For a while we have seen a trend with adults that is pretty disturbing. We see it with my generation (GenX) and the GenY or Millenial generation. It is even pretty evident in the Baby Boomer population as well.
People aren’t growing up. Let me explain.
I follow a Facebook page that is a part of a website called Humans of New York. A photographer, a guy named Brandon, walks around the city photographing people and posts a photo with a blurb from the subject on his site. It is really humbling reading blurbs about random peoples’ lives. Some are pretty interesting. Most are heart-breaking. For a while, Brandon was on a world tour and visited some of the roughest places on earth, like the Middle East, Africa, and even Ukraine in the midst of that issue. He showed real life in these depressing war-torn areas. You couldn’t help be overcome with emotion reading about how hard people are having it. The brokenness, the fear, the abandonment, the sadness. And then to have a photo to go with it, it is pretty intense. You can see the hurt in their faces. Heart-breaking.
This fellow came up on my HONY feed today:
Image source: Humans of New York. humansofnewyork.com
This is what I am talking about. We have several generations, back to back, who are stuck in their teenage years. Selfish. Egocentric. Inwardly focused. They shirk responsibility. They think all of their problems are external. As a result, their lives are a mess. Broken homes. Absent parenting. Addiction prone. Unreliable. Apathetic. Resistant to help, unless that help gets them what they want.
Sound familiar? It’s true. We live in a world where this is normal. And as a result, we see some things in our new generation, GenZ, that are unsettling. They’ve picked up some of the traits of the older generations because that’s what’s in the environment.
But let me give you some good news.
There’s a good trend I’m noticing lately among teens: what I’m talking about here, what we’re seeing as the trend in the Boomer/GenX/Millenial generations, these new teens and young adults see it too. They see what we see: immature thinking, low initiative, low responsibility. They want to be different. They don’t want that for themselves. This generation, believe it or not, wants to be understood as responsible and mature. (For some great research from a secular source on GenZ, click here)
At first glance, they don’t seem that way. At times, they seem apathetic and disconnected. But I’ve had conversations with teens recently who see how some adults are and they don’t want to repeat the cycle. What is happening is that they are recognizing something that they perceive is destructive. They’ve seen the effects of divorce and broken homes. They’ve experienced first-hand the devastation that comes with alcoholism, drug abuse, violence, and sexual addiction. They’ve grown up in a time of terrorism, and extreme economic instability. As a result, they’ve developed mechanisms to cope, and they’ve developed a resolve to not repeat the pattern.
This new generation wants out of that old old mindset. The problem is that they just don’t know how.
We have to help this generation. We have to show them the way – God’s way – not just how to deal with sin issues, but how to go from child to adult. How to go from thinking like a selfish kid to thinking like a responsible adult. How to think maturely. How to recognize the traps that come with immaturity and choose right thinking instead.
Consider what John writes in 1 John 2:12-14:
I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.
There are three age groups represented here in this passage.
1. Little children (those young in the faith)
2. Young men (those who are maturing in the faith)
3. Fathers (those who are mature in their faith)
Little children represent those whose faith is still in that milk stage. God is good. God is love. He loves me. He will save me. God is for me. He accepts me. He wants to make me feel good about myself. He wants to save me. All of these are good things, but they are beginning things. If you’ve been a Christian for 40 years and are still at this point, you have a developmental issue.
Fathers represent those who are mature in faith. They are thankful for what they’ve learned in the milk stage, but they’ve accepted the responsibility of being a Christian by taking a bite of steak. They’ve fought battles. They’ve gone through challenging things. They’ve had to abandon selfishness and personal preservation to choose God’s plan, God’s will, God’s reality, even when it was hard to do so. They’ve made a commitment to God and they’ve followed through on it.
Young men, however, is a special stage. The predominate theme here is that you have “overcome the evil one.” What does it take to do that? It means at some point, you have to take a little meat with your milk. It means you have to rely on God more, seek him more, grow in him, trust him, have faith in him. it means you’re gonna start experiencing battles. It also means that you begin to put away childish things: childish thinking like selfishness, childish responses like why me, and a childish focus like what is in it for me. At this stage, you are meant to overcome, to grow, to mature.
What we see is churches full of children, children of all ages, who are content to rest in God’s gooeyness. They’re easily offended, quickly distracted, and violently temperamental. But we’re also seeing a generation of fathers who are failing when it comes to helping children grow into fathers themselves. As a result, our young men have grown complacent, disconnected, and unchallenged and have reverted into the mindset of a spiritual teenager. A spiritual teenager is worse than a child. A teenager is a person who demands to be treated like they’re an adult, but who still thinks like a child. They have the illusion of maturity, but haven’t the reason to back it up.
But this generation, this GenZ generation thinks a little differently. They are ready for a change. They know there is more out there and they are dying to realize it. I am excited about that. I am excited to see what God is going to do with this generation. I sense in my spirit a revival within them that will not only change their generation, but one that will awaken the sleeping fathers and spur maturity in the complacent children around them.
If that is the case, then church, it is time to get it together. Fathers, awaken. God has given to you the knowledge of who he is form the beginning. That means over the course of your life you’ve seen him work in you and you’ve known it was him from the beginning that got you where you are today. You see the whole picture of what God wants to do in a life. And because you have that panoramic view, it is time to embrace these children, whether they are 2, 22, or 52, and show them the path to maturity. Challenge them. Be intentional. Walk with them. You’re not to old or too “out of the loop” to make a difference in them.
I am convinced this generation is on the brink of a revolution. I want to be a part of that. I want to help show them the way. I feel the spirit of a father stirring in me. How about you? Do you feel it? Are you stirred up? Is your faith high? Then let’s embrace these children and teens and show them the way.
Romans 10:14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
Be blessed. Be the difference.
J