The Bible admonishes believers to train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it, and a new nationwide survey provides some statistical support for Proverbs 22:6, a verse often quoted by Christian parents and educators.
According to the latest report by the Barna Research Group (BRG), adults who attended church regularly as a child are three times as likely to be churchgoers as adults than are peers who avoided church during childhood. They are also much more likely than their unchurched peers to be involved in church-based and personal spiritual activities.
The BRG survey of 1,003 adults found that roughly 71 percent of those interviewed had regularly attended church as youngsters. Sixty-one percent of those who attended church as a youngster still attend regularly, while 78 percent of those who were not churchgoers as children remain absent from churches.
Overall, 63 percent of adults who attended church as children now take their own children. In contrast, only 33 percent of adults who were not churched bring their own children to a house of worship.
- From barna.org by way of Christianity Today
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. - Proverbs 22:6
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought. - Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi