I have come to love Psalm 78. It is such a down-to-earth, painfully honest description of a great God doing what He inexplicably loves to do – being gracious to petty sinners. If you have also enjoyed the Psalm and are continuing to meditate on it, there are some impressive renditions put to song you might like to listen to. Feeling folksy? Try this one. Convinced the world needs more pipe organ? This should do the trick. Now, and this is the important part, don’t forget to share it with the kids!

In the opening of Psalm 78, verses 4-7 all declare the importance of teaching these truths to the children. As we discussed on Sunday, this included the children already born, and multiple generations of those yet to come. Not only is this a key target audience in the estimation of the Psalmist, but it is God’s priority as well.

The teaching of God’s law to children was to be a daily way of life encapsulating every normal activity (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). This is no less of a priority in the New Testament where fathers are commanded to prevent their anger from becoming a hindrance to the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).

With so much attention focused on this theme in Scripture, it isn’t a surprise that surveys are continuing to demonstrate the importance of teaching our children the praises of the Lord.

Lyman Stone, at the Institute for Family Studies recently released some very thought-provoking findings. The article was in response to a recent book on the “Dechurching” of America. Much of the conversation in the wake of the book has focused on the plight of nominally Christian adults or young adults. However, as Stone ably demonstrates, that emphasis may be misplaced.

Citing longitudinal studies, Stone summarizes the trends of the past 4 decades this way:

There is virtually no change in religiosity across cohorts for individuals born in the 50s, 60s, and 70s: modest differences in given periods are generally not very significant or durable. For the 1980s birth cohort, there was some decline between early adulthood and ages 28 to 30, but not a great deal. But for the cohort born in the 1990s, they began as adults with a minority confident belief in God. Kids born in the 1990s didn’t lose their faith as adults; they had already lost it in childhood. There is little to no change in belief in God for 1990s kids between ages 18-20 and 28-30. In other words, the decline in religiosity we’ve seen across America in the 2000s and 2010s, and especially among young people, isn’t driven by a loss of faith among adults in that period. It appears to be driven by a failure of parents to pass on the faith in the 1990s and 2000s.

In short, when belief rates among adults as adults are studied, the results show very little variance over time. However, when you examine the experience of children, we see a catastrophic trend of children born in the 1990s into the 2000s abandoning faith in Jesus Christ.

I’m thankful for our children’s ministries, our youth ministry, and the faithful work of so many to invest in our children. However, this is not a task we can afford to leave to a handful of ministries and the comparatively few interactions they will have with our young boys and girls. This is the responsibility of the whole church, and not only limited to parents.

Do you know the glorious story of a great God and His many wondrous works?

Did you tell the kids yet?

Better tell them one more time, just for good measure.