Faith that Sticks

Intergenerational connections and parental involvement give kids a faith that lasts beyond high school.

By Kara Powell

A coffee cup never looked so interesting.

Or so it seemed when I asked 24-year-old Rebecca what her life had been like after she graduated from our church's youth ministry.

After staring at her coffee for a few moments, Rebecca admitted, "My life after high school was really, really tough."

As a college freshman, she ventured into a "missionary dating" relationship with a guy who wasn't a Christian. They went much further physically than she ever expected. Filled with shame and regret, Rebecca plunged into depression and struggled with an eating disorder.

Those words were hard to hear, but what Rebecca said next was even harder.

"I felt so badly about what I had done. The last place I felt I could turn was to God and the church." Rebecca ran away from God and from the church just when she needed them most.

Somehow Rebecca's parents, our church, and its leaders (including me) had failed her. She had graduated with a faith too weak to face the new temptations awaiting her as an emerging adult.

Our churches are filled with "Rebeccas," and filled with parents of "Rebeccas" who agonize over their children's turbulent spiritual journeys. A host of studies suggest that approximately 40 to 50 percent of kids who are part of a church or youth group will fail to stick with their faith beyond high school.

To try to understand more about the current state of both youth and the church, we at the Fuller Youth Institute studied close to 500 youth group graduates from across the U.S. during their first three years in college. Our primary goal was to identify church and family practices that build lasting faith, or what we call "sticky faith."

The Jesus Jacket

You might think that asking youth group alumni to define what it means to "be a Christian" would be a pretty straightforward question—but you'd be wrong.

Thirty-five percent of students didn't mention Jesus at all. The most dominant theme in college students' descriptions of being a Christian was that it means to "love others." Certainly, that is a major theme of Jesus' teaching. But even most atheists think it's a good idea to love other people. And they are right. It is. But true faith demands a bigger, Jesus-centered view of the gospel.

We found that many young people view the gospel like a jacket; they can put it on or take it off, based on what they feel like doing in any particular situation. If they're going to church or hanging out with Christians, they put on their "Jesus Jacket." If they're headed to a party or drifting toward spiritual apathy, they toss the Jesus Jacket into a corner.

One of the central reasons students put their faith aside is because they have a flawed understanding of the Christian life. They've picked up the idea from their parents and churches that following Jesus means merely following a list of "Do's" and "Don'ts." For example:

Do … go to church and youth group, read your Bible, pray, give money, share your faith, get good grades, respect elders, go on mission trips, and be a good kid.

Do not … watch the wrong movies, drink, do drugs, have sex, talk back, swear, hang out with the "wrong crowd," go to Cancun for spring break, or go to parties.

For many of our young people, the gospel has been reduced to what Dallas Willard calls the "gospel of sin management." The gospel becomes a list of rules and virtues, with Bible verses attached. When young people set this gospel aside, it shouldn't surprise us. Wouldn't we do the same?

Our problem as communicators is that we love teaching from lists of "Do's" and "Don'ts." But without the full picture of the real gospel that is grounded in grace rather than guilt, those commands are empty and lifeless. And they're toxic to faith. Mark Labberton, long-time pastor and now preaching professor at Fuller, has observed "students really need to grow up hearing about and experiencing God's grace. The presence of one without the other can cause serious damage to students' lives."

The Church of Two Tables

As a child, dozens of my relatives would regularly gather at my grandparents' house for the holidays. There were far too many of us to fit around one table. So we set up two tables: the adults' table and the kids' table.

The adults ate in the dining room. We ate in the TV room.

The adults sat at the fancy dining room table. We sat around card tables.

They actually had napkins. We had our shirt sleeves.

They had pleasant conversations. We threw dinner rolls at each other and had Jell-O snorting contests.

Technically we were all sharing the same meal, but we had two very different experiences.

That sounds a lot like how adults and kids experience church today. The adults' table is the sanctuary (the bigger, nicer room) and the kids' table is down the hall.

We have adult pastors. And youth pastors.

Adult worship services. And student worship services.

Adult mission trips. And student mission trips.

I'm not suggesting that we can do everything together. Do 16-year-olds need time to be together and on their own? Absolutely. As one youth worker told me, "The average 16-year-old guy doesn't want to talk about masturbation with grandma in the room." And I'm betting that grandma doesn't want to be there when he does either.

We definitely have to have gatherings that include only young people. But balance is often something we swing past on our way to the other extreme. I'm afraid that in our effort to offer relevant and age-appropriate teaching and fellowship for teenagers, we have segregated students from the rest of the church. According to our research, that segregation is causing students to shelve their faith. But there's also good news. Getting rid of the two-table system, and placing teens in intergenerational contexts of worship, ministry, and life, helps their faith thrive—in high school and beyond.

Intergenerational Imperative

The worship service provides another opportunity for integration. Ken Fong, a senior pastor at Evergreen Baptist Church of Los Angeles, has seen the power of involving young people in the church's worship. "The adolescents in the sanctuary appear to be much more energized and attentive when they see their peers on the stage, helping lead the entire faith community in worship." Their involvement isn't mere tokenism. "We invite youth to join the production team upstairs, and give them the opportunities to help shape the mood of our worship times and to explore possible areas of gifting and talent," Fong says.

To send a message about the value of intergenerational worship, one church decided to alter their Sunday morning music worship. As the worship team comprised of adults launched into their first song, a teenager from the congregation approached the platform and tapped the guitarist on his shoulder. The adult guitarist handed his guitar to the student and walked off the stage. That student immediately started playing the guitar, along with the rest of the worship team.

A minute later, another student came from the opposite side of the congregation and tapped the drummer on his shoulder. The adult drummer likewise stood and handed his drum sticks to the student, and walked off the platform. The student then started playing the drums.

The same thing happened with the bass player, the keyboardist, and all of the vocalists until the band consisted entirely of young people. The congregation loved it.

Then the senior pastor stood behind the podium to preach. After a few minutes, a voice from behind the platform said, "If you're serious about involving us, we have to go all the way." A teenager walked up from backstage and tapped the senior pastor's shoulder. The senior pastor stopped preaching, handed the microphone to the student, and walked off the platform. The young person continued with the sermon.

There's something beautiful about witnessing different generations coming together to worship. We're so used to having youth at "the kids table" that when we see them involved in corporate worship it's good for all of us, regardless of age.

Programs must also change, but not entirely. The good news is that you can move your church in an intergenerational direction without starting from scratch. You already host events that, with some careful planning, could easily become more intergenerational.

Here are just a few ideas: perhaps you encourage your men's ministry to invite high school guys to the men's annual Cook-Out. Maybe your church's youth ministry invites an adult Sunday school class to join them for part of their next mission trip. Or you see if your senior adult ministry would be open to pairing up with teenagers for the next food pantry program.

The bottom line is that if you plan ahead, you can make your church's ministries more intergenerational simply by modifying existing events rather than starting from scratch.

Meet the Parents

When I speak to parents about intergenerational ministry, something strange often happens. They start looking to their youth and children's ministers, as if it's the leaders' job to build an intergenerational web for their kids. Ideally, parents assume primary responsibility for linking their kids with a handful of caring adults. It's only when parents aren't able or willing to create this web that leaders step in to create additional strands.

A few months ago I met a single mom who understood her responsibility to surround her son with loving adults, especially men who could fill the void created by his absent father. This mom had a brilliant idea for helping her son visualize their family's sticky web. In the hallway between their bedrooms, she hung a few large collage picture frames, each of which has several openings for pictures. As her son builds a relationship with an adult—especially with a man—she takes a picture of her son with that adult. Then she places those pictures in her frames to remind them both of the amazing adults already surrounding their family. The blank picture frames yet unfilled reinforces the expectation that more adult friends will continue to help her son grow as he gets older.

In the midst of the discouraging reminders about the "Rebeccas" in our own church, we can take hope. After all, the faith and church that Rebecca had renounced are distorted facsimiles of God's dreams for his people. As leaders, we can invite young people and adults of all ages to join us in clearly fixing our gaze on the true gospel and the kind of church that God intended for his people.

Kara Powell is the executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute at Fuller Theological Seminary and co-author of Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Building Lasting Faith in Your Kids (Zondervan, 2011).