Kara Powell - The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family: Over 100 Practical and Tested Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Kids

Finally! As the parents of two boys, this is a book weve been waiting for. And if you care deeply about your childs faith, youll be as excited about this book as we are. Its deeply grounded and incredibly practical. Dont miss out on this treasure trove of tested ideas youll begin using immediately.

DRS. LES AND LESLIE PARROTT, authors of #1 New York Times bestselling The Parent You Want to Be

Kara Powell and her team are doing some of the best work on student ministries and family life I know. Dont miss it!

JOHN ORTBERG, Senior Pastor, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church

Have you ever wondered whether you have what it takes to be a spiritual leader for your child? This book not only affirms that you do but outlines practical steps, with stories of families who have paved the way with easy to follow ideas. A great guide for parents of all stages!

SHERRY SURRATT, CEO and President, MOPS International

Kara Powell closes an important loop in the strategy to build authentic faith in the next generation. Now parents have a practical resource that will equip them to influence the spiritual direction of their own children. Like Karas other books, this guide reflects a pragmatic approach seasoned with experience, which makes it a unique resource for every home.

REGGIE JOINER, founder and CEO of Orange

For most families, faith tends to be more of an afterthought, something that easily slips away in the long days jam-packed with school, activities, and sports. This book helps moms and dads place faith back at the forefront of their lives with their kids. Your family will be deeply impacted by this profound and practical resource.

MARGARET FEINBERG, author of Wonderstruck and The Sacred Echo

I implicitly trust Kara Powell (and the Fuller Youth Institute team) for excellent analysis and practical advice. I leverage it not only in my work with Q but also when I head home at night to engage with my children.

GABE LYONS, founder of Q; author of The Next Christians

Kara Powell has done it again! She invites us to partake in a treasure chest of parenting wisdom. I have four post-high-school kids, and Im still taking tips from her book. Youll love it. She offers ways to love your young person so that they will flourish.

DAVE GIBBONS, founder of Newsong and Xealots.org; author of Xealots: Defying the Gravity of Normality

This book invites busy and stressed parents to enter a whole new world of parenting. This research-based approach to family life and faith will change not only your kids but you too. Regardless of the ages of your kids, its never too early or too late to point them to the God who sticks with us.

MARK LABBERTON, PhD, President, Fuller Theological Seminary

Dr. Kara Powell serves up the extensive research of the Fuller Youth Institute with a wonderful self-deprecating sense of humor and an unusual honesty that obviously comes as much from how God continues to humble her as a parent as it does from her keen understanding of the many challenges that Christian parents and their children face today. This book is both profound and practical. I highly recommend it.

REV. DR. KEN FONG, Senior Pastor, Evergreen Baptist Church of LA (Rosemead, CA)

Scripture teaches us to train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Multiply that lesson by fifty, and you have an invaluable tool that every parent should read and have in their library. This book is just that, and I highly recommend it.

ANGEL RUIZ, Field Ministry Vice President, Young Life

Sticky Faith, the idea that our kids can enjoy a relationship with God and the church that lasts a lifetime, is our number-one goal as Christian parents. Kara Powell and the FYI team have done a great job to provide this tool to help parents create an environment where kids can see and experience Jesus most clearly: in the lives of those who love him. Simple, doable, profound.

CHAP CLARK, author of Hurt 2.0: Inside the World of Todays Teenagers; Fuller Professor of Youth, Family, and Culture

Other Books Authored or Co-authored by Kara Powell

Sticky Faith:

Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids

Sticky Faith, Youth Worker Edition:

Practical Ideas to Nurture Long-Term Faith in Teenagers

Deep Justice in a Broken World:

Helping Your Kids Serve Others and Right the Wrongs around Them

Deep Justice Journeys:

Fifty Activities to Move from Mission Trips to Missional Living

Deep Ministry in a Shallow World:

Not-So-Secret Findings about Youth Ministry

ZONDERVAN

The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family

Copyright 2014 by Kara Powell

ePub Edition June 2014: ISBN 978-0-310-33898-7

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Powell, Kara Eckmann, 1970

The sticky faith guide for your family : over 100 practical and tested ideas to build lasting faith in kids / Dr. Kara E. Powell.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-310-33897-0 (softcover)

1. Christian education Home training. 2. Christian education of children. 3. Christian education of teenagers. 4. Families Religious life. I. Title.

BV1590.P69 2014

248.8'45 dc23

2014011394

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published in association with the literary agency of WordServe Literary Group, Ltd., 10152 S. Knoll Circle, Highlands Ranch, CO 80130.

Cover photography: Adrea Scheidler

Interior illustration: iStockphoto

Interior design: Beth Shagene

First Printing June 2014

To Dave,

I love learning and living Sticky Faith with you and our kids.

You are the most Christlike man I know.

Contents

The statistics are staggering.

Todays generation of young people is not thrilled with the church and is leaving it and its faith behind.

Because of that reality, this is not just another book about the family. Its so much more important to the core of our faith both now and in the future. I am thrilled that we now have a hands-on book that brings together more than one hundred practical and tested ideas to build a lasting faith in kids.

While I grieve the young people who leave the faith, I take hope in this books message that there is a much greater chance kids will stay connected to God if faith is modeled and talked about in the home. We know that preaching, lecturing, or ignoring faith issues in our families doesnt work. But developing faith-building rituals and conversations like the ones found in this book do work. That is why I encourage you to get started using the practical tools in this book to develop those faith conversations with your children.