Will Gen-Z Revive Church Planting?
Editor’s note: This article is an excerpt from a larger article written by Daniel Yang and forthcoming on OutreachMagazine.com
A few months ago, I was hosting the Church Planters Leadership Fellowship (CPLF) in Houston. CPLF is a collaboration of around 75 denominations and church planting networks. Our conversation that week was focused on how we might increase the national capacity to plant more churches in order to keep up with population growth in the U.S. and Canada, especially amid the increasing demographic diversity and cultural complexity. One of our presenters was Keith Weiser, founder and lead pastor of Resonate Church, which is a network of churches planted near colleges and universities in the Pacific Northwest.
Keith (born 1977) is a Gen-Xer originally from Houston but moved to Pullman, WA with a vision of reaching college campuses not just through campus evangelism but through planting churches with a strategy of engaging unchurched freshmen. What started as one church in 2007 has now turned into a movement of fifteen churches across six states composed largely of college students.
As Keith told the journey of Resonate and how their network of churches came about, he openly shared how Gen-Zers seemed more resistant to the language and structures prevalent in Church Decline and Church Growth paradigms. Speaking on the difference between Millennials and Gen-Z, Keith said, “We started with older Millennials and if you had lunch with them and asked them if they want to start something cool, they would respond with, ‘Yeah! Pick me!’ But today if you ask a Gen-Z the same thing, their response is more like, ‘(nervously) Yeah. Maybe someone else should do that.’”
According to Keith’s experience, Gen-Zers prefer more guidance and require a lot of affirmation and communication compared to previous generations. Moreover, they’re potentially triggered with anxiety by things such as leadership pipelines and rigid organizational structures that have high command and control. He believes this is the result of the cultural and institutional chaos around them which has left them highly skeptical of grand visions and perhaps even strong personalities.
While it’s probably true that 18-25-year-olds of every generation are sort of anti-institution, we have not seen any other generation born into the age of the internet, extremely heightened by social media, raised in an economic recession, plagued by mental health diagnoses, navigating college during the most politically and racially divided moment in our lifetime, and then thrust into the workforce in a global pandemic. Gen-Z is not a snowflake generation. They’re just accurately reflecting back to us the cultural chaos that started off this decade.
Gen-Z is not a snowflake generation. They’re just accurately reflecting back to us the cultural chaos that started off this decade.
Given their skepticism towards institutions, of course they might be triggered by any vision that thinks the church can reclaim the culture, restore Sunday church attendance, and reverse religious decline by doing more of the same from previous generations. If researchers such as LifeWay, Barna, Pew, and Springtide agree on anything, it’s that young adults today are affiliating themselves less and less with this vision of Christianity in America than previous generations had. Young adults aren’t correct on everything and of course they don’t agree on everything, but what they feel in this decade about mission and church planting is probably the best gauge for the strengths and weaknesses of Christian leadership in America leading up to 2050.
In his book Meet Generation-Z, James Emery White writes, “As the first truly post-Christian generation, and numerically the largest, Generation Z will be the most influential religious force in the West and the heart of the missional challenge facing the Christian church.”However, their spiritual formation and our understanding of their emotional resonance, or lack thereof, to our missional narratives is not something that can wait until 2030. They were being formed—the oldest likely already have been formed—at the start of this decade. A few are currently trying on Church Decline and Church Growth to see if it fits, and the early reports are coming in telling us that Gen-Z is wearing it the way David wore Saul’s armor—it feels clunky and they’re unsure if they can grow into it.
Gen-Zers need to feel that they aren’t advancing the cause of a declining religion. They need to feel that they’re a part of what Jesus is doing to heal the nations. Whatever missional narratives emerge over the next few years, the most effective ones will likely feel less anxious and instead feel more beautiful to them. The urgency will not be created by appealing to fear or uncertainty. The urgency will be created by captivating them with how beautiful is the Kingdom of God and how good is the way of Jesus.
And in order for that to happen, Boomer and Gen-X leaders must examine their internal narratives to see if they are truly enamored by the beauty of the Kingdom of God and the goodness of the way of Jesus. Our conviction and certainty of this—more so than the charts and graphs that remind us of Church Decline—are the greatest indicators that we have in this decade for whether or not the missional narrative will change in time to effectively mobilize today's young people to greater faithfulness now and into the very near future.
