Parents with children as young as 5 are calling CrossRoads Counseling Services and saying, "I need help with my child."

Kids are being diagnosed with rising rates of oppositional-defiant disorder, autism, Asperger's syndrome, bipolar disorder.

They're cutting themselves, suffering from eating disorders and engaging in oral sex.

And these are kids in churches.

"What's going on with our children?" Kathy Neff, the executive director of CrossRoads Counseling, wonders.

Why, if faith makes a difference in people's lives, is it so hard to tell the difference between churched and unchurched kids?

For the nonprofit CrossRoads Counseling Services, one answer is that parents — even born-again Christian parents — don't have the skills they need to nurture their children in spirituality and character.

"They want to," said counselor Sharon Wegman, "but they don't know how."

That's why the Leola center will be offering a new seminar, "Empowering Your Children to Become Spiritual Champions," on Tuesday, Sept. 18.

The goal is to help parents to discipline well, to identify and develop their children's gifts and to teach kids to accept legitimate authority.

Growing a "spiritual champion" takes more than praying and reading the Bible with children, Wegman said.

"We don't see that the children who are being educated in the church ... are growing up to operate in the things of God," said Wegman, who will lead the seminar.

"There's a big disconnect."

Model what you preach
CrossRoads Counseling, which just started its seventh year of ministry, sees the disconnect because many of its clients comes from church families.

Nationally, statistics indicate that adults and children in churches have the same rates of many personal and relationship dysfunctions as the rest of society — "maybe higher," Wegman said, "because we hide it."

"A champion is someone who is really able to defend a cause," she said. "I don't feel like I see young adults" who are able to do that.

Wegman identified authority as one hot-button issue.

"If you are not the authority in your house, which we see less and less," she said, kids rebel or turn passive.

But being "a godly authority" in the home doesn't mean dictatorship.

"We will rebel against whatever tries to control us," she said. "Parenting needs to be out of relationship, not out of religion or law."

Parents also should "be able to walk in authority themselves," to accept authority and show their children what that means. They should model accountability to others.

"Sometimes it's hard to even teach our children things like being socially approachable," Wegman pointed out, because "parents are enabling and doing everything for the child," rather than raise a child who is responsible for herself.

"I see children who are exiting high school who are not able to do laundry," she said, or look adults in the eye, or write thank-you notes.

Many kids coming from born-again homes "still don't even know who they are," said Neff. "How do we help a parent to understand we're not nurturing what God put into our child?"

The problem, she added, is that "most of the time, it's not nurtured in us." If parents can't recognize their own spiritual gifts, they won't know how to develop those of their children.

Neff has a 5-year-old client who constantly challenges adult authority. Implicit in that challenge, Neff said, is the girl's leadership qualities.

She has asked the girl's mother, "Can you identify and work with the gift of leadership?"

Inaccurate impressions
In general, though, parents think they're doing fine.

As researcher George Barna reported in a 2002 study, high percentages of churched parents rated themselves as doing a good to excellent job on such measures as helping children to develop a biblical worldview, consistently enforcing behavior standards and nurturing children's relationship with God.

But other churched adults rated the same parents far less highly — for instance, 80 percent of parents said they were doing a good job on behavior, while just 26 percent of adults around them agreed.

"We often operate in that place of denial," Wegman said.

"... I think a lot of parents are inconsistent in what they say they believe and what they act out in their lives."

Finances, for instance: Parents may say that giving to God and generosity are important, but they might not show that in their own giving.

Or integrity: "Am I keeping my word?

"... What do we take as more truthful, what someone says or what someone does?" Wegman asked.

Children need to be part of the solution.

"They have a place of accountability within themselves," Neff said. "... A 5-year-old can be taught accountability."

"Most children's worldview is formed by age 9," Wegman said.

"We really have a short window of time to be impacting a child and shaping their worldview."

Building champions
The disconnect indicates that parents need guidance. That's where the "Spiritual Champions" seminar comes in.

Wegman taught a version of the seminar in 2003 at her church in Reading. She was inspired by Barna's book, "Transforming Children Into Spiritual Champions."

Tuesday, she'll discuss what parents should and shouldn't do. She'll use a modified "gifts profile" test that can be taken both by children and adults to identify spiritual strengths.

One solution is for parents to ask other adults how they're doing, but "a lot of parents get defensive about that."

She recommends more feedback from children, either in one-on-one conversations about "how am I doing as a parent?" or during family meetings.

"Are they praying with you about the decisions of the family?" Wegman said.

"As my children got older, I would sometimes ask their opinion of things," added Sharon Day, the CrossRoads administrative director. "It would stop them dead in their tracks."

Wegman bases some of her teachings on Luke 2, the story of Jesus as a 12-year-old going to the Temple in Jerusalem rather than leaving for Nazareth with his family. The Gospel says that when Mary and Joseph finally found Jesus, he went home with them "and was obedient to them."

Experience with clients shows "it's not just going to church that creates a [successful] child," Wegman said. "We have to start doing things differently."

"... If we raise spiritual champions, people will follow champions."

"Empowering Your Children to Become Spiritual Champions" will be held from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 18, at CrossRoads Counseling, 14 Keystone Court, Leola. Fee is $25 per person or $45 per married couple. For information, e-mail office@crossroadscs.org, or phone 556-4673. The Web site is www.crossroadscs.org.