primary in terms of intimacy, care, and nurture. (The toughest man may well sport a tattoo dedicated to the love of his mother, without the slightest embarrassment or sentimentality). No father can replace that relationship. But it is equally true that when a child begins to move into that period of differentiation from home and engagement with the world “out there,” he (and she) looks increasingly to the father for his role model. Where the father is indifferent, inadequate, or just plain absent, that task of differentiation and engagement is much harder. When children see that church is a “women and children” thing, they will respond accordingly—by not going to church, or going much less.

Curiously, both adult women as well as men will conclude subconsciously that Dad’s absence indicates that going to church is not really a “grown-up” activity. In terms of commitment, a mother’s role may be to encourage and confirm, but it is not primary to her adult offspring’s decision. Mothers’ choices have dramatically less effect upon children than their fathers’, and without him she has little effect on the primary lifestyle choices her offspring make in their religious observances.

Her major influence is not on regular attendance at all but on keeping her irregular children from lapsing altogether. This is, needless to say, a vital work, but even then, without the input of the father (regular or irregular), the proportion of regulars to lapsed goes from 60/40 to 40/60.

You can read the whole essay here.

[socialpoll id=”2173573″]