Gen Z is Finding Jesus Without the Church - Bravester
I’ve been praying for revival among young people since 1983. It is something one of my professors inspired me to do. I joined him in many early mornings praying for the revival of the 1990s.
What we got in the 1990s was a bad form of youth ministry that emphasized a stage and fandom that has led to this deconstruction trend. (Deconstruction has always been a stage of faith, social media made it famous.) I have a lot of opinion on that as I was there and had my own deconstruction of youth ministry methods beginning in 1994.
To my happy and curious ears I am delighted to hear about the outbreaks of revival among Gen Z. Beginning with the Asbury Outpouring and what has spread to many college campuses and other places young people are. We are seeing repentance happening, forgiveness of others, and a turning to the way of Jesus.
What we are not seeing are these same affected young people showing up to church. Or any of these revival moments happening inside of a church.
The Barna Group’s newest numbers reflect this. Since 2020, the percentage of Gen Z attending church weekly has dropped from 22 percent to 16 percent, while those not attending at all has risen from 28 percent to 37 percent. Source.
Those are some bad numbers. 16 percent of all Gen Z attend church weekly. 37 percent of all Gen Z don’t attend church at all. Note that this maps on to the years after the Asbury Outpouring.
Maybe you have heard also about the spiritual “openness” of Gen Z. This is another Barna Group finding. One I have found personally hopeful because in my 40+ years of youth ministry I have seen teens stop attending church in big numbers. I have seen what happens when parents in the 1990s chose sports over Sunday morning church and the effect this had on their teens who now get to make their own decisions. Church was modeled as unimportant and “it’s okay to belong to a church but we don’t have to go every week.” Now they aren’t going to church at all, at least 37 percent of them. Especially with the internet, Gen Z can learn about Jesus in other places than the Church. The void of the habit of attending church is why I believe they are more open. They know so little about Jesus.
Yes, Gen Z (and Gen Alpha) is more spiritually open. But that doesn’t mean they are always drawn to Christianity. They are being drawn to enchantment, which Christianity is full of. They are being drawn to mattering, which Christianity is full of. Or can be full of.
Gen Z is having Christian spiritual experiences but are not finding a church because they are drawn to enchantment; to mattering; to something more than the “magic” they have grown up with that their smartphone has provided. They are not finding a church because Church is too corporate, too institutionalized, too stale, too expected.
You know this to be true also.
Gen Z is finding Jesus in other places that they consider sacred. The Church is not on the list.
Without proper discipleship, this spiritual openness can lead to learning some bad Christian teachings—which will certainly be thrown away in the future in a big ball of social media deconstruction talk. These bad teachings are not a part of the Christian story that is over 2,000 years old. We are people of a place. We are people of a person, not a notion or belief system or philosophy but the person of Jesus Christ. This has placement and is not fluid. We belong to something. This is why we quote ancient creeds.
Enchantment that leads to a creedal faith happens in intergenerational relationships. It happens when young curious souls connect with aged wise souls. There is some magic in that. There is some stickiness in that. This happens more often in a church. Or in some churches, because some churches will keep that stage-mentality for as long as they can.
Gen Z wants to hear their names being said. Saying their names means they matter to someone. That means a lot in this “loneliness epidemic.”
Gen Z are curious about you. You who has “made it” and how you made it. You who has a committed love story, because they have so rarely experienced this. You who knows their name and they know that they matter to you.
Gen Z will test whether you will tenaciously stay in relationship with them. Because they have been left by so many significant others by this time in their lives. The weight of perseverance falls on us church people more than them who sometimes show up and sometimes don’t. A church can provide a place of tenacious adults who don’t abandon.
Gen Z have enough say-so in life that they want to be a part of a dialogue. They do have something to contribute. Church tends to be monologue and those in up-gens being the only voice. Gen Z is too influential to not be a part of the dialogue.
Gen Z wish to be authentic. This should be something that the Church welcomes. Gen Z are assaulted by performance—surrounded by sales pitches—in every part of their life. Social media is a performance-driven ecosystem. Church can feel like a performance is asked of them too. Institutions that purport to be sources of truth are all under suspicion (including the Church). All of this has created a driving hunger for the truth in them, hence the spiritual openness. Can your church provide this? Including the truth that Jesus does declare some things as wrong? Strong convictions are welcomed when you are spiritually curious, as this Gen Zer tells us:
“And it’s so destabilising for children when adults don’t have strong convictions. I think it makes young people nihilistic. What else can we do? We have nothing to fight for or rebel against. We don’t build anything because for that you need a foundation of beliefs. We can’t even believe the opposite of what our parents believe because they don’t really believe in anything. How can you rebel against a Void? …We aren’t revolting because we were restricted by too many rules; we are revolting against too much freedom. When everything is permitted, the only rebellion left is to give up on it all.” –Freya India https://www.freyaindia.co.uk/p/the-need-for-adults
Why do we all need a church? Because we want to matter. By mattering I mean,
“Mattering is a form of enchantment, a conviction that, in some mystical way, the cosmos sees you and honors your pain and struggles. Your emotional and mental well-being rests upon this bit of magic. Because the conviction that you matter is nonsense when considered from a purely factual point of view. The physical universe, all those supernovas and black holes out there, cares nothing about your suffering or your heroic efforts to love and care for the people in your life. The belief that you matter is a residual bit of magic, similar to the soul, smuggled in from our enchanted past, the conviction that God sees and cares for you.” (Hunting Magic Eels, Richard Beck, p. 56)
I’ve been quoting that a lot lately, especially in my church. Mattering is the belief and conviction that you matter, that your life has cosmic significance regardless of external circumstances. Because something outside of you (and your striving) sees you. God is personal and cares about you. I want to be one of those adults that tells young people that…often. I will be tenacious.
Read also: Today’s Teens Have No Social Obligation to Go to Church
