Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B005OB66QC | Format: EPUB
Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids Description
Most parents would give anything to anchor their children with a vibrant faith that "sticks" and continues to mature long-term. Yet despite this deep desire, research indicates that approximately 40-50% of high-school seniors drift from their faith after graduation. In response to this problem, the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI) has launched the College Transition Project, a national longitudinal study following 400 high-school seniors during their first three years in college. This provocative and needed research is geared to spark a movement that empowers parents, churches, leaders, and adults of all ages to develop robust and long-term faith in kids.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 5 hours and 48 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Zondervan
- Audible.com Release Date: September 20, 2011
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B005OB66QC
For those who care about the faith of the next generation, the book Sticky Faith is a must read. Youth experts Kara Powell and Chap Clark record the findings of the "College Transition Project," which is a six-year research study of over 500 graduating seniors. Here is their stated goal: "To better understand the dynamics of youth group graduates' transition to college, and to pinpoint the steps that leaders, churches, parents, and seniors themselves can take to help students stay on the Sticky Faith path" (18).
According to their research, between 40 and 50 percent of kids who graduate from a church or youth group will fail to stick with their faith in college. Only 20 percent of those who left the faith planned to. That means 80 percent of those who abandoned the faith were planning to stick with it. On the positive side, they estimate that between 30 and 60 percent return in their late twenties. But this still means between 40 and 70 percent of students who leave their faith never return.
Powell and Clark make a few initial points I found particularly helpful. First, parents influence the faith of students more than anyone (or anything) else: "More than even your support, its who you are that shapes your kid" (21). My research and experience as a teacher confirms that this is true. Second, there is no sticky faith bullet. There is no single reason why kids leave and no single reason that will make them stay. Young people are complex and their faith is influenced by a host of factors.
The core of building a sticky faith, say Powell and Clark, is helping kids develop a clear and honest understanding of the gospel and biblical faith. Sadly, most Christian kids understand the gospel in terms of what we do.
Sticky Faith
By Kara E. Powell and Dr. Chap Clark
ISBN 978-0-310-32932-9
Zondervan Publishing
Reviewed by Clint Walker
Drop into many churches in the United States and you will hear parents and grandparents making the same complaint. The church will be full of older folks, with a few middle-aged people sprinkled in. In most of these churches you will hear how the church was once full of children, but now there are hardly any young adults or children present. They will go on to say that some of their children live nearby, and yet they cannot get them to join them in their church involvement. "What are we to do?" they ask, "How could have things been different?"
Into this world of concern about young people retaining their faith come the Fuller Youth Institute, and its leaders Kara Powell and Chap Clark. Combining keen insight with painstaking research, Powell and Clark believed they have uncovered some thoughtful ways parents can raise their kids so that their faith "sticks" even after they leave home. Their learning is compiled in the book Sticky Faith. Much of what they have to share is very helpful, and parents would be wise to heed it.
Over and over again, children and teenagers cite their parents as their primary role models and their heroes. Thus, Sticky Faith directly challenges parents to be very intentional in their child's spiritual development, and addresses them as the primary influencers that they are.
The book challenges parents to be involved in their children's lives on a number of fronts. First, it encourages parents to live their faith transparently before their children, and to invite their children into a family that functions as a community of faith.
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