“Kids these days!”
It’s an expression many of us have either said or thought. They seem so different from the way we were at their age. And usually, it’s not in a good way. (Although if we’re honest, we probably need to question the reliability of our memory of our teenage lives.)
As we collaborate to pass our faith from generation to generation, it’s important to recognize the differences between generations without exaggerating them. Our core needs are all the same, regardless of age: love, grace, meaning, joy, hope, etc.
At the same time, it’s undeniable that the culture we live in as teenagers has a life-long impact on our adult years. If you understand someone as a teenager, you will, in many ways, always understand them. With this in mind, here are some central shifts in the worldview of today’s kids, also known as Gen Z.
Safety: The New American Dream
Teenagers today have never experienced a world without school shootings, terrorism or social media. Older generations grew up with fire drills, bomb drills and other safety drills, but they were fairly routine without frequent news reports of students needing to actually follow those protocols to stay alive. Many students today live with the realization that their school could be the next one to experience a very real threat.
Additionally, these kids were raised in families where they were always supervised and had fewer freedoms than previous generations of kids. For example, you’ve likely heard about parents being visited by DCF because they allowed their elementary-school-aged children to walk down the street to the playground without adult supervision.
Safety is the new
American Dream:
physically and emotionally.
Safety is the new American Dream – physically and emotionally. This is why colleges are increasingly facing the request to offer “trigger warnings” before discussing topics that might trigger someone else’s emotional pain.
Instead of casting a superior glance at Gen Z for being emotionally fragile, ministers would be wise to assume the posture of a shepherd. Care for them when they struggle and disciple them into maturity by helping them discover that personal failure is often the fertilizer of faith. Ultimately, our security is not in this world, but in Christ. This leads us to live with faith and hope rather than fear and despair in an unsafe world.
Tolerance: The New Golden Rule
Our culture’s expression of tolerance encourages everyone to “speak your truth” and says “you do you.” This view of tolerance encourages people to overlook their differences in order to affirm one another’s value. Muslims and Christians and atheists are all equally free to speak their minds. In many ways, this is good and biblical.
In reality, however, tolerance assumes disagreement – otherwise there’s nothing to tolerate. Red Sox fans and Yankee fans need to tolerate one another because there’s a very real difference between them, and well-meaning friends who say, “It’s just a game, get over it,” clearly don’t understand. Tolerance runs deeper than the logically true statement, “It’s just a game.” It speaks to the emotional weight of different commitments and looks to bring people together who are emotionally, relationally and physically different from each other.
“Tolerance means respect
despite disagreement.”
When I speak about tolerance with kids these days, I explain to them, “Tolerance means respect despite disagreement.”
It isn’t about merely putting up with people who are different from you, but genuinely respecting them despite your disagreements. You still think the other person is wrong, and you’re both still trying to persuade each other – but in a circle of respect.
Fellow pastors and leaders: we need to be models of a Christian tolerance that loves our enemies and turns the other cheek. If we continue to demean those who are different from us (politically, religiously, ethnically, etc.) then Gen Z will continue to hear and see a bad definition of tolerance. If students see Christian leaders showing respect to minorities, homosexuals and those who may be easily labeled as “enemies of the faith,” then we will be obeying Jesus’ command while setting a godly example for the next generation.
Threatening Others’ Safety Cancels Your Right to Tolerance
This is the key that many adults fail to recognize: if you threaten someone’s safety, then you will be “cancelled,” and your right to be tolerated revoked. This is why so many Christians read the statement above (“Muslims and Christians and Atheists are all equally free to speak their minds”) and disagreed. I agree that Christians face increasing scrutiny and skepticism in our culture today – but we need to acknowledge the ways we’ve done this to ourselves by failing to love our enemies. We have believed that speaking the truth without love is honoring to God – but it’s not.
So if you want to reach kids these days, you need to love them with the truth. Listen, encourage and shepherd them. Recognize the ways their world is genuinely different from the world you grew up in, while remembering that their hearts are the same as yours. Don’t treat them like immature children, but as people you are nurturing and guiding in the faith.
The Gospel is our only hope. It is truly good news of great joy for all people. Help them to see how the Gospel fuels the way we love our brothers and sisters and the way we love our enemies. Encourage them with the reality that we are fully secure in Christ because nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus Christ. When we walk in the light of the cross, we can handle worldly rejection and failure because we know we’ve been fully accepted by the grace of Jesus Christ.
(note: this article was originally posted on the BCNE blog with the title, “Kids These Days.”)
September 14, 2020 at 1:29 pm
I disagree on several points. Many children do not have parents today, and therefore, they’re growing up the best way they can, and they’re not all getting their instruction from ministers. In many cases, that’s a very good thing! Many parents of today’s children didn’t have one or both parents, and therefore, didn’t have much to offer to their children in the way of wisdom, a world view, or faith. Again, the children were left to fend and to learn on their own. Those who did have godly parents and awesome homes were sent to ungodly communist universities that have paved the road to Hell for a great many formerly Christian children and so many others.
The university curriculum is designed to destroy their faith in the very first semester, for those of you who may not have been aware. Christianity in these universities has been replaced with communism.
Secondly, tolerance and respect is a two-way street, and Christians are not being shown tolerance or respect when they do give it. Why? The majority of people do not know history, much less how and why they have the luxuries they have. They do not know that it was Christians who started their now ungodly universities, colleges, orphanages, social welfare system, hospitals, schools, etc. As pastors, informing their congregations of these things should be a priority. All too often, we assume that “everybody knows this stuff”, and they don’t.
Many youth (20’s-30’s) have no idea what the real meanings of Easter and Christmas are, or at least the fictional reasons we were told in church and Sunday school. Both of those occasions are pagan from the root to the core. That aside, they don’t even know the “Christian” version to these occasions (the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ). In fact, many of them have pastors that do NOT believe these very important biblical doctrines. Pause, and let that sink in for a moment…
Thirdly, we’re all being painted by the same brush due to a few ignorant and arrogant “Christians” like Harold Camping and his lot, and so many others online. Satan is very swift to slap that one onto us, and sadly, the youth pick it up and run with it also. This results in intolerance and disrespect to genuine believers who seriously follow the Book, and have the best interests of everybody at heart.
Fourthly, a lot of these young people go online and drop in on various ministries and blogs. They see the horrible hypocrisy as the “saints” tear each other apart, are vitriolic, hateful, spiteful, false accusers, judgmental, disagreeable, messed up in their theology thereby being purveyors of confusion. I don’t have the rest of the day to put in all the rest of the negative adjectives to describe these morons. Suffice it to say…these “Christians” are better ambassadors of Satan than they are for Christ. The young people have very important issues in life to deal with, without taking on that load of manure under the guise of Christianity. That kind of Christianity would let them down; it has let them down, because many of our youth are already better than some “Christians” w/out becoming one!
Sadly, millions of N. American young people do not have truly godly pastors; they have compromising motivational speakers like Joel Osteen, Paula White, and others of their ilk. Charlatans like these are only interested in overflowing offering plates and love offerings. These wolves in sheep’s clothing get more from their people ($$$) than what they give them of any value from the pulpit. Young people are not stupid; they listen to serious Christians in their circles, and they hear about these things. The MSM is quick to point out any transgressions committed by the clergy, and that sours them against Christianity, without ever considering the Christ of Christianity, or knowing what He would have to say about such behaviors.
They see their pastors running around with their “version of the truth”, each one carrying or using a different version of the Holy Bible. These modern messes contradict the Holy Bible and each other, and the youth of today realize that. When the pastors are confronted, they immediately morph into demons, and the Holy Spirit is not in them. Rather than to look at copious amounts of evidence, they turn nasty and order the messenger of salvation out of their office.
Too many of our youth are following their own truth because they’ve been in Bible studies where these versions were caught contradicting each other, or leaving out whole passages altogether. Some of them have compared their own bible versions with each other and found the errors. Some of those students have asked the almighty question, “Which one do we believe or trust to be true?” Many lose their faith at this point, and pastors and Bible teachers are at a loss to explain what has happened, and how it came about that the Church accepted Satanic bibles and ran with them. Why? Because they didn’t bother to take the time to do their own due diligence, and yet, they expect the youth to believe everything they tell them…when the students know better!
I’m so glad that many years ago, I had a very godly pastor who warned us of these satanic bibles that were starting to infiltrate the Church in our locale! Sadly, too many converts that came along in other churches years later didn’t hear those warnings from their pastors. Consequently, they have come into the ministry with their own version of biblical truth. That doesn’t help them or their flocks and the cycle continues.
I believe there is a very good reason why this generation is called “GenZ”. It’s the last bastion of hope for the survival of the pure and godly remnant, and those who are genuine Christians are too few to make a large impact. Further to that, this is all shaping up for the Rapture of the Church; none of this has caught God off His guard. He allowed our world to become this bad so that many would be driven in His direction, knowing full well that many more would be lost. However, He cannot fulfill His end time’s prophetic events without this very important “piece” in place.”