Do you remember the day you first left home?
When I was 17, I told my parents I was moving to Christchurch with my punk band to make it big. I’d dyed my hair pink and bought a clapped-out security van we nicknamed The Beef Mobile. My parents had invested thousands of dollars in music lessons over the years, but now I was off to chase distorted-guitar dreams in smoky clubs. Not exactly what they had in mind when they sent me off to piano lessons.
Mum later told me how hard it was to watch me drive away. “We knew you had to stretch your wings,” she said. “We’d raised you well, but we couldn’t protect you forever. You had to work some things out for yourself.”
At the time, she couldn’t have imagined that her long-haired punk son would one day become an Anglican priest. And if I’m honest, neither could I. But that’s the thing about leaving home: it can be messy and unpredictable.
Those years in Christchurch were exciting, but spiritually disorientating. I’d grown up in the safety of rural evangelical faith, surrounded by Bible tracts and compulsory Sunday services. Suddenly, I was immersed in a world of artists, students, new ideas, and total freedom.
Soon after moving, my faith began to feel leaky – like the plumbing wasn’t working the way it used to. I still believed, but I realised the faith I had inherited from my parents would need reshaping if it was going to survive.
I’ve since seen this same story play out again and again in the lives of young adults I’ve worked with. Psychologists call it individuation: the process of working out for yourself what to hold onto from your upbringing, and what to let go of. It can be a time of experimentation and new identities. For Christian families, it often comes with deep uncertainty. Children and grandchildren who once bounded into church seem to drift away. Parents and grandparents are left grieving, worried, and sometimes blaming themselves.
As a university chaplain, and later through a community I started called Vocatio, I’ve walked with many families carrying this ache. Vocatio was an experimental faith community I ran for three years in Christchurch. The only qualification to join was that you had to be dechurched – or on the verge of leaving church altogether. We ended up with 50 young adults and 20 leaders, most of them raised in Christian homes but now sitting on the margins of faith.
They carried baggage – about church, about God, and often about family. But they were also good kids. Complicated, yes, but doing their best to work themselves out. The two parables that shaped our work were the lost sheep and the prodigal son.
Some of these reflections appear in my new book, Vocatio: Reflections on a Radical Experiment to Re-Engage De-Churched Young Adults (you can check it out here). It tells the story of that community and what I learned walking with young people who had stepped back from church.
This Father’s Day, I find myself thinking especially of the dads and granddads who live with the ache of kids who’ve stepped back from faith. Here are five guideposts that have helped me – from my own story, from walking with young adults, and from Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son.
God doesn’t force us into faith. He lets us make real choices – even foolish ones. The father in the parable didn’t chase his son down the driveway. He let him go. Sometimes that’s the hardest, yet most faithful thing a parent can do.
The father’s heart never hardened. He watched, waited, and when his son returned, he ran to meet him. Our role isn’t to lecture or guilt-trip, but to keep our hearts open – to affirm what’s good, speak love, and never stop praying. Pouring our anxieties over our kids rarely helps.
The prodigal story includes resentment and rivalry. So does every family. Tension doesn’t mean failure. What matters is making space for honest, loving conversation. Asking your kids good questions and listening with interest is often more powerful than delivering speeches or verdicts.
Many parents torment themselves: “Where did I go wrong?” But the parable never records the father blaming himself. Parenting isn’t a formula with guaranteed outcomes. Yes, mistakes happen – every parent makes them. What matters now is saying sorry when needed and keeping the door of relationship open.
The older son and younger son were different, and so are our kids. Just as our faith doesn’t look identical to our parents’, theirs won’t be a carbon copy of ours. They will wrestle, question, and hopefully rebuild something that’s truly their own.
I want you to know that God hasn’t finished writing our children’s stories. God is actively at work in their lives – even when it’s hard to see from a distance. The father of the prodigal son was always looking out for his child, and that’s God’s posture towards your kids too.
The prodigal son didn’t stay gone forever. The lost sheep wasn’t lost forever.
So this Father’s Day, my prayer is that those who carry this ache will find fresh hope: hope that God is still seeking, hope that reconciliation is possible, and hope that – in their own time and way – our children might find their way home to the One who never stops seeking them out.
Check out other articles in the
series below.
More articles in the
series are to come.
We have invited these writers to share their experiences, ideas and opinions in the hope that these will provoke thought, challenge you to go deeper and inspire you to put your faith into action. These articles should not be taken as the official view of the Nelson Diocese on any particular matter.
Do you remember the day you first left home?
When I was 17, I told my parents I was moving to Christchurch with my punk band to make it big. I’d dyed my hair pink and bought a clapped-out security van we nicknamed The Beef Mobile. My parents had invested thousands of dollars in music lessons over the years, but now I was off to chase distorted-guitar dreams in smoky clubs. Not exactly what they had in mind when they sent me off to piano lessons.
Mum later told me how hard it was to watch me drive away. “We knew you had to stretch your wings,” she said. “We’d raised you well, but we couldn’t protect you forever. You had to work some things out for yourself.”
At the time, she couldn’t have imagined that her long-haired punk son would one day become an Anglican priest. And if I’m honest, neither could I. But that’s the thing about leaving home: it can be messy and unpredictable.
Those years in Christchurch were exciting, but spiritually disorientating. I’d grown up in the safety of rural evangelical faith, surrounded by Bible tracts and compulsory Sunday services. Suddenly, I was immersed in a world of artists, students, new ideas, and total freedom.
Soon after moving, my faith began to feel leaky – like the plumbing wasn’t working the way it used to. I still believed, but I realised the faith I had inherited from my parents would need reshaping if it was going to survive.
I’ve since seen this same story play out again and again in the lives of young adults I’ve worked with. Psychologists call it individuation: the process of working out for yourself what to hold onto from your upbringing, and what to let go of. It can be a time of experimentation and new identities. For Christian families, it often comes with deep uncertainty. Children and grandchildren who once bounded into church seem to drift away. Parents and grandparents are left grieving, worried, and sometimes blaming themselves.
As a university chaplain, and later through a community I started called Vocatio, I’ve walked with many families carrying this ache. Vocatio was an experimental faith community I ran for three years in Christchurch. The only qualification to join was that you had to be dechurched – or on the verge of leaving church altogether. We ended up with 50 young adults and 20 leaders, most of them raised in Christian homes but now sitting on the margins of faith.
They carried baggage – about church, about God, and often about family. But they were also good kids. Complicated, yes, but doing their best to work themselves out. The two parables that shaped our work were the lost sheep and the prodigal son.
Some of these reflections appear in my new book, Vocatio: Reflections on a Radical Experiment to Re-Engage De-Churched Young Adults (you can check it out here). It tells the story of that community and what I learned walking with young people who had stepped back from church.
This Father’s Day, I find myself thinking especially of the dads and granddads who live with the ache of kids who’ve stepped back from faith. Here are five guideposts that have helped me – from my own story, from walking with young adults, and from Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son.
God doesn’t force us into faith. He lets us make real choices – even foolish ones. The father in the parable didn’t chase his son down the driveway. He let him go. Sometimes that’s the hardest, yet most faithful thing a parent can do.
The father’s heart never hardened. He watched, waited, and when his son returned, he ran to meet him. Our role isn’t to lecture or guilt-trip, but to keep our hearts open – to affirm what’s good, speak love, and never stop praying. Pouring our anxieties over our kids rarely helps.
The prodigal story includes resentment and rivalry. So does every family. Tension doesn’t mean failure. What matters is making space for honest, loving conversation. Asking your kids good questions and listening with interest is often more powerful than delivering speeches or verdicts.
Many parents torment themselves: “Where did I go wrong?” But the parable never records the father blaming himself. Parenting isn’t a formula with guaranteed outcomes. Yes, mistakes happen – every parent makes them. What matters now is saying sorry when needed and keeping the door of relationship open.
The older son and younger son were different, and so are our kids. Just as our faith doesn’t look identical to our parents’, theirs won’t be a carbon copy of ours. They will wrestle, question, and hopefully rebuild something that’s truly their own.
I want you to know that God hasn’t finished writing our children’s stories. God is actively at work in their lives – even when it’s hard to see from a distance. The father of the prodigal son was always looking out for his child, and that’s God’s posture towards your kids too.
The prodigal son didn’t stay gone forever. The lost sheep wasn’t lost forever.
So this Father’s Day, my prayer is that those who carry this ache will find fresh hope: hope that God is still seeking, hope that reconciliation is possible, and hope that – in their own time and way – our children might find their way home to the One who never stops seeking them out.
Check out other articles in the
series below.
More articles in the
series are to come.
