Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Dr. Kara E. Powell is an educator, professor, youth minister, author, and speaker. She is the Executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute and a faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary (see www.fulleryouthinstitute.org). Kara also serves as an Advisor to Youth Specialties and currently volunteers in student ministries at Lake Avenue church in Pasadena, CA.  She is the author of many books including Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids (with Chap Clark) and Deep Justice Journeys. Kara lives in Pasadena with her husband, Dave, and their children, Nathan, Krista, and Jessica.

Chap Clark, PhD (Univ. of Denver), has more than 25 years of experience in youth and family ministry. He is Associate Provost for Regional Campuses and Special Projects and Professor of Youth, Family, and Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. Chap’s extensive books, articles, and videos focus primarily on relationships. Among his many books are Hurt and Hurt 2.0; Disconnected: Parenting Teens in a MySpace World (coauthored with his wife, Dee); and Deep Justice in a Broken World. Chap and Dee live in Gig Harbor, Washington.

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Sticky Faith

Zondervan

Contents

foreword by John Ortberg and Jim Candy...........................................9acknowledgments..................................................................111. the not-so-sticky-faith reality...............................................132. the sticky gospel.............................................................313. sticky identity...............................................................494. sticky faith conversations....................................................695. a sticky web of relationships.................................................936. sticky justice................................................................1237. a sticky bridge out of home...................................................1498. the ups and downs of the sticky faith journey.................................175appendix 1: The College Transition Project Research Overview.....................193appendix 2: The Hurt Project Research Overview...................................203notes............................................................................213

Chapter One

My parents are probably the biggest influence out of anybody. — Robyn

Both my mom and my dad have spent hours and hours and hours through my life talking to me about what it means to be a Christian, what it means to follow God, and what that should entail and how to do it. — Billy

Tiffany had failed to turn out like Phil and Amy had hoped.

Like most parents, Phil and Amy had great visions of who their daughter would become as she entered high school and college.

Their expectations were high in part because Tiffany's first steps down the yellow brick road of adolescence showed great promise. As a ninth grader, Tiffany was deeply committed to knowing Jesus and making Jesus known. While friends shared horror stories about their kids' sullen attitudes, moodiness, and flagrant disregard for family rules, Tiffany was generally pleasant and obedient. Tiffany had lots of friends, but she also enjoyed being with her parents. And Phil and Amy enjoyed being with her.

From the first Sunday that she walked into the high school ministry at the church where I (Kara) served as one of the youth pastors, Tiffany plunged into every church activity possible. Any event that was offered — youth choir, beach days, weekend ser vice trips to Tijuana — Tiffany was there. Not only was she there, but she usually showed up to church at least thirty minutes early to see if she could help.

And help she did. Tiffany was especially good at making posters. She would spread paper across the youth room floor and try to come up with creative images to promote upcoming events or reinforce the teaching topic for the next week. When we made posters together, we talked about our mutual desire to know Jesus and help others know him too.

Sure, Tiffany wasn't perfect, but the other youth group parents envied how easy Phil and Amy seemed to have it with their daughter.

Around eleventh grade Tiffany started to change. She began to wear dark, heavy makeup.

Her skirts grew shorter. A lot shorter.

Phil and Amy found themselves locking horns with Tiffany over her wardrobe.

Soon they found themselves locking horns with Tiffany over just about everything. Grades, curfew, friends — everything was a battle.

Tiffany no longer came early to church. When I asked her if she wanted to help with posters, she said she was too busy. Throughout Tiffany's senior year, her involvement at church grew more and more sporadic.

Six months after Tiffany graduated from high school, she became pregnant. Confused and ashamed, she wanted nothing to do with our church. Or me.

Phil called me from the hospital the day Tiffany gave birth to her son. Although Tiffany had avoided me during her pregnancy, I asked her dad if she would be okay with my visiting her that day and meeting her son. She said yes.

Phil, Tiffany, and the new baby were together in the hospital room. After we chatted for a few minutes, Tiffany offered to let me hold her son. It was the first time I had ever held a baby who was only a few hours old. I told her so, and she grinned.

Phil tried to grin, but I could see the deep sadness in his eyes. He looked at me and I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking it too.

Why did Tiffany's faith — a faith that seemed so vibrant at first — fail to stick?

Kids' Faith Isn't Sticking

Parents and churches are waking up to the harsh reality that there are more Tiffanys than we had previously realized. The board of the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group representing sixty denominations and dozens of ministries, has passed a resolution deploring "the epidemic of young people leaving the evangelical church."

But is it really an epidemic? Does the data suggest that kids' exit from the faith is more like a trickle, or a flood?

As we have examined other research, our conclusion is that 40 to 50 percent of kids who graduate from a church or youth group will fail to stick with their faith in college.

Let's translate that statistic to the kids you know. Imagine your child and his or her friends standing in a line and facing you. (I'm sure they are smiling adoringly at you.) Just like you used to do on the playground to divide into teams, number off these kids, "one, two, one, two, one, two ..." The ones will stick with their faith; the twos will shelve it.

And they'll be making the decision about whether to shelve their faith after your most intensive season of parenting is over.

I'm not satisfied with a 50 percent rate of Sticky Faith.

Are you?

I doubt it.

Here's another alarming statistic: only 20 percent of college students who leave the faith planned to do so during high school. The remaining 80 percent intended to stick with their faith but didn't.

As has been rightly pointed out, young adulthood is often a season of inevitable experimentation for teenagers who were raised in the church and are learning to make the faith their own. That hunch is supported by the encouraging statistic that somewhere between 30 and 60 percent of youth group graduates who abandon their faith and the church return to both in their late twenties. Yet those young adults have already faced significant forks in the road regarding friendship, marriage, vocation, worldview, and lifestyle, all while their faith has been pushed to the back seat. They will have to live with the consequences of those decisions for the rest of their lives. Plus, while we can celebrate those who eventually place their faith back in the driver's seat, we still grieve over the 40 to 70 percent who won't.

College Students Gone Wild

From the movie Animal House to the Asher Roth song "I Love College," college life has been depicted as a nonstop merry-go-round of sex, drugs, and alcohol, with a few hours of study thrown in here and there. Granted, sex, drugs, and...