Chip May and I are reading the book Sticky Faith for Families. This book arises from a research-based, and extensively field-tested project designed to equip parents with insights and ideas for nurturing long-term faith in children and young people. We are reading this book for the benefits that we hope to glean for our families and for Camp’s family ministry.
Kara Powell, the author of Sticky Faith for Families, writes that many young people who have grown up in church, when asked what it means to be a Christian, do not mention Jesus. Primarily they describe Christianity to be about “loving other people.” This misses the point. They think that it is up to them to DO Christianity. This perspective causes many young people to walk away from the faith simply for the reason that they think that they are not good enough to do it.
Whether we are a child or an adult we can get caught up in a “to-do list” Christianity. We think that Christianity is primarily about our behavior and we miss the point of the Faith which is GRACE. Christianity is not primarily something that one does but is something that has been done for you.
Chapter three of Sticky Faith is devoted to handling mistakes. Again, Kara Powell, puts it well when she writes, “Grace is what makes Christianity unique. In other religions you earn your salvation. There’s a ladder of good works you climb to reach God’s favor. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus smashes the ladder.” God comes to us, as a baby in the manger.
Parents, young people whomever you are, you are the one Christ died for! You live under a banner that reads ‘IT IS FINISHED.’ Through Christ’s work you have God’s favor; you are His. In a world of DO it is freeing to realize that in Christ it is DONE! May the Grace of God in Christ Jesus be the teaching that guides our parenting and our lives!
