3 Things Gen Z Wishes the Church Understood

I often hear Gen Zers exclaim, “Why won’t anyone listen to us?” So, when asked to write on a next-gen ministry topic, I decided to go directly to the source. I asked some Gen Zers, “If you could tell church and ministry leaders anything, what would it be?” 

They were so willing to offer their requests, and were incredibly insightful in their responses, I would encourage you to do the same thing I did. If all that happens after reading this article is that you ask some Gen Zers, “What do you wish our leadership understood or cared about?” then that is a win. It opens a door for a dialogue our young people want to be invited into.

What Gen Z Wants

So let’s go back to what Gen Zers said in response to my question. Here are three requests they shared: 

1. Teach us how to do conversational evangelism.

“The only evangelism we are being taught is to invite our friends to church. We aren’t being taught how to share the gospel over a conversation with our friend at a coffee shop.” 

Hearing this really stopped me in my tracks. I often have used the phrase, “Invite your friends,” as a form of evangelistic outreach. Our next generation wants more than that. They want to learn how to explain their faith to someone else, which also means they need to be equipped to know why they believe what they believe. This is not just a request to understand how to do evangelism, but a request for an apologetic understanding of the Christian faith within today’s context.

I don’t know where we think they are going to learn about their faith and how to share it unless we take time to teach it to them. Actually, I do know where: online. I have already had young people tell me they go to TikTok, YouTube and now ChatGPT for questions about the Bible and faith. They aren’t doing this because they think it’s the best information. They are doing this because they don’t know where else to go, or they are embarrassed to ask, and we haven’t told them, in so many words, “Bring your questions here.”

What if we had a “Question of the Week” that was addressed before the sermon? What if we had regular classes or small groups offering to teach and practice conversational evangelism? What if we offered a cultural apologetic regarding why what we believe matters?

Our next generation is asking us to be more intentional to equip them for evangelism, and we should take them up on this.