Jesus Creed
This series on Kara Powell and Chap Clark’s new book, Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids, is by my friend and a local youth pastor, Syler Thomas.
What can we do as parents and ministers to help our children find a faith that lasts? That is the question that Kara Powell and Chap Clark address in their book Sticky Faith. The book (along with another aimed at youth workers) is the culmination of six years of research conducted by the Fuller Youth Institute.
Over the past 14 years that I’ve worked in youth ministry, my wife and I have watched and wondered about why certain kids’ faith sticks, while others don’t. And we’ve seen it all: kids from non-Christian homes whose faith thrives years after they’ve left high school and kids from strong Christian homes whose faith struggles or disappears altogether. Is it just random? We have 4 kids of our own, the oldest of whom is 13. What is it that we need to be doing to help our own kids have a faith that lasts?
Powell and Clark’s book’s “big idea” which they share in chapter 1 is that it is who you the parent are as a person that shapes your kid.
“How you express and live out your faith may have a greater impact on your son or daughter than anything else.” (24)
They quote Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith who sums it up this way: “When it comes to kids’ faith, parents get what they are.”
In subsequent posts, I will unpack some of what Powell and Clark say goes into developing “sticky faith” in young people, but today, let’s start with just that big idea.
Do you agree with how Christian Smith has summed it up? How have you seen this play out in your life or in the lives of those around you?
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