5 Modern Challenges Christian Families Face

Today’s toxic achievement culture often has families strung out and overcommitted. As a mother of three active boys, I get it. Every day can feel like a jigsaw puzzle, getting everyone where they need to be. I spend a lot of time in the car. While these commitments are reasonable and edifying for my children, finding a family balance can be tricky. Living with packed schedules and thin souls is easy if we're not careful.

A thin soul feels like little time to refuel yourself when more and more is demanded of you as you parent. A thin soul feels like another week you can’t attend church when you and your family need it. A thin soul feels like looking for refreshment in the wrong, empty places when you need time alone to pray, read scripture, and listen for the still, small voice. Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28–29). Our God is a God of Sabbath rest and live-giving choices.

Resisting the busyness as Christians means making time for meaningful intangibles in your family life. It will mean giving up the momentary satisfaction of another item ticked off your list to reap long-term rewards. Here is a checklist to get the ball rolling: When was the last time you sat down for a family meal? When was the last time you went on vacation with your whole family? When was the last time you read the Bible before bed, prayed together, or attended worship as a family? When did you last have fun as a family (watched a movie or show, played a game, etc.)? My family has been enjoying streaming “The Chosen” together; it sparks great conversations with our teens and allows them to see Jesus as a real person, like a good friend.

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Many parents feel like they pass like ships in the night with their spouse at some point in the busy season of childrearing. My husband and I have had periods when it has been harder to connect too. But that opens a crack that we can’t allow. One of the valuable intangibles we must protect in our busy culture is our marriage. While your child will get benched if they don’t make a sports practice, while the family won’t eat if you don’t have time to grocery shop or cook, and while the dog will have an accident if you don’t take him out for a walk, what happens when we don’t make time for date nights and time together? Something much worse.

Marriage maintenance can be overlooked or taken for granted, but it would be a mistake because it is the family's foundation. The family is like a pyramid with the parents at the bottom. Anyone who has been through a divorce knows that when the pyramid cracks, everything tumbles down. It affects everyone. We can’t allow our busyness for the sake of our family to tear down what’s best for our family.

Consider the following: Where are you unfulfilled and lonely in your marriage? Where are you overlooking your own needs or your spouse's needs in service of your children? The best thing we can do for our children is to cultivate a healthy marriage. Not only will it provide our children with the necessary stability, but it will teach them how to have healthy love one day themselves. Jesus teaches about marriage by saying, “Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together” (Matthew 19:6, NLT). “No one” includes another person and culture’s pace.

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Peer-to-peer opinion has always been influential to children, especially teens. The advent of smartphones and social media has augmented this influence, however. As a result, parental authority has been particularly challenged and demoted in recent years. The adverse effects on children and teens have been sweeping. That’s because parental authority is typically based upon hard-earned wisdom and the child’s best interest, while peer approval is not.

Doctor and New York Times bestselling author Leonard Sax encourages parents to reclaim their authority in his book The Collapse of Parenting. He argues that children are missing the mooring that parenting used to provide. He encourages parents to regulate tech usage and watch for signs of struggle in their children. Cell phones, if they are allowed, are a privilege and not a right, and they are certainly secondary to the parent-child bond. In addition, he encourages parents to set healthy boundaries and ground children by encouraging chores to build the resilience that is harder to come by today but essential for success.

Ultimately, what children seek from their peers is approval and acceptance. As Christian parents, we can teach our children to find this first and foremost in God. God can be trusted: He loves them unconditionally, created them for a purpose, and gave them his word to bless them. Peer approval must be put in its place. Like Paul so eloquently says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). By drawing their support from God, and not from often fickle peer approval, they can gain the support to thrive and be salt in their environments through our guidance.

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There has always been a teen party culture. However, everything, including partying, seems to be accelerated these days. Teens today face a variety of temptations that range from screens to alcohol, sex, and drugs at alarming rates. This is partially due to increasing accessibility and a commercial culture that makes a lot of money off of seducing a younger and younger audience. It’s a challenging time to grow up.

Amidst the onslaught of temptation affecting our kids, I wish I could say that it’s only our kids who are looking around for approval, but it is not. We as parents cannot allow ourselves to be defined by how well-liked our children are. And frankly, teaching our children to compromise their values for fleeting appeal shortchanges them. We all want our children to be liked and have friends, but appealing for popularity cannot trump our child’s best interest. Strong children need strong parents. We as parents need to not only know who we are, but whose we are. Paul says, “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God” (Romans 8:14). When we appeal to the Spirit’s values and claim our identity as children of God, we as parents can make different decisions and inspire the next generation to do the same.

New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Wallace believes we are living in a modern crisis of mattering. The rate of mental health problems in youth is skyrocketing. Children are trapped on an achievement treadmill and draw their worth only from their recent performance; this faulty dynamic feeds the youth party culture, and it’s sad. However, to address this, Jennifer believes we must swim upstream. The crisis of youth self-worth has its roots in parents and caregivers. If we as parents become less attuned to other parents and more attuned to God’s plan for our family, we will serve as a necessary breath of fresh air in our culture and reap the rewards.

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I have a son who is beginning to think about college, and it’s not only nerve-wracking for him, it’s nerve-wracking for me! There are many factors to consider and elements to prepare, and the competition is so tight it’s overwhelming! That’s when I encourage myself to take a deep breath and step back. God created him, and he knows what’s best for him. God is holding everything in his hands. I remember Proverbs 16:3, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” Also, Proverbs 16:9 says, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” We are not parenting alone, and God can be trusted.

While modern culture might paint a complicated picture of to-do’s, faith provides us with the tunnel vision to see what’s most important. We have three main jobs as Christian parents. First, our children must know that we unconditionally love them as parents. They depend upon it. Second, our children need to know the unconditional love of God. Knowing the Perfect Parent opens the door to a God who can love them whole when we as parents aren’t perfect or our children make mistakes. Finally, we as parents are called to provide our children with resources within our capability to help them fulfill their God-given destiny. When we support God’s vision for our children’s lives, as opposed to sometimes our vision, we achieve the sacred task of parenting. 

This advice is contrary to modern parenting today, which can paint parenting as an exercise of ego. In other words, parents live vicariously through their children and their performance. In her book Never Enough, New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Wallace writes about how parents are apt to pick colleges or activities based on their prestige rather than an honest assessment of their child’s fit. This makes their children unhappy and ultimately less successful. By tuning into our children and who God created them to be, we augment their happiness and reap the reward. 

It’s a hard time to parent, but faith affords us the necessary vantage point to focus on what’s most important. When we successfully navigate these five modern challenges, we serve as channels of blessing to our family. God can use our willingness to be salt, or something different, in his service and usher in our reward. Happier marriages, healthier families, and safeguarded intangibles are the first steps in the right direction. 

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