The Next Forty Years: Gen Z and The Church

By Hannah Desouza, Boston, Massachusetts

This paper was first adapted from a talk I gave at the Teleios conference in February 2023 titled “Gen Z and the Church.” It is published in the Winter 2024 edition of the Teleios Journal and cannot be reproduced without permission of the publisher. See https://teleiosjournal.com to subscribe to the journal.

The number forty can be found throughout the Bible and seems to hold a particular significance. Old Testament scholars Sandra Richter and Michael Coogan describe forty as “the standard number offered for the length of a generation”[1] and “a transitional marker, separating two distinct epochs in biblical narrative.”[2] The flood waters rain down on Noah and his family for forty days and forty nights in Genesis; the Israelites’ period of testing and wandering in the desert lasts for forty years; Moses spends forty days and nights on Mount Sinai while waiting to receive the Ten Commandments from God; the first three kings of Israel (Saul, David, and Solomon) each rule for forty years; the city of Nineveh is given forty days to repent by God through the prophet Jonah; Jesus fasts for forty days and nights before commencing his public ministry and spends forty days on earth after his resurrection before his ascent to heaven. Tracing these many references throughout the Bible, what might we say the number forty has come to represent? What is it symbolic of? Some words that surface in my mind are testing, purification, preparation, refining, and renewal.

Interestingly, the number forty has been making an appearance in the family of churches that I am part of, the International Churches of Christ (ICOC). Several churches have recently celebrated their forty-year milestone (the Boston Church of Christ in 2019, the London and Sydney Churches of Christ in 2022, the New York City Church of Christ in 2023, among others). As I write this, my father recently celebrated his own forty-year anniversary since his baptism in a murky British pond, back when the congregation of the newly planted London Church of Christ could fit comfortably around a dining room table. (Today there are multiple congregations around the UK numbering some 1500 members.) Much has happened in those forty years. As I am not yet even thirty, I cannot profess to know much except that the testing, purification, and refining of the biblical forty does not seem so far off from our collective experience as a family of churches—along with, I hope and believe, the preparation and renewal that I also see in the biblical examples. If forty is the span of a generation, as Coogan asserted, one might say we are currently occupying the liminal space of transition, between generations, in the process of witnessing, having already witnessed, or on the cusp of witnessing a new generation rise up. What a successful partnership between generations, as well as the eventual passing of the mantle, Elijah to Elisha style, might look like is what I intend to dedicate this paper to. 

Going Back to Go Forward

In my first semester at Harvard Divinity School, I took a class called “Religion and Liberation in the novels of Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Marquez,” taught by a wonderful professor and historian of religions, Davíd Carrasco. Usually at the start of a semester, we would go around the room, and each student would introduce themselves, sharing their background and why they had chosen the class. This class began differently. Professor Carrasco (or “Profe,” as he told us to call him) asked us to go around and to introduce not ourselves but one of our grandmothers to the class—to share her name, where she was from, any languages she spoke, and her favorite book if we knew it. My father’s mother came to mind. Cynthia Bailey, who had emigrated to London from the island of Curaçao in the 1950s. She spoke Dutch, Spanish, English, and her local dialect of Papiamento. I imagine her favorite book would have been the Bible, because I knew she used it to teach my dad and his brothers how to read. One by one we encountered each person’s grandmother and, after we’d finished, Profe announced that we had now brought our ancestors into the room. At an institution and in an age when it can be tempting to view ourselves as self-made and having arrived at a position based on our own merit, it was both humbling and grounding to pause and acknowledge those who had come before us.

This notion of ancestry and lineage remained on my mind for the next few months, continuing into my second semester, during which time I took a class that featured a guest speaker who, we were informed, would be teaching us from Zoom. A friendly older gentleman appeared on the projector and introduced himself by saying, “I am part of a small church in the South that you probably don’t know, but I would like to begin by sharing a bit about its history. It’s called the Church of Christ….” My ears instantly perked up. Never would I have imagined that in my religiously pluralistic school, in which I sit in classes alongside atheists, Buddhist monks, and everything in between, that I would be listening to a teacher recount the history of my own movement. But there I was, listening along with my classmates to the story of the Churches of Christ, of Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell, their desire to restore primitive Christianity, and where things got off course—the good, the bad, and the ugly. It felt as though someone was sharing my own family history! The professor was none other than Richard Hughes, who seemed equally delighted to discover a student from the Churches of Christ in the class when I disclosed myself in the Q&A. We arranged to talk afterward, and a fifteen-minute call quickly turned into an hour as I listened eagerly to all he had learned from his decades in the church. As we said our goodbyes and promised to keep in touch, I felt a similar sensation as I had in that first class with Professor Carrasco after we’d introduced our grandmothers to one another. Professor Hughes had given me a sense of history, ancestry, a connection to those in the church that had come before me. I felt as though I had received a pep talk from a spiritual grandfather in the faith, and it left me feeling grounded. Why do I share this? Because I strongly feel that, before we can talk about going forward and what the future will look like with the generations to come, it is important to acknowledge where we started.

The Founding Vision

What stood out to me the most from what Professor Hughes shared with me that day, and what I would go on to discover from reading his book Reclaiming a Heritage (a sequel to his 1996 work, Reviving the Ancient Faith: A History of the Churches of Christ) was just how radical the founding vision of the Churches of Christ truly was—whether it was the abandonment of human dogmas and divisions in favor of unity among all Christians, a commitment to each person’s pursuit of truth in the Scriptures, or the conviction that we are “Christians only, not the only Christians.” One of the founding documents in the Restoration Movement, “The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery” (1804), speaks to this desire:

We will, that our power of making laws for the government of the church, and executing them by delegated authority, forever cease; that the people may have free recourse to the Bible, and adopt the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.^[3]

Free recourse to the Bible for all, the only law being the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus—what liberating words these must have been for those who heard them! Along with their relentless pursuit of unity was also a relentless pursuit of truth in the Scriptures. In 1830, John Rogers of the Church of Christ in Carlisle, Kentucky, boldly claimed:

The fatal error of all reformers has been that they have too hastily concluded that they knew the whole truth, and have settled back upon the same principles of proscription, intolerance and persecution, against which they so strongly remonstrated…. Having, then, full in our view, this fatal rock, on which so many reformers have split, may we studiously avoid it. We have no reason to conclude, we know all the truth…. We have nothing to lose in the inquiry after truth.^[4]

This pursuit of truth was paired, crucially, with the humble admission that in spite of our honest attempts, none can possibly capture, possess, or codify the truth of God in a creed or system. While this might sound defeatist, this acknowledgment encouraged the reformers to see the pursuit of truth as ongoing, as one would never truly arrive at it. As Hughes writes, “the restoration vision therefore sent everyone back to the biblical text time and time again.”^[5]  

Yet it is clear that, somewhere along the way, there was a shift that saw the Churches of Christ go from being seekers of truth to claiming the truth had been found, from restoring the ancient church to having now restored it. It now became about maintaining and defending the true church they believed they had found. While it is beyond the scope of this paper to explore all the reasons why this shift took place (I would encourage those interested to read Hughes’s brilliant analysis in Reclaiming a Heritage, to which I am indebted), I did want to include a statement from Alexander Campbell that is particularly revealing of this ideological shift in the movement:

We flatter ourselves that the principles are now clearly and fully developed by the united efforts of a few devoted and ardent minds…the principles on which the…gospel and its ordinances can be restored in all their primitive simplicity, excellency, and power.^[6]

Certainly, it is a far cry from John Rogers’ tentative claim that truth could not be codified five years earlier. Equally revealing is the decision that the first edition of Campbell’s The Christian System be published under the new title Christianity Restored.^[7] Such grandiosity has been prevalent in the International Churches of Christ (and its offshoots) over the last 40 years and seems to go hand in hand with the shift that took place in the Church of Christ from its being a movement of God to the movement of God, the echoes of which can still be heard in such claims to be “God’s modern-day movement.” Hughes demonstrates that even the claim to be “non-denominational,” while it began as a description in the early restoration movement that highlighted the radical desire to dissolve divisions and unite all Christ-followers under the common name of Christian, has since taken on an almost theological weight. Rather than being used to unite all Christians, I see how it can become a means of elevating ourselves above other denominations. Hughes speaks to this phenomenon in saying:

Implicitly [our nondenominational language] suggested that Churches of Christ were immune to the power of history, culture, and tradition. Other religious organizations fell prey to these inexorable forces—but we did not…. Somehow, we had burst the bounds of our human constraints to achieve a perfection denied to everyone else.^[8]

While it is a term that I admittedly still find myself using out of habit when asked what type of church the ICOC is, it is not lost on me how the use of it today can be more exclusive than the original inclusive intent of the founding vision.

What, you may ask, does all this have to do with Gen Z? First, the exclusivist, “one true church” rhetoric that appears to have been woven into the fabric of our DNA since this shift that the Churches of Christ underwent (from restoring to restored) in the 1830s, I believe to be utterly at odds with the ethos of the next generation. If statistics are correct, Gen Z is the most open generation to have lived (with millennials very close behind),^[9] with “open” being defined as most exposed to, and most accepting of, different groups and categories (be it racially, socially, in matters of sexual orientation, and gender identity) in ways that their parents and former generations could not imagine. The rise of the so-called SBNRS (Spiritual But Not Religious) has similarly been a defining feature of the next generation, often displayed in a rejection of religious institutions in favor of more personal forms of spirituality. One way in which I’ve seen these ideas play out among my peers who are actively engaged in the church community is in an embrace of Jesus and his teachings, but without the same loyalty to the ICOC as an institution as more seasoned members of the church.  

Significantly, what I believe would resonate among the young is the original founding vision—the Barton-Stone mantra of “Christians only, not the only Christians”; the twin beliefs that every human being has the right to pursue truth in the Scriptures while at the same time God alone is the source of all truth and thus we cannot possibly capture it fully; or the belief that restoration is ongoing, not completed, and will continue to be this side of heaven. I want to advocate for a return to, or reminder of, this original founding vision—not simply as something that will resonate with Gen Z but will also, crucially, make space for them. No longer is the emphasis on maintaining and preserving what the older generation has established; rather, they are free to learn from it while figuring out what it looks like to bring the Gospel to a new generation. Instead of truth defenders, we too are permitted to be truth seekers. Having laid the foundation of going back to go forward and recapturing the original radical vision of the Stone-Campbell Movement (or reclaiming the heritage in the words of Hughes), I now want to propose four concepts the church can embrace in order for this transition to a new generation to be successful: mystery, curiosity, dialogue, and partnership.

Mystery

In Exodus 16, God’s people have been liberated from Egypt and led by Moses through the Red Sea and into the wilderness that lies between Elim and Mount Sinai. After complaining of hunger, they receive bread from heaven, a substance that tasted like wafers and honey, which the Bible tells us is called manna. In Hebrew, manna literally means “What is it?” It had never been seen or tasted before and was an entirely unexpected answer to the Israelites’ cry of hunger. It rained down at God’s command and would sustain Israel for forty years, for a generation. In verse 32 we see the Lord command Moses to take some of the manna, put it in a jar, and preserve it for their children, so that “later generations will be able to see the food I gave you in the wilderness when I set you free from Egypt” (Ex 16:32). It is a tangible and powerful way that God desired their descendants to gain faith in his provision, by being shown this miracle that had been done in their generation, one that was unexpected and never repeated.

I believe my own movement, the International Churches of Christ, has seen such miracles: astonishing ways of God providing, opening doors for the Gospel, transforming lives and entire nations. I grew up on these stories! And certainly, I believe they are meant to be shared. Yet the danger I see comes when we make these stories a formula—when we point to them and say “This is how God works because we’ve seen it done before. This is how God worked for us, so this is how God will work for you.” In doing this, it’s as if it’s no longer the miracle being held up in a jar and marveled at, but God himself: the God that temples cannot contain. When such stories are shared as prescriptive, moreover, it puts a certain pressure on the next generation to repeat what has been done in the past in the hope of similar results. Our Western post-Enlightenment way of thinking finds comfort in formulas, in metrics and verifiable outcomes. Ours is a worldview that places a primacy on certainty, which can lead us to approach the Bible almost scientifically. It is therefore intriguing, perhaps even amusing, that God chose narrative to be the dominant genre of Scripture, which utterly resists this methodology. It is more art than science, which means a willingness to be comfortable with mystery—mystery when it comes to who God is and how he works in his world.

In one of my spring classes, I was tasked with the assignment to identify and write a paper on theologies I had been taught and internalized in childhood that were either life-giving or life-limiting (a very revealing exercise). The preeminence of the Bible in my home and in my church community was something I began with as life-giving. It meant that I had read the Bible cover to cover by seventeen, was familiar with its cadences, had identified my favorite stories, and could passionately recite from memory several passages. It also meant being part of a fellowship of churches in which I could approach anyone and ask, “What are you studying in your Bible at the moment?” and could expect to be met with an enthused response. What a gift these practices were! The surprise for me came when reflecting on my life-limiting theologies and, after a moment’s pause, I found myself writing out the exact same sentence: the preeminence of the Bible in my home and in my church community. Before you dismiss me as a heretic, I should clarify that I continue to believe in the life-giving aspects of this internalized theology, yet I also see the way in which my view of God had been narrowed to the words on the page. Scripture had become a means of not just defining but containing God. To the extent that I could not readily conceive of how he might be working beyond its margins, either through nature, through people, or (shock horror) in religious traditions and groups outside of my own.

In short, my overreliance on the Bible as my manual for life (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth was the acronym I held to) had removed the element of mystery. Jesus’s own haunting words to the Pharisees, who clung to the Law in a similar fashion, rang true: “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me” (John 5:29). N.T. Wright speaks to this phenomenon in Scripture and The Authority of God when he writes, “When John declares that in the beginning was the word, he does not reach a climax with ‘and the word was written down’, but ‘and the word became flesh,’”^[10] the clear distinction being that flesh is not static; it’s alive and dynamic! And continues to be. It is a balance we must navigate with care, between holding tightly onto Scripture and making room for the mystery of God that overspills its pages. Our ability to do so will be key to whether the next generation feels free to dream beyond our current structures and systems to new ways in which God might work in their time. 

Curiosity

This mystery, and the unpredictability of God, can be intimidating, yet what it ought to produce in us is curiosity. In 1955, a magazine editor took his son to meet the great Albert Einstein and made a record of the advice Einstein gave his boy:

The important thing is not to stop questioning…. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.^[11] 

The phrase “holy curiosity” leapt off the page for me when I first read it. There is something sacred about being curious. Even Jesus, the one in possession of all knowledge and all answers, was curious. According to the book (brilliantly titled) Jesus Is the Question, Jesus asked a total of 307 questions, is asked 183 questions, and gave a direct answer to just three!^[12] While I have not personally counted the number of questions (although this would be a great exercise), one thing for certain is that Jesus asked significantly more questions than he provided answers for. As a church we can often be quick to provide answers. While it is true that we must be prepared to give an answer to those who seek it from us (1 Pet 3:15), we must also be careful that we are not doing so in a way that shuts down conversation. Curiosity always opens up conversation; it always invites. All next generations seem to have an innate curiosity and inquisitiveness, “why?” being the favorite word of many children. Something I sense from the younger generations is a desire for this questioning spirit not to be ruled out as pride or interpreted as sheer criticism and ingratitude for the church, but instead for it to be seen as an earnest desire to inquire and explore whether the systems that are in place in the church are equally suited for this next generation’s quest for God as they were for its founders. 

I am currently writing this from Harvard’s Widener Library, which has curiosity as one of its core values. A banner in the stairwell has the heading “Lead with Curiosity,” with “Champion Curiosity” in large lettering across the center. What might it look like for older generations to champion curiosity in the youth of the church? Similarly, what might it look like for them to lead with curiosity? An observation I’ve made in recent years is how the method by which an issue is raised by the younger generation, or the emotion with which something is shared—be it anger, disappointment, or frustration—can often become the focus of scrutiny over the content itself. I have often wondered what the effect would be if such emotions were met with curiosity as a default, rather than offense? How might the outcome be different?

There are numerous times in the Gospels when I think how easy it could have been for Jesus to take offense at the way someone raised an issue or addressed him personally. Consider the biting words of Mary when she entreats him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32). Although we cannot tell the tone with which she spoke, the words alone are enough to pierce, striking right to the heart of Jesus’s intentions. Amazingly, Jesus does not challenge this stinging comment, despite it being said publicly in front of others. In fact, he offers no defense at all. Rather he asks the question, “Where have you laid him?” and proceeds to be deeply moved by their grief, to the point of weeping alongside them. Curiosity is a prerequisite to empathy. Curiosity is also a prerequisite to connection and, inevitably, to dialogue.

Dialogue

It’s clear that dialogue among Gen Z will take place whether the older generations are present or not. Yet, overwhelmingly, I see a desire among the young for the older generations to engage with them. As well as a great need for it! A need for spiritual mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, such that Richard Hughes embodied for me that afternoon. Jesus exemplified this pursuit of intergenerational connection on both sides of the coin, beginning at age 12, when he sat among the teachers in the temple, “listening to them and asking them questions” (Luke 2:46), and into adulthood, as we see him admonish those who wanted to send the young away. Instead he invited them into his presence, took “the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them” (Mark 10:16). From the separation you often see when you enter a Sunday service between those of different life stages, it is clear that intergenerational connection must be intentional if it is to occur at all.

During the height of racial tensions in America—when community relationships with the police were fraught with tension following the murder of George Floyd—a former NFL player, Emmanuel Acho, began an online series entitled “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man” with the aim of sparking dialogue on the topic of race in America. A notable episode saw him sit down with a troop of White police officers from the Petaluma Police Department in California. Turning to an officer on his left, Acho asks the opening question, “When was the last time you had a Black person over to your house for dinner?” The officer, obviously uncomfortable, confesses he is unable to recall a time, a sentiment that is echoed by the other officers. Acho addresses the wider group and asks, “When was the last time you sat down, just to have a conversation with Black people?” There is a similarly awkward silence before another admits he didn’t think he had ever had an intentional conversation with a group of Black people. In response to this, Acho makes the profound statement that “proximity breeds care, distance breeds fear.” How easy it is for mistrust and fear to develop toward those groups that we keep at a distance and make no attempt to know. Perhaps the problem is not necessarily the differences, but the distance we maintain. 

After conducting a global survey of some 25,000 members of Gen Z across 26 countries, the Barna Group termed them “The Open Generation,” with lead researcher Daniel Copeland stating: “You don’t see any closedness around the globe. You don’t see any rejection.”^[13] While not everything ought to be imitated by ensuing generations, I do see this incredible capacity for acceptance of those different from them as a particular strength of Gen Z that we might do well to learn from. It is a strength I see Jesus in also. In his limited time on earth, Jesus chose to set time aside to have meals with those who were different to him; thus we see him sit down to eat with both Pharisees and those on the fringes of society alike. To the religious leaders, who communed only with those like themselves, this was a scandal, prompting them to ask Jesus’s disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (Matt 9:11). What might it look like for those who are different from us, those whom we might even feel uncomfortable around, to be the very people we invite in? Whether it is Gen Z themselves, those in other denominations or of other religious traditions, members of the LGBTQ community, or former members of the church—and not to convince or correct but to practice curiosity and listen?

Although it was never said out loud, a formula I experienced growing up in church (and at times helped to enforce myself) was “believe, become, belong”— meaning that someone must first believe, then get themselves right (become), before they can belong. A shift I see taking place, spurred on by the youth, is a complete reversal of this order. Now one belongs from the outset, and belief and becoming follow. In this way, belonging is not the reward for change, but a catalyst toward it. If the church is to be a place of belonging for the so-called Open Generation and their friends, I am convinced it will begin with invitations such as these. I appreciate the motto of the Common Grounds Unity group, which seeks to bring together those of the Stone-Campbell Movement and beyond, that “unity begins over a cup of coffee.”^[14] 

Partnership

Finally, when I think about what it could look like for the older generation to partner with Gen Z, I would like to consider the partnership that existed between Moses and Joshua. There are three ways in particular that I see Moses relate to Joshua as the next generation leader of Israel: entrust, encourage, and establish. Our first introduction to the young Joshua in Scripture comes in the form of a commission from Moses, instructing Joshua to “choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites,” while Moses himself undertook another task (Exodus 17:9). From the outset we see a dynamic of mutual respect as Moses, many years his senior, has full confidence in entrusting Joshua with such a task. A few chapters later, the Lord calls Moses to come up the mountain where he is to receive the Law. The Bible states that “Moses set out with Joshua his aide, and Moses went up on the mountain of God. He said to the elders, ‘Wait here for us until we come back to you’” (Exodus 24:12–14). During this critical moment in his leadership, in which Moses will meet with God and receive the Ten Commandments, he brings Joshua along with him, although not explicitly commanded to by God. While it is Moses who ultimately will perform the required tasks, from his final statement to the elders, “Wait here for us until we come back to you,” it seems as though the two of them made part of the journey up the mountain alone. Moses encouraged Joshua in the literal sense of instilling courage in him, allowing him to share in the mountaintop moments of his ministry, which undoubtedly formed Joshua’s own vision and leadership. 

Moreover, Moses makes a clear point to establish Joshua in front of the nation after first declaring to them “I am now a hundred and twenty years old and I am no longer able to lead you” (Deut 31:2). The Bible goes on to say that “Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, ‘Be strong and courageous for you must go with this people into the land that the Lord swore to their ancestors to give them…. The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged” (Deut 31:7–8). The refrain to “Be strong and courageous” that we have come to associate with Joshua’s ministry are words first spoken over him by his mentor, with all of Israel as witnesses to it. When Moses’s earthly life comes to an end, there is no floundering among the people as to what to do and who will succeed. The partnership with Joshua that Moses had invested in during his lifetime ensured that Israel was taken care of after he was gone and knew clearly who to look to. What a gift Moses gave to the nation in this.

As we consider what the next forty years in our churches might look like, we will do well to learn, also, from the perspective that two kings in Scripture had toward the next generation. The remarkable reign of King Hezekiah can be read about in detail in the chronicles of the Kings, yet it takes a tragic turn in the very last season of his life. When the Lord grants his request for fifteen more years of life following a bout of illness, Hezekiah’s focus shifts to pure concern for his own reputation and personal glory, with catastrophic results. When the consequences of his shortsightedness are proclaimed to him by the prophet Isaiah, including the devastating impact his decisions will have on the succeeding generation, his response is alarming: “‘The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,’ Hezekiah replied. For he thought, ‘Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?’” (2 Kings 20:19). At the last hurdle, the final curtain, as the sun is setting on his reign, Hezekiah’s sole concern is what has been achieved in his own lifetime, with not a thought given to what is to come for God’s people. 

In contrast, I am convinced that King David (though he, too, made his fair share of catastrophic mistakes) succeeded in his care for the succeeding generation, and the well-being of the kingdom after him. When he is told by God that his dream of building the Lord a temple is, in fact, one for the next generation to fulfill, he does not hide his sadness, admitting “I had it in my heart to build a house as a place of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord” (1 Chron 28:2). Yet his response following this is to immediately get to work gathering the materials to set his son Solomon up for success. He seems to imitate the entrust, encourage, and establish pattern in his commending the great task of building the temple to Solomon “in the sight of all Israel and of the assembly of the Lord.” Finally, he echoes Moses’s encouragement to Joshua in his parting charge to his son, to “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you” (1 Chron 28:20). His forty years on the throne concluded, David reminds us why he has the title of “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Sam 13:14) in this final surrendering of his own glory to the greater glory of God’s Kingdom, knowing it would long outlive him.

When I consider practically what partnering with the youth in the church might look like in light of the principles discussed, it is clear that it is deeper than the delegation of a few tasks. First and foremost, it will require selfless prayer on the part of the older generation for those coming after them. In places, it will require a complete shift in structure, priorities, and pace to train and walk someone through tasks that might be more efficiently done alone or delegated. The popular musical Hamilton has a catchy song where the young protagonist sings about wanting to be in “the room where it happens”—that is, the metaphorical room where decisions are being made and changes are taking place. Gen Z wants to be in the room where it happens! It’s been refreshing for me personally to see such changes take place in the church where I grew up in East London, where the next generation is now intimately involved in the running of the church. Millennials and Gen Z are leading in everything from overseeing the church’s worship, to running the AV system, leading intergenerational small group meetings, and even in the main leadership team for the running of the church, the results of which can be felt in the creativity of the service and the buzz of newness in the air. The platform I have been given, as a budding young teacher, I owe to those who have encouraged, established, and entrusted me with much also. I am thankful to Teleios and the Disciples Center for Education for supporting my academic study of theology and giving me a space such as this in which to use my voice, in spite of my own youth and inexperience. I am thankful, too, for my years interning for HOPE worldwide, that propelled my leadership development when, at the age of 22, I was entrusted with leading a team to serve a church in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, the trip that first made me believe I could be a minister. 

I can recall when I first discovered that the church I had grown up in in London was the product of a church planting that had been sent from Boston in the eighties, spearheaded by a couple in their early twenties! It seemed unfathomable to me then, and yet I know such stories were not uncommon in the early days of the International Churches of Christ. Would we dare to send out church plantings led by twenty-somethings today? The answers I often hear are, “Yes, but we had no idea what we were doing back then! We made a lot of mistakes,” which I do not doubt. Yet a desire I often hear articulated by Millennials and Gen Z alike is a freedom to be able to make their own mistakes while the older generation are still present to guide them. There is a desire for the hard-won wisdom of generations gone by to be passed down but not, alongside it, the hurts and secondhand fears of past failings, which all too easily snuff out budding faith. As our movement matures and our services and systems become well oiled, I hope we will not lose the spirit of wonder with which so many of our congregations began: spearheaded by youth low on experience but high on zeal.

May we continue to teach the next generation about the radical heritage from which we come, as well as being transparent about the ways in which we diverged from it. May we be willing to embrace the mystery of God in such a way that leaves us open to new ways in which he might work that we haven’t seen before. And may curiosity be our default stance when engaging with those who are different from us, letting it lead to both dialogue and partnership. I, for one, feel hopeful about the next forty years and, dare I say, excited to see the jars of manna that Gen Z will have to show Gen Alpha about the ways God worked in their generation. 

Note from the author: Thank you for taking the time to read this lengthier piece! As my first publication, and an important topic to me personally, I would love to hear your thoughts so if you have a moment, please post a comment below. I read them all and would welcome the dialogue!