The Table Briefing: Ministering To Generation Z

By Darrell L. Bock and Mikel Del Rosario

[Darrell L. Bock is Senior Research Professor in New Testament Studies and Executive Director for Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. Mikel Del Rosario is a doctoral student in New Testament Studies, Project Manager for Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary, and Adjunct Professor of Christian Apologetics and World Religion at William Jessup University, Rocklin, California.]

This has felt like such a unique time in ministry.” InterVarsity’s Area Ministry Director (Greater North Texas) Erin Waller Roy explains a key challenge for ministering to Generation Z in the midst of a global pandemic. “Instead of leaning on the things that God has done in our own lives in the past and helping students walk through something I walked through as a college student many years ago, I’m now helping students walk through something that I’m also walking through. . . . It’s not like I have ‘cope-with-pandemic’ checked off my to-do list, and now I can help others.”

We asked Christian leaders to share what they have observed and experienced while ministering to Generation Z during a pandemic. This briefing shares ideas from a series of Table podcast episodes, answering five questions: (1) What are the struggles of Generation Z? (2) Why do people in Generation Z leave the church? (3) How has the pandemic affected student ministry? (4) How has the pandemic affected campus ministry? (5) How can we equip Generation Z with biblical truth?

What Are The Struggles Of Generation Z?

The Barna Research Group’s study of Generation Z, conducted with Impact 360 Institute, defined this demographic as people born between 1999 and 2015.[1] Impact 360 Director of Creative Strategies Jonathan Morrow runs a Christian gap year program, and he has observed both hesitancy and strength among the young people he serves. On an episode called “Mental Health and Generation ‪Z,” he notes key struggles surrounding ideas like tolerance, relativism, and identity.

Morrow There’s a crisis of knowledge. . . . I don’t think many people think there’s moral and spiritual knowledge anymore. Because they make that assumption, things about purpose, right and wrong, goodness . . . are left to “Well, just do what you feel. You do you.” You’ve got this culture of relativism . . . you have the idealism, the pragmatism. Now you throw a global pandemic on top of that in this coming-of-age season . . . I think [Gen Z is] strong in some ways and really hesitant in others. There’s a real hesitance to offend. There’s a real hesitance to evaluate, because tolerance is seen as agreement in our culture.

And that’s just not true. Tolerance is giving people the right to be wrong about things and then talking about those things. . . . So you see hesitance to be strong on the things that really matter. But you see strength in [their sense of identity], “Well, this is who I am,” this self-definition piece. . . . I almost wish they were flip-flopped, where they were a little more hesitant on the self-perception identity pieces, . . . a little less confident about who I am for the next sixty years and a little more confident about what is good, what’s true, what’s beautiful, what’s right, what’s wrong, what I’m called to do objectively and lean into that.

In discipleship, that’s a gift we can give to Gen Z—helping them spend time wrestling with those internal questions but also saying, “You know what? You can be confident in the direction of these.” And this is where fulfillment, meaning, purpose, and goodness and hope will come, when you live that out.

Jenny Wang is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and LPC-Supervisor at Lifeologie Counseling (Frisco, Texas). She noted a variety of factors contributing to student anxiety and the fragility Morrow mentioned:

Wang: Our households are more stressed these days. . . . Definitely another [stressor] is social media. . . . There’s FOMO—the fear of missing out; constantly on your phone, with friends, and you don’t want to miss out on anything. There’s self-image: “How do I present myself? I feel like everything that we show on social media is all the good parts. So I feel like I need to be that all the time.” Plus the pressures . . . of school and “what I have to have on my . . . college applications.” We’re isolated from our friends, when we’re at home, when things are changing so much, our kids are not going to achieve as much as maybe they did before—and even before it was stressful.

One difference between Gen Z and previous generations is the extent to which technology has been pervasive in every aspect of their lives from a very early age. For many, global connectivity and access to smart phones has never been novel. It has always been a daily reality. On an episode called “Equipping Generation Z for a Challenging World,” J. Warner Wallace and Sean McDowell, authors of So the Next Generation Will Know: Preparing Young Christians for a Challenging World, observe how technology has shaped student worldviews and relationships.

Wallace: Unlike me or even my Millennial kids, who [began to use Internet] technology in high school or later, [Generation Z] was born with this. . . . This is all they know. And it changes dramatically the way they perceive the world and the way they perceive each other.

McDowell: That’s the funnel that affects everything about how they see the world. I see it in two big categories: Number one, it affects their belief system. Here’s a generation that has had what they want when they want it, how they want it, where they want it—just one click away. With music, with food, with entertainment, contacting their friends. They’re constantly connected and they expect this, unlike other generations. Even when I text someone back, my mind is like, wow, I can contact them instantly. I don’t forget that. This generation expects that. It’s the air they breathe so to speak and the water they drink. But this teaches a generation what to expect about the world.

So rather than thinking there’s an external reality out there that I have to conform myself to, technology teaches—and I use that word intentionally—it teaches this generation to think they can conform reality to their beliefs and their wants. So, it’s no coincidence that we have so much talk about identity today when we think we can tailor the world to ourselves. It’s no coincidence that the word in 2016 was “post-truth” because truth implies some external reality [that] I conform myself to. . . .

The second thing that smart phones do [is affect] them relationally. We have seen a spike when it comes to loneliness and depression. And with this whole COVID thing . . . we’re going to see those components increase. So, it affects their thinking and it affects them on a relational level. . . . My daughter, who’s 13, has been Zooming and Facetiming her friends. But there’s this yearning for physical contact: “I just want to be with my friends.” I think we can help young people process and say, “Look, God has designed us for more than just mental interaction, as powerful as that it is—but for physical flesh and blood relationships.”

We’re seeing so much anxiety with this generation because they’re fretting about climate change. They’re fretting about racism: “What do I say? What do I not say? Everybody’s watching. Am I being left out?” It brings so many issues that we can deal with as adults to a degree, but when you’re 12, 13, 15 years old it can lead to . . . a kind of paralysis.

Why Do People In Generation Z Leave The Church?

Wallace and McDowell found that many in Generation Z disconnect from the church because of a compartmentalized faith. Many students have not been trained to engage the cultures around them and live out their faith in mainstream society. They need a Christian worldview that shapes the way they think about everything, connecting Sunday values with the rest of the week—in the context of loving relationships.

Del Rosario: What do you think is the key reason that Gen Z is disconnecting from the church?

McDowell: I think there are reasons, not a reason alone. At its heart, it’s a worldview issue—a belief of the heart that expresses what I think about the world. We’ve raised a generation that doesn’t know how to navigate culture and the world from within their Christian faith. We give them shallow answers. It’s emotion-filled. [They] disconnect their faith from what it means to actually live. They go through the motions. When they’re really tested and get out of the home, it reveals the lack of a faith that was never there. So, there’s this deep worldview component. Some of this is apologetics. Some of this good theology. Some of it’s just learning to think Christianly in a world that we can argue is increasingly non-Christian and post-Christian, and in some ways, anti-Christian.

There’s also a huge relational piece, why young kids leave the faith. . . . [A 2013 study] by Vern Bengtson . . . studied faith transmission over four generations, from great-grandparents down to great-grandkids. [The study included] 3,500 people.[2] Across faith practices, the number one factor that shapes why a young person stays in the faith or leaves is a “warm relationship with the father.” Now that’s not to say the mother is unimportant. The dad just tends to be more of the wild card. There’s something powerful about relationships in the body of Christ, and with a father teaching kids how to navigate reality. If one or both of those are missing, the chances skyrocket that a kid is going to walk away from the church and/or their faith.

Wallace: Fewer young people are identifying as Christians. They’re falling into that category of religious “nones,” people who have no religious affiliation, almost directly. If [you see a] one percent drop in Christian identity, you see a one percent increase in the identity of no affiliation. Meanwhile, the statistics for agnosticism and atheism pretty much hover around their margin of error. . . . Over the last 20 years, you still have young people who believe there is a supreme power or a supreme being or something that’s bigger. They believe in something. They have just shaped God in their own image because they’ve been raised in a world that has taught them to shape everything in their image. I have the ability to select even what news I want to listen to today. I can find something on the spectrum that I already agree with and just plug into that and isolate myself from every other worldview. Well, that’s what we’re up against when we talk about Gen Z and how technology has shaped the next generation.

Rather than merely telling students what they should believe, we must help them discover that biblical ideas are true, good, and beautiful. Further, we must help them understand and explain Christian truth claims in cultures where truth is redefined.

How Has The Pandemic Affected Student Ministry?

Over the summer of 2020, we ran a series of summer apologetics workshops for high school students via Zoom. We asked them, “How are you feeling right now?” And a number of them said, “Very fragile. More fragile than usual. Overwhelmed. Exasperated.” Even before the pandemic, Generation Z was characterized as suffering from some of the highest rates of anxiety. Morrow shares his observations and explains student concerns.

Morrow: What I’m seeing is twofold: One, fragility [because of] the isolation, the disruption, the disillusionment, the disappointment with things that aren’t happening that they were expecting to happen: Everything from sports to plays to getting together. . . . There’s disappointment. But there’s . . . amazing resilience.

We have to be balanced in how we cast vision. Acts 17 reminds us that the times and the places are determined by the Lord so that we might seek him. This is their moment to be resilient disciples and follow Jesus when this maybe is not what they picked. “What does it look like for me today to follow Jesus and seek the truth and grow and engage?” We’ve been able to do some of those things—engage in spiritual conversations, still talk to people who are lost. [It] looks a little different but [we can] still do those things. . . . We’re still calling them to grow, [but we’re] also trying to be mindful [and ask], “How you doing?” Are there any release valves we can give while at the same time still passing vision for moving forward in the future? So, we are trying to balance those two together.

Del Rosario: How has the way you prepare students to explain their faith been impacted? Are there new kinds of spiritual conversations that you see students wanting to have?

Morrow: We always try to equip them to ask good questions in every conversation and have clarity if they have opportunity to share the Gospel. There’s never been a better time to talk about things of eternal value. [Right now] people are just awake to listen to [ideas about] right and wrong or justice . . . and [consider] how God might play into that. Some of the questions are the perennials that are always still there: “Where is God in the midst of things that are disappointing for me in my life? [How] does everything look different for me now? How do I navigate that?” But also, “What’s the good news? Where’s our help ultimately rooted?” In the resurrection, in the risen Jesus. That’s not changing. How do we then live that out in this moment that we’re in?

How Has The Pandemic Affected Campus Ministry?

In 2020, campus ministers found themselves reimagining what serving students could look like when public gatherings were severely restricted. Many college students were sheltering in place, stuck in their dorm rooms, or otherwise unable to gather. Roy explains how they focused on discipleship, leveraging Instagram to stay connected.

Roy: The biggest pivot I’ve seen is an increased desire to use and redeem social media in this season, particularly Instagram. Instagram just feels like a much bigger part of my world as a campus ministry practitioner than it did [before the pandemic. Now], students aren’t going to wander down a hall, peek into a room, see an event, hear music, see that people like each other, and maybe wander through the door. Instead, they’re going to see our Instagram stories. They’re going to have a peek into ministry that happens that way.

We’ve had to become a lot more conscious about how we represent our ministry [and] our hope in Christ through social media. “How do we encourage students to engage well with their peers where their peers are?” In this season, this is more online . . . Social media has a huge impact on this generation and how they see themselves and others. We have our student leaders on Instagram daily sharing about the work we’re doing within InterVarsity, inviting people into that community, creating a hospitable presence where people can engage. . . .

I think there’s also been a shift [towards discipleship]. . . . We’re an evangelical organization. We’re oriented towards outreach, but at the same time, we’re trying to focus on, “How can we be faithful to discipling and developing the students who are learning to stay the course in this pandemic?”

[We] help students look at spiritual disciplines and [ask], “What are the building blocks of daily life and walk with Christ?” I found one of my most enjoyable aspects of being a minister during the pandemic was that I felt like I got to talk about students’ real lives with them at a deeper way than I had been, . . . because now, we’re talking about things like “How are you using your cell phone? Are you reading the news? Is the news the last thing you’re reading before you go to bed? Is Instagram the last place you are before you go to sleep? How do carve out space for prayer? How do you set healthy limits to yourself to say, ‘I probably need to check on the global pandemic once today. And I might not need to check on it 15 times.’ Those are conversations I long to have with students in normal times, but the pandemic and students’ awareness of their own spiritual and emotional needs give a lot of opportunity for having those conversations. Pivoting into talking more about spiritual disciplines, more about how we walk daily with Christ has been a really important part of how our ministries have responded.

How Can We Equip Generation Z With Biblical Truth?

Wallace and McDowell also shared lessons and best practices for engaging with students. One of the ideas we discussed is an approach called “two ‘whys’ for every ‘what.’ ”

Wallace: For every what proclamation you make—“What does the Bible teach about this?” “What did Jesus say about this?”—you want to provide two “whys.” Why is it true evidentially? We want to be able to explain why it’s true from both books of God—From the book of Scripture, because we want to show the special relationship of God in Scripture makes the case for this; but also, the book of nature so we show that the Bible describes the world the way it really is.

The second “why” is “Why should I care?” . . . We [must] help our young people see how this is relevant to their lives [and] answers the questions they’re raising on social media. When a 17-year-old calls you to say, “What do I do now?,” you want to be able to show that the issue you’re talking about on Instagram is described thousands of years ago in a book that describes you the way you really are and your friends the way they really are and your interaction the way it really is.

And that will help our students to see that, yeah, I can be interested in this, because. . . . “Apathy-ism” probably is the biggest challenge to theism—not atheism. . . . When [I took] students to [the University of California at] Berkeley, I kind of thought, “Hey, we were going to encounter strong atheism.” Not really. What we encounter most of the time is apathy. Maybe groups on campus are strongly atheistic but generally speaking, students were like, “Eh, don’t really care.”

McDowell: Apathetic about religious issues in particular. That’s the key.

Wallace: So we have to help show them why they should care.

McDowell: And that’s the heart of this, Mikel. It’s not enough to just tell the kids, “The Bible says so.” Because this generation has an entirely different authority structure. We want to show why it’s true, why it matters to their life, and why God gave this command in the first place. Then they can start to live it out, and I think it also becomes conviction.

God’s moral standards are not arbitrary. Rather, they provide the path to human flourishing. While this can be important in spiritual conversations with people of all generations, it is especially true when engaging with Generation Z.

Conclusion

As technology shapes their worldviews and relationships, many in this generation are navigating a variety of perspectives on tolerance, truth, and identity. Some people in Generation Z have walked away from the church because of a compartmentalized faith. But even as the pandemic has caused campus ministries to pivot and leverage social media, student ministry leaders are finding that young people are very open to discussing issues of justice and morality. Helping them discover why and how God’s moral commands matter to their lives can help them develop biblical convictions in difficult circumstances.

Roy noted the importance of developing “a posture of Christian humility in which we get to say, ‘These things are helping me right now. I need to read the news less often and pray more often. And that’s why I’m encouraging you to do that.’ ” She explained that students appreciated hearing “the realness of our own lives and walks with Christ in this season and [how] we’re impacted by these things too.” In the end, Roy speaks of the strength we can find “because we’re engaging with the Lord and because he is meeting us and he is providing for us in this season.” This approach will continue to be important for engaging with young people long after the global pandemic fades away.

Notes

1. “Gen Z: Your Questions Answered,” Barna, February 6, 2018, https://www.barna. com/research/gen-z-questions-answered/.
2. Vern L. Bengtson, Norella M. Putney, and Susan Harris, Families and Faith: How Religion Is Passed Down Across Generations (New York: Oxford University Press).