What if I told you there was a well-researched and statistically proven program that can:
- Increase the average life expectancy of your children by 8 years
- Significantly reduce their use and risk from Alcohol, Tobacco and Drugs
- Dramatically lower their risk of suicide
- Help them rebound from depression 70% faster
- Dramatically reduce their risk for committing a crime
- Improve their attitude at school and increase their school participation
- Reduce their risk for rebelliousness
- Reduce the likelihood that they would binge drink in high school
- Improve their odds for a "very happy" life
- Provide them with a life-long moral compass
- And get them to wear their seatbelts more often
Is there such a program? Yes, there is. And it is supported by research from Duke University, Indiana University, The University of Michigan, The Center for Disease Control, Barna Research Group, and the National Institute for Healthcare Research.
How much would a program like this be worth to you? What if I told you it was free, and only took about 2 hours a week. Take a look at the list again. It's not a dream. The program is called "active church participation."
In study, during study, after study, children who actively engage in a faith community on a regular basis are rewarded with SIGNIFICANTLY reduced likelihood of problems and risks, and significantly improved odds of a happier, healthier, longer life. These studies show the same results for adults as well.
To increase the odds of receiving these results, you can't wait. According to a Barna Research Group study, adults who attended church regularly as children are nearly three times as likely to be attending a church today as their peers who avoided church during childhood (61% to 22%, respectively). In other words, parents who truly want the best for their children should get their children involved at church now and regularly.
Our secular culture has taken up preaching "parents (as) the anti-drug," promoting afterschool programs, and athletics as solutions to various ills. And yet, a whole host of problems plaguing young people have only become worse over the last 30 years. Perhaps not so coincidentally, Sunday School attendance has fallen over that same period.
In a search for "what works," researchers keep turning up "active participation" in a "faith community" as the one consistent potent factor in raising up children in the way they should go. It's time for the Christian Church to speak up on this matter, beginning with our own Christian parents.
To paraphrase Jesus,
"What parent, knowing that it is bread that really works, would give their child a stone?"