5 Things I’ve Learned from Pastoring Gen Z

What comes to mind when you think about Gen Z? Their obsession with TikTok? Their invention of the word “yeet”? The way they singlehandedly resurrected the scrunchie? I’ve spent the past 8 years working with Gen Z — first on a volunteer basis, and now as a Middle School Girls Pastor at a local megachurch — and I’ve treasured every minute. While older generations are quick to turn the slang and stereotypes of Gen Z into the latest punchline, I’ve personally considered it such a joy and a privilege getting to work alongside this generation. Though I am quick to point out the good in Gen Z and will continue to adamantly do so, I am also sadly acquainted with the struggles and setbacks of this generation. I am continually surprised at how often this generation breaks my heart, intrigues me, and inspires me all at the same time. I share these five observations on Gen Z for two simple reasons: to help you move forward with a more complex, compassionate, and complete understanding of Gen Z, and to hopefully start a conversation about the type of pastor Gen Z ultimately needs.

They are mentally hurting, and it’s hard to watch. According to the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, the amount of US teens 12 to 17 years old who experienced one or more major depressive episodes increased by 59% from 2007 to 2017. While teens across the board are seeing a rise in mental health, teen girls in particular are seeing a quicker rise in depression than teen boys. According to PEW research, teenage girls are almost three times as likely to experience depression as teen boys, with one in five girls having experienced a major depressive episode in 2017. Depression is not the only area where girls are taking the lead: According to Dr. Jean Twenge, “48% more girls felt left out in 2015 than in 2010, compared to a 27% increase for boys.” These aren’t just numbers to me; they are the faces of countless girls over the past few years who have tearfully told me how anxious, depressed, lonely, unworthy, and suicidal they feel. I was not naive going into ministry; I knew mental health issues among teens were on the rise. But even still, I’ve been surprised at how often these conversations arise in our ministry and the frequency in which I recommend professional counseling to parents.

As I write this, a conversation I had with a 7th grade girl last year hovers in my mind. Tears streamed down her face as she told me she had been thinking about ending her own life recently. I asked her why, and her answer still haunts me: “Nobody my age pays attention to each other. Even when I’m with my friends, they just stare at their phone instead of really listening to me and my problems, and it makes me feel alone and unworthy. I just want to feel like I matter to other people.” This is the heartbreakingly consistent cry of Gen Z. Though there are plenty of students in our ministry that do not struggle with mental health, there are plenty that do. In a 2019 Pew survey, 70% of 13 to 17-year-olds said they believe depression and anxiety are major problems for people their age, again reminding us that even if they don’t personally struggle with their mental health, it is highly likely they have close friends who do. As pastors, we’d be wise to keep up with the most recent research, develop a compassionate theology surrounding mental health, and have resources readily available for students who are struggling.

They are connecting with a Gospel that gives them a sense of self-worth and meaning. Part of what makes us human is a deep need to find purpose and self-worth — things that are hard to find in a culture that has deconstructed truth and promoted a self-help agenda. While relative truth sounds sweet on our lips, it sits hollow in our souls.

Obviously social media is not helping adolescents in their search for worth and purpose. Even the first president of Facebook acknowledges the addictive and harmful effects of social media, stating that it is ultimately a “social-validation feedback loop” that “[exploits] a vulnerability in human psychology.” Similarly, a 2018 Forbes article called the new obsession among young women to digitally alter their photos in order to feel good about themselves Snapchat dysmorphia, a play on an already existing psychological condition known as Body Dysmorphic Disorder, or BDD. Underneath eyelash extensions and perfectly lit TikToks loom a lot of hurting girls who never seem to feel secure no matter how many likes they get.

Sadly, adolescent girls who turn to social media for a sense of self-worth are often doing exactly what culture encourages them to do. Despite the progress of feminism and the body positivity movement, things like porn, plastic surgery, and celebrity worship are still rampant as ever, communicating to young girls that their worth ultimately comes from how pretty and popular they are. Sad as it seems, girls today are often one breakup or mean comment away from an emotional breakdown. Knowing this reality for so many teen girls, I’m not surprised when they find immense self-worth and value in the person of Jesus Christ, who elevated and empowered women all throughout his public ministry. Teens, just like the rest of us, need something bigger to anchor their lives to and live for, which is where the Gospel message delivers in a way the secular narrative never will.

They surprisingly flourish on mission trips and in service roles. I just finished reading a book about Gen Z by Dr. Jean Twenge; while I was not surprised by her main points, I was surprised by some of her smaller findings. More specifically, Twenge unpacks statistics revealing that Gen Z is more likely than any generation before them to prolong getting their driver’s licenses and avoid getting summer jobs. Why? Because they love the safety that comes with childhood and aren’t in a hurry to grow up. Twenge asserts: “Wanting to feel safe all of the time can lead to wanting to protect against emotional upset — the concern with “emotional safety” somewhat unique to iGen. This can include preventing bad experiences, sidestepping situations that might make you uncomfortable, and avoiding people with ideas different from your own.” Keeping our kids safe is important, particularly in light of the dangers that constant phone access creates; in this regard, parents and pastors should help protect the minds and hearts of Gen Z in light of modern challenges. At the same time, we have to give Gen Z enough freedom in other areas of their life to develop character and emotional durability.

I was an education major in undergrad, and I still remember learning about the concept of desirable difficulty during my sophomore year of college. Coined by the American psychologist Robert Bjork in 1994, desirable difficulty is the idea that if you make a task too easy or too hard for a child, the long term benefits they experience will be minimal. The goal, then, is to create a task that is smack dab in the middle: a task that is still within a child’s reach but not accomplished without a bit of a struggle. I find it fascinating that Paul, the author of a large portion of the New Testament, echoes this belief that appropriately challenging circumstances are often what form us into more well-rounded people in the long run — a foundational Biblical belief that applies to our teenagers too. I’ve witnessed this firsthand: We take around 35 students on a mission trip to Cincinnati every summer, where they spend a full five days working on service projects in the sweltering summer heat, and I’m always surprised to see how joyful, thankful, and inspired they are by the end of this trip. Opportunities like this ultimately give teenagers a glimpse of the kind of growth they can experience when they are presented with new and exciting challenges. Fostering this kind of ongoing growth in students will require pastors who can communicate well with parents and help them understand that sometimes the best thing they can do for their child is to get them off their phone and into a situation that will allow them to develop Christ-like character.

They are emotionally stunted when it comes to confrontation. More than any generation before them, Gen Z explores and maintains relationships through technology. According to a 2019 Pew survey, 60% of parents worry that their child’s technology addiction will seriously hinder their ability to have in-person conversations. As a pastor to middle school girls, I echo this concern and have seen it play out firsthand. When girls in our ministry are fighting and seek out my advice, one of the first things I ask them is whether or not they’ve confronted their friend about their frustrations. 8 out of 10 times, a girl will say “yes” and proceed to pull out her phone and show me a long text thread documenting her and a friend’s most recent fight. When I try to encourage her to talk to her friend in person next time instead of over the phone, I’m often met with a blank stare. On a few occasions, I’ve actually stepped in as a mediator and had girls sit down and talk out their problems face-to-face, and it’s fascinating to watch: More times than not, they stare at the floor and hardly say a word, despite having plenty to say over text. Though technology is a gift in so many ways, it has its downsides. Screens often act as a physical boundary to empathy, creating ripe opportunities for miscommunication. One of my biggest concerns for Gen Z is that technology is preventing them from developing the empathy needed to maintain healthy relationships and instead encourages the type of narcissistic, black-and-white thinking they are already prone to at this age.

If you want to see how a lack of empathy plays out in a teeanger’s world, look no further than online bullying. I have been wide-eyed reading some of the nasty comments our girl students say online that they would never say to a girl’s face. Sadly, this type of behavior is all too common. According to Pew, 90% of teens believe cyberbullying is a serious issue amongst people their age, with 59% indicating they have already been the victim of online bullying. While teens picking fights is nothing new, the methods in which they are doing so have changed, giving pastors a unique opportunity to speak into an age-old problem. There are a handful of questions I ask myself each time a conflict in our ministry arises, and perhaps these are questions anyone working with Gen Z can ask themselves, too: What if I saw this drama as an opportunity to teach these girls new skills now they will desperately need later? How can I use this situation to teach them how to handle conflict in an honoring and Christ-like way? How can I help them understand the weight of their words and teach them to be empathetic? Whether you are the mom, sister, aunt, coach, teacher, or pastor of a Gen Z student, we have an opportunity to show them a different (and much healthier) way to navigate relationships.

They are willing to question meta-narratives. Pastors to Gen Z need to have real answers to tough questions because this generation is full of them. This is actually one of my favorite parts of my job; I joke often that middle schoolers push me to use my seminary degree way more than adults do because they are constantly asking such tough questions. This means pastors need to stop using the age-old answer, “because the Bible says so,” when students have honest questions about Christianity. It is lazy, unhelpful, outdated, and misses out on a great teaching moment. In his book UnChristian, Kinnaman found that 36% of adults who grew up in the Christian faith felt like they couldn’t ask tough questions in church. Similarly, in her book iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood, Twenge states that, “half of 13 to 17-year-olds want to pursue a science-related career, yet only 1% of youth pastors say they have addressed any subjects related to science in the last year.” If we want Gen Z to have faith that can thrive in postmodernity, we need to teach them how to think with the mind of Christ and align their worldview with their spirituality.

Despite these cultural challenges, God is still on the throne and never runs out of creative ways to reach His people. I believe God is still moving and will continue to move in the hearts of Gen Z. Historically speaking, the Church shines Her brightest under cultural pressure, which gives me hope that Gen Z Christians can develop into deeply rooted disciples of Christ if — and only if — we lead them well. This requires pastors (myself included) to have enough humility and discernment to continually reevaluate our methods of ministry if we are failing to connect with this younger generation. I’ve spent a lot of this past month reflecting on what it means to minister to middle school girls in my own little corner of the country, and as I reflect, I keep coming back to these two questions:

What kind of pastor will reach this generation?

Am I that type of pastor?

From what I have observed, I have come to answer these questions with the conviction that Gen Z needs pastors who understand mental health; who know how to connect the Gospel story with the aches and pains of this generation; who know how to appropriately push students out of their comfort zones, have good conflict management skills, are well-trained in apologetics, and above all, can teach students what it practically looks like to put on the mind of Christ. This is the kind of pastor I am praying I become, and I hope you find a similar conviction. May we continue to love and lead this next generation well.

SOURCES

Twenge, Jean M. IGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood. Atria Books, 2017.

White, James Emery. Meet Generation Z: Understanding and Reaching the New Post-Christian World. Baker Books, 2017.

Comer, John Mark. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: Staying Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in Our Current Chaos. WaterBrook Press, 2019.

Anderson, Monica. “How Parents Feel about — and Manage — Their Teens’ Online Behavior and Screen Time.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 22 Mar. 2019, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/03/22/how-parents-feel-about-and-manage-their-teens-online-behavior-and-screen-time/.

Horowitz, Juliana Menasce, and Nikki Graf. “Most U.S. Teens See Anxiety, Depression as Major Problems.” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project, 5 Jan. 2020, www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/02/20/most-u-s-teens-see-anxiety-and-depression-as-a-major-problem-among-their-peers/.

Anderson, Monica. “A Majority of Teens Have Experienced Some Form of Cyberbullying.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, Pew Research Center, 31 Dec. 2019, www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/09/27/a-majority-of-teens-have-experienced-some-form-of-cyberbullying/.

Geiger, A.W., and Leslie Davis. “A Growing Number of American Teenagers — Particularly Girls — Are Facing Depression.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 12 July 2019, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/12/a-growing-number-of-american-teenagers-particularly-girls-are-facing-depression/.

Lee, Bruce Y. “What Is Snapchat Dysmorphia And How It May Lead To More Plastic Surgery.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 7 Aug. 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2018/08/05/what-is-snapchat-dysmorphia-and-how-it-may-lead-to-more-plastic-surgery/#40c7f68b3cee.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2017). Key substance use and mental health indicators in the United States: Results from the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (HHS Publication No. SMA 17–5044, NSDUH Series H-52). Rockville, MD: Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Retrieved from https://www. samhsa.gov/data/.