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This article is from Today's Native Father, issue #108, March/April, 2000. Related articles from this issue:
Father of the Prodigal
Communicating Faith to Teenage Children
Children of an Unloved Mother

“I used to be an active believer.”

The young man’s voice is unsteady as he faces his audience. He tells about his childhood in a Christian home and his early desire to do things for God.

Then, when he was sixteen, several things happened at once. His active, intelligent mind began asking questions about faith that it seemed nobody could answer. His church offered him nothing appealing into which he could pour his energy. His longing to fit in with his peers led him into experiments with alcohol that resulted in addiction. Now in his early twenties, he is unhappy with where he is and unsure of where he is going. “I believe in God and want to serve him, but I don’t know if I can. This stuff really has hold of me. Besides, things haven’t changed that much in the church since I left.”

He is close to tears. His father comes up and puts a supportive arm around his shoulder.

“If I ever come back, it will be because of my parents who have always been faithful and loving.”

Many Christian parents will have at least one child who will drop out of church and active Christian fellowship for a time, says Tom Bisset in his book Good News About Prodigals. One survey of pastors and full-time Christian workers revealed that most of them had at some point in their past gone through a faith-rejection experience that was either “fairly serious” or “extremely serious.”

Bisset suggests that parents with a “prodigal” child remember two things. First, faith rejection is more about searching for truth than it is about rejecting truth. Second, faith rejection is actually one aspect of spiritual change in general. It is movement. A person who is moving may eventually return to faith. One who is not moving never will.

Bisset quotes research studies that show that at least 85% of all prodigals eventually return to faith. He identifies five principal reasons why people who leave the faith of their youth come back.

1. Concern for the moral and spiritual well-being of their own children.
2. The special involvement of another person.
3. A personal or family problem they can’t solve.
4. A deep emotional and spiritual void.
5. An unexpected, life-changing experience.

What can parents do to open the door for their prodigal child’s return? Bisset recommends several steps of action.

1. Listen more than you talk. But keep reaching out and attempting to communicate.
2. Examine your own expression of faith. Faith and culture often get tangled so tightly that what appears to be a rejection of faith may actually be a rejection of culture. Learn to make allowances for a diversity of ideas and lifestyles.
3. Be gracious and kind. If the unsettling experience of having a prodigal child brings to light your own lack of grace and kindness, commit yourself to developing these virtues.
4. Repent. Like all parents, you have made mistakes that have deeply affected your child.

Most important, remember that it is “God’s kindness [that] leads you toward repentance” (Romans 2:4). If the prodigal has children for whom he is concerned, it was God who gave them. God can also send the unexpected, life-changing experience as well as the problem he can’t solve. God listens more than he talks and is always gracious and kind. Being assured of this, parents can have peace in their souls as they cooperate with God in his plan for their prodigal child.

Good News About Prodigals is published by Discovery House Publishers, Box 3566, Grand Rapids MI 49501. It may be purchased directly from their online bookstore at www.dhp.org..