How to Raise Kids Who Actually Follow Jesus

People ask me all the time: how do you raise kids who actually follow Jesus? Not just kids who sit through church, not kids who know the right answers in Sunday school, but kids who genuinely own their faith as adults.

It’s the most important question in parenting. And Lisa and I don’t have a perfect answer — we have four kids, over 40 years of marriage, and more mistakes than I can count. But we’ve learned some things. And the most important one is this: the best parenting advice anyone will ever give you is already in the Bible.

We’re made in God’s image, and God is the perfect heavenly Father. He’s the one who invented parenting. If I want to know how to lead my children, I start by asking: how does God lead me?

Faith first — not faith eventually

The question I get most from parents is some version of: how do I balance sports, school, activities, and church? My answer is always the same — look at that list and ask yourself which one is going to shape your children’s eternity.

Sports are great. School is essential. Activities build character. But none of them do what faith does. None of them answer the deepest questions your kids are going to face. And none of them are still standing when everything else falls apart.

When our daughter LeeBeth passed away three and a half years ago, if it had not been for our faith first — and for the community we had at Fellowship Church — our story would look completely different. I’m not saying that to be dramatic. I’m saying it because I’ve lived it. Our faith wasn’t a backup plan. It was the load-bearing wall. And everything else we had built leaned on it.

The Harvard Business Review published a study a while back on the difference between priorities and commitments. Most people agree on their priorities in theory. But when they write down their actual commitments — where their time and money go — the two columns don’t match. That gap is the problem. Whatever your family’s priority column says, your commitment column tells the truth.

Get dressed every morning as a parent

One of my favorite parenting texts in the Bible isn’t in Proverbs or Deuteronomy. It’s Colossians 3:12-14: “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another... And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

Think of it as your parenting wardrobe. Every morning you get dressed. You choose what to put on. And as a parent, what you wear spiritually is what your kids see all day long. Compassion. Kindness. Humility. Gentleness. Patience. These aren’t just nice qualities — they’re the clothes your children are watching you put on every single day.

And what drives you to that wardrobe is the gospel. When I think about what Jesus did for me on the cross — the forgiveness he extended when I didn’t deserve it — it completely reframes how I extend grace to my kids. I’m not manufacturing patience on my own. I’m passing on what I’ve received.

Faith is caught, not just taught

Deuteronomy 6 is the great parenting text of the Old Testament. God tells Israel to impress his commandments on their children — talk about them when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, when you get up. Faith isn’t a subject you teach. It’s a lifestyle you model.

Our daughter Landra has said that every morning when she and her siblings would wake up, they’d come downstairs and find Lisa and me already in our offices — Bibles open, quiet time underway. We didn’t lecture them about it. We didn’t make them do it. They just saw it. Every morning.

That’s Deuteronomy 6 in action. Faith isn’t transmitted through a class once a week. It’s transmitted through a life lived consistently. Your kids are watching you navigate disappointment. They’re watching you handle conflict. They’re watching what you do when things don’t go your way. That’s where faith is either caught or not caught.

And part of what they’re watching is how you discipline them. The way you set boundaries, follow through, and reconcile after conflict — that’s Deuteronomy 6 too. If you want practical techniques for that side of parenting, I’ve written about how to discipline your kids God’s way in a companion article.

Stay on the same page as your spouse

One of the most important things Lisa and I figured out — later than we should have — is that kids will divide and conquer if you let them. They are smart. They know which parent is more likely to say yes. And if mom and dad aren’t aligned, the kids will find the gap and walk right through it.

The most important commonality in our parenting wasn’t our communication style or our discipline philosophy. It was this: we both wanted to raise our kids in the house of God, to learn about him, and to come into a relationship with him. That was the north star. Everything else we could work out.

When you disagree — and you will — don’t stage the disagreement in front of the kids. Pull away, resolve it privately, come back united. What you model in those moments is how your kids will handle disagreement in their own marriages someday. You’re not just solving a parenting conflict. You’re showing them what reconciliation looks like.

Answer the hard cultural questions — age appropriately

Parents ask me all the time: when and how do you talk to your kids about gender, sexuality, and what the culture is throwing at them?

My answer: answer the question they’re actually asking, at the level they can handle, and don’t over-explain. My mother once gave me a full birds-and-bees speech when I was six because I asked why a woman had a big belly. At the end of it I said, “No one would do that. I don’t believe you.” She over-answered. If she’d stopped at “there’s a baby inside because of love” she would have been fine.

But here’s what I need you to understand: you cannot assume anymore that your kids are getting a biblical worldview at school. They’re not. So you have to be the one guiding it — not in a panicked, reactionary way, but in a calm, consistent way that says: here’s what we believe, here’s what God says, and here’s how we treat every person with dignity even when we disagree.

The phrase Lisa and I always came back to with our kids: we accept everyone, we love everyone, but that doesn’t mean we approve of or applaud every behavior. Teach that early. It’s not complicated — it’s just countercultural.

It’s never too late

One of the most painful things I hear from parents is this: “It’s too late. My kids are grown. I didn’t do this.”

It is never too late. God is bigger than the gap. But here’s what I’d say: before you try to fix the relationship with your child, ask yourself honestly what your role was in creating the distance. Is there an apology that needs to happen? Is there something you need to own? And then more than anything — pray. Ask God to open a door. Even just a crack. Put on that Colossians 3 wardrobe — compassion, kindness, humility — and let it be visible. God will work with that.

Lisa and I relied heavily on Fellowship Church to help us parent. That’s not a commercial — it’s just honest. Community matters. Being around other families who are doing it well, who will speak into your kids’ lives, who will model faith from multiple angles — that’s not optional. It’s part of God’s design.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I keep faith at the center of my family when life is so busy?

Start with your commitment column, not your priority column. Most families say faith is a priority but their schedule tells a different story. The question isn’t whether you value faith — it’s whether your calendar reflects it. One non-negotiable Lisa and I have always held: church is not optional when something else comes up. Not because church is magic, but because consistent community is how faith gets reinforced week after week in ways a family can’t reproduce on their own.

What’s the most important thing I can do to raise kids who love God?

Love God yourself — visibly. Not performatively, but genuinely. Let your kids see you in the Word. Let them hear you pray. Let them watch how you handle it when life is hard. Faith is caught far more than it’s taught, and the most powerful sermon your kids will ever hear is the one you preach with your daily life. Deuteronomy 6 doesn’t say enroll your kids in a program. It says make faith the conversation of your ordinary moments.

How do I talk to my kids about what the culture is saying about gender and sexuality?

Answer the question they’re actually asking, at the level they can understand, without over-explaining. Stay rooted in what the Bible says rather than reacting to what the culture says — those are two different postures and kids can feel the difference. The clearest framework we’ve used: we love everyone, we treat everyone with dignity, and we hold to what God’s Word says. That’s not a contradiction. That’s Christianity.

What if my spouse and I have different parenting philosophies?

Find the north star you agree on first — for us it was raising our kids to know and love God. When that’s settled, most of the smaller disagreements become navigable. The danger is when kids see the gap and learn to exploit it. Present a united front externally, work out the disagreements privately, and get into counseling if you need help bridging the gap. Lisa and I wish we had started counseling earlier in our marriage. It would have saved us years of unnecessary friction.

This article is based on Ed and Lisa Young’s sermon Dress For Parenting from the Q&A series at Fellowship Church.