A Letter from Lisa Fields
Dear friend,
Right now, somewhere in your life, a young person you love is being formed. Not by one teacher or one sermon, but by hundreds of small moments: the ad they just scrolled past, the song in their earbuds, what you said at the dinner table last night, what you didn’t say.
Formation outruns information. Facts land; habits form. We wrote this guide for the adult who is tired of just telling young people what to believe and ready to help them learn how to live it. If you feel underequipped, you have company. In Lifeway Research’s 2025 study of churchgoing parents of students in grades 6 through 12, 36 percent said they feel unequipped, and 94 percent said they want to be better equipped.
In five movements you will find what is forming the young people in your life, a self-check for the adult, a map of how a village forms a child when a single adult cannot, the biblical pattern for forming a disciple, and practical help for the week ahead: habits, conversations, readiness by age, and what to do when it is harder than you planned. Everyone quoted here spoke on our podcast, and you can hear each conversation in full.
Read it alone, with your spouse, or with a small group of parents or leaders. Take one movement at a time. Answer the reflection questions yourself before you ask anyone else a question. Then go have a conversation. Then have another one. Faith that lasts is caught as much as taught, and the ones catching it are watching you.
