The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - When Your Children Have Left the Church

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

Has your child left the Church? Don't despair. Jeff shares personal stories, practical advice, and suggests key resources for parents navigating this difficult journey. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

This podcast is brought to you by Ascension. To discover even more free Catholic podcasts, videos, and resources, to help you live your faith every day, visit ascensionpress.com. Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 443 when your children have left the church. Well, good day to you, my friend. Jeff Kaven's with you here on the Jeff Kaven's show every week talking about, well, talking about everything related to Bible discipleship, putting the word into practice, and solving life's problems. That's what we focus on every single weekend. While we've got a real topic today that a lot of people are struggling with when your children have left the church, we're going to talk about that. And I have a lot of suggestions here today, including some amazing books that you might want to look into if you are interested in hearing the stories of other people who may have left or converted from Protestant churches into the Catholic Church, even Protestant ministers, non-denominational, such as myself and our stories. So I'll give you all that information too. And so let's get it out of the way the housekeeping.

being if you do want the notes, all you've got to do is text my name, Jeff Kavens, texted to the number 33773.3377. And we'll get you the notes, and there's going to be a lot of them here today. There is. Hope you're doing well. This is the, I guess you could say, three quarters of the way through the summer, getting ready to hit the fall and football and everything else. By the way, this last week had the chance to go to the Minnesota Vikings training camp. invited by one of the men who works with the Vikings and his wife and had a wonderful, wonderful time. A lot of really good people there. And of course, we're looking forward to the season coming up and I'll be in prayer. I imagine you'll be praying for your team as well. But had a wonderful, wonderful experience. And it reminds me of just how God has placed Christians,

people with the message in all areas of life. And when you're watching, a football game, you're watching a hockey game, basketball game. Please know that there are people behind the scenes that love God dearly and have wonderful families that are always more important than the sport itself. And so you're not looking at just a group of athletes. You're looking at athletes who may or may not know the Lord, but you're also looking at a team of oftentimes wonderful people. So I just want to say I've met some wonderful people, including the coach, this week and very impressed. So we're talking today about when your children have left the church. And I want to go through some of the reasons why people have left the church. Sometimes they

just drift away, you know. But then I also want to look at some things that you can do, some practical things that you could do that might foster a return to the Lord. And I want to say that right off the bat that the goal of all of this is not that they become Catholic. That's not the goal because if that's the goal, you have to look around the country these days and ask yourself, is what you see as just sort

of the average? Is that what you're hoping for for your children? I don't think so. I think you want your children to return to Jesus. And of course, we receive as much as we possibly can of Jesus in the Catholic Church. I'm thinking about the Word of God. I'm thinking

about the Eucharist and the sacraments as a whole. The tradition, the family, the communion of saints, all of it. The papacy, the blessed mother, it's all there. But the real return is the heart returns to the heart of Jesus. And that's what we're hoping for. I know I am, you know, in all my relatives out there who may not be walking with the Lord today, my prayer is that they do. So, you know, when I travel the country and I go on pilgrimages, I have an opportunity to talk to a lot of people. And one of the, one of the, one of the, the pains of the heart that comes up most frequently is this. People say, Jeff, my wife and I,

we came back to the church seven years ago and life has been so different for us, but we feel really bad that we've got seven children. And we raised our children Catholic, but we weren't really walking as, you know, dynamic Catholics in any way. And our children have left the church. And it grieves our heart greatly. I remember one man, came up to me in a city in Minnesota, south of the Twin Cities. And this was about, oh, wow, what was this? 30 years ago. And I remember it because it was the number of children.

He came up to me after I spoke, and he said, can I talk to you? And I said, sure. And then he broke down crying. He was probably, I think maybe 70 at the time. He broke down crying, and he said that he had 12 children, he and his wife, and every one of them have left the church. And he just started, he just started crying. And he wanted to know what to do.

And that's a tough one, isn't it? You know, you put yourself in his position. Well, that's a big question. I can't tell you everything that you're supposed to be doing because I don't know the situation. I don't know why they left. I don't know what their relationship is with you. But I can give you some general guidance, you know. You got to remember, I was a pastor for 12 years.

So I can give you some general guidance on what to do, but let's start off with this. Why did they leave? Why did they leave in the first place? Well, many people today just drifted away. That's right. They just drifted away. So you have five kids, and they went through junior high and high school and college, and then they got married and moved over to Virginia or Oklahoma or wherever.

And it just starts to become a parent after a year or two, and then you have grandkids that they're not going to church anymore and you might ask them about it and they say ah you know maybe we will after we have kids or over the kids grow up or maybe during confirmation years or whatever it might be but they just drifted away and i have found a lot of people like that they just stop going to church they may have been disillusioned with a pastor they may may have been disillusioned with the leadership of the church internationally they might have had a bad experience one of them at least and time crunch. And before you know it, the church didn't grab their attention.

Jesus isn't in their life as a personal relationship. And they find themselves drifting away. And maybe they're even surprised that they did that and they haven't been thinking about it a lot. So some people just plain drift away. It wasn't something about you, mom, or dad, or brothers and sisters or anything. Life just got a hold of them. There's so much. Life happened, you know.

And they're busy. They're busy with so much, and their careers and all of that. There's another reason that people leave, and that is atheism. Now, when I was growing up, and I first gave my life to the Lord as an adult at 18, I did not know much about atheism. In fact, I didn't even know an atheist growing up. Nobody came up to me and said, hey, I'm an atheist. Let's talk.

I just didn't come into contact with me. It wasn't vogue, if you will, but today, today it's almost vogue with young people that they are atheist. I don't believe. I don't believe that there is a God. And now in their minds, they may think that solves some problems, you know, about guilt or judgment or, you know, you, mom, dad. But, you know, they say, why don't you come back to the church? Well, I don't believe in God. Well, that might be their reason. I'll give you a solution to that in just a little bit here. Now the third, maybe they were loved out of the Catholic Church by an evangelical Christian or a non-denominational Christian. That happens. It happened to me, by the way, is that I was invited

to go to a non-denominational church at 18 years old. I went. I saw people that were excited. I saw people with Bibles. Someone gave me a hug. There was a dynamic set of songs that were sung, and there was a powerful sermon that challenged me in my life. And I lived. left there pailing a sense of victory. And then they invited me to a home group to talk and have burgers. And I was loved out of the church. It wasn't for me so much a theological thing as it was a social thing. Now that one right there, I know, is happening a lot. And we have an answer for that. I mean, we should. And that our faith isn't just Sunday morning for an hour. It should be our entire life. We should be the ones inviting people to church. We should be

the ones who are holding dynamic Bible studies. We are the ones that should be opening up our homes for a barbecue and a night out with three other couples. That should be us. That should be us. If we don't do that type of thing, then we need to stop complaining, right? Because there are people out there who are loving people out of the Catholic Church. Now, there's a fourth area here, and that is anger and bitterness. What do I mean about that? Well, there's a lot of people out there that grew up Catholic, and something happened when they were growing up, where they became very angry with a family member, a priest, or an uncle, or someone. They became very, very angry. Unforgiveness entered their heart, and bitterness entered their heart, and they couldn't

let go of it. And they associated the hurt that they experienced with the church. Now, I know a lot of people like this. I know a lot of grand sons. sons who left the church because of grandma or grandpa and what they did and how they lived their life or how they didn't live the life of Christ. And they are angry. It might be a personal vendetta against you mom or you dad. And you might not even be aware of it. You might have an inkling. But you might not even be aware of it. And they're carrying it right now. And you're driving down the highway right now wondering why in the world would they even leave like that? What got into them and you might have got into them in some way that you don't even know it. So anger or

bitterness. It might have been your demeanor. It might have been your language. It might have been the way you, maybe they thought you were overly strict when they were growing up, whether you were or not. They carry it now in their heart. So there's a number of reasons that people have left. The number of reasons that people have left. Now what I'm going to do, take a break when I come back. I'm going to give you some things to think about and including a good number of titles, which will be in the show notes, some books that you might want to look into, and also some recurring themes in the journeys back to the Catholic Church

and why people return to the Catholic Church. Sound good? Fantastic. I'm Jeff Kavens. We'll be right back. Hey, guys. My name's Father Mike Schmitz. I'm so excited to tell you about new cities and new dates for the Parables Tour.

We're going to cities in both Michigan and Texas. If you're interested in getting tickets, you can go to Accenturepress.com. slash Father Mike Tour for access to tickets and more information. Tickets go on sale. It's Thursday, May 22nd. God bless. Welcome back. We're talking today about when your children have left the church.

First of all, I know it's painful. I know it's difficult. I know that. And I did this to my parents. I left the Catholic Church for about 15 years. And I know what I put them through. I knew what I was going through. And I knew I left and I knew what drew me back.

I could tell the whole story. In fact, that's one of the books I would recommend in this next section. I want to talk about people who have drifted away and some good material that you might want to get to them in a good way. I don't just throw it in their face and say, hey, read this. We want you back. But you might want to share a book with them about, hey, I thought you would find this interesting, you know? And so there are a number of books here that I have. Let me go through them quickly with you. One of them is one that I was actually reading from a long time ago, and I think there's a couple of editions of this. Pat Madrid was the editor of it, I believe, surprised by truth. I think there's one and two. And they are the stories of 11 converts in the

first one, and their stories of why they came into the Catholic Church. What drew them in? They drifted away, or they were just away, and something attracted them. My book, My Life on the Rock, I document my life on the rock. That's with Ascension Press. It's my story of growing up Catholic, leaving, angry with my parents, becoming a Protestant pastor and then studying my way back into the church, my life on the rock. If you want to see what I looked like 30 years ago, take a look at that cover. The third one, my good friend Scott Hahn, Rome Sweet Home, is the story of Scott and Kimberly.

It's probably one of the most famous books out there. And it is chronicling their journey from the, Presbyterian Church into the Catholic Church. Rome Sweet Homes, good title. Another good title, Crossing the Tiber, Stephen Ray, he's on fire for the Lord. The Tiber is that river around Vatican, so crossing the Tiber, you get the idea. Now, there's another set of books from Journey's Home. Marcus Grody, we started at EWTN the same, I think the same month, back in 95, or whatever, I think

it was, and the Journey Home, he hosted that show. his son is now and they have a several volumes that are very helpful the one that really grabbed my attention is journey's home number three pentacostles and charismatic read their story that's non-denoms you know like all these non-denominational churches you see in every city so it's journey's homes number three that's pentacostles and charismatic the first two think you'd be interested in as well Another one by Alex Jones, good deacon, Alex Jones, no price too high. The Pentecostal preacher becomes Catholic. Number seven, made for more.

Curtis Martin put this together. It's arguments for God made for more. Here's a good one right here. Dwight Longenegger, from Protestant pastor to Catholic priest. He's a priest now. It's a journey of faith. Dwight Longanicker. That's a good one.

And then finally, and I just put this on every list, including how to make, you know, Kool-Aid and everything else and ice cream. C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity. It belongs on every list. You want to build a home? That's a good book. You want to take a trip across America? That's a good book. You want to start raising worms for fish? That's a good book. C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity. So those are some titles that are really good to acquaint yourself with.

I'll put them in the show notes for you. Now, there are some recurring themes for people when they do come back to the Catholic Church. and some of the things that need to be answered in their life. There's five of them that I have for you here. One, and I'll put this in the notes too, the Bible alone tension. There are a lot of kids, children, who leave the Catholic Church, and they go and they join a church that is Bible alone, Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone.

And discovering scripture points to an authoritative church, is important. What do I mean by that is you understand as a Catholic that we are not Bible alone. We are Bible. Oh, for sure. I mean, that comes out of our tradition, right? But we are sacred scripture and sacred tradition. This is a point of tension that most of these stories have addressed, that you should be aware of that if your children are going to an assembly of God or a non-denominational church, like Joel Osteen's church or something else, this topic will come up. It will come up. Bible alone tension. Number two, the Eucharist. Realizing it's truly the body and blood as the early Christians believed is critical, but a point of tension. And that has to be answered. It has to be addressed in a scriptural way. And many of these books cover that. Number three, early church fathers. There are early church fathers who are game changers when it comes to studying their work. There's a book called Four Witnesses. You might, want to check that out. Four witnesses. Church fathers, these early leaders in the church, first 400

years, Ignatius of Antioch, Ironaeus, St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, tremendous game-changing saints. Soak yourself in them. Find out what they taught. That can become part of what you share with others. And then, number four, a desire for unity. People are tired of doctrinal fragmentation in independent churches. Many of those who have left the Catholic Church and went to non-denominational churches are reaching a threshold now, where they are tired of doctrinal fragmentation. They're tired of churches splitting.

They're tired of manifold visions that cause conflict, vision for the church, that is. And so the desire for unity can become something that they look for. Yeah, that's for sure. And number five, liturgy drawn to sacramental worship with historical continuity. Oh, that was one of mine for sure. That was a big one for me. And they're looking for something that is more structured, something that is more certain. something that is more ancient and not personality driven, for sure.

Now, here's some suggestions for you, just to give you a few suggestions here today. I would really encourage you to come alongside them in their interests and work. Don't make an enemy. Don't fight theologically with those who are struggling, love them, come alongside of them. You know, that grace builds on nature, something that we as Catholics are very, big into. Grace builds on nature. What are they interested in? What are they interested in? Interested in the poor? Border control. Are they interested in climate? Are they interested in sports? Whatever it might be. Don't push them away in every area of their life. Come alongside of them.

Try to take an interest in some of the things that they're interested in. Also, what I would really encourage you to do is pray that God would continue to draw them. I can't. I can't. cannot over-emphasize the power of prayer. St. Monica did that with her son, Augustine. She made it a regular habit out of praying for Augustine. She prayed and prayed and prayed. And guess what? God added two letters to his name,

S-T, with a period, St. Augustine. Pray and ask God to protect them as he draws them to himself. Ask God for a hedge of protection around your church. children, if they're adults now, that God would protect them so that the Holy Spirit can work in their life more effectively. Because you know what? There's a spiritual battle going on here. There really is. And Paul talks about this, that the battle that we're fighting is not just a natural thing, but it is a spiritual battle with principalities and powers in high places. And here's one that I really suggest, pray for laborers to talk to them. Now, you've heard the

scripture before about Jesus leaving the 99 and going after the one. And a lot of insecure Christians are bugged by that because they, ah, you left me. You left me. And Jesus says, stop crying. You were doing well. I went after the 90. I went after the one over there. Well, that one may be your son or your daughter. Or if you got five kids that left the church, it's your five. And ask Jesus to go after the one, your son, your daughter, your children, pray for laborers to intercept them. That's right. At work, in the neighborhood, hobby, golf, whatever it might be, you say, oh, God, I'm praying for laborers to end up on the team that my son is going to be at at the golf tournament.

He is so lost, Lord brings someone into his life. I pray. This is not my idea, by the way. This is Jesus' idea I'm giving you. He said it in Matthew 938. Matthew 938, therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. I'd encourage you to do that just right now. Just mention your child's name and say, Lord, I'm asking you right now.

I'm praying and asking you to send out laborers into the harvest for my son, Bob, Dan, my daughter, Sue, Cindy, Melinda, Thomas, whoever it might be. How about play some good Christian music and introduce music to people? Do you have kids that are really into music? So much good music out there. If you like beautiful, beautiful kind of traditional hymns and things, Kitty Cleveland is really good. Allie Aaliyah is really good and very modern.

Young people just flock to her. Sef Schleader, great singer. pay attention also. Here's the thing. Pay attention to your children or to your grandchildren. Pay attention to your grandchildren. Why? Because in loving your grandchildren, you get another opportunity for them to experience God's love. Your adult children can get that experience again as they observe you loving your grandchildren, especially if you weren't walking with Jesus when you had your children growing up. Now, let's return to that. this issue of atheism for a moment, shall we? Some kids genuinely think they're atheists.

They do. I'm not making light of that. They think they've studied and they really do have come to that conclusion. While others, it's kind of a rebellious phase in their life in a way of sticking it to their parents in a way. I don't even believe in God. In other words, everything that your life stands for, I don't believe in it. Now, what do you do? There's a book that I want to recommend to you. The leader of the atheists in Europe, Dr. Anthony Flew, was very influential in the atheistic movement. And he wrote a book called There Is No God. And he was one of the world's preeminent atheists. And he discloses in his book, there is a God, his new book, there is a God. He discloses how his commitment to follow the argument wherever it leads led him to a belief in God as

creator. Now, this is compelling. It's a very compelling and refreshingly open-minded argument that will forever change the atheism debate. So that's Anthony Flew. I'll put it in the notes. There is a God. Now, the original one is there is no God. And this one has the no God no crossed out and a God in there. Francis Collins wrote a book, The Language of God, a scientist, presents evidence for belief. That's powerful. Now, a lot of people were loved out of the church. People who are loved out of the church were not particularly into apologetics, but more apologetics is defending our faith, but more feelings oriented. They were loved out. They felt more of a family. They felt an attraction. They felt important. If you want to touch them, you're going to have to do some

of the same things, to love them, to come alongside them, and to listen to them. You must learn their language. And what is their language? Their language is the Bible. That's the Bible. They're over at the Assembly of God or a non-denominational church, church of God, United Pentecostal, whatever it might be. You must learn their language, which is the Bible. That's why it's important, one of the reasons why it's so important to get into the great adventure Bible studies, to get to know the story of salvation history, the key events, the key people. I can guarantee it. If you go through the Great Adventure Study, the 24-week study, you are going to know more

than almost the vast, well, the vast majority of non-denominational Christians. If you just do that and learn their language, you must also learn their theological language, which is different. If you go to them and say, oh, I was thinking about the Holy Father today, well, you're non-denominational person will think you're talking about God the Father, not the Pope. So theological language is important. You know, we use a lot of meta language that kind of gets in the way sometimes. And I would encourage you to save the meta language for the dugout talk, you know, in-house talk.

But when you're dealing with people who are outside of the church now, meta-language can be a real trip-up. I remember one time I was teaching scripture and I remember teaching about the magistrate. And if you're thinking right now, I don't know what that word means. Well, I'll tell you in a second. And when I got home from teaching that night, several years ago, I got a phone call at home. And the person said, I loved your teaching, but I was stumped. What's a magisterium? And I said, well, mom, it was my mother, a lifetime Catholic and a good Catholic, you know, didn't know that word.

and I assume that the people in that audience did that night. Theological language can really mix things up. It's like putting a thickener in water and soup and making it like paste for people. That's a good analogy. I don't know where that came from, but maybe I'm hungry. Also, you must learn the basics of Catholicism that are different from those of evangelicals. What makes us different and how is it biblically based and just take one at a time and start to learn it? learn how to present that to someone because a lot of people are very frustrated that the kids have left

but they don't take the time to learn what needs to be communicated that might bring them back okay so that's important now there are certain topics that they left and they are they inhibit them from coming back like the papacy Patrick Madrid has a good book Pope fiction I think I did the forward to that one, if I'm not mistaken a long time ago. Scott Hahn has things on the Blessed Virgin Mary like Hail, Holy Queen, the mother of God in the Word of God. Brand Petri has a book on the Jewish roots of Mary. That's a good, and the Jewish roots of the Eucharist. That's a great one. Scott has one on the Eucharist, the Lamb's Supper. Very, very good. Scripture and tradition. Mark Shea has a good

book. Well, by what authority? And then on the communion of the saints, again, Pat Madrid, any friend of gods is a friend of mine. It's a biblical and historical explanation of the Catholic doctrine of the communion of saints. And let's see, we've got a few more minutes here. How about anger and unforgiveness? If your children are experiencing that, this is difficult. Many people have left because they were hurt and now live in unforgiveness. I would ask you to do this. Pray. Pray and ask God to reveal to you. Is there anything that you have done anything that caused this relationship to go south and they ended up leaving? And ask God to reveal it to you in one way or another. But for all situations, and by the way, if you feel like you did do something, humble yourself and ask for

forgiveness. I've heard this many times from mothers and fathers that said, you know what, if I had everything to do over with, I wouldn't have raised you the way I did. I think we were too hard or we didn't know the Lord at the time and our, you know, I was living vicariously through you or whatever it might be. But pray for discernment. Did you have something to do with this? Pray for laborers in God's vineyard to talk to your children. Oftentimes it's someone they respect, as I said before, and pray. Don't forget to pray. And let me end by saying this. There's no impossible situation. There just isn't. God can break through any heart in his love and draw them to himself.

Don't lose hope. Don't. I don't care how bad this is. I don't care how bad the addiction is. I don't care how bad their behavior is. I don't care how angry they are. I don't care whether they have disassociated you and haven't contacted you in seven years now.

Don't give up. Go up to adoration. Get your body on the floor and intercede and pray for them by name. Make a plan. be faithful start studying some of these things look for opportunities pray for laborers hedge of protection around them the one way you can ensure that they will not come back most likely is to just go on to the next podcast but if you really really are serious about this then i would encourage you to act on some of this and there's a lot more there's people that

know far more than I do. But these are some things that I have put together for you today because I love you. And I always want to provide something that's going to be of benefit to you. This is not entertainment. All right, my friend, I love you. Should we pray together about it? In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, I love you, and I thank you for my friend. And I ask, Lord, that as I lift up my friend, that you would draw their children back, that you would send out laborers, oh God, into the vineyard to speak to their heart. And Lord, I pray that all of us will check our own hearts to see it.

There's something in our, what we've done that might be an obstacle in the relationship. Jesus, help us. We ask you to do the impossible. We ask you to draw our children back home to the Eucharist, to the Blessed Mother, to the papacy, but most of all, to you, Jesus, that they would become like you. and we pray this in your name. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Love you.