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2:24They are primed, they are ready to listen to and respond to the gospel. I truly believe that. And the second thing is, it's kind of this church, this body right here, I think, is uniquely positioned to be a key player in that revival. And so I'll explain what I mean by both of those statements as we go on. But that's why I'm doing this. I wanted to make that part clear. So let's turn to scripture before we get too far. And let's read Psalm 78, verses 1 through 8. I'll read it out loud.

3:01It says, Listen, O my people, to my instruction. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not conceal them from our children, but tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wondrous works that he has done. I'll stop there for just a little bit. All right. So, as we're talking about generations, we see a clear mandate in Scripture to tell the coming generation several things. And right here, we see in verse 4, what are we to tell them? We're to tell the generation to come the praises of the Lord, in his strength, and the wondrous works that he has done. I like how it's phrased. It says, we will not conceal them from our children. It makes me think, what are some things that might make me conceal the works of the Lord from the coming generation? Maybe pride, maybe just apathy, maybe we don't really care that much, maybe neglect. The psalmist goes on, for he has established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should teach them to their children, that the generation to come might know even the children. Yet to be unborn, that they may arise and tell them to their children. So you see here kind of a compounding effect, right? You see that we're not only supposed to tell our generation, but we're also supposed to train them to teach the next generation. We see both of these things coming from Psalm 78. These are things that fall on the church, or in this case, on the people of God and Israel to be faithful to, teaching the next generation. And it goes on, verse 7, that they should put their confidence in God and not forget the works of God, but to keep his commandments. What are we to train them to do? To keep God's commandments, to be faithful to the Lord. And verse 8, and not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not prepare its heart and whose spirit was not faithful to God. So you can see on the slide here, I kind of phrase the question this way: what is our duty to the next generation? It's a heavy question. It's an important question, I would say. As a church, what is our duty to the next generation? To recount the mighty works of God, to train the next generation to teach others, to teach the next generation to keep God's commandments. And then the last one is probably the hardest for us to do, but to warn them against repeating our mistakes.

5:57That is our duty to the next generation. You see that this. This is very close to the heart of God. And so I have a question just for everyone to consider. Whose job is it to do these things? Whose job is it? I would say the job of reaching the next generation belongs to all generations. And this is something that I think is a paradigm shift, maybe for some of us, right? When you see this in the Psalm, verse 1 says, listen, O my people, the speaker is speaking to the congregation, all generations gathered and present. And he's saying, oh, my people, this is your job to reach the next generation, to teach them to keep the Lord's commandments, to teach others, to teach their children, right? And sometimes we get into this mindset. It's like, oh, that's the youth pastor's job. That's the children's ministry wing of the church. That's the college pastor's job of the church. But no, the mandate is for everyone. It doesn't matter if you are 90 years old or 60 years old or 30 years old. Like, we all play a role in forming the next generation, influencing them for the sake of the gospel. It's not just the experts, not just the people that are close in age or the same generation. And just maybe to re-emphasize this in the New Testament, Titus chapter 2, verses 1 through 8, it recounts kind of Paul's vision for the church, right? And a key part of that vision, you can read it there. Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, love, and perseverance. Older women are to be reverent in their behavior. And it goes. On.

7:31But why? Verse 4, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible and pure. You have this older to younger community that's supposed to take place in the New Testament church. And so what I see from this is I see a clear mandate in Scripture for intergenerational discipleship in the church. I think churches should be intergenerational. And I can say that, and it's easy for me to say it, but if you've ever attempted to do intergenerational ministry, you know that it's not easy. It's really, really hard. And we'll talk about some of those difficulties. But before we get too far down the road, let me just define some terms so that we're on the same page. What is a generation? What is Gen Z? So let me start by asking, who here is Gen Z? You can raise your hands. All right. Welcome. Glad you're here. Look around. There's a lot of us. Gen Z. Who here is the parent of someone who is Gen Z?

8:37Okay. There we go. Who has no idea what I'm talking about? Yeah, don't worry. We'll cover it all. We'll cover it all. For the record, I am not Gen Z. I just came right before Gen Z. I am the dreaded millennial. But we'll get to that in a second. Let's talk about what do we mean by the word generation? What does the Bible mean by the word generation? Well, there's if you go to a lexicon and you go into the Greek and Hebrew, you can see there's several generations, several definitions. But the one I want to pay attention to is this last one. A generation, that word can be used to describe a people living at a particular age. And here's the key thing, marked by a quality or moral condition. A quality or moral condition. Now, this was news to me when I started learning about this. I always thought generations were marked by a birth year, right? But no, this is also just kind of an agreed-upon definition by psychologists.

9:38Tim Elmore does a lot of research on generations, and he defines it this way. A generation is a group of people who share a paradigm of how to look at the world, that's a world view, and who bring different expectations to that world. All right? It's a paradigm. It's a worldview. It's a set of expectations. And where do expectations come from? Well, they're shaped by influences, right? And that's really the defining factor of generations and how we define the generations that we define today. These are groups of people that have largely been influenced by the same things. And those influences can be technological, they can be social, political, they can be world events, they can be entertainment. A lot of different influences go into shaping the culture of a generation. And not just any influences across their life, but particularly influence during their coming of age years, you know, middle school, high school, college. Which, by the way, is why those years are crucial for evangelism. Those are the years where people are forming their worldview. And I think it's a call for us to really press on and press hard to evangelize people while they are young. So here, let me just kind of walk us through the current generations that we have. We're at a pretty unique spot in history. The reason I say that is because in our pews today, you could be sitting next to as many as six different generations in the same church today in 2025. Now that hasn't really happened before. Generational shift is happening more rapidly, more frequently, which is all the more it makes it all the more important that we understand some generational differences. We understand where people are coming from. So let me just walk through these kind of step by step. And I'll disclaimer this by saying that just because you fall into the birth year of a generation does not mean you automatically identify with everything that that generation stands for. This isn't to put people into boxes. This is just to maybe have a broad understanding of where different generations are coming from. So let's start with the silent generation. All right, these are people that are born 1925 to 1945, roughly. In their coming-of-age years, they experienced the Great Depression and World War II.

12:14Technologically, these are when telephones were advancing, personal appliances were filling the homes, things like washing machines and dishwashers and personal TVs. So you see, technologically, there's kind of this boom in staying at home, being at home, and so there's a lot of optimism on the horizon. But at the same time, this is also when the A-bomb was developed. And so technology has promised a bright future, but at the same time, has kind of promised a swift destruction if used inappropriately. This generation, some of their values, they're characterized by family values, stability, patriotism, duty. And I know these all sound like good things, but also the silent generation can take some of these things more to the extreme, where duty and patriotism can become tribalism, can become a fierce protecting of their flock to the point of ignoring others or disparaging others. We go on to the man who is appropriately dressed for the weather. The baby boomers. Baby boomers, this is 1946 to 1946. 1964, some of you may have been born in that time.

13:34Now, in your coming of age years, you experienced the Cold War, civil rights movement, JFK, assassination, moon landing in 1969. From the standpoint of technology, transportation was increasing rapidly. You have kind of the advent of air travel. You have interstates being built. You have suburban, the suburbanization of America. So think for a minute: how might all those things affect the local church and how people are coming to church and participating in church? You also have kind of your early computers, the space program is going on at this time. Color TV is introduced. So this generation, the boomers, are generally characterized by confidence, independence, hard work, desire for social change. And again, hard work, yes, good thing. Workaholism is also something that's associated with the baby boomer generation. Just an overemphasis, almost an idolatry towards work. Moving on to Gen X, those born roughly between 1965 and 1980. In their coming of age years, they experienced the Cold War, the Gulf War. And here's a big one. I hadn't really thought of a whole lot, but uh the Challenger, the Challenger exploding, the space shuttle that went up and exploded and killed several astronauts. How many of y'all remember when that happened, seeing it on TV? I wasn't born yet, but it was something I know affected a lot of people.

15:18Technologically, you have uh cable television comes on the scene. Um you have just a general, just a shift away from analog products to digital products. And this is actually something pretty significant. If you are Gen X, then you understand both worlds. You are more likely to understand both worlds. You can understand how to translate something from analog into digital and vice versa. And no other generation really has that ability. They're either in one or the other. So it's something that you can bring to the table participating in church or participating in any sort of community that uses technology that way.

15:54Gen X is often characterized by adaptability, recklessness, materialism, and apathy for social issues. What I mean for that is, have you ever looked at Congress today and wondered why it's filled with boomers and millennials? Like why there are so few Gen X in Congress? Well, the excuse that I heard is, well, like during that time when everyone was entering the workforce, they just didn't really care. They didn't really care to get involved. Well, I'll move on to my generation. the millennials are coming of age. We experienced 9-11. I was in second grade when that happened. I remember seeing it on TV, hearing about it. Y2K, y'all remember that? The Iraq war, the Afghanistan war, all these things were going on geopolitically.

16:51Something that really defines the millennial generation is the internet. Now I don't really remember a time before the internet. I remember slow internet and bad internet, but there was always internet around. And that really think about, again, how does that shape a person's ethos, the way they see the world, the way they understand the world, the instant data that's available to you. iPods, y'all remember the early iPods? Those were fun. Cell phones came about this time, laptops, so this shift from when you use technology, you had to be wired into something, and now technology is becoming mobile. You can actually go places and work different places. All this is happening during this time. This is 1981 to 1998.

17:39Gen Z, kind of our topic for the evening. These are those who are born 1999 to 2012, which today would make them 13 to 28 year olds, you know, roughly in that window. These are going to be our youth, our high schoolers, our college students, even some grad students. Students are here in this Gen Z category, so you can put faces to these categories. So they are experiencing and have experienced, or they're still in their coming of age era, right?

18:15But they're experiencing the Trump era. They're experiencing racial tension. You have Black Lives Matters movement, the George Floyd murders, things like that have really defined this generation. You have an increase in global conflicts. And you have the COVID-19 pandemic. Technologically, the big one here is the iPhone. iPhone was put on the market in 2007, which means that this generation grew up with smartphones. They've never really known what life was like before having a computer in your pocket. And again, think about how that might affect how someone sees the world. Think about how that might affect church, how we worship together. And with smartphones, on the heels of smartphones, came social media, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, streaming, entertainment, in general, automated technology kind of defines this era.

19:20Gen Z is characterized by a lot of things, and here are some cliff notes. Adaptability, drive, activism. Also, anxiety, pessimism towards the world, loneliness, depression. These are serious problems, and we're going to talk more about that later. But let me just round out the breakdown real quick. We have another generation among us, and this is Gen Alpha. These are my kids, right? Gen Alpha, anyone born between 2013 and 2024, which means, by the way, that a lot of sociologists agree that the babies being born now are the start of the next generation, Gen Beta, the beta testers. I don't know. But we're kind of, we're at a cultural moment right now. But Gen Alpha will be my kids, and they, we all have to admit it, will be heavily influenced by AI, artificial intelligence. And we're not talking about them, so we'll talk about them another day. But here's my point. My point in going through this, like I said, is not to put people into a box, but is to emphasize that each generation sees the world differently. Each generation has a unique culture. There also, I want to emphasize that there is no such thing as a greatest generation. Sorry, Tom Brokall. The greatest generation is not one generation is superior to all other generations. Now, each generation brings good things to the table. But each generation also has weaknesses. Each generation has particular talents, but each generation also has some significant deficiencies. Now, when it comes to God's Word and the church, we can think of this in terms of blind spots, right? We can all read God's Word. We can all look at the attributes of God, and certain generations will see very, very clearly certain attributes of God, and others they'll just need a little bit of help on. And another generation might see those attributes of God really, really clearly in Scripture, but then they need a little bit of help with the others. And so that's the point. And I think this is why God designs the church to be intergenerational. It's very significant when it comes to opening scripture. Each generation brings something unique to the church. Each generation also needs something unique from the church. And each generation experiences obstacles for coming to Christ and coming to the church. So I wanted to make that clear. When it comes to talking about generations, there are gaps. And that creates kind of a tension, right? Like we have felt this tension today. And I don't think I need to go out on a limb speaking for everyone here that it is hard to communicate to different generations. Have you ever felt like someone in Gen Z is speaking another language? I certainly have. I talk to Gen Z every single day.

22:30And I think someone I read, Hayden Shaw, encapsulated pretty well in a sentence. And a good way to think about it is he said, a Gen Z in America has more in common with a Gen Z in South Korea than they do with a boomer in America. So if you think of it more in terms of culture, right? You know, someone, a college student in America has more in common with a college student in South Korea than they do with a retired person in America. Right? That's how far the generational gap has become. To illustrate this, I had a video which I don't think is, we tried to make it work earlier, but I actually like it better that it's not working. I want to do a little experiment, a little interaction here. So everyone, get out your hands, get ready to move. I'm going to give y'all a prompt. I want y'all to respond to the prompt by miming what I'm saying. Okay? Are y'all tracking with this? Okay. So everyone, I want you with your hands to take a picture.

23:36Okay. Very good. Very good. So just, I know you can't see everyone. Some of y'all did this. Some younger ones in the crowd did this. Taking a picture. All right, here's another one for you. I want everyone to answer the phone. Okay, okay. Some of y'all are doing this. Some of y'all are doing this. All right, now hang up the phone. Phone. Yeah, that's an interesting one. How many of y'all pressed boop or boop? Okay, now roll up the car window.

24:17I think you see where we're going here. Roll up the car window. Roll up the car window. Yeah. Last one, wash the dishes. Okay, okay. See some good homeschool kids here actually scrubbing the dishes, right? Right? But a lot of people will just, all right, I'm washing the dishes. Just putting them in the dishwasher. So this is kind of a light-hearted way to demonstrate some generational gaps that we see. But let's talk about the church. Well, first, let me define what a generational gap is. Generational gaps are differences in each generation's way of interpreting and expressing reality. We remember back to our worldview example. Worldview is like a map. A map is only so good as much as it represents reality. And some generations have a map that is real clear in some areas and real fuzzy in other areas. Other generations have vice versa. And so these are differences. And these differences appear in Scripture. Examples in the book of Ezra, you might remember this, Ezra chapter 3, verses 11 through 13, if you want to write that down to reference. Later, but I'm going to paraphrase it: this is the rebuilding of the temple. And they come back from exile, they rebuild the temple, and you have all the young people, the young Israelites, who are rejoicing. They're so excited that the temple has been rebuilt. But then you have all of the elders who remember the glory of the temple of Solomon, and they're weeping. And so you have this sound, and it says that from afar, you couldn't distinguish between the sound of weeping and the sound of rejoicing. But this is the same reality, the temple being built, that is being interpreted in two completely different ways. So, a question to pose to y'all is: where do we see generational gaps in the church? And I'll go ahead and open this up. If you have something to share, please share. Where do we see generational gaps today in the church?

26:28Music, yeah. How many of y'all, as John was singing those Gen Z songs, some of y'all probably had a much harder time entering into a heart of worship? Some of y'all probably had a much easier time entering into a heart of worship. What's something else? Social media? Yeah. I think that's a huge gap just when it comes to understanding the technological medium, right? How to use it, how to share the gospel with it. Dangers associated with it?

27:03Books versus video. Books versus video. Yeah, Gen Zers, how many of y'all like to read books? Great. I'm glad you do. You have an old soul. Congratulations. Yeah. No, I think we see a lot of these, and we got some good answers. I encourage you to think more on it. As I thought through this question, I kind of divided it into four different categories of where I see generational gaps in the church today. And there they are. The first one is language, communication. Here's a question for y'all. If someone says after the sermon, man, that Pastor Tom, he's got the Riz, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

27:43What do you think, Pastor Tom? And my daughter says I have Riz sometimes. Yeah, he knows. Yeah, it's a good thing. It's a good thing. It's a charisma. But she had to explain to me. That's good. I could go through more examples. But here's kind of a more serious example. The word diversity, right? When I say the word diversity out loud, what do you think of? Now, odds are, if you are in an older generation, that you think of ethnic diversity, of a lot of people coming together to worship the Lord. We think of it as a good thing.

28:23When I say it to the younger generations, often they think of sexual diversity. And so if I were to preach a sermon and title it, The Importance of Establishing Diversity in the Church, you could see that two different people could take that two completely different ways. So this is one of the gaps in communication and language that it's good to be aware of as we're communicating God's word. Maybe to sum it up, older generations prefer verbosity, younger generations tend to prefer brevity when it comes to communication. Another one is values. Younger generations are more likely to value self-expression and self-care. I actually have a graph. I know it's hard to read, but these are, the lines represent different phrases that appear in American books and media. The phrases are, believe in yourself, express yourself, just be yourself, you can do anything. And you see how through the years they have just increased, increased, increased. And that shaded part represents the coming of age years for, I think in this case, millennials, right? And it's only gotten more and more for the next generation.

29:38Older generations are more likely to value kind of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Y'all might remember a couple Olympics ago, Simone Biles, she exited the Olympic competition, and there were two very different reactions to that event, right? The younger generations were like, good for you, good job, you're prioritizing self-care, mental health, all these things. Things, and the older generations were, what are you doing? Like, we remember the time where gymnasts and athletes just did it anyway, and even though they had broken ankles and they were sick, but they would just do it anyway, kind of that drive and work ethic. So, you have two different reactions, these two, very different worldviews. Okay? Well, think again, how might this come out in the church?

30:25Younger generations are more likely to be concerned with global causes than older generations. And despite being very self-expressive, they do want to change the world. And so, think of it this way: Gen Z is very passionate about reaching the lost. That's something that older generations can learn from Gen Z. Yes, it's okay to learn things from the younger generation. They are passionate about reaching the lost, but very often they don't know how. They don't have the work ethic to actually get there. They don't have the knowledge, experience, wisdom. And so, that's how older generations can then serve the younger generations. Another source of gaps is preferences, style. That's the worship, you know, music preferences that we experienced earlier tonight. This also goes to preaching preferences, right? Older generations tend to prefer propositional preaching. For example, just say it how it is. You know, the Apostle Paul meant this, and you just lay it out there. Younger generations prefer a much more relational style of preaching. It's like, come, come with me. As I show you what the Apostle Paul said. Let's experience it together. You know, same exposition, right? But the language changes, the communication changes. The last one, and this one's important: openness to change.

31:45Openness to change is typically associated with the younger generations, and resistance to change is associated with the older generations. And let me just do this thought experiment with y'all. Let's pretend that next Sunday for announcements, you know, there's no bulletins in the back, and then Matt comes up here to give an announcement. He says, Okay, you know, for today, instead of giving you a bulletin, everyone scan this QR code to know what's going on at the church this week. How many of y'all would react positively to that? How many of y'all would react negatively to that? Yeah, I saw a lot of young people raising their hands like, Yes, it's about time. We need QR codes. We don't want to carry around that thing. But also, a lot of people don't know how to use a smartphone. A lot of people don't have a smartphone. And so, again, this comes into our congregations. Technological advancements are the number one driver of cultural change. And you don't have to go far to see that technological advancements are increasing exponentially.

32:53And churches, kind of in contrast to that exponential growth, churches are where people Want things to remain the same, by and large. Now, is that a bad thing to want things to remain the same? No. It's not a bad thing. Is it a bad thing to want things to change? No. And this is why, this is the point, is when it comes to generational gaps, there's kind of several ways that they play out in churches today. Number one is that generational gaps have the ability to rip churches apart, you know, quite literally at the seams, and to create distractions from the gospel to these things that really are on the periphery, that don't really matter a whole lot. And so there's so much infighting that the gospel of Jesus Christ is neglected, and we are not being obedient to the command to teach the next generation. So that's one thing that happens. Another thing that happens is that you start seeing these churches pop up that are uni-generational. These churches that are just filled with college students or just filled with baby boomers. And that's just their comfort zone. And we all think and see the world the same way. So that's how we're going to do church. I don't think that's the best way to do church. I don't think that's how God designed church. Like I said earlier, God designed church to be intergenerational, which means that even these cultural gaps that are uncomfortable, that are hard, that have friction, God can still use those to his glory. And I think he does. I think the strongest churches that I've Seen are the churches where these generational differences are used to balance each other out, where generations can learn from each other, can fill in the blanks of their worldviews, and focus on Jesus Christ.

34:44So, how as a church should we view generational gaps? Three things. I think we should acknowledge and appreciate the generational differences. I think we should leverage each generation's strength, and I think we should resolve to grow in Christ-likeness together. Christ-likeness. We are unified by the blood of Christ. We talked about that this morning. And if Christ is the focus, then all these things grow strangely dim. And maybe to think of it in another way: if someone from West Africa came and came to our church on a Sunday morning, what would we do? Well, I don't think we should change everything we do to accommodate for him, right? That does not make sense, right?

35:35We're not seeker-sensitive. We don't aim to please every single person that walks into our church. That's not the takeaway from this. But I also hope that we would show him hospitality. I hope that we would welcome him warmly. I hope that we would love him, invite him to all of our things and to our family. I would hope that we would listen respectfully to what he has to say and to. His worldview. I think we can use that analogy to think about Gen Z, to think about the emerging generations. Sometimes I fear that we make a larger effort to reach out to foreigners from other countries than foreigners that are in our midst. And they are foreigners.

36:19It's a completely different cultural paradigm. And so I'm speaking for myself here. I need to be asking better questions. I need to be seeking to understand. It's so much easier to have my tribe and surround myself with my people. And then we can all talk about, oh man, kids these days, I wasn't like that when I was a kid. That's the easy route, right? It's much harder to reach out and to take the initiative. And that's what Gen Z needs. Gen Z is eager for mentorship. They're eager for belonging.

36:57So let me kind of go into the next and last section of how. How can we reach Gen Z with the gospel? Okay, well, I have some good news and some bad news. We'll start with the bad news. The bad news is that Gen Z, by and large, have left religion behind. And this is represented in the statistics that you can find for yourself. But here's just a couple of charts for you. Now, y'all might have heard this. Have y'all ever heard the phrase, the rise of the nuns? We're not talking about N-U-N-S, the nuns, not with a.

37:31Not from Catholicism. We're talking about N-O-N-E-S. These are folks who are disaffiliated from religion completely. They're not atheists or agnostic. They just don't really care. They're choosing to not enter the discussion whatsoever. And you can see each generation, as you go through the list, that part in the orange has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. And the part in the blue has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller. This is the general trend that's been going on in Western society. Here's kind of the same data represented in a different way. This is a share of each generation that are considered nuns. You see, Gen Z 2018 was sitting right at 42.7%. That is a lot of people in that generation who do not know the Lord, who are not looking in the right place for the answers of life. They're looking elsewhere. So that's the bad news. The bad news is that they've left religion behind. They've left Christianity behind. And we can speculate on the reasons for this. I have a few written down here. But I'm going to move on to the good news, which is things may be changing. And this is exciting. So here's another chart representing kind of a more recent shift. This is church attendance by generation, the year 2020. I want to draw your attention. To the right-hand of the screen, you can see that church attendance is pretty high in the silent generation and the boomers. It gets lower in Gen X and millennials, and then it increases in Gen Z. And that increase is really important. It's worth paying attention to. The people who attend church weekly, monthly is increasing among the younger generation. This wasn't expected. This surprised a lot of people. Here's another chart. You can see this is general church attendance, and the three lines there are Gen X, boomers, and elders, which is the silent generation. You can see how it progressively trends downward for each of those. But these are the lines for millennials and Gen Z. You see, it kind of dips down during the pandemic, and then it shoots up to the point where there are now more Gen Z that want to be involved in church and are coming back to church than the first three generations. Again, this is really exciting. And so we ask ourselves, why? Like, why is Gen Z so hungry for the gospel? And I think the best answer is that God is working. God is working in the hearts of these young people, and it's good for us as a church to take notice of that. I think another reason is that secularism, this idea of I don't need religion, I don't need all that, it's been found wanting. It's been found empty. And Gen Z knows that it's empty. They know that it's not fulfilling these problems and the crisis that. They found themselves in, and so now they are looking, they're seeking. This is the position of Gen Z at this moment in history. An article I read kind of parses this out a little bit more. I'll read this for y'all. Isolation during the pandemic has created a hunger for belonging. Disillusionment with ineffective, abusive, and hypocritical leaders have created a hunger for sincere, humble, transparent leadership. Pervasive anxiety is creating a hunger for deep peace. Digital self-projection and self-perfection is creating a longing for relational authenticity. Rapid social and economic change is creating a hunger for traditional and stable institutions and mentors.

41:18So to sum this all up, Gen Z is in a crisis, and they know that they're in a crisis, and they're looking for a solution. And they are finding it in Christ. They are. This is happening. And let me just kind of explain this systematically. I made the statement: Gen Z is in a crisis. Let me parse that out just a little bit. There are four kind of discernible crises that Gen Z is experiencing based on statistics and data and feedback from Gen Z. The first one is a crisis of identity, right? This largely has to do with the LGBTQ movement that has promised Gen Z. Freedom and happiness, and they'll be less lonely, and they'll be just so their lives will be so much better if they throw off traditional notions of identity and embrace kind of this self-actualized identity. That was the promise of the LGBTQ movement. And guess what? Gen Z is figuring out that we are more lonely than ever, we're more anxious than ever, we're more depressed than ever. It's not working. The promise is not delivering on what it has promised. And so now they're lost. They're lost. The identity was just as miserable as what they thought that they were throwing away, and now they don't know who they are. They don't know where to find their identity. They're looking for these answers. Another crisis is safety and anxiety. And these go hand in hand, which is why I'm grouping them together. You may have heard the phrase, the anxious generation. There's actually a book called The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. And that is Gen Z. And he traces some of the reasons for the increase of mental health that has happened in this generation, the increase of suicide rates that have happened in this generation.

43:14And there are two compounding reasons, and both have the same source. Source is smartphones, in a word, technology. Remember that Gen Z is the generation that grew up with smartphones in their pocket from a very, very early age. And what has This done to their worldview? Well, a couple things. One, it's given them access to news and media. And some of that is true, some of that is misinformation, but it's all there and it's overwhelming. It's overwhelming, and so Gen Z is scared. They don't know what to think, and the future that they can see clearly looks very, very dim. It looks bleak. Everyone tells them to look forward to this, but this thing on the horizon, they don't like it. They're scared. And so they desire safety. They desire protection from the world around them. And the second reason that smartphones have kind of contributed to this is the relational deficit. Because typically, when you find yourself scared, where do you go? You go to your closest relationships. You go to the people that know you and love you the most. And you talk with them, you lean on them, you hug them.

44:28But we're finding that Gen Z by and large does not have close relationships to do that with. Because the bulk of their social interactions are now happening on smartphones, and you can't hug your smartphone. It doesn't feel very cozy. This is what's happening. Gen Z has never lived in a world where they've had to form deep embodied connections because of the counterfeit connections that are being offered every single day. This has caused anxiety. This has caused a crisis. The technology that That promised Gen Z an easier life is making them more anxious and unstable than ever. The last one on here is loneliness, a crisis of loneliness. Y'all may remember this, 2013. The, not the attorney general, the surgeon general, declared a national epidemic. It wasn't a virus, it wasn't anything biological, it was loneliness. We're experiencing a national emergency of loneliness. And this is largely concentrated on young people today. According to statistics, this is the first time in recorded history that the youngest generation is more lonely than the oldest generation, which means that the people, the young people today, consider themselves more lonely than the people who are sitting in nursing homes. Think about that. That's crazy. And it's ironic, it's paradoxical because they're also the most connected generation ever, and yet they report to be the loneliest generation ever, which means it tells me that they're connected to the wrong things. They're connected to the wrong things. And this is what Gen Z is facing. But there's good news, right? Literally good news because the gospel, the good news of the gospel, is equipped to handle all four of these crises. I'm telling you, Gen Z knows there's a problem. They've tried secularism. They've found it wanting. And so, what do we do as a church when it comes to evangelism? We offer them with the alternative of Jesus Christ. And just walked through these one by one. Identity. The gospel speaks to identity. 2 Corinthians 5, 17. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. That's who you are. If you're in Christ, you're a new creation. 1 John 3:1, Behold what manner of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God. That's what we are. That's your identity right there. The gospel offers safety. In John 10, 28, Jesus says, I will give my sheep eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. It's hard to feel safe without an eternal perspective, is it not?

47:18Gospel offers an alternative to anxiety. 1 Peter 5:7, cast your anxieties on him. Why? Because God cares for you. The creator of the universe cares for you. Wow. That's incredible. Gen Z needs to hear that. Philippians 4, 7, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. And lastly, loneliness. Gospel has the answer for that. Matthew 28, 20, Jesus to his disciples, Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And right now, if you are a believer in Christ, that he is.

48:00Interceding for you before God the Father. He empathizes with your weaknesses. He understands your struggles. Yes, the struggles of Gen Z. He understands. He pleads your case. So I hope you see the urgency in this. I hope you see the importance. And frankly, I hope you are excited as I am, seeing that Gen Z is just right here on the brink. Right there. And so I hope it inspires in you a desire to do something about it. And that's where I'm going to end tonight: is what can I do? If you're sitting here thinking, okay, John, this is all good and well. You've thought a lot about this. You're the college pastor. I get it. But what can I do? Well, like I said, I firmly believe that the responsibility of reaching the next generation falls on all generations. It's all of our responsibility. You can all play a part. So here are some practical suggestions.

49:03Number one is the mentality. Okay? Just to stop making excuses of that's someone else's job. You know, that's a department of the church. No, discipleship is Christianity. It's the responsibility of the church to go out and make disciples of all nations. And so I just want to emphasize that, to break the mentality that it's not just a job for the experts, quote unquote. And I see this in college ministry. Right? Oftentimes, I'll get a statement to the effect of, oh, I'm not sure if Gen Z wants me to be around. I think it'll be awkward if I interact with Gen Z. And I just want to say, no, no, no. Like, Gen Z, they are hungry. They're hungry for mentorship. They're hungry for discipleship. It is a good thing. It is a God-honoring thing to engage with the younger generations. So don't buy into the lie that Gen Z doesn't like you. They do, I promise. They like you. They want to interact with you. The second thing is evangelize by asking questions. Listen, learn. Same thing you would do if you were engaging with someone from a different country. And you can use these four crises points to ask probing questions. Ask them, okay, are you lonely? Are you experiencing anxiety, depression? Do you feel chronically anxious all the time? Why do you feel that way? What's been going on? Why do you think XYZ hasn't really helped? And as you are listening and learning and gaining their trust, then comes the crucial moment where you get to offer them the alternative, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Walk them through how the gospel satisfies these things that secularism is lacking. And then, after you evangelize, follow up with them. Gen Z is highly, highly relational, meaning they don't want to be just Be kind of passed on to a program, right? You know, if you're the one that's interacting with them, you know, maybe you have Gen Z that work with you, or maybe it's your kids or cousins or nephews, be the one to actually follow up, you know, establish a relationship and then use that relational capital to say, okay, and it's not just go to church, come to church with me, let's go to church together, let's sit in the pews. You can sit right next to me, you don't have to, you know, be awkward, sit in the back row. But we're going to focus on Christ because He is the satisfaction of my soul, and I want you to experience that.

51:36Which brings me to the next point: invite them to a manual. And I say Emmanu specifically. Why? Because I love Emmanuel. But also, kind of coming from this workshop and hearing some of these trends going on with Gen Z, I am convinced that Emmanuel is poised to do the work of the evangelists here. And let me explain that. Some of the trends that I'm seeing are that the age of the mega church is over, right? You know, these huge churches where you can just come in and come out and no one knows you, you know, big concert-style music. You know, that used to be trendy in the younger generations, but that's starting to die out. According to one researcher, 55% of Gen Z prefer smaller churches or churches under 200 members, right? Also, there's indications that there's a resurging appreciation for traditions, for Hymns, for liturgies, and that makes sense, right? You know, kind of the instability of the world, they're longing for something that is institutional and is stable. And so, my point in saying this is that Emmanuel, as a church, we do these things well already. We don't have to become seeker-sensitive. We already are just by doing what we've been doing for the past 40 years, right? We are poised to be on the front lines of reaching Gen Z. And I want to emphasize that. You may not have known that. I didn't know that. And so, this is something I think we can take to heart. We can invite them to Emmanuel. We can say, Come with me, come experience the things I love about Emmanuel. We are relational, we are intergenerational, we are missional. And I'll tell you, just give you a heads up: you may need to invite someone five or six times before they'll say yes. You may need to sit with them in the pew, but it's these efforts that will help kind of bring people into this congregation at least so that we can share the gospel with them. We can point them to the truth of God's word.

53:37Next, initiate, you know, kind of be the first party to step through these cultural gaps that we've been talking about. Gen Z wants to be pursued, but they will often not take the first step. They might sit in the back row, they might be silent, and they're waiting for someone to approach them. And so, we can take that and we can say, Oh, you know, all right, you know, it's going to be awkward, it's going to be hard, but I'm going to do it anyway. You know, I'm going to enter into that space. I'm going to take the vulnerability, the awkwardness, whatever it is. And it doesn't matter who you are, what generation you're in, I encourage you to see that as a strength, to see these gaps as a way to encourage one another and build each other up. And what this looks like practically is to avoid this thing that we call clumpy oatmeal, right? And clumpy oatmeal is this tendency to congregate with people that you're comfortable with and just like you. That's the easy thing, right? The hard thing is to break that off, to invite people in, to go to someone who's sitting alone, to ask them their name, to invite them to lunch, to coffee. I call this aggressive hospitality. This is something that I think we can all do better at. Last one: engage in intergenerational discipleship. This really takes us back to where we started, Psalm 78, right? Recount the wonderful works of God to the next generation. And that can mean opening up scripture together and recounting the wonderful works there. But I think more often that's just talking about your life. Taking someone in the younger generation who's maybe studying to be an accountant or an engineer and say, well, I'm an accountant. Let me walk you through what godliness looks like in the accounting firm. Let me walk you through what godliness looks like as a mother. As a father, as a husband, as a wife. Let me recount the wonderful things that God has done for our family. Let me encourage you that when you seem like you're facing a mountain that can't move, that God has moved that mountain for me, and He can do the same for you. So, this takes the place of a lot of organic conversations.

55:50Again, kind of over coffee, over lunch, but it also can just be you doing what you do normally and taking someone along with you. We've taken college students to the grocery store on our weekly grocery run just so that they can see how we buy groceries. It sounds mundane, but my experience is they love it. They love being around older generations, just that craving for mentorship and stability. There's also some more official ways to participate. I know y'all know a lot of these, but partners one-on-one. There are a lot of college students that are lined up, ready to do partners.

56:29Like I said, hungry for mentorship. That's an avenue the church has to be able to engage in intergenerational discipleship. YAGs, kind of our young adult group, there are ways to get involved in that. If you're interested, please, please, please come talk to me. I want families, boomers, like everyone in the church who has a heart and a passion for Gen Z college students. I will find a place for you to serve. We have places for you to serve.

57:01So, there's some official avenues on that way. And just to name one of them, we are doing more evangelism on campus this year. I don't really care what generation you're a part of. If you want to do frontline evangelism, that's another thing. Come talk to me, and we'll get you plugged in with that. My point in all of this, just to land the plane, is that this is our mission field. God has put us in a college town. The median age of college station is 23 years old. That's young.

57:32This is our mission field. The harvest is ready. Gen Z is hungry. And so I challenge you: will you answer the call? Will you answer the call? I'll just end with the words of Luke 1:50, which says, God's mercy extends to all those who fear Him from generation to generation.