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Clark Fobes: That may be a great encouragement as much as we may have a lot of good tools, you may still have a sense of wonder or even anxiety over how do we actually reach the next generation. We feel confident in our role as parents and disciples and youth, pastors and all elsewhere in the room. But there may still be some questions of what does it actually look like to give the gospel and impart the gospel to youth, and disciple them up in that today?
I know for myself, I minister in the city of San Francisco. And the constant question I get from parents is how can we keep our kids Christian? In such a hostile condition or world is such a hostile culture? The question often is how do you reach someone with the gospel when they seem to have no moral basis or understanding of sin anymore? That’s essentially the question that has been posed about Gen Z. It’s one that often researchers and people focusing on Gen Z have asked how do you reach Gen Z with the gospel, if you Google it, you’ll find 1000s of articles and podcasts, and did some of that myself as I was preparing for this talk. And I think there’s plenty of other better researchers you can listen to then myself, I’m a nobody up here, you’ve probably never heard the name Clark Fobes. Before before today, and they have maybe some better research or answers to these questions. Some of them are giving their own micro events that you should definitely check out after the fact at this conference. But I do think there’s a component to their research and their answers that they give that may be missing a part of the equation. Because almost all of our research, should it researchers today looking at Gen Z are coming from an exclusively Western and white lens. And it’s not a bad thing, not saying that if you’re Western and white, that you’re bad, that would be saying that about myself. However, with the shifting landscape of Gen Z and becoming more diverse, what we’re noticing what we’re realizing is that Gen Z’s worldview as a whole is shifting along with the demographics of diversity. There are many studies look at this, but this one particular from 2020, show that of Gen Z, only 49% are whites, whereas 51% now are have a mixed worldview or ethnic minority background. Gen Z is the first minority generation. And I think what that means also is that the way we view Gen Z and approach them with answers to the Gospel has to take that into consideration. And you may be wondering, why am I a white face person up here saying that? Well, I’m half Korean, there’s been a lot of wrestling for myself through this question, as I’ve asked the question, how does the gospel reach me in my heart culture as a bicultural person? And I think that’s helpful for reaching Gen Z. And so I think having a uniquely maybe non western perspective may help us approach this answer of how do we reach Gen Z with the gospel? And so I want to purchase in three ways. First, what is the context of this question? Second, what are some new paradigms to think through the question? And then last, what are some suggested answers that I can give you to be in answering that question? So first, what’s the context cameras already talked a little bit about that Gen Z is walking away from the faith, they’re leaving the church and not returning. There’s a lot of pieces to this, many of which are due to the parents just raising their kids, not as Christians. I mean, there’s an increasing non Christian presence in Gen Z, because their millennial and Gen X parents are also increasingly non Christian. There’s a shifting tide of culture with Gen Z’s influences of media and entertainment and their adult ideologies are becoming less and less Christian. Some statistics to back this up and show us that if you were to look at all the protestants in America of Gen Z versus general population, Gen Z is estimated to be 22%, Protestant Christian compared with 45% of the general population. By comparison, anywhere from eight to 12% of Gen Z are considered evangelical versus 29% of America. And if you’re in a post Christian city, like myself in San Francisco, what we found, as we’ve done our own studies and demographic research is that it’s more like three to 5% of our city of Gen Z are Christian. That essentially places Gen Z on par with an unreached people group, which means Gen Z is growing up in much the same way as unreached. peoples are overseas, people have said and noted that they are possibly unlikely the first post Christian generation, you’ve heard that a lot of this conference, we’ve been talking about America or being in the wilderness in a post Christian culture. What does that actually mean? I think we can throw that term around a lot and just kind of assume, well, that just means you know, America is going down the hole and it’s burned. It’s a burning ship, because Christianity is going out the window. But really what it means when researchers talk about these categories is it means it’s the first generation that’s growing up without a Christian presence in their worldview. One of my favorite missiologist Stefan paws, the Dutch reformer in 2011, put out an article about this charting the different categories in a sociology or in culture that Christianity has experienced. And there are these four categories of pre Christian so before the gospel enters or pre Christian Christian culture. Christendom, this is what we saw With the advent of Constantine and the and the Christian empire, a post Christian culture is one in which Christian is on the decline. And then finally, post Christian. Typically when we viewed discipleship and evangelism, we’ve thought of it from usually a Christendom or post Christendom approach. For instance, if you think about in Christendom, almost everyone in culture will have these four categories of the gospel, who is God, their idea of sin, the idea of faith and Jesus. And so evangelism and discipleship is purely about connecting the dots. There’s something that pause and Tim Keller adopted from him, where they say evangelism in a Christendom culture, our job is simply connect the dots and show them how they relate to each other. In a post Christendom culture, they may still have an understanding of the dots, but our job is we need to fill them in. And then after we fill them in, then we can start to trace the lines and connect the dots for them. But what about in a post Christian culture? So I think often when we think about evangelism and discipleship in a post Christian culture, we want to just stick with this because this is what we’ve grown up with and known. In a post Christian culture. Often people will have no categories for God’s sin, Jesus, or faith, or maybe they just have some dotted line ideas. But really, evangelism cannot simply be about connecting the dots or filling them in, we have to completely define them for them. And this means for you, if you’re a youth pastor, or a parent in this room, you are essentially at the tip of the spear of mission in America. You are on the front lines of mission. And even after 14 years in pastoral ministry, this is why I value youth, children, ministry and parents so much, because people don’t realize, if you’re a parent or a youth pastor, you have to grapple with ideas and culture long before the senior pastors do. You’re facing the cultural trends before the researchers are even asking the questions. Which means then, as parents and youth pastors, we often have to be the best theologians, the best missionaries, and the best evangelists. That means you deserve the most equipping now as daunting as that may sound. I think there’s a great dignity in that call. Because there’s honor to say that we are on the front lines together. So how can we be most equipped to understand how to reach Gen Z. So this leads me to my second point of what are some new paradigms by which we can think about reaching Gen Z or what I call just applying missiology to youth ministry. Leslie Nubian, the famous you missiologists used to say that the old Christendom paradigms of church and mission are inadequate to reach a post Christian culture. Likewise, Paul Hebron in his book transforming worldviews, he talks about this idea of often Christian missionaries and evangelists have simply sought to sprinkle the gospel on the topsoil of people’s lives and worldviews in missions and missiology, and evangelism. But if we really want to shape people in their whole selves with the gospel, we need to do the work of digging up the under soil and turning it over to identify it, examine it, so we can plant the seed deep down. And missiologists have often used these three categories to think about, well how to identify what cultures are, what are they going through, and how we can plant that seed deeply in them. This dates all the way back to the 1960s. With anthropologist Ruth Benedict, she identified three primary cultural paradigms. First one is guilt innocence, this is probably the one we’re most familiar in the West. This is the idea that you are guilty or innocent based upon your own adherence to the shared common law of the land. And so how you act in accordance to that law determines whether you are guilty or not, we’ve almost exclusively come to understand the gospel in this framework, think about the law of atonement in Leviticus, or think about even simply the way that we think about a very individualized gospel, where Jesus came to save me from my sin. He was my personal substitute a mediator, and now he leads me into sanctification with God, that’s all beautiful and true. But I think it’s also maybe caused us to have tunnel vision, to forget that there are other cultural paradigms that we see both in Scripture and in the worlds. Another one of these is the fear power culture. Essentially, you see this in many places in the Old Testament with Israel’s pagan neighbors. Think about in First Samuel, when the Philistines take the Ark of the covenants, and they set it up next to the idol of daggone. Why are they doing that? Why worship Yahweh and daggone? Well, that was a fear of power culture, in which the more power you could amass from the deities, the greater power you had over the physical realm. Those who did not have power were afraid of them. And that’s still a prevalent cultural paradigm in tribal cultures today. This last one, however, honor shame, is one that’s almost exclusively been found in Eastern cultures, but I think we’ve also felt sprinkles of it in other cultures. This was the dominant culture of the Jews in the Old Testament and the New Testament, whether we realize it or not. This is the idea that your identity is not just about your own self expression, but it’s tied to the group So who you belong to shapes your honor in your society, your choices reflects the honor or shame not just of yourself, but those around you and vice versa. Those you’re connected to are tied to your own honor and shame. And I think what’s fascinating as many people have talked about this, but the research has been very thin because it’s new Gen Z, we’re seeing a shift maybe away from a guilt innocence, individualistic paradigm towards more of an honor, shame group oriented culture. Now, there’s some caveats here because a lot of people have said Gen Z is a hyper individualistic culture, I think that’s true. We have the whole modern, you know, you do you culture, the freedom of the autonomous self, how morality is about self expression, and transgressing someone’s self expression is the definition of sin. But I also think we’ve seen some shifts to see that Gen Z is shifting to be more communal in nature, and definitely more honor shame in nature. One of those if you simply just look at the statistics about Gen Z’s loneliness and isolation, and how much they desire to belong. I was mentioning Barna did a study where they looked at that longing for belonging, and Gen Z is off the charts compared to their predecessors, which may signify that Gen Z is actually being drawn more towards a communal standpoint than their previous generational predecessors, and an honor shame culture. Morality is built upon a shared group of social dynamics or norms or codes, and how you are treated in society whether your honor lifted up or shamed and put down is based upon those social codes. So you the the thought process is not so much how do I do its rights? But how do I live in accordance with those around me? I think this is exactly what we’re seeing happening in Gen Z. There’s a lot of demographical trends that show this. One of them is from Gene Twinkie, I just realized in London this morning, it’s not twins, it’s twin gay, here that name. She did some fascinating studies back that show that in 2012, there was a spike in mental health issues in this graph. You know, sir, just a spike there in 2012. And Jean Twinkie is asked the question, what is the cause of that? And she’s noted that there’s a lot of correlation between mental health issues and social media. There’s a number of speculative factors towards this. What people have asked the question what was it smartphones while the iPhone came out in anyone? No. till seven man we got some nerds in here. That’s great.
Gene Twenge says though Well, the iPhones weren’t like really popular to till 2012. Other people point to social media will miss social media started. Facebook came out when I was in college, it was for college students. One really interesting fact though. Instagram was started in 2010. And by 2011, had 10 million users, Facebook bought Instagram in April of 2012. By the end of 2012, it had ballooned over 10 times to over 100 million users. Essentially what happened in this if the correlation is correct, and I believe it is Instagram and social media culture, put teens lives publicly for everyone to see. And not just admire but judge. Nancy Joe sales in her 2014 book American girls, she essentially said that we were given these digital voting platforms in our pockets, where we vote for the best candidate every day based on likes, and followers. And it was through all these means through the Instagram culture that teens lives were pushed online publicly for people to see and they were judged, both in relation to their peers by comparison, but also when it came to their own belonging. This is something that we see all the time, both with Instagram culture of likes and followers. We see this with virtue signaling. If you don’t post the right things at the right time. You’re seen as not being woke or with it. Canceled culture is one of the very clearest identities or markers of honor shame trends. There was a TGC article about this by a do Marie, who talks about canceled culture in this article canceled how the Eastern honor shame mentality traveled west. In cancel culture, a single mistake is perpetually unforgivable, because it’s not simply a guilty act, rather than mistake defines the individual’s identity, turning them into a shameful person, someone who can be cancelled. That is very remnants of an honor, shame culture, where if you don’t abide by the social codes or norms of the day, you are displaced or put out of the community. And that’s exactly how Gen Z is growing up today. Even if you think about modern sexual ethics, think about the way in the language or teens use it. They can be told so much about what is right versus wrong. What is true versus not true, what is good versus bad, biblically speaking and even agreed to it. But they can still say Well, it seems so unloving to exclude someone simply based on their decisions. This exclusion vers inclusion insider versus outsider language is another marker of this communal identity. It reveals how Gen Z, how they’re placing their worth, in relation to their social community in groups, which means for Gen Z, the law doesn’t matter if social capital is lost, which I think also points to as we’re proclaiming the gospel, a guilt innocence gospel, which many of us may have grown up with, is very hard to digest. If it means that all their social relationships over here are lost or in jeopardy, I think really realistically, at the heart of it, all of all of middle school and high school is built around this social status, this idea of social status I, I call it the social caste system of middle school in high school. And if you think about, it’s something that almost all of us grew up with, isn’t it? I mean, we were just talking at lunch with with Dr. John Piper, who said, as a middle schooler, he was embarrassed to get as it he felt ashamed of certain things, I’m sorry, Piper, if I’m putting him on blast. Not like you’d even listen to this. So it doesn’t matter. Really, what’s happened is all of us grew up like that, didn’t we, we grew up feeling the effects of shame of not belonging to the right social group, we grew up wanting to belong to the honored groups in our high school courtyard to sit in the right seats of honor, we’ve just really been raised and trained out of it, to grow out of it and grow up. Whereas social media now is encouraging students to live all of their lives in that way. There’s a question here, too, of how do we maybe get here and I’m a visual learner. So I hope this helps this is still I gotta give a caveat. This is a bit of research and development. So you can quote me and take my word on it if you want, but then people may come after me. So I’m just cautioning you there. But But there’s a difference here between a traditional honor, shame culture, and what we’re seeing today. But how we got there. Some research, researchers have argued that almost all cultures were more group oriented by nature. Essentially, if you didn’t think about, if you didn’t think about European culture, or Western British culture, not that long ago, they lived in a very highly group oriented culture. My wife loves the royal family, the show the crown, and all that stuff. And there’s so much in there about the hierarchy of society. And so arguably, almost all cultures have a remnant of this, where on the one hand, you have these different groups by which we belong. You have in the center of the family in the home to which you belong, then there’s the village. Beyond that, then your class and society and finally the nation. And so in a group oriented culture, you act and engage in the world based on how your group tells you to engage. And they’re the ones that essentially train you and teach you how do you go out and live in the world? What are the social norms of the day you should abide and live by? Well, what happens if you transgress or break the boundaries, you act out of line, you do something that’s shameful or dishonorable? Well, it was the family traditionally, that could bring you back into the fold and retrain you. So that then you can know again, how to live properly in society and the worlds and it was beyond just the nuclear family included the village class society, the nation, they all taught us how do we live and engage in society according to these social norms. By contrast, we have now this modern honor, shame group or if we think about our culture today of our teens. Hyper individualism is essentially a result of mobility and globalization. That’s something that a lot of missiologists have talked about. Brian, Brian Myers is one of those in particular, where because of globalization, we’ve now plucked the self out of their group of origin. Because of both horizontal or lateral and upward mobility, there is now a greater sense of plucking the the self or individual out of their group and recreating their identity based on just who they are. This is the idea that someone can move to another city, a big city to pursue their dreams, and upward mobility makes it possible to seek upward wealth success to rise in the worlds. But what happens when you pluck the self out of the group of belonging, the group of origin, and what happens now when you are told to go and engage in live in the world on your own? Well, it’s all up to the individual to make their own path to prove their own way to show how they live in the world that and as great and true as that may sound that’s a very cultural, modern, individualistic cultural phenomenon, because it’s one that is forced to create one’s identity outside of their group of belonging. And if you think about it, that’s a very scary way to live. Because if you’re living on your own in a big city far away from home, what do you do in a moment? When of crisis or failure, what do you do? Just just by nature, if you are someone here today and your plumbing goes wrong in your house,
you Google it, you YouTube, or you go find an experts, we no longer have the safety net of the group to come around and help us solve life’s issues were left alone. And so this is where the internet’s essentially became the new group that was easily accessible to us as individuals. So what happens if the internet or the group is our place of belonging? Well, the one once we break or transgress those social norms, this Internet Group, because it’s so volatile, because it has none of the ties or bonds of the original group, yet it promises all the the belonging of the original group, because it’s so just as volatile as easily as it is accessible. Once there’s a breach of conduct instead of helping and bringing back into the fold. There’s essentially a cutting off a wall of shame, where you did not function according to the way you should. And this is essentially where Gen Z is today functioning in a world where because of this uprooting plucking outs, loss of groups that are now seeking this new sense of belonging in the group of where they can find it, which is essentially online, in the internet. This leads us finally to this question of what are some answers for reaching Gen Z. And hopefully, this is where I can be more helpful than daunting for you. I think one of the first answers we can look at is how the gospel is proclaimed within an honor shame culture. And that’s actually not something that’s new, but it’s very ancients. If you look throughout the Bible, there are examples of the honor shame gospel being proclaimed almost everywhere. One of my favorites when I was a youth student growing up in an Asian context, when when I would share the gospel of individual guilt and innocence preached, it was hard for me to connect with, it felt like I don’t really understand that because often we use this courtroom analogy. Well, I didn’t transgress the law. I didn’t break any rules or laws in a courtroom. So I’m not before record of order. But I knew and felt it when I transgress my family’s idea of what it meant for me to be a son. I felt the shame over me for that. And one of the most powerful demonstrations of the Gospel for me was often from Luke 15, and the prodigal son, because what is the father do and Luke 15, he Dishonored himself by raising his robe, showing his undergirds he runs to chase, the son who has disgraced himself by eating with the pigs. And he honors him by welcoming him back into the fold, giving him the seat of honor at the dinner table, the signet ring ring, which was a sign of honor in the wealth in the family, and restoring him to a place of honor in the family. I mean, this is seen all throughout Scripture. So I think one of the first things is reaching Gen Z and discipling. That them up in the Gospel may begin by just simply opening our eyes to ask the question, how do we see this sense of honor, shame throughout the Bible? You know, one of the most common questions I get from parents even now is how do they disciple their kids through the difficult sexual agenda that they’re facing today, especially in my city of San Francisco? How do they disciple and raise their kids with all that all the onslaught of the sexual agenda against them? And while it may be easy to say, well, we just need to convince them of the truth of the right answers. We need to show them how biblical and good God’s design is, there’s been a lot of talk about that. I think that’s good. But the problem is, if all we do is tell them about God’s design, and the goodness of that, and we ignore the social aspects, then we’re essentially calling them to a life of persecution and suffering that we’ve never had to deal with. We’re calling them to remain faithful and biblical truths that maybe we’ve never had to wrestle with on such a personal level as they do. For most of us, the LGBTQ things are theoretical. We know of these concepts, we hear them, but for our kids, they’re practical and personal. So when they stand up against gay marriage against trans transsexualism, they are not just making a stand for what’s true. They are risking their lives socially with their friends, they’re potentially even risking their futures with their grades and their teachers and future job opportunities. And so more than just giving them the right answers, we need to ask the question, how can we give them a better context to flourish within? You know, I used to work in East Asia serving with a Muslim unreached people group. And often in our evangelism and discipleship, we get to a point where someone would understand Christ in the Gospel, and they’d even say, like, I believe it, I believe it’s true. And we’d celebrate and rejoice. See, that’s great. Now it’s time to join a church and make a public professional faith by getting baptized. And often what we encounter is they say, I can never do that. And in our very arrogant Western ideas, we would say, Well, maybe you haven’t counted the cost yet. You know, maybe you’re not truly a Christian. Let’s explain it again. Without realizing that for these people coming from highly group oriented cultures, to come public with their faith often meant they would be kicked out and disowned not just by their family, but all society, they will be blacklisted, and not be able to frequent the shops in their towns to get a job, or even get married and have a relationship. And so looking back on that, rather than simply convincing them of the truth of the gospel, we were not prepared to walk with them socially with the fallout that was going to occur after we were not preparing these converts. And I would argue we’re not preparing our children for a life of persecution and suffering that will follow if they choose to cling to and follow Jesus. That’s a heavy task and call that we have to call our kids into. And on top of that, I think we also have a call to not just give them the right answers, but to come alongside them as a new community of faith. And hopefully, this is where you can see all this comes together with what we’ve been talking about how the church and home come in partnership, we can give them the comfort of Christ through an honor shame culture. First, Peter is one of my favorite letters in all of scripture for a number of reasons. One of them is because Stephen paws author I mentioned before, he knows that first Peter is the missionary text for the post Christian church. Because Peters talking not just to, not just to Christians, but Christians who are on the margins of society uses all this pilgrim language exiles all throughout he borrows so much language from the book, we’re looking at this conference of Exodus. Some of our favorite verses about those Exodus images are here in First Peter chapter two. But I think what people may miss is that there is a high honor shame dynamic to First Peter, in verses six and seven right before he gives this great, eloquent demonstration, identity of the church, the News, New Testament believers, he tells him that for those who believe in Christ as the cornerstone, you will never be put to shame. But it is to your honor who believe and then he goes and tells them these identities they have. And so Jesus one way that we can give the comfort of Christ and honor shame culture to our students, even to ourselves that Jesus bestows and honor upon them and upon us that’s greater than any of the world’s honor they can attain. First Peter to nine, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. Now as much as our biblical theological minds might be turning about what does it mean to be royal priesthood and holy nation, just stop and think for a minute, the term royal that Peters proclaiming to a church who’s on the margins, to believers who are likely poor and oppressed in society, they were slaves. They were women without dignity in their marriages. They were people who had to submit to a hostile government and emperor. And Peter uses the imagery of Exodus to call them you are royal in God’s eyes, there’s a much higher honor that we have in Jesus eyes than we could ever find in the world. Secondly, the Gospel provides an other worldly comfort and security in his kingdom. Peter goes on. He says, You’re a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous slights for God’s own possession. As much as we think about that, well, I am God’s child, as an individual, I am his that’s great. But I think there’s also an element here where there is this whole other world, the belonging that we have, when if we are we belong to God, then we don’t actually belong to the worlds. And one of my favorite things to tell my youth is that when you feel like you don’t belong in the worlds, you’re doing something rights. When you feel the suffering of not belonging, that’s actually exactly where God wants you to be. Because in our lack of belonging, that causes us to long and yearn to belong to something else, namely, Jesus in His Kingdom. Last, Jesus provides calls us to belong to a new people in the church, that other worldly belonging and comfort of the gospel is made tangible in the church. Peter uses communal language once you are not a people, but now you’re God’s people, once you plural, had not received mercy, now you plural have received mercy.
See, got in through Peter, God is saying to our students and to us that’s when we are kicked out of our places of belonging. We have a new people to belong to, when we are not a people in the land of wilderness. We are a people together in the eyes of God. That means as a church, we can and we have to and we must band together to be this new people. That’s why the early church had such a strong ecclesiology ever wonder about that. It’s not just because they all sat around and thought with their Bibles open about what does it mean to be the church is because they had to. They had to be a new people when they were disowned, and kicked out from their groups of belonging and origin. And I think this means that we can’t simply see discipleship as an individualistic pursuits, where we see discipleship as well. We need to teach students who they are in Christ individually put them in belonging, and and you place them in a sense where they are individually Christians and disciples. If our only paradigm of discipleship is an individualistic one, that we’re actually letting the culture speak into our discipleship more than we realize, we’ve let the culture of our day and age seep into our process and paradigm discipleship more than it was intended to. So what is the actual biblical worldview when it comes to the group and the self, I don’t think it means we throw the self outs. That’s often the case in Eastern cultures, people aren’t allowed to think for themselves. I think we see in Scripture, people are called to think for themselves and consider who they are in God’s eyes. But it doesn’t mean we also diminish or throughout the group for us in a modern biblical honor, shame worldview. As our students are facing this crisis of engaging in the world’s feeling the breach of conduct, and the world is coming at them and shaming them. First, we need to train them and help them see that the self is not as important as they think there needs to be room for the self to shrink, so that the family and the church can come alongside as this new group of belonging so that in very tangible real ways we can provide the sense of belonging for our students, so that when the world comes at them, rather than placing them out in their schools in their world to go out on their own, we can provide that hedge of protection, not just because we want to keep them safe and fortuitous off from the worlds but a hedge of protection that Christ gives us to then train them up, to continue to go on from here so that they can stand firm, as the gospel is made tangible in these in these group oriented ways. So that as they go out and stand firm, they always have a group they can come back to and belong to. I love how Peter ends on the all these images. He ends with this strong call in the very next verses. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Fight against the culture. Don’t let it seep into your hearts, don’t desire the things of the world. Because if you have an other worldly belonging, the things of God are far greater. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable there again, we have that sense of honor in society as much as it is is up to us so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. I think Peter gives us a model for witness in a post Christian world where as much as we proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into marvelous lights, we also display the light of to the world through our good deeds. Let me just give a personal call here. I think this is also for us as we face the increasing challenges and hostility as parents, I have two young kids and I am terrified of raising them in my city of San Francisco to be honest. If you’re a youth pastor, you may see the writing on the wall and the State Statistics and even wonder, Am I gonna have a job in the future? Are there gonna be a loss of jobs, I think that they may be a very real reality. But for all of us, if Gen Z is the most unchurched demographic on American soil, if they are essentially an unreached people group on American soil, then I can’t think of any demographic in the church that matters more than you guys. Can’t think of a more important demographic in our local churches than the parents and youth workers and grandparents sitting in this room to reach Gen Z. Who else is more important for the future of the church, if not the parents and the youth pastors. So as discouraged or downtrodden or beaten, you may feel I hope you’ll be encouraged and take heart to know that your work matters. And as we stand firm against the hostile worlds, we get to give our kids a picture of what it looks like to be a picture of otherworldly belonging with Jesus, to come around each other as a group that encourages and loves not with infighting and anger and cynicism, but with hope and honor for each other in a model. That’s where kids as well. Thank you guys.
Cameron Cole
So now, we’re going to transition to to the panel portion of this workshop. Danny, take it away. All
Danny Kwon
Thank you, everyone for your questions. They come from a vast variety of diverse backgrounds and church context. So we’re going to try to summarize them and we’ll probably won’t get to all of them. We only have about 30 minutes. But there were really great questions. And I think there’s a pattern in a lot of them. But the first question I have for you from the questions that we got is, what do you all think about the Taylor Swift? Kelsey relationship? Just kidding, just kidding. Just kidding.
Danny Kwon
So the first question for real we’re youth pastors we know about this stuff. What do you how do churches who seem to prioritize kids ministry, and even adult ministry? How can the church prioritize student and family ministry? How can the church make that a priority? You know, you all talked about it. But how do we actually execute it and practice it?
Cameron Cole
Well, I’ll say, I do think that there’s an honestly, it’s something we talked about earlier today, I do think there’s a reality of churches generally run at max capacity. And so there’s just never margin to add something else. And so I do think that it may mean taking a hard look at what you’re doing as a church overall. And, you know, reducing the scope of of what you do in some places to create space for, for family ministry, we honest with you, I think a lot of it is just being intentional about pursuing parents, and being intentional about giving parents a vision and a concrete direction on how they can be faithful. I mean, I think a lot of parents are really not even, we talked about a parent being a primary disciple, or, you know, being the most effective disciple in their kid’s life. I think a lot of parents don’t even know that. And so I do think we kind of need to educate them in that way. And I quite honestly, I have found just in my experience of doing family ministry now for about nine years, that, get them while they’re young. I mean, when someone has a baby, there’s never there is no person in the church that is more receptive to direction and support than someone who has just had a baby. And, and, you know, sometimes if you’ve been in youth ministry, it feels like you’re selling life insurance, like you call and you call and you call and you call to just find one person who’s interested, tell you what I feel like sometimes Family Ministries like shooting fish in a barrel, and the sets of parents are very eager to be supported and be given direction.
Terrence Shay
I think sometimes we need to think a little deeply about what it is we expect our church members and our families to do. Sometimes saying yes to everything that we want doesn’t mean that we’re actually helping them in the area of family ministry. So it’s taking a step back again, to look at it more broadly. And think, you know, what, are we defining faithfulness, especially as it relates to disciple making to how many things they attend, how many things they volunteer for, how many roles as they sign up for? Or are we actually telling them, you know, what, your family is important, no one else could reach them the way that you can. And we want to support you in doing that. And maybe you need a rest. Sometimes, maybe you don’t have to do everything. And that’s not your badge of honor. But that the fact that you’re paying attention to the right things, that’s what we want for you.
Clark Fobes
I think the only thing I would add, I think COVID gave us a chance to do some of that. Where we were all forced to re examine what we were doing. Unfortunate, I think a lot of leaders and churches, myself included, felt the rush to get back to what we were doing. So we missed those times. Rather than maybe allowing ourselves that space, maybe that God given space as hard as it was to reflect. And my previous church one of the ways he used to say how should we think about discipleship? What’s if it’s simple, then really discipleship is a call to everyday ordinary faithfulness. It’s all it is. And so what can help us be everyday, everyday ordinary disciples in the in faithful ways. And so however, we can do that best that may mean paring down the extrordinary, large things, so we can do the ordinary small things better?
Cameron Cole
Good answer.
Danny Kwon
There was a whole cluster of questions on different types of families. And I think in your talks, we are presupposing kind of Christian families and families who attend church. But thinking about the variety of families, in a families are all not all nuclear families anymore, and is coming out with a book on single parenting next March. And thinking about single parents, people wrote about fathers who are apathetic about church, parents who don’t want to come to church, youth group students whose parents don’t attend church. What do you do about family ministry? in those contexts, especially, again, different types of families, parents who are apathetic, don’t even come to church, and especially those teenagers who parents don’t come to church. So I’m asking 20 questions at once.
Anna Meade Harris
I really appreciate that this is becoming a conversation across the church because our families don’t all look the same. And as a matter of fact, a quarter of the kids in the United States right now are growing up with one parent in the home that has a lot of kids. It’s almost 20 million children with one parent in the home. So we do need to think about how we talk about family within our churches. I know for me, my husband passed away. So my story, biblically speaking was relatively uncomplicated, it was straightforward. But it’s often not the case for other single parent families. One thing I heard as I interviewed single parents, for my book was that they often feel judged before people even know their story, how they came to the church, with their kids, and there’s just one parent there. And they want one pastor whose wife passed away called it the single parents self justification shuffle, that he felt like, people were curious about what his story was, and trying to figure out how he got in this situation, before they even knew anything about him. And so it’s extremely important that if a single parent is brave enough to bring their child alone, that you just accept them like you would anybody else. There are also a lot of parents who are bringing a child alone because they have an unbelieving spouse. They don’t need to be judged for that they brought the child to church, they need to be welcomed, and they need to be unfolded for my parents, my family’s particular story. We were embraced by other families in the church, intact families in the church. And because I had three boys, and because I’m a mom, I really needed some men to come alongside my kids and me, because I had a lot of questions about raising boys. I wasn’t one. And so so we had just an incredible group of dads and young men who weren’t yet married. And then some of the empty nester man who took a very vital interest, they came to games, they took them to Alabama games Roll tide, they they went out of their way to do things that their dad would have done with them, they taught them how to change a flat tire, just I could just go on and on about the ways in which men in our church and men from other churches, you know, you don’t just have to look out for the kids in your church, you can look out for the kids in your community, you may know some unbelievers who are single parents who need need father figures, and just reach out, just reach out, just build a relationship, just become friends, invite them over for barbecue. It’s really simple build a relationship, and they’ll come to see the hope you have in Christ. And yeah, I could go on and on.
Danny Kwon
But I want any other perspectives on like, drop off culture of parents, parents who are non believers. You know, that’s, I think could be a sign of a good youth group that you have kids who come with parents without parents.
Cameron Cole
What do you do you have a thought on it?
Danny Kwon
Well, honestly speaking I there was a book long time ago called understanding parents of teenagers. And I said, I want to write a book called Why I hate parents of teenagers.
But as a youth and family pastor for 29 years, I survived. And I think it is important to remember, as Keller hints in this Book Center Church, that our job is to be faithful. And God’s job is to be fruitful. And that family ministry, especially a lot that we’re talking about, starting it out, trying to implement it. It takes time. It’s a paradigm shift in your churches. being loving and faithful, the students whose parents don’t come mixed families, non nuclear families, you know, it is God’s job to be faithful, and our job God’s out to be fruitful and our job to be faithful in it. But again, as you guys think about you know, not only the church and family But how do we help out with kids who are just dropped off for parents who are apathetic?
Terrence Shay
I mean, I think this is a clarification. Because a lot of times when you see a model like that, it does reveal our presuppositions. So I’m coming to it, the fact that we’re in a post Christian culture, I don’t assume nuclear families, God actually gives the greater reason for why the church needs to exist, and be that spiritual family and be the forever family. Because whoever it is that the gospel saves and transforms, they need to have a place where they feel welcomed, and the church can and should receive the blessing of being the spiritual father and a spiritual mother or the auntie and uncle and grandparents to any child or to a spouse, or to any person that comes to Christ that they might have possibly been forsaken by their households, but they have a family in the church. So that’s actually part of, you know, seeing the culture and seeing where we’re swimming in and realizing that we’re not expecting cookie cutter families anymore. Yeah. And that’s why we need to partner together.
Clark Fobes
I think I’ll add to that, too, coming from a more Eastern leaning culture. For us, when you say the word family in a western guilt, innocence, culture, usually that means nuclear family. And that’s it. If you’re not from that, though, family often means the village. And that includes your grandparents that often live with you in your household as an immigrant home. It includes your cousins and aunts that are always over, they feel like siblings more than cousins. And so that’s why I think it’s helpful to use this terminology. Even we talked about this, like the whole idea of parents with a primary disciple as well. What if you’re in a non nuclear family that looks different? Well, your primary disciple is maybe one parent and a grandparent, or your auntie your uncle, because your parents are working multiple jobs trying to make a living, as many of us from immigrant backgrounds are like. And so I think that’s where we can, if we can reframe the biblical idea of the group in that lens, as we’ve all talked about, then it sets us up with more inclusionary language, so to speak. But also just say, personally, for myself, both my wife and I are from a typical family backgrounds are both from broken homes in a way where there was not the typical nuclear family. And so for us, the church was was what brought us to faith. I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, I had Christian grandparents that maybe planted a seed of faith for me. But it was as I found a belonging in a new family, the church had to be my family, because I didn’t have one that really spoke powerfully to me. And I think I’m just talking with someone about this today. When we think about like evangelism in a post Christian worlds. There’s so much research out there that says, Gen Z, and this post Christian generation, see evangelism and mission as a negative thing, because it’s, they’re not just apathetic towards it, they’re hostile to x, you’re telling people they’re wrong. And I think this is where reclaiming this embodied evangelism, as Peter talks about as a group can maybe reclaim some of the beauty in evangelism, or it’s not just going out one by one and telling people, Hey, you’re wrong, you’re a sinner, you need Jesus, but as a group together, coming together and showing the beauty of Christ as it’s embodied in the collective group.
Cameron Cole
One last thing I would say on this is in Jim Davis and Mike Graham’s new book, The Great the churching. They say one of the most pronounced moment when people do church is when there’s a family transition, particularly a divorce or a death. And so as a member of a church, whether a lay person or a pastor, when there’s a family transition, that you’re, you know, your attention should go up. And you shouldn’t really make an effort to pray for, but pursue those people to know that there is a very high likelihood that they will distance themselves from the church.
Danny Kwon
And one last last thing on this is, I think family ministry, especially the non Christian families, parents who are apathetic, I think can be a great opportunity to share the gospel, when we are faithful and family ministry, and Eugene Peterson said, be a pastor to your church, a chaplain to your community, having a good faithful family ministry, at your church, especially the non Christian or apathetic parents, when they have needs with mental health issues with their teenager, when they have needs with their kids who are having trouble in school, knowing that your church cares about families can be a real place of hope, a lighthouse for your community and those non believers. I think there’s a real benefit of your church serving and caring for families in your community and especially to non believers can be a great Evangel evangelistic opportunity. Yep. Cameron, there was one question for you about cat Rick isms. And you mentioned about the gospel gospel catechism, things like that. They just wanted a little bit more clarification on that. Sure.
Cameron Cole
Yeah. I’ll say a couple of things on that. First off, you can find it on the website. If you just Google read ministry and gospel catechism. Pretty sure it’s on the on the website. It’s actually also on the front of it’s at the beginning of every lesson, and redid reservoir Bible curriculum. But I’ll say that the reason that I developed this was because my first Bible study, it started back in 2005, this group of 10th grade boys had it for three years, we studied Minor Prophets and John and Romans and I was, you know, we did apologetics now, which is so confident that these guys really knew they knew the deal. And the last Bible say, my guys tell me what the gospel is. And like, none of them could articulate it. And interestingly, in 2014, care, Powell, and it’s Christianity Today, interview, she said that she thought the most pronounced or the strongest indicator of whether a child would be a church tending Christian as an adult with their clarity on the gospel, their ability to articulate the gospel in terms of grace. So those two things, but between those two things, that’s why I developed the gospel catechism. And I started that Bible study, beginning every Bible study with the gospel catechism, just so that at least where they believe it or not, they could articulate the gospel. And then after that, I started to think about, I started dealing with my own kids, even like when they were two or three years old, and drop them off at mother’s day out. But then I started to think about, you know, how identity is so central for early adolescence, middle schoolers, in particular, so developed gospel identity catechism. And so I do that, so it’s like my daughter, and I dropped her off at school, and she’s approaching Middle School. So what is who does the Spirit say you are one is Washington clean? Who does Jesus the son say, you are one who’s forgiven and righteous? Who’s the father say, you are an adopted child of God, who are you? I’m a sinner saved by grace. And so it’s just, you know, it’s simple. In fact, when I forget about it, my kids will be like, Hey, Daddy, what does gospel mean? Yeah, like, Come on, let’s get down to business. But it’s just, you know, a way to always be putting the gospel explicitly in front of your kids and reminding them of who they are in terms of what Jesus has done.
Danny Kwon
And we talked about implementation of family ministry, in your church. Questions came from people with small church plants, people with church revitalization, and then people with established churches. And I know Cameron mentioned, you mentioned about implementing this. But what are some ways we you think, steps to begin and continue to implement this, especially in young churches, or even old established churches?
Cameron Cole
The first thing I would say is, I really would like to emphasize the the notion that we need to break this idea that there has to be a huge family ministry, with all the bells and whistles, and you’ve got to hire somebody, and they’re the specialists and all that it’s just not practical for 97% of churches. And so I think that, thinking about your existing resources in terms of whether it’s volunteers, or whether it’s a children’s ministry, or youth pastor or sociopath, or whatever it may be, and just starting small and basic, you know, just resourcing parents, just having places where parents can grow in their own faith, and then leveraging, like, existing resources that are out there. The Yeah, to to have to create space where parents can get instruction and can be talking about it. I think that that’s a, I think that you’re gonna have to start with and modest ways. Another thing I would, I would say, too, is like, you just don’t have to move the needle that far to have a big impact. And so quite honestly, just just articulating a basic strategy, a basic vision for your church on this is actually a major step forward. Just educating parents that, you know, you have a role and we’re here to help you. And that goes a long, long way. Because I mean, a lot of churches, I feel like ministry to the parents doesn’t exist, it’s not articulated in any way. And so just starting there actually has some has some impact. And that and sorry, that’s why we made this rooted reservoir family certificate program. It’s like for the small church that doesn’t have a ton of resources. How is it that we can take you know that list of people that I mentioned, particularly volunteer, particularly the youth pastor, the person who doesn’t have life experience, and how is it that we can equip them to to coordinate family ministry and to leverage the wisdom of older parents leverage resources and and do it in a way that that works for a church irrespective of if they’re small, large, they have a lot of money, you have no money, whatever it may be.
Anna Meade Harris
I would say to that you have in your churches, most likely to prime age groups that I have seen in churches, I’ve been a part of that could be leveraged to build relationships with parents, and teenagers, you’ve got your empty nesters, your older folks, and then you have your young singles. And both of those groups are really looking for places to belong and connect and feel useful and feel a part of. And so to the extent you can just make introductions, Cameron, I think you said, you know, when somebody has a new baby in the home, and they they’re really their door is wide open, you can connect some of the older moms, maybe some of those who are recently retired. And they just they need to have their belonging, they need to feel useful, they need to feel productive. And boy, there are people who need their help need their wisdom. And the same is true for those young adults who are coming out of college maybe or starting in the work world. And they’re just trying to get their feet under them. And they can be great big brothers, to a high schooler who’s not really getting along with his mom too well, or, and just make introductions, and pray and get the Holy Spirit to show you who might connect with this family that’s hurting. And that too, is family discipleship. It’s not a program, but its relationship and it’s belonging. Everybody in your church needs it.
Clark Fobes
Yeah, I think an older singles too, right? We have a lot older singles in our church that never had kids and met a family talking about a typical to answer the question, how do you implement I use the hate come into TGC putting it out there. Because I have started out serving in a very small immigrant Korean church where I was the only staff member on the English side. And I was part time I had no budget, I was saving about $2.50 A month after paying all my tuition and, and fees. And it just felt like I would come to these spaces and feel like man, I am not doing everything I should be doing. I’m not doing it right. I don’t have the budget to do it all. And just as a word of encouragement, as we’ve been talking about, what I love about read it is we really view this as scalable, meaning it doesn’t matter what size church you’re in. Most of you probably already have ministries in your churches that are already spaces of the discipleship, you have a small group ministry, that’s a space of discipleship. And so rather than feeling the need to create a whole new space, you just asked the question, how can we thread as Cameron mentioned, the intentionality of discipleship and what we’re already doing, so that we’re not over programmed ourselves, we’re not over programming our families. And we can have healthy rhythms of again, simple that ordinary discipleship in our church rhythms in our individual lives. It’s really good.
Terrence Shay
I mean, it’s culture, you know, for every single church as well. So it takes time to bend it, it takes time to highlight what is good to replace maybe what was not as good in terms of disciple making. So you got to play the long game, which might be a difficult thing to hear. But it’s necessary. I mean, the famous saying is culture eats strategy for breakfast, right. And so you hear that you realize, then you got to think, Okay, who are in my church, and you focus on the people that are willing to buy in, but even then you realize you have to invest in them, because we’re highlighting relationships over programs. And it takes time for both God’s word and also the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts with your encouragement and leading to where they’re engaged on a more practical level, rather than theoretical. But then theoretical, which is biblical, in principle starts with you, in terms of just speaking about it as if this is how life should be, and encouraging families and encouraging your church to build and invest in these relationships. That’s what’s worth it. I don’t think Jesus came to give a gospel that wasn’t good news. It was a difficult gospel in terms of life circumstances, but he had something better for all those who would deny themselves pick up their cross and follow Him.
Danny Kwon
Now, there are so many great questions from so many individuals. You’re all coming from different church context, cultural context and backgrounds. And for me, I was a youth pastor for 29 years, but halfway through that, after year 14, I almost died. Just kidding. And and then I started becoming a Youth and Family pastor, switching to a family ministry paradigm, and still to this day, it’s been a challenge. I love it and hate it. And it’s going to be a great area of growth and challenge but we really rooted believe in intergenerational integration, partnering with parents and this family ministry paradigm. So as you think about your context, and your personal culture, your church culture, we just want to encourage you the continuing endeavor in this family ministry, we think it’s the way to go. And please come up and ask us questions reach out to the routed staff. We have a bookstore outside the door here. And so we just continue to pray for you. Again, we invite you to come talk to us, ask us questions. And we thank you for your time, this afternoon. And again, it’s gonna take time and effort and energy, but God is faithful and fruitful in his time. So we praise the Lord for His goodness.
Let us close in prayer together. Lord, we thank you, for your goodness, for your gospel, for your good news on the cross that you have given each and every one of us, our salvation, and our new hope, and our sanctification in You, Lord God, the Ministry of family ministry can seem daunting, and huge, and maybe impossible. But Lord God, as you say, nothing is impossible with you. And so Lord God, we lift you up, we praise You. We pray for each person here, who has maybe an interest and a desire or want to grow family ministry, in their churches, for your kingdom. So continue to be with them, inspire them, give them hope, and help us to believe and know that you are good. Lord God, as we are faithful, you give the fruit and are fruitful. We thank you for this time this afternoon. And we pray for each and every one of our ministries in the Gospel hope of Jesus Christ. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
