Ep. 138: The Generation After Millennials

*Below is an edited transcription of the audio conversation.

Isaac Dagneau:

Welcome to indoubt. Glad you decided to take some time to hang out with us today. We are indoubt, a ministry that exists to bring the ancient gospel to the relevant issues of life and faith that we all face every day, cultivating conversation. If you’d like to make indoubt part of your weekly routine, just subscribe to our show on iTunes or your favorite podcast app, or pick up our personal app to search indoubt on the iTunes app store and you can download it there for free. On our site and our app, you can listen to over 130 conversations on various issues of life and faith, read articles that dig deep into faith and culture, and also view our free Jude Bible study for individual and group use. Anyways, this week we’re talking about the youngest generation, Gen Z. Christian apologist Jonathan Morrow is with us to equip our minds today on this new generation. So, here’s a conversation with Jonathan. With me today is author and speaker Jonathan Morrow. Jonathan is the Director of Cultural Engagement at Impact 360 Institute, and an adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Biola. He holds a Master Divinity, Master in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, and a Doctorate in Worldview and Culture. Thanks for being here with us.

Jonathan Morrow:

Hey, it’s great to be with you today. Thanks for having me on.

Isaac Dagneau:

You’ve been in school a lot, wow.

Jonathan Morrow:

Yes. Yeah, that’s been a long journey. It’s been a great one, though. Yes, many years invested there, for sure.

Isaac Dagneau:

That’s awesome, I love it. Firstly, Jonathan, for those who might not know you, can you just share a little bit about yourself? Maybe how’d you come to know the Lord?

Jonathan Morrow:

Yeah, sure thing. I didn’t necessarily grow up in a Christian home, per se, I grew up and I was baptized in the Catholic Church. I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church in middle school, but really had no idea what the gospel was until an acquaintance of mine, or a classmate of mine, who had been praying for me in high school, it was my junior year, and he just shared the gospel with me with this little knowing God personally. That was the first time that I ever heard the true message of the gospel, and just made sense to me. And I was honestly tired of searching all the other dead ends, and was empty, and was like, “Alright, well, God, if You’re real, then let’s give this a shot.” And so, pretty much my junior year of high school’s when I became a follower of Jesus, and God brought mentors into my life right away. Which were huge in my own life, and it really was able to, by God’s grace, follow Jesus in college and beyond, and begin to have a passion for that age group, especially in just how pivotal those years are, in the high school years, in the college years for making some of those life altering trajectory decisions. So yeah, that’s a little bit about my story and how I came to follow Jesus.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah, I love it. And as you say that I’m interested because you come from a Catholic background. Was a little bit awkward with you and your family in junior high?

Jonathan Morrow:

Yeah, so actually, my parents weren’t Catholic necessarily. I think they were just trying to cover their bases, growing up there. And that was just how that played out is I grew up nominally Episcopal, but it was really hit or miss growing up.

Isaac Dagneau:

Got you, got you. So tell us everything about Impact 360 Institute. Right now you have the floor to let a whole bunch of Canadians know about what this place is. Yeah, just let us know.

Jonathan Morrow:

Absolutely. Well we’d love for you guys and your audience to allow us to be an ally for you. But Impact 360 Institute exists, we’re near Atlanta, Georgia, in Pine Mountain, and we are passionate about cultivating leaders who follow Jesus. And what does that look like? For us, it looks like different experiences for high school students. We have one week, two week, and nine month, and master’s experiences at Impact 360 Institute. So one week is our propel, which is really all about discipleship, and influence, and leadership, and identity. Those kinds of questions for high schoolers. And then we also have immersion, which is a two week worldview and apologetics experience around is Christianity really true, and how do I know it’s really? Everything we do is experiential based. So we don’t just talk about it in the classroom and train, we actually go engage with it. So for example, we’ll learn about Islam, but then we’ll go to a large mosque. And we’ll get to watch them observe prayers, and their Imam will present to our students, and then we’ll debrief it all, and we equip them to have conversations and so, we give top notch training, but we also go do something with it. Which is the secret sauce in some ways of how a lot of young people grow, because they actually get to go interact with someone who believes differently than they do, and they learn how to do that. So, that’s immersion, we have a nine month gap year called our Impact 360 fellows. They get 18 hours of college credit. They get to spend a month internationally in Brazil serving cross culturally to learn about leadership, and vocation, and worldview, and ethics, and spiritual formation, and everything else. And so basically, we love equipping the next generation, we want them to be following Jesus when they’re 80, not just when they’re 14. And so we try to build so best we can, obviously relying on the grace of God and Holy Spirit to equip them and train them. So, we provide resources and courses and all sorts of stuff like that. So at Impact360.org, people can find out about how we might be an ally to you, and your ministry, or high schoolers, or church, or whatever that might be.

Isaac Dagneau:

That’s awesome. Thanks for sharing that, Jonathan. And for those listening who are interested, I’ll definitely provide the link for that website on our episode podcast page. But anyways, Jonathan, earlier this year, I watched your live stream on the Gen Z, or we’re Canadian so we say Gen Zed, but I’ll say Gen Z for all purposes, for us. Gen Z generation, it was partnered with Barna, which a lot of people know about as well. So for many, though, they still think that the millennials are the youngest generation, but it’s kind of funny to know that they’re approaching their 40s now. So they’re not the young generation. But I’m just wondering, Jonathan, if you could just give us a few of the defining characteristics of this new generation? Maybe perhaps, what age they are, these Gen Z’s, and what you think is the pervasive worldview among this new and young generation?

Jonathan Morrow:

Yeah, absolutely. Would love to talk about Gen Z, and you’re right, I do a lot of workshops, and work with parents and churches, and they’re like, “We’re working with millennials, and we’ve got this targeted plan for millennials.” That’s awesome, so what do you have for teenagers and Gen Z? And they’re like, “Huh.” So Gen Z, they’re born between 1999 and 2015. And the reason why we wanted to do this study with the Barna Group is that’s the primary audience we work with, we work with 14 through essentially 20 year olds, all year round. And so, we know the questions, and insecurities, and doubts, and issues that we see day in and day out with students. We wanted to get a broad, national glimpse into this to see what their lens was, what are the opportunities? What are the challenges? And so, a Gen Z is born between 1999 and 2015. So right now, the oldest of Gen Z is heading into college, early college right now. And so, there’s about 69 to 70 million, so it’s a very large generation. But when it’s all said and done, they’ll actually honestly be the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in American history, in terms of what we did, as ours was a nationally representative survey. And so, those are just some initials, but one of the things that we framed the question on, and I love the questions that you asked, but David Kinnaman, the President of Barna Group and myself were talking and we were talking about this, is it possible that many churches are preparing young Christians for a world that no longer exists? And so that was one of the reasons we wanted to do this study was to start further conversations about there’s a way the world is, and there’s a way the world we wish it was. And sometimes I think in the church, and in our schools and homes, we prepare students for the way we wish it was as opposed to the way it actually is. And that affects dramatically how honestly urgent we see the task of discipling and equipping this next generation of the biblical worldview, even down to how we design our churches, and how we cover different topics. But, some of the things that stick out about this generation is this truly is a post-Christian generation. The Barna Group has been tracking this for about 20, 25 years, and only about 10% of the boomers had a biblical worldview, but then only 7% of Gen X, 6% of millennials, and now 4% of Gen Z. So that’s about 10 to 12 questions, that if they can affirm, then they get put in the category of having a biblical worldview. So again, it’s not exhaustive, and honestly, it’s not even super theologically robust. It’s just a minimum, “Hey, this is basic, historic Christianity, broad strokes,” and only about 4% of Gen Z would fall into that category. And so, what does that mean? It means we did focus groups, we did national surveys, and there’s a lot of moral and spiritual confusion around this generation. We see the fact that, for example, in about 24% say that what is morally right and wrong changes over time, based on society. We were trying to come up with a baseline of, “Okay, we’ll talk about lying.” Only about 34% of Gen Z believes that lying is morally wrong. But even before we got to the more complex questions about, say, same-sex marriage, or pornography, or whatever those might be, lying is an issue. So it speaks to just the moral and spiritual confusion of this generation. And I don’t fault this generation, I work with Gen Z all the time. I think they’re smart, creative, and fun, and have huge potential. They’ve just not been equipped, and the world that they’ve come of age and has really told them that there’s no such thing as truth, and morality, and knowledge about these things. And so that’s their default, even the ones who come from a “Christian background.” And I get to work with home school, Christian school, private school, public school, doesn’t matter, their default is relativism. It’s like, “Well, that’s just true for you, but not for me. I don’t want to judge, I want to be tolerant. And by tolerant, I think I’m supposed to mean that I’m supposed to accept every idea is equally valid.” Right? So, that’s the spiritual and moral confusion. One of the things that’s really interesting about Gen Z as well, is that they’re also very interested in success, even more so than their millennial counterparts, in vocation, in jobs, and money, and being self-sufficient by the time they’re 30, and things like that. That’s an interesting trend about two-thirds want to finish their education, start a career and become financially independent by age 30. And that’s a pretty significant thing. One of the things is how do I distinguish them from millennials in some ways? In some ways, millennials are more idealists, and Gen Z, from the research and experience is probably more pragmatists. And then, in terms of Christianity, and these are again, generalities, not every case, but in generally speaking, a lot of the conversations with millennials is they’ve had a bad experience, or something with a church, or a Christian, or something like that. And in many cases, Gen Z has had really no experience with… It’s almost like, “Hey, what is this thing called Christianity? Why do you go to church again? Why should this matter?” So in some ways, they’re a blank slate, which means we have the opportunity to inform that. But that also means that they also have very little understanding, honestly, of what Christianity is. And so when people throw around these terms, that they don’t know what this is, or why it matters. One way that plays itself out, is in this survey question of religious affiliation. Only 34% of Gen Z would have a religious affiliation of either atheist, agnostic, or none. And that means that there’s the social pressure to say, “Hey, I guess, yeah, I’m a Christian,” that’s really no longer existing. There’s not this pressures to say, “Yeah, I’m an atheist.” Atheism is twice as popular among Gen Z as it is among adults. That’s one of the things we found in our survey that they’re willing to say, “Yeah, I’m an atheist,” or, “I’m an agnostic.” So it’s less, this pressure to say, “Oh, I’m a Christian, I guess, whatever that means, and I like baseball and apple pie or whatever.” That’s just not the way it’s working with this generation. Another indication is half of teens, even more so than millennials, and earlier generations agree, that happiness is my ultimate goal in life. They want to be happy, that’s what they’re after. And for many of them, they’re defining that in terms of material success, in how they answer some of those questions. And then, maybe one last one, there’s tons of stuff we can talk about, but one other distinction is people always talk about what does it mean for them to be digital natives? And how is that different than millennials? Well, here’s one of the differences. Many Millennials grew up, obviously, with screens and everything else. But Gen Z has never known anything different, in terms of what they’ve been brought up with, and things like that in terms of screens, but their parents also were on screens. Whereas millennials parents were boomers, so most likely not on screens. In this case, millennials and Gen X are on screens, raising kids on screens. And so there’s just this ever presence, it really is an all enveloping kind of sense. Maybe we talk more about that, but that’s having an amazing, and I think amazing not in a good way, but amazing implications for this generation. And shaping them in ways that I don’t even think people realize how substantial that is.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah, absolutely. Jonathan, thank you so much. That was a lot of information, so a lot to chew on, to think about, reflect on, I appreciate that. A few things pop out to me really quickly is one, this idea that so many are wanting happiness, that’s their goal. And it’s seen in success. I think about YouTube, and how many Gen Zers follow different YouTube people. And I think of Jake Paul, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Jake Paul, really big YouTube sensation. And I think a lot of Gen Z’s watch his stuff, and he has this worldview of, have the nicest cars, do the craziest things, have lots of money, and I can just see how if every single day Gen Z’s are just watching this and looking at this guy’s life and saying, “This is what true happiness is, just having a lot, and being successful. That’s what I have to do.” So it just connects a little bit there.

Jonathan Morrow:

Yeah, it really does. We have this idea of the American dream, and we’ve got more stuff than we’ve ever had, more access than we’ve ever had. And yet, sociologists and psychologists, even the eminent Martin Seligman, a man whose probably done more work on happiness in the last 20, 30 years than anybody else, secular kind of perspective says, “It isn’t making people any happier.” You’ve got all this more stuff, and then obviously, from a biblical perspective, we would say, “Well, of course,” right? Because if you aim it yourself, you’re not big enough to live for. And eventually, you’re going to consume everything that’s there, but the Christian life defines serving others is the pathway to finding life, and flourishing according to God’s good design, and things like that. Whereas, the constant messages is is more likes, more shares, more money, more stuff, more status, and it’s making it less and less happy. And that’s how it’s playing out for Gen Z in pretty dramatic fashion.

Isaac Dagneau:

Absolutely. I’m wondering, Jonathan, if we could look at how we can minister and share, that’s maybe an old word, but really helps engage the Gen Z generation with the truth of the gospel as millennials, because our youth groups today are full of Gen Zers. And a lot of those youth groups are full of millennial leaders, and even millennial youth pastors. So, for those listening that are millennials, and I think the majority are, what ways can we as millennials best engage with Gen Zers? What works? What doesn’t work? What should we definitely not do? And what things should we really attempt to do?

Jonathan Morrow:

Yeah, that’s a great question. Lots there, so let me just give you a few suggestions of what we’re seeing as being effective, but also from the research, and even on our own work in Impact 360 what we’re seeing with students is this. So the first thing I would say, if you’re a millennial, and you have the opportunity to work with youth groups, that’s first off, that’s amazing and awesome, because Gen Z desperately needs you and what you have to offer the next generation. So that’s the first thing. But here’s what I would encourage you to do first, even before you have this conversation, is grow in what you believe, knowing what you believe and why you believe it. Because Gen Z has a lot of questions and doubts, and so do millennials, there’s a lot of doubts and questions. Sometimes it became popular in the church to sit and be content with, “Hey, it’s okay for everybody to have doubts.” And it is, because doubt is not in and of itself sinful. See, the opposite of faith is unbelief. It’s not doubt, doubt is in the middle, being between two minds. And it’s helping people think through those questions. And so, what Gen Z desperately needs, is people and mentors who are a little bit further down the road, who can help guide them to reliable answers to lean into in the context of a relationship. So they need that relationship, and they need you to know what you’re talking about and why. You don’t have to be omniscient, or anything like that, but if you ask the question, “Why are you a Christian?” How would you answer that? And if honestly, at the end of the day, if it’s anything other than because I actually think it’s true, then virtually any of those other categories can be answered in the same way by any other religion. I grew up that way, my parents were that way, that’s what I just choose to believe or whatever. But what’s going to set Christianity apart, and what I think the Apostle Paul does in 1 Corinthians 15, is say, “Look, Christianity is testable. It’s either rooted in history in the resurrection, or is not.” And so, do you have some reasons why the resurrection is true? Do you have some reasons why you know God is real? Do you have some reasons why you can trust the Bible? Things like that. So that’s kind of a preacher, sure, a lot to say there, but we need that relationship. But we also need to bring some substance to the next generation. One of the reasons why I say that, is from the study and the research, nearly half of teens, which is really on par with millennials, want factual evidence to support their beliefs. And so, they’re looking for those kinds of things. So here’s a couple of broad observations of things that you can do. First, less bubble wrap, and more challenge. That would be one. We grew up in a very affluent, Western culture, that is instant gratification, everything’s accessible to us. And, a lot of the things that naturally would challenge students, they don’t have to work for anymore. And so they don’t really have resilience, and they’re not building strength in life in general, and in faith in particular. And so, we need to take some of the bubble wrap off within the church, because the world that they’re going into, I guarantee you is not bubble wrapped. So we need to introduce that while we’re there to coach and mentor them. Another thing is less technology, and more connection. I can’t over emphasize this. Honestly, one of the coolest things that we do, in terms of Impact 360, and I say that because directing students is we actually give them the gift of two weeks without a cell phone. And it’s hard at first, but literally to a student, they’re all like, “Thank you so much for those two weeks.” Because they were able to focus, they ate meals together, they hung out together, they talk together, they engaged when we’re talking about these big questions. And just the relational depth is just exponentially increased when everybody’s not stuck to their phone. And so, they need embodied relationships. So if you’re a millennial working in that environment, they need you to be present, but find ways to do that without the phone. Again, we’re not against technology, but this thing, we think we have control, and we mediate all these relationships, and it gives us the illusion of connection. But really, Gen Z is super isolated, and they want to be loved and known, and they’re not being that way. And so it’s having implications in anxiety and depression, and all sorts of things at multiple levels. So you need less technology, more connection. So we need to disciple this next generation digitally. And we need to model that ourselves. And then maybe one or two more. One would be less fragmentation, more integration. What do I mean by that? I mean if they have access to a smartphone, they’ve got access to Siri, and Alexa, and Google, and everything else, they can literally get any bit of information or data that they’d like. What they don’t have access to, is integration of how this fits into any bigger story, or does it at all? And so if we’re a Christian, and we believe in the Christian worldview, and it speaks to all of life, then we can help students see that this is where this fits, here’s what it means to be human, and how that affects how we relate to other people. That affects how we view sexuality, and relationship, and identity, and all these kind of questions. If these bits of information are connected into a true story of the world, which is what Christianity offers. So we need to help them have less fragmentation of just bits of data that they have access to, and more narrating, like, “Hey, here’s how this fits together.” And ultimately, it’s connected to the question, is Christianity true? Because if it is, changes everything. So maybe lastly, less entertainment, and more training. I’ve seen a big shift in this just from the extreme. And this is the most marketed too generation. In fact, the irony of this, is the vast majority of all the studies that have been done over the last 40, 50 years on, everyone’s from boomers, to Gen X, and millennials, the first wave of that is always marketing, right? Because they’re trying to segment audiences so they can market to them. And again, I’m not bashing marketers, they have a role to play. That’s not my point. But, this generation has seen more polish, more flash, more personalization than any generation, and entertainment. And so to just try to come in and duplicate Disney World in a church environment, number one, is not going to help them grow. Number two, it’s not going to help them lean more into reality. And number three, the world is just more fun at the end of the day because sin is fun for a season, right?

Isaac Dagneau:

Totally, yep.

Jonathan Morrow:

And so if you’re relying on fun to keep them around, that’s just not going to work. Now, I love working with students, and we have a lot of fun. So I’m not saying make people miserable for Jesus, that’s not what I’m saying. But if you’re relying on entertainment as your strategy to keep them connected to the church or their faith, that is not going to work. They need real life experiences. That’s why we do things like, “Hey, you’re going to have a conversation with somebody believes differently than you do. And these are the questions that matter, and we’re going to equip you, but you’re going to have that conversation, right? This is not separate from real life.” So, those are just a couple things I think that we can do as we engage the next generation.

Isaac Dagneau:

I love it. That’s so helpful. Thank you, Jonathan. My last more fun question is this. What will the next generation be called? So those born between 2016, maybe 2030, this is someone like my five month old daughter. What’s going to be her defining characteristics? Not personally, but in her generation. What are your thoughts on that?

Jonathan Morrow:

Yeah, it’s interesting, because I’ve been asked this question a couple times. And even David Cameron and I were laughing about it. We jokingly suggested, maybe Double A might be the next one. I’ve seen a little bit with Generation Alpha maybe, I don’t know. But, let’s think of a couple broad things. Even the news recently, you’ve got the fact that there may be a Space Force created. You’re going to have the rise of artificial intelligence. So that generation will come of age, even more so. Right now we have Alexa and things like that, that are the tip of the spear in some of these kind of technologies, but 10 years from now, there’s going to be a lot more artificial intelligence in play. There’s going to be some of those kinds of things, so I don’t know if those defining characteristics are… Usually, there’s a couple of seismic shifts that will happen culturally, that are kind of markers. So I don’t know what those are, obviously, because I’m not a profit, but what to call them? I don’t know that either. But those are the some of the things that I’ve heard, or maybe we’ll get creative and come up with something else, and we’ll see what happens.

Isaac Dagneau:

I love it. That’s so good. Thank you so much, Jonathan, for your time, your wisdom today. If you’re listening, and you’re intrigued and interested in Gen Z, and what we’ve been talking about, head to Impact360Institute.org, and there you’ll find not only resources on Gen Z, but just tons of other stuff as well. And I know that if you go to whoisgenz as well, which I can provide the link on, they have a much fuller report, as well, that you can get. Also check out JonathanMorrow.org. There you can find Jonathan’s books, and other resources as well. Anyways, thanks again, Jonathan. Hope to talk with you again.

Jonathan Morrow:

Hey, it’s been great to be with you.

Isaac Dagneau:

That was Christian apologist Jonathan Morrow from Impact 360 Institute. Again, all the links that we just mentioned will be on our episode podcast page, so definitely go check them out. So, it’s interesting, for the Gen Z Conference that Jonathan and Barna Group put on, they talked to a group of Gen Zers who were asked to point at a picture and word combo that best answers the question, “What does happiness look like?” Their options were success, and that had a picture of hands fanning bills, and then so on with family, education, spiritual, and health, with different pictures for each. And the majority chose the first one. Not by a lot, but still the majority, success with money. At least with this specific focus group of Gen Zers, the majority believe that financial success equals happiness. And really, who can blame them, right? They are being cultured to believe that wealth leads to unending possibilities of joy. That’s what they’re seeing on YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. For example, and if you just heard our conversation, I talked about one famous YouTuber, Jake Paul. He’s a 21 year old that makes his living off videos and merchandise. Jake makes somewhere between $68,000 to $1.1 million a month in revenue. And what does Jake make videos of? Literally, whatever he wants. And a whopping 16.3 million people subscribed to his channel. And that’s just on YouTube. So, it’s safe to say that thousands of Gen Zers daily watch his videos and buys his merchandise. And he’s really acting as a role model to so many young people. Teaching them indirectly, what it means to be happy. And happiness as we can see, comes in the form of this financial wealth and sort of this, “Do whatever you want, that makes you happy,” kind of thing. Culture says financial success is happiness, yet, God’s word says, and you know this, communion with God is happiness. In fact, the scripture says in Matthew, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” Again, in Hebrews it says, “Keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have.” Here’s the reality. Nothing in the form of money or possessions will leave this world. In fact, there just going to burn up. But communion with God last forever. An indescribable joy can fill anyone who’s been transformed by God through the gospel. This is a joy that it’s so real than money or possessions don’t even compare for a second. So, whether you’re a Gen Z or a millennial, or from any other generation, fight for real happiness, and that’s found with communion with God. You should connect with us online this week. We’re on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And there we post the conversation, we want to encourage conversation going on. We’d also love to hear your suggestions for guests for us to talk to, and topics for us to talk to our guests about. Well, that wraps up today’s episode. We hope you join us next week as we host another conversation on life and faith. We’ll see you then.