Of all the forces that shape us spiritually, none is more formative than the family we are raised in. The family you grow up in is the most influential thing in your life. Before a child opens a Bible, sits in Sunday school, or hears a sermon, they have already been handed a picture of faith by the people who raised them. Parenting is one of the six fundamental domains through which spiritual formation takes root. And among those six, none arrives earlier, none reaches deeper, and none holds longer than this.
This is true for the child raised by devoted, loving parents; it is equally true for the child raised by absent or wounded ones. The picture of faith you were handed as a child has shaped the faith you carry today.
The Faith We Have Received
Before we can talk about the faith we are passing down, we have to reconcile with the faith we were given. Every person carries an interior picture of God that was painted, in large part, by the people who raised them. That picture may be warm and clear. It may be distorted, incomplete, or shadowed by experiences that were never meant to happen.
Scholars describe this as the challenge of *interior faith alignment*, the necessary work of examining the beliefs, assumptions, and emotional postures toward God that we absorbed in childhood and asking honestly whether they match the God we now claim to follow.[1] Until that reconciliation takes place, the faith of our past runs quietly in the background, shaping our doubts, our prayers, and our responses to God without our full awareness.
This is not comfortable work. But it is essential. Owning the faith you were handed, its beauty and blemishes alike, is not an act of blame. This is an act of honesty. None of us can chart a course from any location we refuse to acknowledge. Your story belongs to you, and it is part of how God has been at work in your life, even in the chapters that were hard to live.
The Faith We Give
Once we have done that honest reckoning, we are better positioned for the most consequential work a Christian parent will ever undertake: handing faith forward. Faith is transmitted through what we say, what we do, and how we respond to the world around us. This is the logic behind Deuteronomy 6:7, which calls parents to speak of God’s ways “when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Formation is not a program. It is a posture, and it is always in motion.
What do we, as parents, try to pass down? Three things: beliefs, values, and passion. Your children need to know what is true (belief). They need to know that God is genuinely good (values). And they need to know that God loves them with a personal and persistent love (passion). These three, absorbed over a lifetime, tend to translate into aligned behaviors, a coherent worldview, and a deep love of God and others.
Both at Once
Christian parenting asks you to inhabit two roles simultaneously. You are the one who has been parented, still making peace with the faith you received. And you are the one who parents, shaping the faith that will outlast you. These two movements are not sequential. They happen at the same time, in the same kitchen, around the same dinner table.
That is a demanding calling. It is also a profound one. The faith you received brought you here. The faith you give will carry your children, and their children, further than you will ever know.
[1]: James R. Estep Jr. and Jonathan H. Kim, eds., Christian Formation: Integrating Theology and Human Development (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2010), 214–220.
