These are kids that have grown up in the church. Anywhere from six to eight out of every ten kids in your church youth group will wander away from their Christian faith once they enter adulthood.  As a parent with four teens living in my home, this is a grave concern of mine.

Britt Beemer, a former senior research analyst for the Heritage Foundation and founder of the American Research Group unveiled for the first time in a scientific fashion the startling reasons behind this statistic.  His research included 20,000 phone calls and detailed surveys of 1,000 20 to 29 year olds who used to attend evangelical churches on a regular basis.

The survey found that children who faithfully attend Bible classes in their church over the years actually are more likely to question the authority of Scripture.  Among the survey findings, regular participants in Sunday School are more likely to leave the church, believe that the Bible is less true, defend the legality of abortion and same-sex marriage, and defend premarital sex.

Why is this?  And what can be done to combat this?  A few years ago, I asked two nationally-known ministry leaders these two questions, and their answers were surprisingly simple yet incredibly profound.

I interviewed Brian McLaren, one of the foremost experts on the effects of postmodern thinking on the church.  He’s the author of several books that have powerfully impacted the evangelical church over the past ten years including, Everything Must Change, A Generous Orthodoxy, and More Ready Than You Realize.

We spent considerable time talking about the troubling trend among church kids to leave the faith after they graduate from high school.  When I asked him what can be done to combat this trend, he said this:

“What we need to do now is for all of us parents to do what it says in Deuteronomy. We need to learn to talk about our faith in a natural way when we’re walking along the way, and when we’re sitting in our homes.”

I didn’t expect him to say this.  I expected something deeper.  Something more complex.  Something with at least three steps.  Instead, his solution for halting the mass exodus from the Christian faith among young adults is for parents to do what Moses commanded the parents of Israel to do 5,000 years ago:  Talk about the Lord when their kids wake up, as they’re going about their day, and before they go to sleep.

I also spoke with Barry Shafer about this problem.  Barry is the founder of InWord Resources – a ministry he established in response to the widespread biblical illiteracy among teens.  His strategy for combating the problem is much like McLaren’s: Kids MUST be saturated with the Word of God in a natural and relevant way from a young age.

However, Barry’s focus is more on helping the church (namely youth ministries) do this.  His approach is to strengthen youth ministry with inductive methods, tools, and materials for personal Bible understanding and for small group settings.

Either way you slice it, both men see the centrality of Bible teaching as being essential in helping kids enter adulthood with their faith intact.  Maybe the key to combating the mass exodus of churched young adults from the Christian faith is a two-front offensive: natural and relevant Bible teaching at home and in the church, with both recognizing the incredible importance of the other and with both striving to work together.

Regularly attending Sunday School and youth group is evidently not enough for at least 65%-85% of the churched kids today because that’s how many regular attenders are bailing on the Christian faith after high school.  Parents need to be working just as hard as Sunday School teachers and youth leaders to effectively communicate God’s Word to their kids in natural and relevant ways.

If you’re a parent, may God grant you the strength and wisdom to play a major role in the faith training of your children, and may your kids defy the statistics when they leave home.