I’ll be heading off this week for a conference in Dallas which is called D6, named after the oft-quoted passage in Deuteronomy 6 which commands parents to know the commandments of God and to “impress” them on their children in the normal routines of daily life (6:6-9). Several of us from College Avenue Baptist are going and I’m looking forward to hanging out with them and some of my friends who will be there like Doug Fields, Tim Smith and Mark Matlock. There are quite a few good speakers lined up for this conference and I’m looking forward to hearing them and attending some of the seminars. I’ve been asked to be on a panel for one of the sessions, to talk a little bit about how youth ministry intersects with family ministry today. Should be a good conversation. If you would like to peek in on the conference this week, you can do that online by visiting http://d6conference.com/.

A few weeks ago I got a shiny blue package in the mail from Zondervan Publishing House containing a prepublication copy of Sticky Faith, the new book for parents by Kara Powell and Chap Clark. The book has a catchy title and from the looks of the fancy packaging, it’s going to be marketed pretty well by the publisher. That’s a good thing if you’re an author!

I was eager to read my copy of Sticky Faith not only because it’s a topic I’m interested in, but because of who wrote it. My package included a nice personal note from Kara who I’m proud to say was a very bright student of mine when I was teaching youth ministry classes at Bethel Seminary in San Diego about 15 years ago. She went on to Fuller Seminary, got her PhD and now heads up the Fuller Youth Institute. There’s no question that she has become one of this generation’s most respected youth ministry voices.

Chap and I go back a long way, having worked together for many years at Youth Specialties. He also teaches at Fuller Seminary and his 2004 book Hurt has established him as one of the leading authorities on adolescent culture.

Simply put, Sticky Faith is a book for parents on how to pass lasting faith on to their kids. It’s not the first on this subject of course. (Ahem, now would be a good time to plug my book Generation to Generation, right?) There are quite a few good books coming out these days to help parents raise their children up in the faith.

The unique spin that Powell and Clark give this topic is found in the word “sticky.” They express concern, as we all do, that faith just doesn’t seem to “stick” with kids who populate our youth groups. “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.” Some researchers have put this percentage a lot higher (anywhere from 65 to 80 percent) but Powell and Clark, while being a bit more optimistic, make it clear that “a 50 percent rate of Sticky Faith” is unacceptable.

I found their chapter titled “A Sticky Web of Relationships” to be especially good and affirming in my current ministry (Pastor to Generations at College Avenue Baptist Church in San Diego.) For the past couple of years, besides working with parents I’ve been trying to help our church take some baby steps towards becoming an intergenerational church, which is what this chapter is all about. Powell and Clark write about the importance of connecting kids with ordinary adults in the church (not just the trained youth workers) and creating what they call 5:1 (a reverse in the typical ratio of adults to kids in the church).

I’ve advocated something along those same lines for many years. In my mind, the first youth group in history was the one found in Luke 2:46. That verse pictures Jesus as a 12 year old, sitting in the temple with a group of elders (“teachers” in the NIV). Rather than a bunch of kids with one adult in charge, here we have one kid with a bunch of adults. I’m not sure how many elders were actually there with Jesus at the time, but I do know he had more than one overworked, underpaid youth worker.

The basic idea behind 5:1 is to intentionally and regularly integrate young people with the adult population of the church so that faith can be passed along from one generation to the next in a natural and dynamic way. Powell and Clark offer several examples of churches that have successfully made this transition and some of them reflect our experience so far at CABC. Like this one:

“So they canceled Sunday youth group. No more Sunday meetings. Instead, kids are now fully integrated into the church on Sundays. Kids are greeters, they serve alongside adults on the worship music team, they are involved in giving testimonies, and they even give chunks of the sermon from time to time. The youth pastor described the power of this 5:1 shift: ‘We knew that this would change our kids. What has surprised us is how much this has changed our church.’”

We don’t have the teenagers preaching sermons yet, but our pastor frequently uses them as sermon illustrations.

Intergenerational churches are not new of course. What’s new is that churches over the past 50 years have intentionally and regularly segregated kids from the rest of the church. “And that segregation is causing kids to shelve their faith,” say Powell and Clark. Not the only reason, perhaps, but certainly a contributing factor.

I suppose my only nit-picky criticism of the book would be the authors’ overuse of the word sticky—sticky findings, sticky identity, sticky Gospel, sticky justice, and so on throughout the book. The book started to even feel sticky. No wait, I think that happened after our 5-year-old grandson Jack used the book as a placemat. Still, this is a good book, one that I’ll definitely be recommending to parents and youth workers.

I have often talked to parents about the importance of writing family mission statements or family creeds to help pass faith from one generation to the next. Many children grow up in Christian homes not really sure about what their parents (or they themselves) believe. Last month I wrote an article for our church’s parent newsletter on that same topic. Here it is:

In the book of Deuteronomy, parents are instructed to “impress” the commandments of God upon their children (6:7). What does this mean? The word impress in the original Hebrew means to permanently fix or brand, similar to what takes place when a farmer brands his cattle.

So how do we brand the commandments of God on our children? Obviously we aren’t supposed to tattoo them on our children’s bodies. Our goal is to brand them on our children’s hearts and minds.

Let me suggest one way to do this. We can teach the commandments to our children not as a negative list of things they shouldn’t do (“shalt not’s) but as a positive list of things they get to do as members of your family and as followers of Jesus Christ. You might even want to rewrite the Ten Commandments especially for your family as a mission statement or creed. Here’s an example:

Our Family Mission Statement

1. We will love and serve God, who first loved us and gave his Son to die on the Cross for our sins.
2. We will keep our eyes fixed on Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
3. We will be ambassadors for Christ and share his love with others whenever we have the opportunity.
4. We will devote special time every week for worship, prayer, reading Scripture and serving others.
5. We will love and respect our parents, grandparents and others who care for us, teach us and provide for us.
6. We will live in peace and harmony with others, forgiving those who wrong us rather than hurting them or seeking revenge.
7. We will remain sexually pure and faithful in our personal relationships.
8. We will be honest and trustworthy in all that we do.
9. We will be honest and trustworthy in all that we say.
10. We will be thankful and content with all that God has given to us.

Of course the best way to impress these things on your children is to live them out consistently at home every single day. I guarantee you … they will be impressed indeed!

My new book Generation to Generation was  released a couple of weeks ago by Standard Publishing. I just got my copies and I’ve been handing them out to family and friends like a new father handing out cigars. Writing a book and childbirth have a lot in common I think. The process is painful but when it finally comes out, it’s beautiful and there are smiles all around. I thought the cover design on this one was especially nice … thanks to everyone who contributed input on that a few months ago.

This book is for parents who want ideas and help for passing their faith on to their children. It expands on the content of a parent seminar which I created for HomeWord a few years ago. I’m grateful for the very nice endorsements printed on the first page of the book from Jim Burns and Dr. David Jeremiah.

If you would like to buy a copy, it’s available on most book websites like Amazon.co, Barnes and Noble and Christianbook.com. I’m not selling it here on my website yet.

I wish I could say that I spent the first full day of the new year doing something constructive or creative but I watched football all day. Three games. Actually I think I watched six or seven football games this week. How many bowl games are there now? I can remember when all of them (Rose, Sugar, Cotton, Orange) all happened on one day, bringing the college football season to a merciful end. But now it goes on and on … which I guess is OK with me since I love the game and enjoy watching if I have the time.

Last night in the Sugar Bowl, the University of Florida’s well-known quarterback Tim Tebow played in his last college football game as he led his Gators team to an easy victory over the Cincinnatti Bearcats.

I’ve not followed Tebow’s career closely, but by all accounts, he’s not only a tremendous quarterback but a dedicated Christ-follower who seems almost too good to be true. Nobody has a bad thing to say about him and he’s unabashedly outspoken about his faith.

It’s not surprising to me that Tebow grew up in a Christian home (his parents were missionaries) and was home schooled even while he played high school football. While not all home-school kids turn out like Tim Tebow, I’ve become increasingly persuaded that parents who home-school their kids are not as over-protective or paranoid as we thought they were. They may instead just be taking more seriously than the rest of us the Biblical imperative to train up their children in the way they should go. Sadly, too many Christian parents are content these days to outsource the upbringing of their children to the government, the popular media, even the church.

As I listened to the young quarterback (who will be headed for the NFL this year) give glory to Christ for his win last night, I couldn’t help but wonder if he will continue to do so as a pro. The TV commentators last night described how his Florida teammates protected him from people and activities that might compromise his reputation. I hope he continues to have those kind of people around him. At least I know he has those kind of parents.

Standard Publishing has asked for some feedback on two cover designs for my new book Generation to Generation. What do you think? Which do you like best? Keep in mind that this is a book for parents. Click on the images to make them larger.

Design 1 "Lawnchairs"

Design 2: "Feet"

I found this newly-released book at a bookstore the other day and couldn’t resist buying it. Written by a couple of comedians and a therapist, the back cover reads: “Is it any wonder … Most people go through mid-life crises when their kids are teenagers? … Fewer parents are grounding their teenagers–to avoid being stuck at home with them?” And so on. The authors describe their book pretty well in the intro: “This is not a book about parenting teenagers. It’s a book on how to survive parenting teenagers.”

In my parenting seminars I usually tell parents that how you treat teenagers often determines how they respond, how they behave, how they feel. If you treat them as problems, they’ll give you problems. If you treat them like children, they’ll act like children. If you have a low view of them, they’ll live down to our expectations. We are in a sense mirrors to help them determine their identity and self-image.

So in our seminars we try to help parents appreciate the positive aspects of adolescence and encourage them to “catch their kids in the act of doing something good” whenever possible. Discouraged parents only discourage their children.

Needless to say, I don’t think I’d want to leave this book lying around the house for my kids to see.

To be fair, there’s actually some pretty decent parenting advice between the covers. For example, the authors advise against over-indulging teenagers with money and material things:

“First off, realize that teenagers are expensive to maintain. (Think of them as yachts with messy rooms.) Secondly, make sure they realize it too. The more you can steer your teen toward Appreciation and away from Entitlement, the better your chances of maintaining some non-gray hairs. This is where you dust off your ‘When I was your age, my allowance was a nickel and I wasn’t allowed to spend it all in one place!’ stories. You know you have them. And if you don’t, use the ones your parents told you.”

The book was written by Joanne Kimes and R.J. Colleary with Rebecca Rutledge, PhD.