Passing on Faith to the “OPEN” Generation
I well remember my funny preacher Dad telling my brothers and I on a regular basis: “God ‘s not weird but some of His friends are!”
Dad had a way of disarming young people with humour, so they could easily hear God’s heart for them.
Even as a very young child, I knew this was the right approach, and always wondered why more effort wasn’t given to chatting about faith in a more relaxed engaging way.
We find ourselves right now in a time in history where young people are hurting, searching and freshly interested in faith again. It's an opportunity that’s exciting, and Christians need to get a plan fast.
There are some good reasons to get connected to this generation and to discuss faith with them and in what follows I hope to lay out a few of the reasons and the challenges to speaking with this generation about faith. In the end I will conclude and say this is the greatest opportunity to share faith publicly that has come our way in a long time.
First, who are Gen Z and why does it matter?
“Gen Z.,” as they are known, are the young people currently aged between about 13 and 25 years old. They were all born after 1995 when the Internet went mainstream. (Or perhaps it’s just easiest to think of them as under 25s!)
The Barna Research Group describes Gen Z as ‘optimistic, engaged, malleable, curious, authentic, inclusive and collaborative.’
Gen Z is also one of the most spiritually open and curious generations.
We’ve pastored a church that cared for this age group, and we have parented our own kids (all our three boys are currently in this age cohort between 18 and 25). We’ve been prompted to try to understand them and the unique challenges they face, as well as their incredible openness to spiritual things, confronting issues quite specific to them. We believe parents today, and the wider Christian community, and churches especially, really need to make the effort to understand them …. so that we can reach them for God as effectively as possible.
Barna & Alpha Team Up
A recent Barna report (Barna does excellent research into Christian/faith trends) found that traditionally, over the last few decades, 87% of Christians made a decision to follow Christ before reaching the age of 25. So the key takeaway and focus here is that the majority of Christians find faith when their hearts are young and tender. That’s where the harvest is, and parents and educators need to be aware of this!
Even more recently Barna and Alpha have joined forces to complete and execute one of the largest research studies of this age cohort across the West, looking at the beliefs and spiritual hunger of Gen Z young people. The findings were so very encouraging that they ended up calling the report – “The Open Generation.”
This extensive and thorough study found that 75% of Gen Z young people want to know more about Jesus over their lifetime. Sevety-five percent!
The complex thing about this Generation, however, is that they often carry great pain and confusion about their relationships and about the fast-moving world around them. Yet they are also hugely inquisitive, and, taken as a group, possess a deep longing for truth and authentic spiritual experiences.
Pain, Pain go away!
Gen Z has uniquely displayed an honest understanding that fundamentally something inside of them is broken, and they need help from outside themselves to repair it.
Growing up in a thoroughly digital age has ushered in a new level of fragility and pain for our young, and they are honest enough to ventilate their feelings to the world.
As Christians we should both challenge and offer compassion for these sufferings. Being engulfed in confusion about basic truths like your personal identity and significance is a deep form of suffering in itself.
It’s easy to see the confusion and heartache of life for Gen Zers, it’s been in their water from the start. It goes “hand and hand” with being deeply bonded emotionally to their iPhones and app-based technologies from their earliest years.
Yet the “zoning out” on tech and all the “doom-scrolling” hasn’t turned them off God and, if anything, has actually had the opposite effect and made them more hungry and genuine seekers of God.
Going deeper: Christ or Chaos?
The point I am making here is that the extensive Barna and Alpha research (e.g., https://www.barna.com/research/gen-z-2024/) to which I have referred has uncovered that Gen Z are very open to conversations about Jesus and want to know more.
They are also reportedly want a ‘real life’ encounter with the divine and not just more information about God. When talking to Gen Z youth or your kids don’t just tell them apologetic reasons to believe in Jesus and the resurrection: rather, show them what difference it would make to their lives if they jumped in boots and all and gave their lives to faith.
Encouragingly they still mostly get their information about life from family (about 84%) and those they trust (such as friends). This is a massive opportunity for parents and grandparents.
We’re living in a time where Gen Z kids are genuinely starved of truth – they’re contemplating what real meaning looks like. The real question that arises like a specter before them is this one – Christ or Chaos?
They’ve already experienced numerous forms of the kind of chaos life produces when you are rudderless and directionless; they are honestly searching, investigating, and looking for another way: the reliable, concrete, dependable truths you can build a meaningful life on.
Opportunity
Nicky Gumbel, the founder of the phenomenally successful evangelism ministry Alpha, best sums up best the opportunity I am sharing with you when he enthuses:
“This is the greatest evangelical opportunity of our lifetime!”
So I want to encourage you parents, educators, grandparents, pastors, youth workers etc! You have an “open generation” right under your feet and in your homes and churches and youth groups. Take the opportunity this era is opening up to answer their questions and to show them how to avoid chaos and confusion and to build a meaningful life through faith in Christ.
— Kim Heilmann
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