Assessing the influence of the home on sustaining churchgoing among young Baptists in Canada: a replication study

Abstract This paper explores the influence of the home on sustaining churchgoing among young Baptists in Canada. Data provided by 126 young Baptists between the ages of 12 and 18 years attending a week-long youth mission and service programme demonstrated that neither personal factors (age and sex) nor psychological factors (extraversion, sensing, thinking, and emotionality) were statistically significant after taking parental church attendance into account. Moreover, these data confirmed fathers' attendance as a statistically significant factor augmenting the effect of mothers’ attendance. The implications of these findings are discussed for pastoral practice. Within the current social context, churches concerned with recruiting and retaining young members may need to concentrate on nurturing and resourcing Christian households (including fathers as well as mothers) in supporting the religious faith and practices of their children. The support and example of both mothers and fathers is important for boys and for girls across the teenage years.