Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
We’re always humbled when we get to the end of a writing project and list the voices and hands that contributed to making it a reality. While we cannot possibly thank everyone whose life touched this book, we’re sure going to try to name many of them.
We absolutely couldn’t have written this book without the twenty-seven teenagers who generously shared their stories of identity, belonging, and purpose. In order to protect their confidentiality, we will not name them (or the leaders who nominated them, to whom we’re also grateful), but you will meet them by their aliases throughout the chapters that follow. We were just as dependent on the other members of the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI) interview team, who spent well over one hundred hours listening to young people tell their stories: Kat Armas, Macy Davis, Tyler Greenway, Jennifer Guerra Aldana, Garrison Hayes, Jane Hong-Guzmán de León, Helen Jun, and Andy Jung. Jane also managed the herculean process of identifying, tracking, matching, and scheduling interviewees across the project.
The transcription that made our interview analyses possible was capably handled by Stephen Bay, Rosa Cándida Ramírez, César Guzmán de León, Own Her, Helen Jun, Liz Jenkins, Sophia Kang, Adam Miller, Lauren Mulder, Lisa Nopachai, Joyce Oh, and Ahren Samuel.
Aaron Yenney led the literature review with persistence and endless curiosity, tracking down relevant sources along with interviewers Kat Armas and Helen Jun, plus Roslyn Hernández, Quanesha Moore, Gabriella (Gabi) Silva, and Sam Zheng Ning. Special thanks to Gabi for performing data analyses from interview transcripts. We’re grateful to Tim Galleher and Giovanny Panginda for leading some of the focus groups with teenagers who helped shape our language.
We are indebted to the expert wisdom, keen insights, and course corrections provided by our project advisors, including Steve Argue, Scott Cormode, Joi Freeman, Jenny Pak, Montague Williams, and Almeda Wright. Jake Mulder helped shape this content as part of his overall leadership of the larger Living a Better Story project at FYI.
The original manuscript was dramatically improved by insights from many of the team members and advisors listed above along with thoughtful early feedback from Jen Bradbury, Rachel Dodd, Zach Ellis, Lisa Evans Hanle, Amy Fenton Lee, Lisette Fraser, Nica Halula, Jennifer Hananouchi, Chuck Hunt, Hannah Lee, Yulee Lee, Jeremy Morelock, Giovanny Panginda, Caleb Roose, Aaron Rosales, Daisy Rosales, Ahren Samuel, Ruby Varghese, and Kim Zovak. Thanks to Kristin Brussee for finessing our endnotes.
Along the way, we tried out ideas and explored concepts with conversation partners who pressed us to make this work stronger, from the earliest moments of the project to the final days before the manuscript was submitted. Whether over coffee, lunch, or Zoom, we were inspired by Manny Arteaga, Trey Clark, Joyce del Rosario, Matthew Deprez, Amanda Drury, Erin Dufault-Hunter, Benjamin Espinoza, Lauralee Farrer, Tommy Givens, Teesha Hadra, Kristen Ivy, Reggie Joiner, Chris Lopez, Megan Lundgren, Juan Martinez, Chris Neal, Tom Peitzman, Andy Root, Abigail Rusert, Matthew Russell, Josh Smith, Tamisha Tyler, Virginia Ward, and Amos Yong.
Special thanks to over fifty churches that participated in our Sticky Faith Innovation cohort and created new conversations and connections through a three-step process of compassion, creativity, and courage. Thanks also to Mountainside Communion for being a testing ground for so many ideas and practices, especially the youth ministry and pastoral teams.
We are grateful for the generous support of Lilly Endowment Inc., Tyndale House Foundation, and Sacred Harvest Foundation, and for their confidence that our work needed to be done for the sake of young people.
Our publishing team at Baker Books has provided the best partnership we could imagine. Profound appreciation goes to Brian Thomasson, Gisèle Mix, Mark Rice, Eileen Hanson, and the rest of the team, along with the support and representation of Greg Johnson and WordServe Literary.
The Fuller Youth Institute team is second to none. Their names appear across the lists above, and every one of them has strengthened what you will read in the pages that follow. Special thanks to Emilie Chu and John Kwok, who joined our team at just the right time to bring this book to the world with a fresh wave of inspiration.
Finally, our families have inspired and challenged us and offered countless insights to this work. It’s daunting to write a book about teenagers while raising three each with our respective spouses. Our kids have put up with not only our writing schedules but also dozens of “Hey, can I try an idea out with you?” and dinner-table conversations about research. They do an incredible job of keeping us real. And humble. Our spouses, Dave and Missy, deserve a special reward in heaven for making it possible for us to finish this book during months of unexpected (and seemingly unending) quarantine life. We are forever grateful.