Cultivating Life Long Faith 1

With so many of our young adults graduating from high school and walking away from the faith, what can we do to lead them to embrace a lasting faith? All this week we’re going to look at David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock’s book Faith for Exiles, and the five ministry practices churches and families must pursue to lead kids into life-long faith. The research done by Kinnaman and Matlock indicates that in order to form a lasting faith, we must lead our kids into experiencing intimacy with Jesus. This is best done by clearing what they call the religious clutter that so easily sidetracks us. We’ve been complicit in presenting a Jesus to compete at the same level as our other affinities and affiliations. In addition we’ve expected way too little from our kids. They are more willing to be challenged than the church is willing to challenge them. And, parents must be living a life of spiritual vitality where they give everything they have and are over to Jesus. Let’s lead our kids into a deep and lasting faith.