Sticky Faith

Sticky Faith delivers positive and practical ideas to nurture within your kids a living, loving faith that lasts a lifetime. Research indicates that almost half of high school seniors drift from their faith after graduation. Struck by this staggering statistic, and recognizing its ramifications, the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI) conducted the "College Transition Project" in an effort to identify the relationships and best practices that can set young people on a trajectory of lifelong faith and service. This easy-to-read guide presents both a compelling rationale and a powerful strategy to show parents how to actively encourage their children’s spiritual growth so that it will stick with them into adulthood and empower them to develop a living, lasting faith. Written by Fuller Youth Institute Executive Director Dr. Kara E. Powell and youth expert Chap Clark--authors known for the integrity of their research and the intensity of their passion for young people--Sticky Faith is geared to spark a movement that empowers adults to develop robust and long-term faith in kids of all ages. Further engage your family and church with the Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family, Sticky Faith curriculum, and Sticky Faith youth worker edition. Sticky Faith is also available in Spanish, Cómo criar jóvenes de fe sólida.

Many of the statistics you read about teenagers and faith can be alarming. Recent studies show that 40-50 percent of kids who are connected to a youth group throughout their senior year will fail to stick with their faith in college. As youth workers are pouring their time and energy into the students in their ministries, they are often left wondering if they’ve done enough to equip their students to carry their faith into adulthood. Fuller Youth Institute has done extensive research in the area of youth ministry and teenage development. In Sticky Faith, the team at FYI presents youth workers with both a theological/philosophical framework and practical programming ideas that develop long-term faith in teenagers. Each chapter presents a summary of FYI’s quantitative and qualitative research, along with the implications of this research, including program ideas suggested and tested by youth ministries nationwide. This resource will give youth pastors what they need to help foster a faith that sticks with all the teenagers in their group long after they’ve left the youth room.

Both national leaders with broad spheres of influence as well as local, grassroots practitioners are waking up to the reality that 50% of their graduating seniors struggle deeply with their faith in college. Offering a few special “Senior Seminars” or giving seniors a “graduation Bible” and hoping for the best are both too little and too late. FYI’s research confirms that it’s never too early to start developing faith that continues to grow and lasts. Sticky Faith gives youth workers both a theological/philosophical framework and a host of practical programming ideas that develop long-term faith in teenagers.

Anyone who serves teenagers today knows that more and more young people are eager to make a difference in the world. When students participate in short-term missions, service, and justice causes, parents and youth leaders hope these experiences will lead to real transformation. But research shows that our efforts don’t always stick. If we truly want short-term work to translate into long-term change, leaders and students must spend more time before, during, and after service projects preparing for and processing their experiences. The sessions in this leader’s guide will help you create experiences that stick—both for the students you take and the communities you serve. This guidebook offers a host of practical and field-tested exercises for each phase of your experience, whether it’s a half-day local service project or a two-week trip overseas. Participants will engage in hands-on experiences to gain new insights about themselves, their relationship with God, their teammates, and the world we’re called to love and serve. Each of these steps is a catalyst in helping students apply what they have learned in the field to their own lives back at home. Also included are ideas to help get parents and the whole church engaged in service together. A companion student journal is also available to boost the potential for personal application throughout the journey.

If you are eager for an authentic action plan you can use every day to point your kids toward lasting, lifelong faith, this is it. Building on the bestselling go-to guidebook Sticky Faith, The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family shows parents how to actively encourage their children's spiritual growth so that it will stick with them into adulthood and empower them to develop a living, lasting faith. This accessible guide presents more than 100 practical, easy-to-implement ideas to set your family on a trajectory of lifelong faith, including how to . . . Handle mistakes and show forgiveness Connect and relate to your teenager Talk faith with your kids Build faith during downtime or on vacation Make your house a hub of faith Be a family of service And more! Perfect for busy parents who don't have time and inclination to read--yet grounded in sophisticated, academically verified data by the Fuller Youth Institute--this guidebook is a welcome resource you can turn to time and time again for fresh ideas and inspiration.

Many American Christians today are not sure what spiritual maturity is or how to get there. Thomas Bergler has written this accessible guide to help both individuals and whole faith communities to grow spiritually. Bergler claims that spiritual maturity - which he defines as basic competence in the Christian life - is not only desirable but attainable, and he identifies its character from pertinent New Testament passages. He further offers a wealth of practical, research-based guidance for effectively fostering spiritual maturity in Christian believers and entire congregations. -- Publisher.

Current research shows what many in the Christian community already know: young people are leaving the church. This raises important questions: Why are young people leaving? How can the church respond? Some have responded to this issue out of a posture of fear and anxiety, trying to find new ways to strengthen doctrinal beliefs or practices of faith formation and discipleship. What if the best response isn't to strengthen our theology or tighten our hold on the lives of young people? What if the best response is a posture of love that lets young people go? Using the insights of philosopher Charles Taylor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Poetic Youth Ministry argues that the church must take seriously the formative power of social and cultural patterns that shape the social imaginaries of young people. Rather than seeing the problem as young people abandoning faith, the Christian community should see the issue as young people exchanging one form of faith for another. This allows the church to approach the issue from a posture of love, calling young people to embrace their identity in the new humanity revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Most typical youth ministries today produce nice, obedient kids who behave themselves--and then leave the church and the faith. Even those who remain struggle to extend their own faith beyond youth group. They seem like "good kids," but their lives and decisions outside youth group aren't oriented towards Jesus. Clearly that is not our goal. So what are we doing wrong? And how can we better serve the unique needs of the most anxious, adaptive, and diverse generation in history? If you're tired of youth ministry that fails to change lives, it's time to change youth ministry. Building on two decades of the Fuller Youth Institute's work and incorporating extensive new research and interviews, Faith Beyond Youth Group identifies the reasons youth ministry often fails both short-term and long-term, and offers five ways adult youth leaders can cultivate character for a lifetime of growing closer to Jesus rather than drifting away. It shows leaders how to cultivate trust, model growth, teach for transformation, practice together, and make meaning so that the teenagers can become adults who hold fast to the truth 24/7 and boldly live out a robust faith in a watching world.