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Last week we looked at two ways that we may be unknowingly causing our kids spiritual harm. At different phases of life it can be easy to get our families’ priorities out of order, but it’s never too late to change the way we’re doing things. So here are three more ways that we may be holding our kids back in their spiritual growth.

3. Teaching them morality instead of loving obedience. As parents we have a tendency to have lots of rules for our children. We have eating rules and dressing rules and talking rules and cleaning rules. We have play rules and sleep rules. And we think that when we get our children to obey the rules we are preparing them to be good Christians.

But, if we don’t teach our children the deeper truth behind the rules, we are missing an opportunity. Rules are good–in most cases they are designed to protect us. But the reason we obey rules is not just so we won’t get in trouble or so we won’t get hurt. It’s because we are called to be obedient to God and to the authorities He has placed in our lives. When we are children, those authorities are parents. Thus, when we obey our parents, we are obeying God. And we obey out of love for Him.

4. Staying home on Sundays. Life is so busy these days. We feel it, too. Even Saturdays are filled with so many activities that suddenly we parents realize that we have no down time with our families. And, the easiest thing to cut out sometimes is church. Families may miss one or two weeks, intending to go back soon, but then we get accustomed to the sleeping in on Sundays, to the lake days that start right about when the pastor stands up to begin his sermon. Pretty soon we realize that we haven’t been to church, well, since last Easter. And our kids have no church home or spiritual family to call their own.

The Christian life is not meant to be lived in solitude. It isn’t designed to mean just as much to be out on the lake “enjoying God’s creation” as being in worship with brothers and sisters in Christ. Christianity is hard. We need each other. God called us to be there for each other, to spend time together in worship, to make listening to the teaching of His word a priority.

Even Jesus went to church! And we think our families don’t need it? Oh, what a sad thing it is for Christian parents to wake up one morning with a child who is a senior in high school, suddenly realizing that they let sports, hunting, academics, and many other things take priority over church attendance. And, soon they see that they will send their child out into the world alone, with no foundation to stand on, no notion of what it means to be part of a church family that prays for you, tends to your needs, and shares in your struggles. Just because they weren’t diligent in teaching him that a Christian community matters.

And, by the way, even if we don’t realize it, we parents are suffering spiritually, too, when we stay at home on Sundays.

5. Allowing them to play violent video games. I remember reading somewhere several years ago that the average American child will see 200,000 violent acts on television by the time they are 18. If your child plays violent video games that number is much, much higher. When we allow children to get engrossed in these imaginary worlds where they are the heroes (or the bad guys), and are not just shooting, but blowing the brains out of, slicing up, and pulling intestines out of other people (or aliens or zombies or whatever), we are letting them dwell on these vile and ungodly things for hours at a time.

Many of the violent video games also contain sexual content as well. I realize that most kids who play these games will not end up acting out violence in real life (although some will), but they are certainly not dwelling on what is pure, noble, right, and lovely when they engage in pretend violence and sexuality.

Our goal as Christians is to set our minds on things above, to be holy like God is holy, and these violent video games are certainly a stumbling point as we reach toward that goal.

I’m sure that you could add many other ideas to this list, but I will close here for now. No one is perfect as a parent or a Christian, but we can be more intentional about directing the spiritual development of our children.

We want to teach our children to love God and to strive to be like Christ, and we want to be holy examples for them to look to. We know how to protect our children from physical harm. Shielding them from spiritual harm is another important calling.