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

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If you are eager for an authentic action plan you can use every day to point your kids toward lasting, lifelong faith, this is it. Building on the bestselling go-to guidebook Sticky Faith , The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family shows parents how to actively encourage their children's spiritual growth so that it will stick with them into adulthood and empower them to develop a living, lasting faith. This accessible guide presents more than 100 practical, easy-to-implement ideas to set your family on a trajectory of lifelong faith, including how to . . . Perfect for busy parents who don't have time and inclination to read--yet grounded in sophisticated, academically verified data by the Fuller Youth Institute--this guidebook is a welcome resource you can turn to time and time again for fresh ideas and inspiration.

240 pages, Paperback

First published August 5, 2014

67 people are currently reading
314 people want to read

About the author

Kara Powell

57 books45 followers
Dr. Kara Powell is the Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI), a faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary, and Fuller's Chief of Leadership Formation. Named by Christianity Today as one of “50 Women You Should Know,” Kara serves as a Youth and Family Strategist for Orange, and also speaks regularly at parenting and leadership conferences. Kara is the author or coauthor of a number of books, including 3 Big Questions That Change Every Teenager, Growing Young, Growing With, The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family, Sticky Faith Curriculum, Can I Ask That?, Deep Justice Journeys, Deep Justice in a Broken World, Deep Ministry in a Shallow World, and the Good Sex Youth Ministry Curriculum. Kara lives with her husband Dave and their three teenage and young adult children, Nathan, Krista, and Jessica, in Southern California.

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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
Profile Image for the_storied_life (Joyce Santiago).
223 reviews15 followers
March 5, 2021
If I had to choose between the original book “Sticky Faith” and then this one “sticky faith guide for the family” it would be this one. Several great practical ideas within.
2,017 reviews57 followers
February 14, 2015
A great book with truly practical ways to build faith together, as a family. Lots of ideas from real families, targeting kids from elementary school up to college-aged. It was very encouraging and inspiring, teaching two-way respect and communication as well as how to grow stronger in your faith... now if only my child were old enough to us to start using them right away!
209 reviews2 followers
November 22, 2020
So many great suggestions for building faith as a family! I will be returning to the ideas in this book as our kids get older. Also great suggestions for building into the lives of other people’s kids.
Profile Image for Chandra Boulden.
358 reviews
December 26, 2016
Was highly cynical but this was a pleasant surprise of a book. Many kids walk away from their faith once they leave the home, this book explores why and how to prevent it. Meanwhile making a much stronger family unit and relationships within. Over 100 practical ideas some simple and some more involved spanning many years. Great book! Mini success stories and numerous real life examples too!
Profile Image for Garrett Marshall.
79 reviews
June 1, 2021
Great book for practical advice to build faith into your daily life. Excellent way to be more intentional with instilling your family with faith! For my youth ministry friends: this was a great book to have a combined class with (both parents and teens). The parents especially really enjoyed it.

My only critique, is I wish there was a little bit more scripture built in. While there is some good stuff in there, some chapters go without a reference to the Bible. While still full of truth, just a nitpick of mine.
Profile Image for Brenda Seefeldt.
Author 3 books14 followers
December 12, 2017
Buying several copies for all the parents of teens in my church. This book is that important.
96 reviews
June 11, 2019
Very, very practical. Lots of ideas to build from. Even if an idea do a not work for your family, it will probably inspire other ideas that could work instead.
Profile Image for Julie.
38 reviews
October 14, 2019
Great, practical ideas for families with kids of all ages. Down to earth writing about incredible parents of faith.
Profile Image for Mandy Rogers.
54 reviews1 follower
November 28, 2021
So practical. I want to give this book to all my friends with kids at home.
199 reviews
November 18, 2022
Lots of good suggestions for different age kids of how families can build resilient faith in kids. "Raising Christian kids is always a miracle, but never an accident."
145 reviews8 followers
July 30, 2014
As a Mom to two boys…two boys I wanted so badly and have prayed for since before I knew they would be born…it is my desire to build a strong faith foundation in their lives. So strong, they are never lead away from it. The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family by Dr. Kara E. Powell offers tools and practical ideas to put your family on the path to lasting faith.

I really enjoyed reading this book and discovering new fun things to do as a family. There are so many to choose from, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the number of new traditions you could add to your family routine. Dr. Powell suggests only taking five away from the entire book. Most of the ideas shared are applicable to families with children of all ages. One of my favorite thoughts was for family members to share at dinner time a mistake they have made during the day. This would be huge for my five-year-old who dwells on his mistakes. The take away for everyone is that God is bigger than any mistake we make. I am excited to start this tradition in my family.

I would easily recommend this book to anyone who hopes to instill in their children a faith that lasts. While every suggestion shared may not be for you, there are plenty of ideas you will no doubt find helpful in your unique family. I was given a complimentary copy of this book by its publisher and BookLookBloggers in exchange for an honest review.
Profile Image for Jill.
1,122 reviews
July 13, 2015
I was able to glean a lot of great tips for ideas on how to build into your families and kids lasting faith. I vacillated between feeling pretty smug that we’ve been working on a lot of these things already, between feeling really inadequate that I’m not doing enough to nurture the faith and hearts of my kids.
I did enjoy this book, but couldn’t quite figure out the structure of it, which at times distracted from the topics as I was trying to spend time understanding the structure. Once I gave myself the freedom forget about the structure, I was able to relax and enjoy stepping from one tip to another. I am particularly grateful for the tips for the teenage and college years.
Implementing some of these new tips and improving upon others is going to be exciting, but also a challenge, so I particularly like the author’s recommendation to only focus on 5 and to set a realistic bar. And one of the things I’m going to try even harder to do is to nurture my own soul.
Profile Image for Lisa.
Author 1 book11 followers
August 14, 2014
I love the practical nature of this book. It’s FULL of ideas. You know the books full of ideas you have heard before a hundred times, this book is FULL of great, fresh ideas. There are applicable ideas for every family.

Their findings revealed young people want deep conversation and opportunities to serve. After years in youth ministry, I think this is absolutely true. Young people never failed to meet high expectations when walked alongside of in love.

So, hope. This book is hope, and a gentle wake-up call that what we are doing now matters, maybe more than we realize. I know I need to pray more often for a sticky faith for my kids.

Dr. Kara E. Powell knows the heartbeat of young people and all her work is spot-on, thoughtful, and needful.

Profile Image for Cassandra.
241 reviews2 followers
January 7, 2015
I have highlighted the crap out of this book! With discussion of modeling, forgiveness, communication, and service, Sticky Faith has hooked me! The author suggests that on your first read through the book you choose no more than five ideas to try. That might get me through the first couple chapters. I’ll definitely be referring back for more/other ideas again and again.
Profile Image for Erin.
358 reviews5 followers
January 16, 2015
I really appreciate FYI and Kara Powell. I like that Powell is open about where she struggles as a parent. This book may feel a little foreign and overwhelming for families in many mainline churches - it's very evangelical in tone and many of the suggestions are couched in the language of the evangelical church culture.
Profile Image for Meg.
801 reviews
October 18, 2015
I really enjoyed this book! I have been reading it with the other members of my church's children's ministry team and we've had helpful discussions throughout. I will need to return to a lot of these ideas because Audrey is still pretty young for most of them, but at least I have an idea of what to focus on as we continue to raise her in the faith
Profile Image for Debbi Huntington.
39 reviews3 followers
August 28, 2014
What a fantastic book!!!
I loved how this book not only gave you stories to encourage you, but included concrete steps and things you can do with your family to help your children grow strong in their faith. I will be buying several to give away at Christmas time.
Profile Image for Josh Wymore.
63 reviews
August 19, 2024
Highly practical and highly readable. I love that it's research driven while also being accessible for parents, grandparents, and even just adults who are in the lives of other kids. I took away lots of practical ideas from this book that I will implement with my kids and with other kids.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews

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