The Crisis of Fatherlessness

America is facing a crisis. Crime, poverty, addiction, and educational failures are skyrocketing, but the root cause often gets ignored: the breakdown of the family. A two-parent household is not just a nice ideal — it’s essential to solving many of society’s problems.

Collapse of Family Units

Kendall Qualls, founder of TakeCharge, argues that America has lost its way. “We’ve got to get back to the roots of faith, family, and education,” he says, emphasizing that the collapse of the traditional family unit is at the core of America’s woes. In the past, 80% of black children were raised in two-parent homes. Today? That number is reversed — 80% of black children are now born into fatherless homes. But this isn’t just a black issue — fatherlessness is on the rise in white and Hispanic communities, too.

The Devastating Impact of Fatherlessness

The statistics are staggering: fatherless children are more likely to suffer from poverty, substance abuse, educational failure, and run-ins with the law. TakeCharge’s data shows that 75% of kids in substance abuse centers and 71% of high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. America now has the highest rate of children living in single-parent households in the world. That’s one in four children, or 24 million kids, without a father.

As Qualls bluntly states: “We don’t have a systemic racism problem, we have a fatherless home problem.” And the damage is undeniable. “Our prisons are full of young men who would love to have had a father growing up.”

We Must Return to the Family Unit

Qualls insists there’s hope. Research shows that when kids are raised in two-parent homes with a strong faith component, academic gaps vanish. “The formula works,” Qualls says. Marriage, family, and faith lower poverty by 80%. It’s a simple, proven solution, but it’s one that’s been ignored by those pushing other agendas.

Qualls calls on the church to take action and says that pastors can’t sit on the sidelines anymore. “We need our pastors to step up to the plate,” he urges, by promoting strong families and supporting fathers in the community. “We’ve got [missions] right here in our country and in our backyards, in our public schools. And that’s what we need to go into.”

Faith-Based Education: A Key to Success

TakeCharge is already taking the lead, with initiatives like the Fatherhood Impact Award that recognizes fathers who are leading their families and involved in their churches. They’re even helping churches start in-demand, quality, Christ-centered schools where faith and academics are taught in tandem.

Churches are catching onto the vision and requests to help start schools are flooding in. “More churches want to open schools than we have resources for,” Qualls shares. To date, he has received requests from churches in Arizona, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

Faith First

The answer to America’s greatest challenges isn’t more government intervention or political promises. It’s restoring the two-parent faith-filled family, that will change the trajectory of our communities and country. As Qualls urges: "The church has a mission field right here in our backyards." When the church takes the lead, we can reverse fatherlessness, break the cycle of poverty, and give children a fighting chance. It’s time to get back to the basics. Families and faith in God.

So where do we start? By pointing men to Jesus Christ. When a man comes to Christ, he begins to feel a sense of responsibility for his family. And everything starts to change from there. Based on what we are hearing from the public, "This Was Your Life" is the number one tract that has pointed men to Jesus. It is available in several versions. It hits them right where they live. Pulpits and mission fields are populated right now with men who point to this tract as the starting point in their Christian life.

A man who connects to his heavenly father suddenly discovers he wants to be a good father himself.