Providing a faith that will stick with our young people

 I just finished reading an interesting book titled Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids by Kara Powell and Chap Clark. While we often complain about how so many of our young people abandon the church and even leave the faith after they move out of their parent's home, few of us do anything to address it. This book offered both parents and the church specific steps they can take to help young people develop a personal faith of their own that will stick after they leave home. 

The church has an important role to play in the faith development of young people. Too many youth groups are built around activities in an effort to get young people to attend, but these activities seldom help develop a deeper faith in those who do attend. Believe it or not, older youth are less interested in the games and activities than they are in other things that can occur in youth group settings. Research discussed in the book found that the number one thing high school seniors wanted in their youth group was the opportunity to discuss things important to their lives. They have questions about life and about faith that they want answered. When the church does not give them a safe place to ask their questions and seek answers to those questions, their young people will go elsewhere with their questions. When they do that they may get very different answers than they would have received from the church.

As important as the church is, the family is more important to the development of faith in their children. Young children carefully watch their parent's actions to learn what's important. What the parents say is not nearly as important as what they do. If the parents claim that faith and church is important, but their children do not see evidence of that in their parent's lives, they will determine that these things are not really important after all. As the children become older, they will become more verbal in their questioning of the disconnect between what the parents say and what they do. One thing is certain, young people will always choose the actions of the parents over their words when deciding what is really important in life.

The authors of the book provides research-based steps on what both churches and parents can do to help young people develop a sticky faith. None of their recommendations are difficult to do. The main challenge in my opinion is doing them consistently, and consistency is a key component to this process. Young people need to see the adults in their lives living out their Christian faith in every situation.

If you work with young people in your church or if you are a parent with small children in the home, you should read this book. When your young people leave for college or begin a life of their own, I think you'll be glad you put into practice some of the recommendations found in this book.