Question for regular church-goers?

[goofygirl]

I have t say I'm on your side...You just can't force religion on someone..Yes,when you are younger you don't have much say,but I just can't imagine forcing a teen to attend a religious service...You just can't force someone to have a relationship with G-d.
It sure didn't work for me.

Agreed. I once heard a pastor say, "Sheep must be led, not pushed. Same goes for people."

 

[famofsix]

The rule in our house growing up was
"We feed you, clothe you and give you a roof over your head. Even if you get a job and buy your own clothes you will attend church with us while you live under our roof."..So we went out of respect for my parents. My parents considered going to church family time.
I liked church because I had friends there....my older brothers held up the wall at the back of the church.
As adults, all five of my parent's children attend church with our own families. But, during our twenties somethings there were times when we did not.
Maybe you could start a tradition where you go to a church closer to home and establish a breakfast or out to lunch routine to reinforce the family time.

 

[Rock'n Robin]

I was in the opposite boat when I grew up. I was baptized presbyterian but we rarely went. My mom likes to sleep in! (now I do, and so do all my kids). Some Sundays I would want to go to church and she'd say "not this week". We went more regularly in jr. high when we found a church where her best friend went, but it didn't last more than a few years. I found my own church before I married so I'd have a place to marry DH (he was catholic but his family rarely went and I didn't like all of the "rules").
We went hit and miss until we had kids. When we moved to this house in 98 we switched to another church (still methodist) that is literally 2 mintues away, and sometimes we are still late for the 9:45. But again, there is an AWESOME youth group--sometimes my DD's have so many things going on I gripe about driving them there all the time! DD#1 (14) is in the HS group and DD#2 (11) is in the jr. high group, but they are both considered "youth". They also do a "kidstuf" service at 11AM for kids in grade K-5 and DS (8) has a ball.
I hope it works for you and your son sticks with his faith. As a HS teacher I know a lot of kids who could use a good dose of church. DD was confirmed with 15 other kids in April, and 3 other girls. 2 of those girls have disappeared from church. I saw one at a BBall game and asked DD about it and she said "I guess she's too busy drinking on weekends to make church" . This is a 14 year old! Not every kids internalizes what they are learning at church, but I hope my kids are.
Robin M.

 

[cybrkitn]

Growing up going to church on Sunday was no different than going to school on Monday for my parents and my aunts and uncles, if you weren't barfing up a lung you were going. I went through a period in college where I didn't go, but that only lasted a couple of months because I missed it. Then, I went through another phase in my early 30's where I didn't think it was necessary to go, went through a New Age/Agnostic thing which lasted about a year. As an example of how what goes around comes around, I'm back to my Mother's old rule: if I'm not barfing up a lung, I'm at Mass on Sunday.

I hear you. DH and I both went through the New Age phase (never the agnostic) for at least 10 years. Our personal lives were getting very dark towards the end (I'm not going to go into details). We thank God that He brought us out of it thhough our Pastor when we were ready to get married. We both did an about face.

 

[cybrkitn]

Here is the compromise that we worked out with DS. Once a month we will attend Sat evening service as a family. Then one Sunday morning a month he can choose to stay home. The other two Sundays he will go with us to Sun morning services. For the person who asked about going Sunday evening and Wednesday nights and maybe that was a little too much. Well Sunday night is Confirmation classes and Wednesday night is youth group. He never complains about those. I wish that they more of an age focused group on Sunday mornings but those end at 5th grade. We attend this church because it is the closest to us that has a large youth group and is our religion. We live about 25 minutes from Austin so there is nothing closer except very small churches where the age of the parisioners tend to be more elderly. My belief is that at this age(13) he is still to young to make a decision about not attending church at all. I know many will disagree but that is just how I believe. Just as most of you would not let your child just stop attending school because they didn't feel up to it. I feel his religious education is just as important as his school education. He still needs guidance at his age.

Thanks everyone for your ideas. I did research about how much sleep teens need and I had no idea. I will be a little more understanding of this in the future. I thought he was just being lazy.

luvnmy2bys

That was me. No offense intended with this question - Do you practice your faith at home as well in church? The reason I ask this is b/c when I was growing up, my parents also told my brother and I that we had to go; we had no choice. We never practiced faith at home, it was more of a Sunday only thing and that was it. I never had the relationship with God as a teenager like I do now. DH and I practice our faith everyday now so our DS4 has a better understanding of it. Plus he gets it at our church's school as well during the week. It helps hiim retain what he is learning.