In 2010, we have 12 churches who are part of our Sticky Faith Learning Cohort, which largely revolves around our FYI College Transition Project research. Yesterday we started a three-day summit here in Pasadena with teams from Highland Park Presbyterian Church, New Song Irvine, Bel Air Presbyterian, Meredith Drive, Hillside Community Church, Lake Avenue Church, Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, Pasadena Nazarene, Richland Hills Church of Christ, Solana Beach Presbyterian, First United Methodist in Tulsa, and Yuong Sang Church. Each church is bringing 2-4 team members so we had an incredible group of 45 folks. Chap Clark did much of the teaching.

The biggest theme I walked away with was the importance of loving kids unconditionally - without any selfish agenda. So often we as parents or youth leaders have selfish agendas for our kids - we want them to behave certain ways more because it will make us feel better than it’s necessarily the best for them. We want kids to come to youth group because a room full of kids makes us as leaders feel better about ourselves than a room half full of kids. We want our kids to do well in school because the more A’s on their report cards, the better we feel about ourselves.

I want to work on that as a parent and a youth leader.