The first part of a two-part interview with Richard Ross, co-author with Gus Reyes of 30 Days: Turning the Hearts of Parents & Teenagers Toward Each Other .

Authors Richard Ross and Gus Reyes have discovered that broken heart connections between parents and teenagers can be repaired in 30 days. This comes as good news to youth leaders keenly aware that the majority of their students experience pain at home. Many parents, preoccupied with career, money, divorce, midlife dating, and social life, have emotionally abandoned a large percentage of teenagers. Teenagers who have been emotionally abandoned - or even emotionally neglected - try to protect their wounds by pushing parents away.

30 Days: Turning The Hearts Of Parents & Teenagers Toward Each Other

Wounded teenagers who push parents away also push away the faith, ethics, and morality of their parents. Ross and Reyes have developed a simple yet powerful process for reversing much of this damage in only 30 days. The following is an interview with Richard Ross, co-author with Gus Reyes of the new resource, 30 Days: Turning the Hearts of Parents and Teenagers Toward Each Other .

Q: Is there really a crisis related to church teenagers and families?

Richard Ross (RR): Over 80 percent of active youth group members are nowhere to be found within a year after high school graduation. That ought to scare us to death. Not only are those students our sons and daughters, they are our future ministers and church leaders. And, they are the generation that God could mobilize to bring revival to His church. Church leaders ought to rally around this issue with the resolve our nation demonstrated to put a man on the moon.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know the core issue is the home. Many clear voices are right on target calling parents to become the primary spiritual leaders to their children. We absolutely must call and equip our parents to teach biblical truth and to integrate it into the flow of daily life. We must call and equip them to model that same truth before their children. Abdicating that role to the church has just about done us in.

I just want to add one more vital element to the discussion. When I teach on this issue, I sometimes take a three-legged stool to class with me. The stool represents spiritual impact on one's children. The seat represents the intercessory prayer that must encircle our relationships with them. One leg represents teaching children the Truth - in formal settings at home and in the flow of family life. The second leg represents modeling the Truth.

But something still is missing. Parents doing an acceptable job of teaching and modeling Truth may still loose their children to the church or even to the faith. Several hundred hours of prayer, study, and research has driven Gus Reyes, my colleague, and me to a new conclusion. The third leg on the stool is a heart connection between parent and child.

It is God's desire to turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents. On average, when that heart connection becomes broken, spiritual impact stops flowing from one generation to the next.

Q: How does that happen?

RR: The loss of a heart connection with one's parent is painful. It's a developmental characteristic of teenagers that they will avoid pain almost at any cost. They try to avoid continuing pain from a broken heart connection by pushing parents away. Consciously or subconsciously they simply decide parents no longer will be important to them.

Here's the key issue. When teenagers push their parents away, they push away the entire package. Among other things, they push away the faith, values, and morality of the parents. This is a foolish strategy of course, but to the teenager wanting protection from pain it makes perfect sense. Teaching and modeling of the Truth may continue, but the impact stalls because the teenager simply has decided that parents and all they represent no longer are important.

Q: How do you think typical church parents break a heart connection with their teenagers?

RR: A few of our parents are mean, but the majority break a heart connection with teenagers by emotionally neglecting them. Parents preoccupied with career (including ministerial positions), possessions, divorce, remarriage, social life, or other issues simply lose focus on their kids. I've been a local-church youth minister for thirty years, but only recently have teenagers said to me, "I'm so lonely in my own house."

How this generation of parents got that way requires more discussion than this interview will allow. Suffice it to say parents whose minds have not been transformed by Scripture will be a product of their culture. It's no surprise that parents today place high value on their own happiness, peace of mind, and prosperity. Both parents come home after work with no emotional fuel left for children. Or their new love interest after a failed marriage gets all their affection. As a result, the heart connection with children breaks - not by attack but by neglect.

Q: What exactly is a heart connection?

RR: We would expect the heart connection between parent and child to mirror the connection between Father God and His children. I agree with biblical counselors who believe this connection primarily is composed of unfailing love, biblical significance, and true security. God loves me because I'm His, not because of my performance. Teenagers with a healthy heart connection have parents who visibly demonstrate love regardless of grades, appearance, or behavior.

God causes me to feel significant by revealing I'm his unique creation, worthy of His sacrifice, and in proud possession of a mission He's given to no other. Teenagers need that same sense of significance almost as much as they need oxygen.

God surrounds me with ultimate security. I know He will never walk out on me and that He is going to be the same today, tomorrow, and forever. Teenagers with a heart connection know their parents are in a lifetime marriage, that they won't walk out of their lives, and that their warmth and love are rock solid.

Q: Are you saying that just giving your kids unfailing love, a sense of biblical significance, and true security means they are going to turn out fine?

RR: No, that one leg of the stool doesn't stand alone any more than the other two. A strong heart connection is the pipeline between parent and child. Once parents repair the pipeline, then they may begin flooding their kids with the Truth. Teenagers who no longer have a need to push parents away begin reflecting that Truth.

Q: What about discipline?

RR: Biblical discipline is at the heart of teaching and modeling the Truth. Wise parents are unwavering in their responsiveness to foolish behavior. Parenting with consistent, firm, fair discipline is hard work but central to rearing godly teenagers. Parents should follow the example of God, who disciplines His children and surrounds them with His warmth at the same time. (Jeremiah 31:20).

But here's a common scenario. Teenagers with empty emotional tanks foolishly decide they must get their own needs met. (Proverbs 22:15). Their foolish strategy for meeting their own needs usually requires disobedience to parents. Parents frightened and even angered when they see their teenagers disobeying crank up the discipline. But here's the key - they turn off warmth, quiet talks, gentle words, time together, touches of love, and so on. When unfailing love, significance, and security stop flowing - the heart connection breaks. As we already have noted, when that heart connection breaks then teenagers are going to push parents away completely. Then teenagers are going to do worse things - which requires even more drastic discipline - and the cycle continues.

Read more in the second part of this two-part interview with Richard Ross, co-author with Gus Reyes of 30 Days: Turning the Hearts of Parents & Teenagers Toward Each Other.