The Other 6 Days
As the church, we spend most of our thought, time and effort working towards our weekend gatherings; with the majority of our lives being lived outside of Sundays. The Other 6 Days Podcast is designed to help us be more intentional about the ways we can "show up" for the gospel the other 6 days of the week.
The Other 6 Days
Reaching the Next Generation | The Other 6 Days | Episode 39
In this episode, we've got Jacob Ravenscraft who is the dean of Spiritual Life at Cal Baptist University in Riverside California and offers some unique insight and perspective into our Gen Z audience. And then we've then got Young Song, our new Southwest Residency director who is responsible for building & deploying a new pastoral residence training & equipping program right here at Southwest Church. Our episode today should be filled with some great conversation along with some helpful insights on how we might better reach & connect with the upcoming future generation of students & leaders.
SHOW NOTES & RESOURCES:
- Barna - Gen Z: Vol. 1 - https://shop.barna.com/products/gen-z?srsltid=AfmBOoonBWTnJ1SsZPJ8FPjXjLCFu7Ryd2iF9mte-FMhGMRdMnMIQNqu
- Provides some great insights to understand the culture, beliefs and motivations shaping today’s teenagers.
- Mark Clark - The Problem of God: Answering a Skeptics Challenges to Christianity - (https://a.co/d/78rBS7j)
- Impossible Christianity by Kevin DeYoung - (https://a.co/d/i4gIXbG)
- Learn your context -
- The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert E. Coleman (https://a.co/d/jepohM7)
- Spiritual Multiplication in the Real World by Dr. Bob McNabb (https://a.co/d/5D9AABV)
- The Next Evangelicalism by Soong-Chan Rah (https://a.co/d/10nPdSR)
- Transforming Culture by Sherwood G. Lingenfelter (https://a.co/d/eQN1pPQ)
- The New Copernicans by David John Seel Jr. (https://a.co/d/bBuqvei)
- The Lost Letters of Pergamum by Bruce W. Longenecker (https://a.co/d/8Q8hbD7)
For more information or to join the conversation, head over to https://southwestchurch.com/theother6days or email us at theother6days@southwestchurch.com
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Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Other Six Days podcast, where we chat about life outside of Sundays and what it means to live from our gatherings, and not just for them. I'm your host, cj McFadden, and I'm here as always with Pastor Ricky Jenkins, but today we have a few special guests joining us and, dare I say, a table filled with some great minds. First we've got Jacob Ravenscraft, who is Dean of Spiritual Life at Cal Baptist University in Riverside, california, and offers some unique insight and perspective into our Gen Z audience. And then we've got Young Song, our new Southwest Residency Director, who is responsible for building and deploying a new pastoral residency training and equipping program right here at Southwest Church. Our episode today should be filled with some great conversation, along with some helpful insights on how we might better reach and connect with the upcoming future generation of students and leaders.
Speaker 1:So, guys, as always, we like to start off our podcast with something a little fun today, so I thought it might be appropriate to play what the kids are calling an icebreaker. The one I picked for us would be Would you Rather where I read a scenario and then each of you pick one and tell us why you're ready? All right, here we go. All right, would you rather have spaghetti for hair or maple syrup for sweat?
Speaker 2:I think it's an easy choice for me. Anything with hair is a plus.
Speaker 3:If we ain't got it.
Speaker 2:You know you want it. Yeah, yeah, I'll take spaghetti. I'll take ravioli on my head, Something you know.
Speaker 1:I had a feeling the hair ones that Young was going to pick up on that real quick. Yeah, so specific. Well, I mean this was like.
Speaker 4:Who wants maple syrup for sweat? Think about the bugs, yeah, and the bites I'm going with the grocery prices, though.
Speaker 3:I mean I just walk to the aisle. My kids eat pancakes or waffles. Every other day I'm going maple syrup because I can't afford groceries, and so that's my move right now.
Speaker 1:Oh, I like utilitarian. You're using that, come on.
Speaker 4:But you gotta take it to its end, like if I have maple syrup I can no longer go into bear country.
Speaker 3:I mean, neither of these are good options.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're not. But yeah, both aren't good.
Speaker 4:I ain't hating on spaghetti hair, that's kind of cool.
Speaker 1:Well, sweat's like a built in cologne, the maple syrup. It's just maybe not a flavor you're looking for, yeah, and then it's just so sticky, you know, when you go to overseas on a mission trip, like a third world area, and you can't take a bath like the fourth day, your body makes cheese.
Speaker 4:Oh geez, you just took us on a journey there that I didn't want to go like. All you can do is powder to kind of diminish it, mitigate it some yeah but you're about like man, when I was in mozambique my body did stuff after day four. That is like okay I didn't know I didn't know my body could do this oh okay, ok, saw this on TikTok, so medieval times, right. Your average person took a bath maybe two, three times a year.
Speaker 2:Right, it was a deal Right.
Speaker 4:And so everybody get this water. You heat it up. Well it went. You took your bath in order of hierarchy, so the man of the household first, oh yikes, mama such and such Stop a year ahead. Aunties, uncles, grandparents I don't want to picture this. Well, the baby was always last. So the little two, three, three-year-old or whatever, and the water would be so mucky and grimy that you could barely see the bottom. And so the whole idea was make sure the baby's out of the water first, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Speaker 2:Oh, that makes sense now.
Speaker 3:It reminds me of you just blew our minds.
Speaker 4:It's getting dark now and we're going.
Speaker 3:I feel like we need to change the whole trail.
Speaker 1:We should move along.
Speaker 2:It's actually. It reminds me of the order of baptism in this church. I was in where we had three services and by the third service you did not want to be baptized. That's how bad the water was, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh no, You're questioning your obedience to Christ at that point.
Speaker 2:It's like you really die going under. And when you get out, you're like I'm alive, I'm alive.
Speaker 4:Oh man, I would have been like. Didn't the thief on the cross get in there without this? Yeah, I think I would just go straight to paradise for 400, Alex.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 3:We've seen that in those whole congregation baptisms you dip them under, it looks like an oil slick, and then you see the makeup come off and then you go under. It's dark, we couldn't even get through the first two Would you rather Welcome to the other six days.
Speaker 1:We'll hit one or two more in here. Would you guys rather fight one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses? Nobody jump on that one.
Speaker 4:I'm still trying to understand it. I think I could just take out duck-sized horses even if there's a hundred of them Like a hundred little ones. If they're little ones, yeah, I just kick them and then the other ones get scared because horses are skittish yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, a big, horse-sized duck, I think, would be pretty aggressive. He's going to eat you. He could eat you, he could take you down.
Speaker 3:How long would that beak be? That'd be a big beak, yeah. That'd be a scary, scary beak yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, we'll jump on to another one.
Speaker 4:Let's go, I'm not going to touch it.
Speaker 1:I'm not. Would you rather have the ability to talk to animals or speak every language fluently? Oh man, that seems a little more.
Speaker 4:Every language, every language I mean, how interesting would a dog be?
Speaker 3:I can make some money speaking every language. That's a game changer.
Speaker 1:You think you could, as a veterinarian, if you could speak to each of the animals like be an animal whisperer?
Speaker 4:Can they trade? What resources do they have? Can that horse turn some Nvidia stock? I don't think so.
Speaker 3:And then Bitcoin with the monkeys.
Speaker 1:Oh man, all right, we'll do one last one. Would you guys rather have a time machine that goes back in time or one that only goes forward in time?
Speaker 4:And we mean time, temporal right. We're not talking about the eschaton when Jesus comes back.
Speaker 1:We're just talking about okay, this is before Christ comes back, but for you can go there if you want, but yeah.
Speaker 4:I'd love to pontificate about this. So you have to go back again. My purposes are financial. I love that.
Speaker 3:And so.
Speaker 4:I'm going back to to you know. You know I'm investing in Coca-Cola.
Speaker 3:Right, I'm investing in Walmart.
Speaker 4:Yes, exactly. So I'm just doing all that and I'm going back to the 1700s and I'm finding some Because of the hair? No, because I'm just going to some plantations with my like new school weaponry and I'm freeing all my cousins. So that's what I'm doing. Yeah, y'all asked a question. That is fair.
Speaker 3:That's fair.
Speaker 1:That's fair. What are you doing?
Speaker 3:Young Next question.
Speaker 2:I will go back to like the 1700s and everybody's like what is that? What is that? We've never seen one of those.
Speaker 3:And I'd be like hey you know I'm here.
Speaker 2:I'm here. What you're doing is bad in the South. Don't do it. Don't do it.
Speaker 1:That's what I would do personally, I guess, yeah, you don't know what you're in for if you go forward, right, you're just going to let.
Speaker 4:We're not really and we kind of we can assume it's bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, exactly, it's not headed towards, isn't that great Right? Well, I'm far for it, it goes up and down.
Speaker 4:I'll tell you what I'd like to do. Right, with all this Joe Rogan stuff talking about how the Egyptians built all this stuff, the pyramids and stuff, I would love to go to classic, you know, prehistoric civilizations, babylon, the Aztec empires, hittites. I'd love to see like their capital cities and how they figure that stuff out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that'd be cool. So fascinating Nineveh post-Jonah.
Speaker 4:Right after Jonah. Yeah, that's cool, that's wild.
Speaker 2:It's like I want to see the cows with sackcloth and ashes I had it in my back pocket.
Speaker 1:I wasn't ready. Well, I'm going deep on the cross, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's a great question, man. Yeah, that's good, I like that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you. What about you? What would you? Backwards or forwards? Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:Backwards, backwards, gotta go backwards. Yeah, there's so much history to see.
Speaker 1:In particular era year.
Speaker 3:I would just do a tour of what you guys said.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll stay there. That was good.
Speaker 2:For sure. My fear, though, is, if I go back and I see everything and go to present time, everything would be a lie. I'm like y'all got it wrong. You know, like, like you know, just just the way people like modernize history, it's just yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 4:So I would see, I would love to see me and CJ talk about these guys all the time. I would love to see the Mazarites whenever the transfer of that oral history of the Old Testament Hebrew is put into Scripture, it's like transcribed, like I'd love to see. Remember the movie that Denzel did. He was blind the whole time.
Speaker 1:Book of Eli. Book of Eli so good.
Speaker 4:Remember at the end, when you realize he knows he's memorized it. I'd love to see the Masoretes sitting down and quoting scripture from memory while all these monks are writing stuff down. Wow, wouldn't that be funky. Yeah, oh, I love that.
Speaker 2:YouTube and Google, masoretes, y'all.
Speaker 4:Sorry, I don't have time to talk about it.
Speaker 3:I'm going to go the 400 years intertestamental period. Oh, come on, the 400 years intertestamental period.
Speaker 2:Oh, come on. That's so much, that's good Like second temple Judaism leading up to Jesus's like birth. That's good.
Speaker 4:That'd be wild to just be on the scene and that cultural moment. Maccabeus the hammer.
Speaker 3:Temple like oh, that'd be wild, that's good Just seeing where everyone was at like right before. Oh, that's good.
Speaker 1:That'd be really interesting. That's like Jesus' early years.
Speaker 3:Yeah so yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, and then, like right Alexander gets done and everything becomes Hellenized, and how that affects Second Temple Judaism.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, all of them. That'd be a great movie, actually it would.
Speaker 4:If you had a billion dollars. Oh man and all the stuff you're going to do, because you know, buy my house and do all that. You got to do all that and buy your car and all that stuff and tithe and take up your church, and if you do win a billion dollars, if you're listening, tithe to Southwest, don't pray about it. Anyways, like wouldn't it be so cool that would never get made.
Speaker 2:Like what you just said.
Speaker 4:Like a billion dollars. You can make the best.
Speaker 3:I can make that movie.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and Tom Cruise is in it, like you can, obviously.
Speaker 3:Oh, that would be so fun. There's a book, letters of Pergamum, and it's this like non. It's so fascinating. It's this nonfiction, but right, or what is that? So it's not.
Speaker 2:it's not it's stories. It's not it's stories.
Speaker 3:Yes, but in the history. What is that?
Speaker 4:Why am I blanking?
Speaker 1:on it. It's called something. It's called something.
Speaker 4:What's that called?
Speaker 3:But it's this narrative story of like these characters, but like they're not real, but they're living in that historical moment.
Speaker 2:Letters of Pergamum yeah.
Speaker 3:Fascinating Right in the middle of intertestamental time period between OT and OT.
Speaker 2:We got to put that in the show notes, so fascinating I got to read that.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's good, it'll be your movie. That's the movie. What was the girl in the Old Testament? I forget her name. Was it Dana Diana, the red tent girl she was. Was it who's daughter was it?
Speaker 3:Anyways, dina, dina, sorry, I'm saying Diana, see, young, you're here, we needed you.
Speaker 4:We got to find that genre. But anyways, it's a wonderful novel on her called the Red Tent. Oh interesting, oh, it's powerful. That's a great idea. Wow, that's a great idea for movies I love that Come on and give Dallas Jenkins, like some CGI money for Chosen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's killing it. Some CGI? Yeah, he's killing it. Dallas is off the chain.
Speaker 3:I know Dallas.
Speaker 4:Dallas is a great dude. But like imagine, like CGI money for that stuff, what he could do with his mind.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's proven.
Speaker 4:He's proven himself right, yes.
Speaker 1:At this point, at this point.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 3:Take us through it. Yes.
Speaker 4:It's a matter of time. You know we need to pray for him, because it's a matter of time before the big boys get some real money to tell a different kind of story. Yeah, that's true, which is fine, there ain't nothing wrong with that, by the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, we probably should have started off with this, but let's jump in real quick.
Speaker 3:I mean that might be a good idea too.
Speaker 1:Maybe Jacob you go first and then we'll have Young go after. But tell us some quick highlights about yourself. What are you currently being called to do and what do you love about it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I mean, what am I called to do? I'm called to be a faithful husband, father and disciple of Jesus. That's in the scriptures I believe and that's in the scriptures I believe. And so, as far as just my career, my craft, that I view as a platform for faithful disciple making, training and investing in the next generation, young adults, college students. I'm currently, as you mentioned earlier, dean of Spiritual Life, lead campus pastor at California Baptist University. Love it, it's an incredible university, it's a gift, it's a it it's an incredible university, it's a gift, it's a privilege, it's a incredible role, and so I'm very blessed to be in it, my second year there in that role, but starting my ninth year at CBU. So it's been a beautiful journey and just passionate about that, about making disciples who make disciples. Passionate about about that, about making disciples who make disciples.
Speaker 3:Um, sharing the gospel with. We have probably a third, third and a third of spiritual demographics on our campus almost 7,000 undergrads, so a third non-Christian, a third Christian and a third kind of nominal in between, maybe struggling with obedience. We don't know where they're at, only Jesus knows. And so we uh, we, as just sort of a spiritual life staff, our campus ministry team. Man, we want to be sharing the gospel with unbelievers. We want to do that intentionally and strategically, very passionate about that, wanting to grow myself in that. I personally have so much to learn, but want to model that for my team and other staff. I learn from my staff every day, my team and other staff. I learn from my staff every day. But, man, we just see beautiful movements of disciple making on campus and the more involved you are in campus ministry at CBU, the more involved you are in the local church. Praise God for that, amen.
Speaker 3:So, that's where kind of my passion lies. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:What about you Young, for me? I've been in pastoral ministry since 2003, and I started off focused on small groups and discipleship, really, with colleges, campus ministry all the way up to about 26, 27. And I started there and my heart never left that age range my mind as well, sometimes, you know. But discipleship, seeing leaders raised, seeing people who others may look at in the body of Christ and say, yeah, you'll be a faithful attender, but then to see them become transformers will changers. You know people who know how to disciple and make life impact. And now, in this role that I'm at, you know, residency director, I get to focus on that really for structural leadership in the body of Christ. And so I'm happy, I'm blessed, I'm excited, I'm appreciative and I'm humbled, and to actually have a seat at this table, you know it means a lot.
Speaker 1:Oh man. Well, we're glad to have you both here and excited for our conversation today, and so I think it might be best to, as we get started into our actual conversation, to start by defining Gen Z and why reaching them is so important anybody want to jump in? Yeah and go.
Speaker 3:Man, gen Z. I mean, are we just defining this by age, by yeah?
Speaker 1:Whatever you want, just kind of, what kind of gets lumped in there. We can even go with maybe some things that aren't accurate about what we think it might be, but you know just kind of some generalizations, and then you know.
Speaker 4:Just to softball you, you know, I think one of the reasons we're so excited about this conversation and just partnering with you, jacob, just to hear you know from an expert who's, like, literally called in this season to be a witness to them and to raise them up Right, like I feel, like in the last 18 months, that the shift has completely happened whereby last 10, 12, 15 years it's all millennial and now they're completely, you know, millennials have minivans now, right, and so now, like now, the way we used to talk about millennials in culture 10, 12 years ago, now we talk about the Zs and it seems to be, it seems to have crossed over, like we all know that this is the up and coming generation that's going to shape culture in the same way that the millennials have.
Speaker 4:So I'm just fascinated to hear your insight and how you're going to capture this so we can kind of because we got to figure out not only how to love them well but also how to galvanize what God's doing in their hearts in this generation. I'm excited about that stuff you got to say.
Speaker 3:Absolutely OK. So Gen Z is, yeah, it's fascinating because they grew up with the iPhone, they grew up with a smartphone, they phone, they grew up in the digital age. So their like town hall is completely different, it's all digital. So you have even millennials. They're showing up like I'm a millennial, I'm like in the middle of the millennial. So I remember growing up and still going down to like I grew up in this like suburb right now outside of Chicago and there's this thing in our downtown called cruise nights and it was like everyone brought their nice car and that was town hall for like kids, millennials you still like you didn't have phones, like you didn't you rode your bike around town. Halloween you're like chilling with the friends, you know, doing your own thing and it's safe and it's fine. And Gen Z kids are at home on their phone texting and on social media and TikTok. So that's how they connect with each other, that's what they kind of grew up in.
Speaker 3:And values have shifted right the value of mental health, the sort of language and how they have redefined words like trauma. Like in the mental health profession, the word trauma is connected to something that's, like you know, risking of your life, right? So something where you're in an experience and your life is at risk. But that's not how Gen Z defines the word trauma. So you have this language like trauma bond, and what does that mean for a Gen Z person? They're like we went through something hard together, or like our mental health, we experience anxiety, and so I think man, the language is changing and shifting and how people are viewing, going through difficult things. Obviously, anxiety and depression have skyrocketed.
Speaker 3:So much of that is connected to social media. The most dangerous thing you could do, right 20 years ago is open a cabinet full of alcohol to, you know, young teenagers. Now it's handing them a phone with social media and so that's the new. Okay, here's some alcohol, it's here's social media. Like one of the worst things you could do is hand a teenage girl a phone with social media. That's one of the worst things you could do right now. So Gen Z is is being shaped so much by the phone, by media, by access to internet, and here's the. Here's the caveat, right, no boundaries care in that way. Have not been educated in the exposure of what that means and the yeah, just the weight of what you've done by giving that freedom.
Speaker 3:So people aren't getting their driver's license right, like we know this. So all of these things are being like pushed back because they have access to the world. Their town hall is on this little device and so obviously that's shaping their development, not only just like natural, like let's talk about adulting. These kids don't have life skills, let alone growing in maturity. Socially, they struggle to have conversations. Obviously that was heightened with COVID and isolation. But how are Gen Z students like showing up to college? Right? So that's some of the things, but how?
Speaker 2:are.
Speaker 3:Gen Z students like showing up to college, right. So that's, that's some of the things that we've experienced, these shifts from the millennials, the later years of the millennials, into now, the Gen Z. Yeah, they're showing up different. One incredible positive is they're showing up open. Okay, they're showing up spiritually open, very, very open. Guess what Gen Z is not doing with their faith Deconstructing.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 3:Gen Z is not deconstructing their faith. Why?
Speaker 4:They don't have one. There it is.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:So, so, so they Nothing to deconstruct.
Speaker 4:Nothing was deconstructed. They're just open. Yeah, so, so that's. They have nothing to deconstruct. Nothing was constructed. They're just open.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so so that's a helpful thing for pastors, because a lot of pastors, preachers, disciplers I'm going to say Gen X and boomers, um or or. Millennials are like. Millennials are doing this a ton. Like Christian ministry leaders who are millennials are projecting all their peers and friends who are deconstructing onto Gen Z. Stop it. Gen Z is not deconstructing. Stop using that language.
Speaker 3:Guess what? They're open and the thing and this is all you referenced this later like a ton of this data is from the Barna Gen Z, discipling, gen Z study, which is obviously incredible stuff and we've paired it with and a lot of it aligns with our own assessment and surveys that we've done data collection. It's true, man, they're open. And here's the thing whereas the millennial and Gen Xer was very interested in this, apologetics is shifting, so a lot of like millennials and Gen Xers are like they want to learn. You know apologetics, because what are they? So they gravitate. There's this magnetic pull to being correct and being right. Gen Z doesn't care. They're interested in how has the gospel of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of your sin and you making Jesus Christ the Lord of your life? How has that actually changed your life? Talk to me about transformation, wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Don't talk to me. Don't try to prove that you're right. Right, like some of this apologetics, narrative and tone. Yeah, don't like be a more about being correct and correcting me. Just talk to me about how this has changed you, would you provide color to that?
Speaker 4:And I'm going to give you an angled question. I'm so fascinated by what you're saying and I could be wrong with my presumption, but it seems to me that Gen Z, they have more of a penchant to anxiety than to anger. Yes, and I would love for you to kind of color that a little bit more with, like, real witness, insofar that you're discipling and working with them each and every day, because I love that they're open, right? Yeah, and when I hear you say, man, just show me how that looks, what I hear is you saying, hey, I'm ready to kind of embrace anything that I can distinguish as real. Yes, I'm ready for transcendence, I'm ready for something that I can't deny, I'm ready for something that isn't AI'd on my Snapchat and I don't want to take it too far because I don't know what's in the mind and heart of a Gen Z, but that's my, that's my question.
Speaker 4:It's like, is that because they've been so kind of immersed in this digital space, right, and where, or whatever you know what I mean when and then their parents didn't give them a faith? And so, like man, I just need anything that is indistinguishable, I want something that is real, anything that is indistinguishable. I want something that is real and I feel I'm just saying as a preacher I don't know, this is all subjective but I feel that desire in our Gen Z kids that I had had the conversations. I have no idea, but I think there's a feeling because there's so many more today than there were at Southwest even a year ago, and it's changing my preaching just because I'm looking at it.
Speaker 3:Praise God, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4:So, anyways, I don't know what my question was.
Speaker 3:Well, I think you're just making some really good observations right.
Speaker 3:We're seeing the shift in generation. We're seeing, okay, what are some primary emotions that are surfacing that we see in like unhealthy parts of who we are and how we operate. I think this is conjecture as well. I think the parallel is how many relationships do I have with real humans? How many human relationships do I have, Right? So what? What's the result? We're seeing more anxiety because of the social media and the comparison we're seeing. Uh, so if I have less real human interactions and human relationships, maybe I have less anger because I'm just so dialed into like that's my world is interacting socially.
Speaker 3:And here's the thing what's happening on social media? What's the town hall? Everyone's posting that they're happy. The things that are being posted is look how happy I am. And then they're like OK, I'm posting on how happy I am. Look at all these happy pictures of me, and then I'm looking at everyone else's happiness, but then I'm. Then it comes back to me and I think, wait, I'm not actually happy though. And so that's where the anxiety surfaces, because, um, if you do like a a biblical sweep and overview biblical theology of anxiety, it's because you lack a true trust and faith in God's provision for your life. You are looking for provision and value from this social media thing, this experience-based thing. That's not real, and so your true belief that God will provide, that he is truly sovereign, that Christ rules and reigns over all of life, is not real.
Speaker 4:This is powerful. It feels like a shift and I don't want to be overpronounced in how we kind of categorize a generation. Sure, it seems like I'm an ex, right, I'm a classic ex, I ex, I'm ex. I was about to say something that would have been dumb, anyways, I'm solidly ex. I was about to say something that would have been dumb, anyways.
Speaker 3:I'm solidly hardworking. Yeah, come on.
Speaker 4:Parents were busy Get it done, get over yourself, it's not that bad. You know what I mean, yeah. But then I've noticed in most of the millennials I know, versus the disease that I know that whereas millennials were handed something and are able to deconstruct it or to be angry about it, or to be disappointed about it, or to be let down by institutional failure Wow, right, so there's something going on in their head. And then I see Z's who weren't handed down all that kind of stuff. They're used to disruption and I kind of. Their panacea for lack of a better word was OK, I'll just pay my next box or I'll get in my thing and I'll text with my friends, or whatever the case may be. So I guess the point I'm trying to make is it feels to me, like Z's, that much more require something that is real, something that I can touch and feel, something that is transcendent, that affirms me, that brings me some comfort yeah, that brings me grounding, you know, and that seems to me like when I talk to 20 year old boys.
Speaker 3:That's what they are saying, you know, if they're brave enough to share what's going on in their hearts Wow, yeah, you tap, wow, you just tapped into the next sort of dimension of this, so I call it the grit meter. Okay.
Speaker 3:Okay, so here's what happens If I'm not in millennials? I'm outside more, I'm doing more activities, I'm doing sports, I'm at recess. I'm just my parents here. It is Ready, my parents, let me go free play more Millennials, okay. Gen Z, where am I in my room? That's right On the screen. That's right.
Speaker 3:Escapism to the digital world. So trying and failing and building. Your grit meter has slowly disappeared, okay, and so what you're talking about is fascinating, right, because it's this connection between where is where is like my grit meter for just doing hard things, right, and so you, you get a person who's anything difficult. I'm so much quicker to just go into escapism and so, like, it's fascinating to hear you, like if, if I'm the 20 year old guy who's talking to you and you're like trying to listen, where's this guy at? He wants something real, he a hundred percent wants something real, but he's he, he might get to the escapism so much quicker. He's not necessarily going to last. You have to build this relationship. This trust is maybe going to take longer for you to build with this guy.
Speaker 3:So I mean, how we reached millennials? I think we saw the boom of mega churches and they responded to programs because that was really the first time that they were. That was just so big and so real. That was real for them, whereas the Gen Z's coming in and being like this is this doesn't feel real to me.
Speaker 3:And so it's fair for us to ask the question how did Jesus make disciples? Because his plan was people, not programs. That's right, and that's that's hard to do when you're trying to scale discipleship, when you're trying to create still spaces for for people. We got to be able to figure out how do we personally have personal ministries, disciple people personally in such a way that spiritual multiplication happens? Right, and so you see people who are sharing the gospel with non-believers, seeing people come to faith, discipling them and making sure that they feel confident in their assurance of salvation and how to pray these basic things, and then those people who become believers in the first one to two years that they've been discipled by you, they also share their faith. That's right, and that's just not something we're seeing a lot these days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is rich. Oh, one of the things that I've really seen is you know, we know each generation is almost a reaction to the generation before. Know, we know each generation is almost a reaction to the generation before. So, you know, I am, I believe, an X-ennial right in between.
Speaker 2:So the generation beforehand it's look at the institutions, look at the institutions, then the millennials is institutions failed us. Look to yourself. So then you have a distrust of the institution, a focus and emphasis on the self, and then the Gen Z's that are raised up with people focused on themselves, they're like well, I can't trust you, I can't trust the institutions. Now I'm searching for meaning, I'm searching for trust, which is why the rise of parasocial relationships with influencers all time high, unlike any scene before, where this person that I pay money to, that's live streaming, they're my friend, they're my world.
Speaker 2:It's just insanity, in a sense, when you look at it from the outside, but when you look at it through the lens of a Gen Zer, it is all about I have no center, and so I need to find a center to latch onto and whatever again gives me meaning, whatever gives me purpose, whatever makes me feel like I'm known and seen by these. You know that are different from these selfish millennials who are all focused on themselves. I will latch onto that. Well, it sounds like a reaction to post-modernity.
Speaker 4:Right, like the post-modernist saying look in me. Right, like all the things, we want to go there. But it seems like there may be a spark that God is allowing in Gen Z's heart where. No, I'm pretty convinced that it ain't in me. I'm anxious. I got a thousand friends but not three good ones.
Speaker 4:You know, what I mean, but not three good ones. You know what I mean and all that kind of stuff. I'm convinced there's not a lot of solace and security here, so I'll find it outside of me. So, yeah, tell me about Jesus, that's fine. Tell me, they're probably like tell me about Buddha and tell me about, you know, the AI. God too, you know, but like, that's, that's anyways. I don't want to, I don't think it can be looped all in one. But, jacob, I remember you saying a couple of months ago yeah, this generation is saying, yeah, sure, tell me about Jesus, that's fine, I'd love to listen.
Speaker 3:So yeah, and the movement on religion is so. We're thinking about Christianity, we're talking about, you know, jesus and the gospel. So there's maybe other faiths, other religions. There's being agnostic and there's being an atheist. Those are staying the same. Christianity is decreasing and the no faith, the nuns, is increasing right.
Speaker 3:And so that's the new religion of Gen Z, as you mentioned earlier, is that's what's increasing and what's fascinating. To your point, young, to connect us a little bit, is the Gospel Coalition wrote an article about a year ago that talked about the institution, and you might've read it. It talked about how we used, we used, to view the institution the church, the university. We used to view the institution as something that would form us, and now we view it as something that affirms us. So for the Gen Z-er, it's, I'm going to show up to college. Affirm me. Affirm me, make me feel at home, make me feel safe, make me feel comfortable. Don't challenge me, don't ask me hard questions, don't form my heart and my mind.
Speaker 4:Don't give me a D, even when that's what I earned.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness, so literally. I just talked to this week with professors who are like they cannot handle the fact that I'm uninterested in giving them another opportunity to change their grade. They got a D, they earned a D, they get a D right, and they're so used to, through all of high school, getting a second chance, third chance at an exam and a test and just running it back and that's their experience Again. Grit meter this has completely changed. We're a Division I university. We have D1 athletes right the grit meter. Every single coach is saying man, these athletes are different, their grit is not like it used to be. That is fascinating.
Speaker 4:And we're seeing it played out in professional sports.
Speaker 3:Entitlement yeah.
Speaker 4:Playing less games, wanting more money.
Speaker 3:Game management.
Speaker 4:By the way, I ain't judging that, but like you see it, but yet insist that. How can you dare tell me that it was harder back in the 80s and 70s than it is today, an era they never saw? Yeah, yet they're so willing to say, oh no, this is way harder, Even though we old guys like me see you doing less.
Speaker 1:That kind of moves us into our next question perfectly. Less, that kind of moves us into our next question perfectly. It says we often hear younger generations being referred as soft or lazy and given negative stereotypes surrounding the work ethic and attention span and all the things we just talked about. So how might we help define strength and resilience in a younger generation, both biblically and practically, given the rise in things like you mentioned, jacob social, you know, social media but also in societal and cultural pressures, digital disruption and mental health issues Like what are some things that you know? Let's talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 3:Model it. You got to model it Like I don't. That's the thing with millennials. I think they got really lured into discipleship, evangelism through programs. So, man, I just struggle with this. I just struggle so hard with it and it's nothing against it. I think there's different models and different methods that can be successful and, oh my gosh, incredible crusades through several different generations. The Billy Graham efforts, greg Laurie, so many. I mean these are catalytic moments. I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about the follow up. I'm talking about making a disciple and then making a disciple in such a way that that disciple makes a disciple.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking about, just like information, you know transactional.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm talking about like. No, I'm going to teach you how to do this, yeah.
Speaker 4:I love that from you know, just to take one snippet of that from the preaching experiment, right, like I feel like if you've got Gen Z's in your church or if you want Gen Z's in your church and, by the way, if you don't have Gen Z's in your church you ain't gonna have a church in five years but like I feel like for me they are shifting us in a way we should have shifted 30 years ago. Amen, where the ethic in preaching now is no longer the Bible says but the ethic is hey, guess what the Bible says.
Speaker 4:Does that make sense, Like?
Speaker 4:in the way of we're still bringing the authority of scripture to bear and this is an elucidating scripture in this historical cultural moment to bear upon what's happening in the pews, right, but it's from a posture of I know, you don't know, but I'm not going to lord it over you, but I'm going to introduce this grounded witness of truth in revelation as, hey, have you tried think about? Did you know that it says this? Did you know it actually speaks to that? Does that make sense? So I mean posture, but I think, yeah, anyways, this is very exciting.
Speaker 2:I think for me one of the interesting things that needs to shift, especially in the way the church is presented to Gen Z, is the church needs to do a better job convincing them that the church has value. You know, I think in the previous generations there's an assumption of of course we have value.
Speaker 3:Of course, this is church, this is God You're so right.
Speaker 2:But now it's, you know, it's like you know, read the Bible. Why should I read the Bible?
Speaker 4:That's right, yeah, because you should you know, it's like you know, read the Bible. Why should I read the Bible? That's right. Yeah, because you should read the Bible. That's right If we have.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if they have access to all this content.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what's what? Yeah, what is worth it? So, man, a guy director of discipleship, cbu, just been following him learning from him for almost the past decade. I love when he talks about holistic discipleship. He says, you know, he makes it. Well. I'll just make some observations, right about my generation. What I grew up with when I was at, you know, private Christian college and seminary, it was knowledge and vision. That was what was emphasized, like Bible, which, yes, I need to be trained in theology and Bible and I need to have like a vision for how to do that. But what was so often neglected?
Speaker 4:was character and skills.
Speaker 3:I'm talking about discipleship tools. I talk about this all the time. What discipleship tools are in your discipleship toolbox? If you're going to make me a disciple, how are you doing that With what? I talk about this with guys all the time I say, hey, imagine having like a big pile of wood and some screws and nails, but no drill and no hammer. You're going to be frustrated. Yeah, so if you're trying to make disciples, you don't have skills, you're gonna be frustrated. If you're trying to make disciples and you don't have character, you're gonna fail. Think about moral failures for pastors. It's not because they didn't have knowledge, skills or vision. It's because they had no character. But what if you don't have the knowledge? Well man, you're a fool. And if you don't have vision, you're just going to flounder.
Speaker 3:So, you have to be growing in these different components. I imagine right In the residency it's like how are we doing holistic discipleship? We need some theology, we need some knowledge, we need to grow in that. We need to grow in the tool of preaching. I love how you're talking about how do you preach and how do I? When I was a young adult pastor at the Grove for four and a half years, we would have interns who were at CBU. They were doing their Christian studies, majors, bachelors in applied theology and they would always want to rep. They would always want to rep, to preach right. And I would say, hey, I need to see some faithfulness. I need to see that you're available and take initiative, that you're teachable oh my goodness, teachable and humble and then that you have a heart for God and others. So you need to show me this before we're just putting you in the pulpit, and when they would, it would be okay.
Speaker 3:Show me your show me your transcript and let's walk through this, and then, after you do this, I'm going to give you feedback. And it was like it was like a huh, like a hump, like a, like this math, like it was so surprising that after you did this thing, I was going to give you feedback on how it went Right. And so what does it look like to coach? I just think of Luke 10, jesus sends out 72 and they come back, and then he has this coaching moment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's cool that you know that when you cast out demons in my name and miracles in my name, that's cool, but guess, what matters most is souls forever.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I, I've been thinking through like God's brought a plethora of young folks to our church.
Speaker 3:This is a retirement village where Southwest is right A plethora of young folks to our church.
Speaker 4:This is a retirement village where Southwest is right. Average age is 52. Wow At least that's when I moved here Probably went down to 51 out of the pandemic. So for a place like Southwest my first service here I remember walking into the 8 o'clock service and I saw silver hair and orange skin. I was just like. Oh, it felt like everybody in here has a tea time Wow.
Speaker 3:Like that's what it felt, like you know what I?
Speaker 4:mean. And of course there's young families here too. But here lately, when I come in on a Sunday, especially at the 10 o'clock, the 1130, there are 23 year old dudes all over this place. Wow, and 27-old gals.
Speaker 1:Praise the.
Speaker 4:Lord, it's just like what the crap are we?
Speaker 3:going to do here. You know what I mean, yeah.
Speaker 4:But you know, and this is unction, right. So this speak I, not the Lord, paul would say, but I've seen where their souls light up over the last year, transcendence, and so we call it here at Southwest, we call it the third moment. So every Sunday we're going to preach, every which we call it the third moment. So every Sunday we're going to preach, every Sunday we're going to sing. But those third moments, when you know we call everybody up to the stage for prayer, we're just going to pray for 10 minutes, or man, somebody's going to tell a story, or whatever. I've seen Zs come alive. So transcendence.
Speaker 4:Third or second, is trust, and all I mean is you said it well, when it says it just takes a long time to earn, and so it's just like not feeling like we're failures because these don't sign up for small groups this year. Right, like we just need to be faithful to do the same thing Be nice, be loving, be open, like open arms to them where we're talking to them. If you're new to the Bible, new to church, such and such, take your time, we're here for you. But trust. And then the third one, though, is triumph. And so, like I'm an old school preacher, right, like you know, if I wasn't funny I couldn't have a job. You know what I mean. So, like I'm old school, it's just like, yeah, get your crap together. You know, like kind of how I come off. But this congregation has so, because it's a pool, it's a congregational pool and the pool has been.
Speaker 4:I need to know somebody sees me, I need to know someone accepts me and that, that awesome side of the gospel where Jesus sees you, right where you are. And I think, hearing what you said about man, I go to an institution to get affirmed. I think it's okay to come to the church to get affirmed. You know what I mean. I think that's part of the gospel witness, that's also. You get corrected and challenged. But how do you react when you think about all those 7,000 students? How does that trifecta resonate and how can we make it better? What needs to be taken out? What needs to be?
Speaker 3:Man. I mean when you, yeah, when you're describing the transcendent I think of, yeah, I'm picturing you preach. I've heard you preach and I've been so encouraged and moved and it's been provoking and challenging, so I'm picturing. Just the word that comes to mind that we often use is the catalytic moments that you're bringing me to God's holiness. You're bringing me to, yeah, just the fact that I am made in the image of God. I am a creation, I'm not creator. It's putting me in the right position of God. I am a creation, I'm not creator. It's putting me in the right position.
Speaker 3:So that transcendence is, oh, you are luring me into reality of. Oh, my gosh, now I'm not looking at my phone, I'm looking around at reality and I'm realizing, wow, there is something so much bigger than myself and God has a plan and purpose. And let's just get right to the great commission because he says go and make disciples. So what is the purpose of my life? So I think that connection is something beyond myself. That's beautiful, it's spot on. We all need that. It's the invitation, because it's not moving from atheism to Christianity. Oh, that's so perfect and beautiful because it's moving from nothing to following Jesus. So that transcendence that hits. That's good. The trust is the relational part. It's moving from a predictive trust to a vulnerable trust.
Speaker 3:So, if I'm on social media, I know what to predict. I got these algorithms down. I'm just going to get the same old, same old. Now I'm moving to a vulnerable trust, and now we're building a real human relationship. That's incredible, right. So I need to see triumph. I need to see some like, like sense of victory that comes with the gospel, so that I know this is real. And so that's like man, that's like step two.
Speaker 3:When we when I got a guy who just accepted the Lord, I want him to be reading we're memorizing 1 John, 5, 11 and 12, so that he knows that he has eternal life if he has the son and he's going to dude. You just committed your life to Jesus Christ as Lord. You repented of your sin. You believe in his death and resurrection. Like Romans 10, 9, you know that you have Jesus now, so we're going to make sure you have confidence in the fact that you can have victory over sin because you have the Holy Spirit, confidence in the fact that you can have victory over sin because you have the Holy Spirit. And so you need to know, though, that you can have victory over sin. You can fight the three enemies of life your own personal flesh, the world and the devil. I mean that's that, as I think about my own discipleship with guys and students at CBU. I mean that's been a that's been the journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but to your point, one of the things I think is important for the longevity of that is a training component. You know, because you have the catalytic moment, you have the trust. But if there's a feeling of incapability, especially in Gen Z, as you're saying, the lack of grit it just easily peters out, or they'll just go on to the next thing and the next thing you know grit, it just easily peters out or they'll just go on to the next thing and the next thing. You know Um, yeah, I'm thinking about, um, just the uh rise of the Gen Z population in the charismatic church, which is a sector of the church that's booming, and they have the transcendence, they have a form of trust. Um, but from people that I know who've been in those circles, um, after X amount of time, it's just yeah, they start to wax and wane in terms of uh engagement, involvement in those areas, and part of it is um, you know uh, is the trust sustained or is it just an initialized trust? You know an?
Speaker 4:aesthetic of trust.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly into it and then, um, okay, great, you tell me that I can do great and amazing things. How do I do it, you know? So this feeling of, okay, I'm pumped up, I'm excited, I'm ready to go. Now I feel a lack of ability. Yeah, can we get real.
Speaker 4:Yes, we didn't talk about horse size ducks, ducks, for no reason yeah, young, I'm so glad you brought this up.
Speaker 3:Man, churches aren't doing a great job at disciple making. We are not doing a great job at training right JI Packard, american Church, thousands of miles wide an inch deep.
Speaker 3:So we got to define what is disciple making. Discipleship is the most generic word right now. No one knows what it means. Every church defines it in a different way and most definitions are shallow, and so how do we move from preaching to personal ministries? How do you define that? So I've only learned that from people here.
Speaker 3:I'll share two embarrassing realizations. I'm a third year full-time youth pastor at a church right out of seminary. Another pastor comes up to me and says hey, when you share the gospel, what do you say? And I give probably an absolutely terrible answer right, I've, you know, undergrad biblical and theological studies degree, I'm in seminary and I just have this like bad answer. What's my embarrassing realization? I'm not gospel fluent. What the heck? Why was my answer so bad? Like I don't speak gospel. Like I should know that. Like, if someone puts me on the spot, I should be able to be like dude, this is the gospel. And one of the questions that I went back to my office and I asked myself was what parts of the gospel if I leave out making an incomplete gospel?
Speaker 2:message.
Speaker 3:I don't want to be preaching and speaking incomplete gospel, like I want to preach the full gospel message. If I don't talk about sin and separation from a holy, perfect God, if I don't talk about the sin bill that requires payment and the only thing I deserve forever is hell forever, separation from God forever, if I don't talk about those things, then the weight of Jesus's work on the cross? It's diluted, it means nothing. So I gotta like I gotta get that part out there, maybe the bad news, part of the good news, and then I can get to Jesus and then I can talk about he paid that symbol that you owe, that you could never pay. He lived a life you couldn't live. The death you couldn't die offers you a gift you don't deserve. Through his death and resurrection on the cross. We got to talk about repentance. I mean, these are things now.
Speaker 3:When I got to CBU nine years ago, I did like a hundred meetings with students. I asked them what's the gospel? Students who said they were Christians and guess the things that they left out the resurrection, okay, crazy. They talk about Jesus died on the cross. They're like love that, but they forget the resurrection. They don't talk about repentance Right, isn't that interesting? And they would regularly leave out the penalty of our sin. That's fascinating, right? So I realized, even though I knew those things, my my problem with my answer was it wasn't in my heart, right, it wasn't just there because I wasn't practicing speaking it. My second most embarrassing realization was when I got to CBU in 2016 and I realized I wasn't sharing the gospel, and the reason why I knew that is because I was around a bunch of people who were Dang oh wow. I'm not talking about preaching the gospel from stage, cause I was doing that.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I'm talking about getting around I'm talking about getting around unbelievers that I had a relationship with and that I was establishing through some sort of like strategic affinity. Arguably, jesus models this, and so I realized, oh, I am missing it. I got to start following these people and figuring out. What in the world are they doing? And this by people. It was my team, my office. I was like these guys are doing this. They are like getting out on campus and they're modeling transferable skills. So how can we start doing this in the church? How do we just have people who do this, who get around their neighbors, share the gospel regularly, lead people to Jesus, discipling them in a way that they also go share the gospel? So this week, ministry win to share. I'm just so far behind on this journey, but there's two guys this week that I've discipled that I shared the gospel with and accepted Christ a year ago Awesome, okay. They both shared the gospel with another guy this week year ago, awesome, okay, awesome.
Speaker 1:They both shared the gospel with another guy this week, that's it, that's it.
Speaker 3:And I'm not perfect, I'm so much to grow in, but for me that's beautiful and I was challenged by that by someone ahead of me who had years and years of years of disciple making, and that's spiritual multiplication.
Speaker 4:Amen. Well, I think yes and amen. All that. And the cool thing about all this is that the church is still the answer, right, god's church is still the answer for every you know the whole, and every heart and every generation. I sense that it's a great moment Like, I think, anybody that I think you know for leaders out there, right? Anyways, I'm going around the way, but my sense of is, you know, the Gen Z step up to take the baton of hegemony from millennials. I feel like, essentially, the millennial heart said something's wrong, but I can fix it. I think the Z's say something's wrong, I can't fix it.
Speaker 4:I think the Z's say something's wrong, I can't fix it, and I think that is apropos for disciple makers to step into it and say I have met someone who told me it was wrong and then he told me he could fix it.
Speaker 4:And he did. Let me walk with you so you can realize. You know that gift that he gives and I just think I just get excited for that. I don't get down on that. I get excited about what it may mean to reach this generation and then honestly marshal them out into the gospel. Into the kingdom, because these kids understand the world Say whatever we want to about them being this and being that, they know more gospel and to the kingdom, because these kids understand the world and what. Yeah. So whatever we want to about them being this and being that, they know more about this world. They don't know 10 times more about what's going on out there than I do and I think just equipping them to be oh my gosh, I get excited about that.
Speaker 3:So everything you said yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:So what's on? What's then? Kind of, as we start to wrap this up, what, what then is on the line if we get this right, and what happens if we don't?
Speaker 3:Man, yeah, you just jumped us right into that. I think, if we get it right, we see churches mobilizing Gen Z to be disciple makers and to grow in in faithfulness, right, be disciple makers and to grow in faithfulness, right and knowledge and character and skills and vision and release them and the local church is growing in the depth of disciple making and know that they are the church. Yeah, because I think that's been a lot of the separation too with millennials. It's this consumer to the follower Like we need to get the consumer to the follower.
Speaker 1:And then the reinvigorated into stepping into ministry and roles within the follower, like we need to get the consumer to the follower. And then they're reinvigorated into stepping into ministry and roles within the church and institutional trust in the church.
Speaker 4:That's right, those kinds of things. I'll echo what Cesar just said and I think I'm ready, I think we're ready, I know we're ready, but it's just like man and I want to be careful here. But if you're a 23-year-old Gen Z right, maybe on the other side of college or finishing up like I just want to challenge the culture that has listened to this podcast, we've got to give them a place and a seat at the table, and it literally means having a higher tolerance for whack job comments, and what I mean by that is they're going to bring something beautiful, and I've seen it in our Z's on staff. They bring something, thank God, like they think. Like they think when we're doing a sermon text meeting, they bring an angle that I'm like never thought about that before.
Speaker 3:Thanks, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:But then at the same meeting, so good.
Speaker 1:You bring an angle you never thought about Exactly.
Speaker 4:Exactly, but having a higher tolerance, for you know what they bring and what they're going through. In the same way, like as a 47-year-old, with my position that is lorded over them.
Speaker 3:Now, that's not my heart.
Speaker 4:But by virtue of the, it's an ex-church right, it's an ex-church, and so. But I don't want that. And so what does it mean then to, especially as we're intergenerational, to give them a solid power? You know, anyways, I think that's so important, and I think there's business leaders listening to this that need to hear that. I think there's, you know, community leaders listening to this that need to hear that Every generation needs to be at your table.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, that's just like a principle for literally every human relationship. Right, that we would be teachable and learners. I think that's what I see a lot in my intergenerational church is the projection of our own values and culture and sort of the stereotypes that we're known for. The correctness right and the Gen X maybe more boomer I mean, we haven't even talked about boomers. Boomers right, they were successful, they were all they're right.
Speaker 4:They're the right generation.
Speaker 3:And so it's so hard for them one, two, three generations, down to Gen Z to be like what are they doing? So the principle here is that we got to learn each other and how we operate because we could leverage Gen X, we could leverage boomers in a way where if we just give them some translation, if we just give them a few tools and and really you can work with anyone who's teachable. And so if you have boomers who are teachable man, just start letting them disciple people, because if you have humility, if you teachability, you can make a massive impact on in your local church. This is about maximizing, you know, that ability, that desire to be teachable, to grow, to be trained. Let's get trained so that we can and that's what you got to sell, that's what you got to galvanize the church. The local church needs the vision of okay, if I'm humble, if I'm teachable, I can work with that. If you show up proud man, we're never going to get to making disciples never going to get to making disciples.
Speaker 2:I think one thing for me it's, um, you know, each following generation is an opportunity for the preceding generation to take stock of themselves.
Speaker 2:Um, and one of the things that, um, you know, I was an English major and one of the things that was interesting for me is the world and literature were well past the post-millennial culture as a church started talking about it.
Speaker 2:There's like a 30 year lag between where the world is at and how the church responds, which means that God's moving in the world and the church is 30 years behind what God's doing. And so when you look at the next generation, Gen Z, with eyes of saying, okay, God, what are you doing here, Because you are always moving, Then you're given wisdom and in humility, you could say, okay, God, as a millennial, as a boomer, as a Gen Xer, how can I be sensitive to what you're doing in the world right now? What does it look like for me to interact with what you're doing in the world right now? But it does require humility to say let me look at Gen Z not as people who don't know, not as people who are foolish or different or whatever, but they're people who are right in the midst of what God's doing here and now in the world, and so it calls for humility, and you guys were all talking about but eyes to see.
Speaker 1:Well, as always, we want to make sure that we provide people with helpful resources. What are some things that we can point people to that you guys think they might find helpful or beneficial? Youtube, youtube.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it depends on who you are. I would say the Gen Z data is helpful for us because we're not Gen Z.
Speaker 3:So, millennials, gen Xers, boomers. Get on that Gen Z day. Just learn about who Gen Z is, the Barna research on Gen Z and how they're showing up to Christianity. You know, know your context. Where do you live? You live here in India. You live in India Wells. You live in Palm Desert. What's your context? Like you know, we try to give discipleship tools that are contextual right, like if I'm sharing the gospel at CBU on campus. It's a Judeo-Christian right, like friendly campus. Yeah, there's over 2000 people who aren't Christians, but only 4% of students on campus don't want to have a spiritual conversation.
Speaker 2:Which is awesome 96% of people are open to talking about anything spiritual.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. So where are you at? Learn your context, learn your tools. But yeah, I think this Gen Z study is phenomenal for anyone who's not Gen Z to learn. Yeah, if you're a boomer, you got grandkids. Learn about your grandkids, like learn about how they're wired. And I mean every generation needs to learn how to ask questions.
Speaker 4:I mean, jesus did it right. I will just second that right, like that's the best witness is to be with people and to learn people and to love people and to walk with people, as Jesus walked with them. The best, you know, the best demographers say we don't have the great books on Z's yet. Right, we're still watching them. We're 10 years away from the book Plus and those books aren't going to be written until they have money, and they don't have any money, so there's no reason to write the books yet.
Speaker 1:That's why I heard time for new resources. It's no incentive.
Speaker 4:But they'll have money in 10 years and then we'll start writing about them. But, like in the meantime, what if we didn't worry about the book and worry about the burden of disciple making and getting in folks lives and all that good stuff? So, yeah, I think right now we need to become experts through discipleship and walking one on one with these folks.
Speaker 3:Two books that come to mind when it comes to disciple making is just Robert E Coleman's Master Plan of Evangelism. You want to learn discipleship in the context of evangelism, and the way that I describe that book is a drone following Jesus around through his like life and ministry and just making these observations that are so ordinary. You never saw him before. And you're like that's how he did it and you got to stay engaged.
Speaker 3:You got to lock in. You got to like he. The way that he writes is not like you know, john Mark Homer, I mean it is like you got to be, like you got to have your coffee. I mean, I love John Homer. You just like you're having a conversation, Robert E Coleman's like hey, you want to learn, you want to get trained. It's a very training type, you know written book and then Spiritual.
Speaker 3:Multiplication in the Real World. Bob McNabb Phenomenal Does a global study and just looks for what are the consistent characteristics of an effective disciple maker, of someone who makes disciples and makes disciples. And he does it globally, which I love, that's just in America. He's looking for these characteristics. What are those people doing and why are they still making disciples? And so those two books, big shout out for resources, nice.
Speaker 4:It's outdated but it's a great read. Sung Chan Ra out of North Sung's in North Park University. Now it's an old book so it doesn't apply right, it's early 2000s but it's called the Next Evangelicalism and Soong's argument right is that Western civilization and the Christian bent better recognize that Christianity of the next century is going to look entirely different from the Christianity of the previous century. It's going to be a global Christianity. It's not going to be the West taking the gospel to you know, everywhere else it's going to be.
Speaker 4:No, the gospel's kind of everywhere. And we've seen that. Young mentioned the charismatic factor. Right, like the next century is a charismatic century. Whether you like it or not, it just is. It's growing like a weed and what does it mean for you to understand that? If that's the reality and we see these dynamics shifting, it's more of a racial kind of thing and a cultural thing with respect to you know the way the West is going, there'll be no minorities in no more majorities in America in 25 years. Yeah Right, and we're moving faster and faster towards that. And you know, and my point is to us good old evangelicals, listen to it. You can get mad about it or you can do something about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And just engage the gospel anyway, right, and so like the next evangelicalism really sets that up beautifully. It's a good read.
Speaker 2:And it's a quick read too. Beautifully, it's a good read and it's a quick read too. One book that I've read that's helped me a lot is, I believe it's called Transforming Culture by Sherwood Lingenfelter. It's a Christian sociological, anthropological book where it helps you unpack what is culture in terms of the nuts and bolts like more of an academic sense. What is culture in terms of the nuts and bolts like more of an academic sense? Understanding how to actually take the formation of culture in different contexts, to see its relevant parts and to learn how to influence things, to actually rebuild culture.
Speaker 4:That's good.
Speaker 2:So it is. That's good. It's not. It's not pinned to any specific thing, but it just shows the nuts and bolts and engines of culture. Wow yeah.
Speaker 4:Finally, we're sorry that we're such nerds. We are the four most long-form content nerds ever. But we are who we are.
Speaker 4:Come on, we be who, we be the last one is more of a millennial piece, but it really sets up post-modernity, it sets up institutional failure and it sets up kind of like the last couple of chapters leans towards disease. I forget the name of the book, the name of the author, but it's called the New Copernicans. And right insofar that the church kicked out Copernicus and called him a heretic for saying, like the sun, you know all that good stuff. He's saying that if we're not careful, the generation upcoming in the church will experience what Copernicus did. And we have this moment to say no, no, let's not kick them out, let's open up our doors. And his whole argument is don't open up your doors, Open up your tables and open up your positions and open up your jobs and your associate pastorates and all that good stuff.
Speaker 4:It's great. But our elder board read that two years ago. It was phenomenal. I think a lot of the reason god's honoring I don't know, god ain't gotta honor us with nothing, but anyways, god's blessing. The way he is now is, I think, because our board prayed about how we can be more ready and waiting for this up-and-coming generation.
Speaker 4:And the spirit told me, before I took the job, and I thought, I thought, spirit, I'm just not hearing you. I hear you speaking it, but it kind of sounds off. But the Spirit told me I'm going to do, I'm going to spark a movement upon the youth of that valley, wow. And I just remember thinking I just didn't hear that, right, it's the Coachella, it's the Coachella Valley. You know what I'm thinking. I just didn't hear that, right, it's the Coachella Valley, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and look at God and what's going on in our church right now. It gives me chills when I think about it as John Seal.
Speaker 1:Is that Seal, yes? S-e-a-l-e.
Speaker 4:S-E-A-L-E.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, you're so quick on that computer, that's what I got here for Well you guys, do we have any last comments or thoughts before we wrap it up?
Speaker 4:Thanks to Jacob for coming way down. Give us the wisdom Appreciate you guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, brother, honor, privilege, grateful to hear what God's doing here at Southwest. Shout out to the residency. If you are a Gen Z, I mean a great opportunity to get training, yeah. Yeah To be equipped to be sent out. I love your guys' values. See them on the wall walking around the building beautiful campus. Just grateful for the opportunity and I'll be continuing to pray for what God's going to continue to do Raise up more disciple makers.
Speaker 1:Gen Z come on.
Speaker 4:Let's go, let's get it, gen Z.
Speaker 2:Gen Z baby Give us a plug young. Residency at southwestchurchcom. Let's have a conversation, talk with me. I want to know your story. I want to know what God's doing in you, through you and around you. And if God put a calling in your life to come, let's discover it and let's say amen, amen, wow so good.
Speaker 1:Well, there you have it, guys. Thanks again for joining us on another episode of the other six days podcast. Be sure to hit that subscribe, follow, share and like, spread the word and, as always, take what you've heard and turn it into something you can do to further the gospel in the world around you. Until next time, peace.