How do we figure out Gen Z?
Generational labels – like Baby Boomer, Gen X, Millennial – can offer helpful shorthand for the culture, media and social forces that shape us. But shorthand quickly becomes a stereotype, and in my years as a youth minister and college chaplain, I learned that for every declaration of “what young people want,” the young people I knew complicated the claim. Young people are varied, complex, contradictory and surprising. When I hear “Gen Z wants contemporary music in worship,” I remember the teenager who loved traditional hymns, the college student drawn to Taizé music, the young adult who wanted to hear the grandeur of organ pipes wide open.
And yet, as we curated this special issue on youth ministry, I knew better than to rely only on my own memories.
My first call was as an associate pastor for youth from 1998 to 2002. I was a Gen Xer ministering mostly to Millennials, and for several years, I felt as if I lived out of a duffel bag. Every weekend brought a retreat, lock-in, ski trip, mission trip, youth conference, or late-night conversation in a church youth room with comfortable yet grungy couches. Youth ministry was joyful, exhausting and fueled by spaghetti and pizza — far too many carbs.
Gen Z does not need a church that treats them as evidence of institutional survival. They are not the answer to declining membership or aging congregations. They are not the church’s future in a way that lets their elders keep control of the present. They are part of today’s church, and they bring gifts that are desperately needed.
Gen Z is coming of age in a landscape shaped by smartphones and social media, pandemic disruption, climate anxiety, school shootings, political polarization, economic uncertainty and a deep distrust of institutions. They are anxious, pragmatic, digitally fluent, justice-minded and wary of easy answers. But even these descriptions are incomplete. For every trend, there is a teenager who counters the data: a person with a name, a story, a family, a faith, a doubt, a gift.
Asking “How do we figure out Gen Z?” can lead churches to chase the shiny toys we assume young people want: a praise band, a TikTok account, a coffee bar, or a renovated youth room with better furniture. But young people aren’t a puzzle to solve, a market to capture or a problem to manage.
Also, young people can see adults trying too hard to be something they are not.
A better question is: What kind of church is worthy of young people’s trust?
Gen Z does not need a church that treats them as evidence of institutional survival. They are not the answer to declining membership or aging congregations. They are not the church’s future in a way that lets their elders keep control of the present. They are part of today’s church, and they bring gifts that are desperately needed.
They bring hard questions. They bring impatience for hypocrisy. They bring tenderness and open-mindedness to conversations around mental health, identity, gender and sexuality. They bring creativity, humor, resilience and a capacity for connection that does not always look like the forms of community older generations recognize. They bring grief for the world they are inheriting and longing to participate in something that matters. Their skepticism is not the enemy of faith — sometimes skepticism is what faith sounds like when it refuses to settle for shallow answers.
Youth ministry today must begin with listening. What are young people telling us about the world, about God, about justice? What do they question that we have grown too comfortable accepting?
Youth ministry must practice honesty. Young people do not need adults to hide the conflicts, failures or contradictions of the Christian community. They need adults who speak the truth with humility and hope. They need a faith sturdy enough to hold lament, doubt, anger and wonder.
Youth ministry must cultivate the kind of belonging Paul describes when he writes of the body of Christ, where every member has gifts and every gift matters for the common good — a deep belonging of being known, trusted and needed.
And youth ministry must become a shared ministry, with young people, not merely to them. This means making space for their leadership and their critique. Asking not only, “How can we teach them?” but also “What might the Spirit be teaching us through them?”
