Faith by Osmosis

Christian Smith, coauthor of Soul Searching, says that learning faith is a lot like learning a second language. You don’t learn a language best just by studying it; you learn it best by being around people who speak it. When you immerse yourself in a culture of that language you pick up much more by osmosis than you ever could by study alone. The same is true for faith. To grow in our faith we must see it, interact with it, play with the ideas, and be around people who are living it.

In our scrapbook is a photo of our son Bryan when he was two years old. He had a little plastic lawnmower, and one of the pictures shows him pushing his lawnmower right behind his dad, who is pushing a full-sized lawnmower. Bryan saw what it was like to take care of the yard and was trying it on for size. He wanted to do what his dad was doing.

The same type of modeling happens in more subtle but no less profound ways as children get older. They model their behavior after the people they see. When they see their parents, their aunts and uncles, their friends, the church elders and deacons, and their Sunday school teachers standing to sing together or to pray the Lord’s Prayer in unison, they learn what it means to be an adult who worships God.

Children and teens need to see adult people of faith who are deepening their relationship with God. They need to know how adults pray. They need to see them in times of sorrow and doubt, and in times of sadness and joy. We cannot expect children to grow into mature disciples unless they see how other followers of Christ live a life of faith.

Who are some of the faith models in your kid’s lives? When do they get to see adults express their faith in Jesus, or grapple with questions about God?


--An excerpt from Celebrating the Milestones of Faith by Laura Keeley and Robert J. Keeley, pgs. 9-10. © Faith Alive, 2010. Used with permission.