Christian Smith 5

All this week we’ve been looking at helpful insights for Christian parents from Dr. Christian Smith’s research on how parents pass their faith on to the next generation. In addition to reminding Christian parents of the role that walking their talk plays in the faith formation of their kids, Smith has found a number of traits that are present in families where the Christian faith is passed on to kids. One of Smith’s best and most helpful suggestions is that parents engage in channeling for internalization. What does this mean? Channeling for internalization is a term describing how parents purposefully arrange for their kids to have involvements and relationships that reinforce rather than replace their more direct parental influence on their kids. In other words, we want to get them involved with Christian adults from our church, with a youth group, with a youth pastor, and others who will have a positive spiritual input on your kids. Are you taking the time to make this happen with your kids?