Deuteronomy 6 in 2011

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. 

Also known as the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4-9 has formed the backbone of Jewish prayer services since the Israelites crossed the Red Sea in 1445 B.C. (roughly).

I'm not Jewish, but I do believe that teaching our children about God is the most important job we

Young people leaving the church: What's a parent to do?

If I were to ask Christian parents if they want their children to continue to follow the Lord as adults, of course the answer would be "yes."  But are we doing what we can to make sure that happens?
 
In the fall of '09, I started taking classes towards a Master's in Children's and Family Ministry.  I stumbled upon the book by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer called Already Gone: Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it.  I chose to do a research paper on this topic, and therefore was completely immersed for months with information about why young people are leaving the church today in record numbers.  The research is bleak.

What is going on with our kids?
Already Gone quotes a study done by the prestigious Barna Institute in which 22,000 adults and over 2,000 teenagers were interviewed.  The results show that a shocking 60% of young adults who were