My new series of blogs highlights recent research by the Barna Group and Impact 360 Institute on our culture’s newest population group: Gen Z (those born since 1998) with the prayer that we will be challenged to see gospel opportunities to reach this new youth culture (and subsequently, their parents and grandparents).  In this blog, I want to focus on the prevailing persona of this culture that desires not to render moral judgments or opinions on controversial issues, whether they be social, political, religious, or racial.  How do you impact a generation that prefers “safe spaces” (The World According to Gen Z, p.27) that avoids dialogues that attempt to engage and persuade people on sensitive issues?

The researchers in the above organizations point out aptly that the Gen Z culture as a general rule of thumb prefer “trigger warnings” (notices ahead of time that upcoming material is controversial) and these “safe places” to reduce as much as possible the potential for conflict and psychological pain associated with engagement.  Perhaps in their young lives, Gen Zers have seen and even experienced the hurt associated with disagreement in dialogue and want to remain neutral within a greater community where they feel secure, accepted, and part of the crowd.

Besides the fact that this kind of “neutrality” is somewhat naive and ultimately unrealistic within a culture of strong opinions and voices, it poses a fantastic opportunity for the Church to reach this “blank slate” generation with the gospel.  The issue before us is “what are the best ways to influence this “do not disturb me” Gen Z persona?”

Just because many Gen Zers don’t want conflict shouldn’t make us believe that they are social hermits.  To the contrary, research has borne out that many teens are active in volunteering in their community.  In Barna Trends 2018 (p. 144), studies reveal that 20% volunteer at least once a week, and a greater percentage give their time at least once a month to churches and community organizations that feed the hungry, tutor children, clean up their neighborhoods, help animal shelters, and care for the poor, the sick and the elderly.  Many love going on mission trips that address humanitarian causes like poverty, hunger, and homelessness.

To me, this desire for volunteerism is a tremendous opportunity for churches to penetrate the gospel inter-personally to this young culture.  Why not see youth mission trips, community projects, teen service camps, and neighborhood improvements as evangelistic opportunities to connect personally with this group? Since most of them are turned-off to stronger persuasion strategies from dialogue/debate, why not use common-interest platforms centering around human need as bridges to link relationally with today’s teens so that through time and bonds they can see the love of God working through others to their hearts?

We will see in another blog that apologetics (the defense of the Christian Faith) is vitally important to reach the Gen Z culture, but oftentimes the relational initiatives we make to connect to this young, vulnerable generation can bring about the greatest impact.  And the way we make relational connections with them is to do things with them that they are passionate about.  By helping them make a difference in their world, we earn the opportunity through relationships to introduce Jesus to them, the One who is the true “light of the world” (John 8:12).