Recently, I sat down with Pastor Russ Ewell from Bay Area Christian Church, a multisite church that’s succeeding in engaging Gen Z to become rooted followers of Jesus. His church is already on track for 50% of their sites to be led by Millennial and Gen Z leaders in the coming years.
From listening to Pastor Russ describe how they’re reaching the next generation, it’s clear that their strategies are intentional, not accidental.
Here are five takeaways from my conversation with him.
Gen Z’s interest in church is rising—because they need Jesus
AMY: Statistics show, surprisingly, that Gen Z’s interest in church is actually on the rise. From your perspective, why do you think that is?
RUSS: First, the bad news and then the good news, the bad news is that young people are tremendously sad.
The number of high school students who say they’re persistently hopeless and despondent is 45%. The number of young people who say they have no friends is up by fourfold since 2000. The number of people who say they’re lonely is 36%.
And so when you look at the panoramic view, so to speak, not only are Gen Z people going to church, but they’re also going to therapists more. They’re looking for help.
So when you put in the pandemic, and you combine it with the competitiveness to make it economically in America, and you add the rejection, and then you add whatever’s going on, that creates the mental health challenge that I think is faced by this generation more than previous generations.
There’s a huge need. And Jesus, you know, talks about that in John 9. That there’s gonna be a need, and we have to have compassion.
Meet their need with compassion
AMY: Once Gen Z walks through the doors, how do you keep them engaged and rooted in their faith?
RUSS: I actually think the place you start is by asking, are we going to be a church of compassionate people?
Are we gonna be a church that says, okay, Jesus said, deny yourself, take up your cross. Are we gonna do that? Are we gonna look at our problems, look at our challenges, look at our responsibilities, our situations, our interests, our pleasures, whatever they may be. And say, I’m willing to subjugate that to be able to help people that are in this age category, not just to make church larger, but because there’s such a great need.
And so I think it starts there with a heart condition. And can you put that into the culture of your church, which is what we try to do.
The Word of God is the most powerful tool in your belt
AMY: What practical strategies are actually working in your church to reach and develop Gen Z leaders?
RUSS: Well, you know, one of our sort of core convictions and core principles is to be a church that’s biblical. The biggest issue, I think, is not losing faith in the Bible.
Isaiah 55 says that the Word of God does not go out void. The word of God speaks to the soul. The word of God speaks to the heart. It illuminates the mind. It changes lives.
And so, actually, we’ve had tremendous success because we don’t try to add a bunch of different things to make younger people think we’re young and we’re relatable.
We believe the word of God is the most powerful force on earth. And so we emphasize it, not only in the pulpit, but the Christians in our church believe in taking their Bible and studying the Bible with their friends or each other, helping each other through the various challenges.
If someone’s facing a mental health challenge, you want to help them, support them in their mental health therapies. But you also wanna provide for them the ultimate answer to every question, which is the word of God in a relation to God.
So we emphasize the Bible, we emphasize relation with God. That’s a big deal for us. And teaching that and making sure that’s getting out there, not only on Sundays, but during the week, that there’s a lot of emphasis on focus on God.
Give them opportunities to develop as a leader
AMY: How do you develop these Gen Z leaders?
RUSS: So for instance, every summer we hire interns and we hire scholars.
Scholars are people that are in college. They may not be ready to be, say, someone who can take leadership of a campus or teen group or whatever, but they want to. And so we make them a scholar and we pay them to supplement their college education or college expenses.
And then interns are people who really can take the helm and for three months, or for the whole year lead, this summer we hired 34 of them, 17 men, 17 women. They go into a training program all summer long.
One of the most important things I think ministers need is to learn how to be social. I mean, people may not like that, but I think it’s easy for a minister to be really knowledgeable about certain things that don’t matter to anyone because they haven’t built a relationship with them.
So we try to grab people and get them involved, at least by their junior year of high school. We’re watching out for them by the time they’re a freshman or an eighth grader, just like college football would do.
Not everybody’s gonna go into the ministry. That’s not even necessary. But we want ’em all to become leaders who have opinions and convictions that as the church grows, maybe they’re working for one of the companies here in technology, but they come to the table and they’re spiritual, and they add something to the building of God’s kingdom and church.
Show that you understand them
AMY: If a pastor or church leader is listening today and wants to start engaging Gen Z, what’s the first step you’d encourage them to take?
RUSS: Create an environment where you’re talking about what matters to them. Show that you understand the times and that you’re able to understand what they’re experiencing.
So the Bible, the relationship with God, the ability to bring into your conversations and into your teaching, the kind of things that they’re hearing and listening to. You don’t have to try to act like you’re their age. I think that’s not authentic.
But when you act and you live as though you’re aware of what’s going on in their world and the world overall, I think it’s important.
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Listen to my full conversation with Russ Ewell on YouTube:
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