In a recent conversation with this Gen Z Pastor, we discussed what she would like other church leaders to know about reaching members of her generation, along with her own hopes as new pastor.
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As society went into lock-down during the early stages of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, for many of us in church leadership—youth pastors, in particular—we were nervously waiting for a mental health fall-out as our students lost their in-person communities and connections. We got online youth group and Zoom small groups going as quickly as possible. We made sure to over-communicate the ways students and parents could contact us. We planned virtual social hangouts and coffee hours in case any student needed to talk or see our faces. We expected our students to be knocking down our digital doors with care needs, prayer requests, and other crisis concerns.
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In their book Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church, authors Kara Powell, Brad Griffin, and Jake Mulder studied churches that were highly successful in engaging emerging generations. They define keychain leaders as “pastoral and congregational leaders who are acutely aware of the keys on their keychain; and intentional about entrusting and empowering all generations, including teenagers and emerging adults, with their own set of keys” (53).
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The genius of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is its clarity and simplicity. You begin with basic human needs and move up, building as you go. At the bottom, we are reminded that every person needs their basic physiological needs met before they can move on to the next stage and begin to feel safe and secure.
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If you like scientific studies, you’ll want to pay for access to this paper by Jean M. Twenge and Heejung Park, “The Decline in Adult Activities Among U.S. Adolescents, 1976–2016.” Or, you could read this summary from Business Insider.
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