When a new generation comes on the scene, we may ask questions like, “What can we expect? Can anything good come from the next generation?”
By Amy-Jo Girardier
A new generation is being born. Welcome to the world, Generation Beta! They’ve only been around for a few days, and we already have some intel coming in about this new generation. Apparently, Gen Beta doesn’t sleep through the night.
While this generational insight is said with jest, we’re all curious what this new group of people coming onto planet Earth will do to impact the world. Often when research is conducted about new generations people begin comparing generations or complaining about the next generation.
It’s not uncommon to hear generations propping up their own generation or beating up another generation with the research and trends. Why? Because we’re sinners. We tend to be divisive, destructive discouragers without the power of Christ. So, when a new generation comes on the scene, we may ask questions like this: “What can we expect? Can anything good come from the next generation?”
Seeing a new generation
I anticipate good will come from the next generation. But there’s a reason I know that to be true. I don’t consider myself to be a generations expert. I am, however, a generations observer. The Lord woke me up to seeing generations years ago, and I’ve been forever changed.
In 2015, I was serving as a student minister to girls at my church and had a painful first experience of clashing with a generation. I didn’t know at the time I was dealing with a new generation. As I was attempting to lead a planning meeting, it became apparent the girls I was leading were not willing to be led. In fact, one of the girls told me, “No offense, but we’re going a different direction.”
No offense?! Oh, there was most definitely an offense. And that meeting was the worst meeting any of us had experienced to date. I left that meeting believing I must be too old, feeling like a failure, and ready to quit ministry altogether. I yelled in my car and told God everything I felt about that meeting and the girls that offended me.
And in the middle of my rant, a question popped up in my heart. The question I’m certain came from the Holy Spirit was this: “What generation is this?” The question disrupted my rant, and I yelled a response to the question: “They’re Millennials!” and then, I was quiet. I went home and looked up what generation I had been leading, and I was shocked to discover they were not Millennials but a generation called Gen Z.
How to have a heart woken and broken for a new generation
I wept as I read about them for the first time. How could I not have known who was in our student ministry? I had a heart for the nations, but then the Lord broke my heart for people in different generations. I began to search the Bible to see what God thought about the generations.
Here’s what I found out. God made people. God loves people. Generations are made up of people. God loves the generations. And God wants the generations to tell the next generations about His love and His works.
Psalm 145:4 says: “One generation will declare your works to the next generation and will proclaim your mighty acts” (CSB).
Ephesians 3:21 says: “to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (CSB).
Generations are important to God, and they should be important to us. As we discover a new generation, can anything good come from them? Yes! They are made by God to be born at such a time as the years 2025-2039. And they will encounter challenges and opportunities previous generations have not had to encounter. Still, we can trust God knows just the generation to come onto the scene for Him to use for His glory.
“Generations are important to God, and they should be important to us.” — @AmyJoGirardier Share on XHow have we seen good at work in Gen Alpha?
Gen Alpha was born during a pandemic. This shaped them differently than it did other generations that watched places of home, work, school, marketplace, and church become remote and fluid. For Gen Alpha, they knew no other way of living. It has hardwired them to be more resilient than other generations.
It has created some emotional dysregulation within those who were born in a pandemic and missed out on socialization at key times. But for Gen Alpha, it has also made them family centric and desire a co-piloting sort of relationship when it comes to learning and especially their faith. They want to see evidence in your life that what you’re teaching them is real. They want to see your faith in action. Bible knowledge is not what they’re after. They’re inspired by seeing evidence of the living God in your life and in your church.
So, bringing them into the cockpit of your faith to see what God is doing is so important to Gen Alpha. When they see it, they grab ahold of it for themselves. Gen Alpha students want to change the world with the gospel when they see it changing the world of the ones in their homes and churches. Good things are coming from Gen Alpha.
“Gen Alpha students want to change the world with the gospel when they see it changing the world of the ones in their homes and churches.” — @AmyJoGirardier Share on XHow have we seen good at work in Gen Z?
After my terrible but life-changing meeting with Gen Z in 2015, the Lord woke me up to see and pursue His people in each generation differently. From studying research to seeing it firsthand as I observed students, I began to see Gen Z needed to be led differently than I was seeking to lead them. I realized they needed guardrails. Gen Z is hardwired to be entrepreneurial. They don’t want to just watch you lead.
Once I told them what they had the opportunity to contextualize or change, they were excited to be empowered to lead. However, I was just as bold to share with them the guardrails of what they couldn’t change, and they flourished. Gen Z was craving a leadership that empowered them, much like the YouTube platform they grew up using. And once lordship of Christ gets ahold of them, they are running to get the gospel to the world in their own entrepreneurial ways.
Gen Alpha is looking to be inspired. Gen Beta is only a few days old, so the research is still too early to know how they will want to be led, but good things can come from Gen Beta to the glory of God.
How can the church welcome Gen Beta?
1. Ask God, who is making this generation, to show us how to point them to Him and tell them about His love.
He knows them better than they will know themselves. And remember, God wants us to be in relationship with and talk with the other generations about Him.
2. Ask God to help break your heart for Gen Beta.
You may be a parent of a Gen Beta or a grandparent of a Gen Beta, and that makes it pretty easy to care about this generation. But whether they’re in your family or not, they’ll show up in your churches and neighborhoods.
3. Pray for them.
Early research suggests they will be a generation focused on global citizenship, and artificial intelligence will be seamlessly integrated in their everyday lives. As Christ-followers, we can begin to pray now for this emerging people group to have a heart for His Kingdom and make every effort to point them to the living God who offers eternal life no AI can offer.
4. Commit to getting outside of your generation and encouraging other generations to know Jesus by living the gospel in your daily life WITH them.
Commissioned to love Gen Beta
While this may be overwhelming, remember the One who made the generations and is making Gen Beta is the same God who made you. You can pray for, love, and disciple the generations in His power and for His glory. So, join me in symbolically writing your name in the blank below and let’s get to work as Gen Beta moves onto planet Earth.
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all ______________ asks or thinks, according to the power at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations (Builders, Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and Gen Beta) forever and ever. Amen.
For permission to republish this article, contact Marissa Postell Sullivan.
