I took a bit of time off last week to enjoy some summer-end fun with family and when I checked my e.mail, several of you had sent me this CNN article highlighting the research of my friend, Kenda Creasy Dean at Princeton, as described in her new book, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church. Kenda and I get to see each other about once a year at a conference and we make it a point to have dinner together. She is so fun and so wise!

I thought this statement in the article was especially interesting: “No matter their background, Dean says committed Christian teens share four traits: They have a personal story about God they can share, a deep connection to a faith community, a sense of purpose and a sense of hope about their future.”

This research echoes many of the themes in our FYI College Transition Project, namely the importance of connection to the faith community (aka church) as well as parents’ modeling AND parents’ self-descriptions of their faith and the impact their faith has had on their life.