Raising Kids Who Have 'Sticky Faith'

Growing up, I was a part of a great church and a great youth group. Our leaders loved Jesus and really cared about us; we took fun and exciting trips, went to amazing life-changing camps, had incredible experiences together. We studied the Bible, worshiped God, challenged each other, learned and grew together. And then we all moved away to college... As a 19-year-old who had gotten plugged into a great campus ministry and started attending Summit, it was difficult for me to understand why so many of my close friends from youth group had chosen a completely different direction in life. Please don’t hear me say that I chose a perfect path or that I made no mistakes; that would be incorrect. It’s also worth noting that many of my friends who wandered away from their faith in college came back to it later in life. But why? What made some of us stick with our faith through college and beyond? Was there anything different about those of us who “stayed the course” and those of us who wandered away? Or was it all just chance?

Dr. Kara Powell and the Fuller Youth Institute would persuade you that there was something different. That there are, in fact, commonalities among students who stick with their faith through college and beyond, or have, as they call it, “sticky faith.” Their findings have not come through a hunch or a few interviews they’ve done or even their own personal experience; they’ve come through research (and call me nerdy, but I love good research).

That’s why we’re bringing Kara—who wrote the book Sticky Faith about this very subject—to Summit on February 20th-21st for A Parent Seminar. We want to partner with parents of kids of all ages as they raise their kids to have lasting faith, sticky faith. As Kara says, kids will “be making the decision about whether to shelve their faith after your most intensive season of parenting is over.” So what can parents do now to ensure that their kids have sticky faith (other than pray like crazy)? Kara and her team have a few helpful ideas, and we thinks it’s worth a portion of your weekend to attend.

If you have kids—from little ones to high schoolers—we hope you’ll join us on Friday, February 20th and Saturday, February 21st. Get all the details, check out a video from Kara, and sign up for A Parent Seminar here. And if you have time, go ahead and pick up a copy of Sticky Faith! 

Tracy Beeson is Summit's Family Ministries Director.