In this rapidly changing, post-Christian culture, we are exploring in a series of blogs the world of the Gen Z (those born from 1999–2015), the earliest of which are now freshmen and sophomore students in college.  In this “screenage” population where deep anxiety, diversity, gender-confusion, and personal safety/security are top issues, how have their Gen X parents attempted to parent them through life? More importantly, how has this parenting affected the Gen Z worldview and what does this mean for evangelism and discipleship of Gen Z’ers?

As with past blogs, I continue to highlight research from two primary “think-tanks” in this field: Impact 360 Institute and the Barna Group (books Gen Z and Barna Trends 2018).  Both resources point out that when it comes to parenting this new youth generation, their Gen X parents basically fall into one of two camps: either they are/were of the umbrella/”shielding” approach (they use the metaphor of a “helicopter”) or they are/were of the “you’re on your own, kid”/raw exposure approach (they call it “underprotective”).  In actuality, a number of contributing researchers believe that many parents have employed both approaches to parenting their Gen Z children, depending on the particular issue.

Take for instance the “shielding”, overprotective parental approach.  Some analysts see that in this unsafe world where shootings occur practically everywhere (most especially schools), some parents have become so defensive at times that their children have lacked the independence skills that they need to function and to think on their own.  On the other hand, those parents using the “raw exposure” approach have sometimes thrown their children out into the waters with the “sharks” and subsequently failed to give them the skills they needed to engage people/information intuitively, to discern wisely, and to make decisions logically.  As a result, some Gen Z youth feel anxious, uncertain, non-grounded and unstable.

This “double-sided” parenting approach has often produced a sense of “two-faced-standards” in many Gen Z youth’s minds.  Many of them have grown up asking questions such as,  “What really is the truth?  What is certain?  What is reliable?  What is right? What is legitimate?, and What is dependable?”  These kinds of questions come out of childhood experiences that lacked continuity, parental consistency, and stability.  Add this to the fact that many of their Gen X parents came from broken “Boomer” parent homes, and you start to see a portrait of identity-fracturing, gender-questioning, and doubt upon the landscape of their inner self.

The challenge–better yet, the OPPORTUNITY–for any church or ministry that wants to reach evangelistically and to disciple strategically this new Gen Z culture is to present the Christian life, experience, and journey as a “quest for TRUTH” with “truth” being ultimate, transcendent truth in contrast to our world of shifting pragmatic uncertainties and moral relativism (“anything goes”). Yet, at the same time to present this pursuit and journey in a personal, relational way.  This necessitates initiating relationships with Gen Z’ers and showing active interest in guiding them (ever-so tenderly and patiently) towards the beauty and wonder of Christian truth set on the foundations of God’s attributes, Christ’s life and work, and the Scriptures’ presentation of a gospel-centric worldview that champions grace over all the “isms” of the past.  Gen Z’ers want truth, but they want it in the safety of a nurturing, safe relationship.  Wonder of all wonders, the beauty of the gospel itself is that God–in all His transcendent truth and brilliance–chose to come to us relationally in the Incarnation in Christ so that we can know Him intimately by faith.

This winning combination of the pursuit of foundational truth gained through personal relationships will go a long way in attracting Gen Z’ers towards seeing the uniqueness of the Christian way in contrast to the other philosophies of this post-Christian culture.