Helping Students Answer the Big Questions of Life

what are the big questions this generation is asking and those of us who care about this generation parents youth workers mentors coaches coaches teachers you name it how do we help them answer these questions in a helpful biblical way well we have a guest with us today who i think is one of the most qualified and thoughtful people to address this she has been in youth ministry over three decades and has a great new book out that's releasing within about a week or two it's called three big questions that uh that change every teenager and uh dr cara powell has been willing to come on early and kind of give us a glimpse of what these questions are so thanks so much for coming on oh thanks sean it's an honor to be with you and your listeners although i feel bad because my background doesn't totally coordinate with what i'm wearing like yours dust your red shirt and your red background you look just awesome so i'll hung out for next time well no worries about that it's coming through clear and i'm a big biola guy so the red is just shining through now you you've got a line in this book that i have already been quoting even though i just read it i love this line you said every teenager is a walking bundle of questions tell me about that yeah well my co-author and friend brad griffin and i we both have three kids who are all teenagers or older so we're certainly living with teenagers and in our extensive youth ministry experience like kids are kids are wonderfully wondering all sorts of things about themselves and our world especially when that say middle schooler switches from only being able to think concretely to being able to think more abstractly that expands a whole new horizon of questions for that young person so part of what delights me about spending time with young people is the way they're curious they're wondering and for us as adults when they feel safe with us what a gift it is for them to share their questions with us whether it's something as simple as why is there traffic if everybody just drove faster could we all get to you know the destination more quickly to something that's more deep or existential about themselves or suffering in the world why god would allow certain things etc so so part of what i love about young people is their curiosity their openness to questions and like i said when we are a safe place the way that young people will give us the gift of those questions to discuss with them well kids have always had questions because they're human and part of being human we're main god's image and we want to understand the world we're placed in but some of the questions being asked today are unique to the cultural moment that this generation is raising in and we're going to get to some of those specific questions and those views join us we're going to walk through some very practical things that we can do to help this generation but first something else jumped out to me from your book carrie you said we'll never activate this generation if we don't understand their questions and first off there's an assumption some people are very pessimistic about this generation you seem to think we can activate this generation so talk about that but also why it's important to start with understanding their questions yeah well i i think there's just uh on a an increased awareness of the needs of the world that this generation experiences partly because of their technology their cell phone they are so much more aware of what's going on in the world than you and i were sean when we were teenagers they just you know they they they understand and i shouldn't say we understand but they certainly are aware of what's going on in the world in fact last year in 2020 in the midst of all the racial unrest and pursuit of racial justice my kids you know home a lot because of the pandemic they were really dialed in to what what was going on and so you know usually the first question that dinner i would ask during those few months in in may june july was you know what you see on social media today about race um and they would invariably no more than i knew see more than i had seen um and so so that's a real gift that this generation gives to all of us is their understanding of the needs of the world and you know i think when especially when they have the right adult support which is a invitation to all of us as adults to make sure we support them when we can figure out how a young person's sense of justice their passion for service when we can figure out how that can align or connect with their gifts um their abilities their time schedule then you know young people can do amazing things and i think we saw this during the pandemic one of the fascinating shifts i saw many uh churches make is they realized hey for the first time in a few decades teenagers have more time they have more time during the pandemic like you know every youth leader i know over the last few decades has said oh kids are so busy kids are so busy teenagers are so busy and they finally weren't so busy during the pandemic and so creative churches activated young people whether it was baking bread for people in need or whether it was delivering groceries or simply reaching out to other kids in the church who may be drifted and inviting them to join a zoom meeting that might be less intimidating than showing up at a church building or a bible study so so this was one of the amazing things that we saw during the pandemic is how young people were as they're changed by christ how they were changing the world around them cara one of the things i've always appreciated about your your writings is that it's research-based it's not just opinion but you do studies and this book is based on a landmark study that we're going to get into in detail and by the way when we come to the end those of you watching we've got a free signed copy of my book so the next generation know will know for the best questions so we will get there towards questions exactly now you've been doing this for a while not as long as my dad has been in youth ministry but three decades is impressive i'm curious from where you're at how have the kinds of questions changed and or even stayed the same in the time you've been working with students yeah yeah well i think i'd answer that question by zeroing in on some of the unique adjectives that we think describe this generation because you know to your point sean there are some ways that young people you know cohort across cohort tend to be pretty similar but there are some ways that each generation each each slice of a cohort is a little bit different and so based on research largely we did in uh reviewing other people's research we landed on on three adjectives that we think describe this generation uh in a unique way first off they are an anxious generation and so you know we we shouldn't go much further in talking about this generation before we talk about mental health struggles and this generation is struggling with anxiety suicide depression at higher rates than at least the last several generations it was hot those were high even before the pandemic many of those rates have doubled or even tripled during the pandemic because of the social isolation so you know this this generation is an anxious generation so a lot of their questions have to do with uh the pressure that they feel how they handle all of that how they handle all the expectations that they're navigating sometimes their own expectations are the greatest pressure that they place upon themselves so so a question is related to anxiety the second word that we use to describe this generation is they're an adaptive generation they are creative and this goes back to what you asked about this generation being activated i mean this generation is resilient whether it's because of adult support or because of the lack of adult support this generation has some amazing grit to quote researcher angela duckworth in terms of this these resilience muscles that cause them to keep persevering so a lot of the questions have to do with that like how do i persevere when life is tough how do i help other people persevere so they're anxious they're adaptive and then they're diverse we we crossed the line in 2020 in the midst of everything else that happened in 2020 we crossed a line in census data for those under 18. so now across the u.s uh those under 18 we are 50 our young people of color and 50 are young people who are white so you know listeners and viewers their communities might be skewed one way or the other but when you look at the us as a whole they are young people are a very are our most diverse generation if you look at the us population all ages were about two-thirds white one-third uh people of color so you can see those under 18 are more skewed uh toward people of color and so gosh they there's a lot of new questions related to that how do i relate to people who are different than me how do i love people who are different than me how do i how do i move past my own biases or limited background because of my social location um when it comes to diversity we also need to mention gender identity for a lot of young people that's a very very pressing question and so they're they're wondering about that um either in themselves or certainly in what they're seeing in their peers so so those are just some of the facets of diversity that bring new questions to young people so anxious adaptive and diverse are the three adjectives we land on for this generation what's called gen z those are really good i've done a ton of research on this data and that lines up with the way when i often simplify you know of course digital natives is at a heart of all three of these but in in diversity of right whatever we call the generation after gen z will be the first majority non-white generation which is fascinating and even those that don't live in diverse communities still get diversity through social media and it affects the way this generation sees the world now these are the kinds of questions and issues you described in the book that kids are walking around just asking and wrestling with but you say they're kind of they're they're not service questions but there's deeper questions under girding them through this data and study that you did what emerged as the three deeper questions that young people are really trying to answer in their lives yeah so we had the honor in our research sean of of not only uh surveying over 2 000 teenagers but we did deep dive interviews with 27 teenagers from around the country um who we spent four to six hours with each of them really trying to understand them not in one sitting that would be way too much for them and for us let me be clear we did we usually did three interviews with each of them and you know each interview asked different questions got a little bit deeper peeled back the layers and um you know just what what a huge blessing it was to spend time with these young people and speaking of diversity we actually skewed the sample on purpose toward young people of color so of the 27 kids that we interviewed teenagers we interviewed seven were young people who are white and 20 were young people of color because we wanted to be extra we wanted to be extra intentive attention interesting to some of those challenges and opportunities for young people from immigrant families young people from multiracial families etc so um so in the midst of spending all these hours with young people we we've landed on three questions that you know on the surface a young person might be asking about homework or asking about college or asking about drugs and alcohol whatever it might be but we think they're i don't want to say ali's because researchers don't say always but almost always i'll qualify that a bit uh deeper questions that really fuel these other questions and so those three questions are identity who am i belonging where do i fit and purpose what difference can i make so identity belonging and purpose now you know you might be listening to those questions and thinking gosh i struggle with those two i'm dealing with those questions too and that's absolutely right these are questions that they're not just young people questions they're people people questions um i will say in my own life if i feel heat about an issue if i find myself kind of getting emotional about something positively or negatively it's normally related to my own quest for identity belonging and purpose so i think we all including those of us over 30 are looking for identity belonging and purpose it's just that for those of us who are older it's more at a low simmer and for our young people it's more at a rolling boil those questions are just much more intense prevalent and provocative in their lives cara one of the things that i've also cited your research going back to sticky faith and you may have talked about this long before as it came out the kids have these core questions about how does god how do i fit into god's story how do i know god loves me but at the heart of it you say it's not doubt that distracts the kids faith so i want you to talk about doubt but if you'll frame it in the way you do in this book that you say many churches are not addressing the questions that kids are really asking now you always do this in such a respectful place you love the church this is not like bag on the church at all this is like someone from within saying we're not scratching where kids are itching so to speak so what happens when in the church we don't really deal with the questions that kids are asking sean i'm so glad you asked that and like you i i love the church i think the church is the best hope for all generations including our youngest generations and i hope our i think the church is the best hope for this country the united states as well as any country so i absolutely love the church and that's why uh because i care so much about the church i want to help all of us in the church be our best selves when it comes to loving and serving young people and so a friend of mine had shared this quote which we put in the book from a young person she was interacting with and the young person said i wish the church would stop giving me answers to questions i'm not asking wow is right like that i mean i i think about that multiple times in a week i wish the church would stop giving me answers to questions i'm not asking um and you know if if we can recalibrate and really empathize with what this anxious adaptive diverse generation is experiencing and we can provide a safe place for their questions even their questions about doubt you know wouldn't it be awesome if young people thought i have some tough questions i'm going to go to the local church to try to understand those questions i don't know where the church would be listed on their sources to go if they want to process questions but for sadly even church young people it's often not in the top two or three um and and thank you for hearkening back to some of our previous research on doubt when it when we looked at sticky faith or long-term faith in young people we were pretty amazed uh that about 70 percent of youth group graduates say they had significant doubts about god um and that might cause any of us as parents as leaders as mentors as pastors step parents grandparents whatever it might be to kind of get nervous like oh my goodness seven out of ten young people have these questions odds are good that any young person that we care about there's a 70 chance that they have tough questions about god um but here's here's the surprising twist in our previous research is that when young people had the opportunity to express and explore their questions that was actually correlated with greater faith maturity so put more simply it's not doubt that it's toxic to faith it's silence that is toxic to faith and what what brad and i and the whole full youth institute team wants is that churches and families and bible studies that they can be greenhouses in which we can discuss some of these questions and so you know sean if i may i'd love to help all of us your listeners and viewers included you have a couple questions to keep in their hip pocket to try to get a little deeper okay great um so these are some of my favorite questions to ask young people um first is if you could ask god any question what would it be great if you could ask god any question what would it be um i'll tell you yeah i know youth ministries who've offered that like in a survey or had kids be able to text in their answers to that and like that then becomes a three to six week curriculum series for them looking at those questions so so i'm more open-ended if you could ask god any question what would it be for mentoring parenting closer relationships um two that i like and in fact i asked our 15 year old our youngest these questions gosh just a couple weeks ago the two questions are what do you now believe that you think i don't believe that's really interesting and then the flip side of that is what do you no longer believe that you think i still do believe wow so you know these are two questions what do you now believe that you think i don't believe and what do you no longer believe that you think i believe these are questions that i mean just lay the cards out on the table and say we're we might not see eye to eye on everything related to faith but we can talk about that we can talk about areas where we disagree we can listen we can learn from each other and you know sean i there's this paradox that we as adults feel about young people's faith like we we want young people's faith to grow but we don't want it to change like we get nervous when young people's face changes and so you know what i want for families and for youth ministries and para church ministries is that that are around the table or around the you know in the minivan or around the kitchen island whatever it might be that we can have these conversations and that we're making up we're making room in fact we're inviting we are inviting our young people to share with us where they disagree with us um i would so much rather do that and be able to open that can of worms then have that can of worms fester and get you know really toxic and corroded so and you know my goal when i like when i talk to my 15 year old about about these two questions she had a few things to say that she thought she now believed that i didn't and my goal was not to convince her i mean i can't say that was totally absent you know i i i do kind of think that i'm right on these particular issues or i wouldn't believe it right i mean so but but that's not my primary goal my primary goal is not to change her mind my primary goal is to listen to her so that she experiences the dignity and the honor of being a young person with opinions and that we create the tenor in our relationship where we can keep uh agreeing and disagreeing with each other now cara this is really rich stuff but i imagine there's some parents listening right now going that sounds scary not sure i can do that what encouragement would you give for parents to have the mindset to even open up those conversations yeah so and i'm glad you mentioned that sean because you know you and i have done advanced training in scripture and theology um in fact i've done 27 grades of school but let me just say i i counted it up um i'm sure you're in the the high 20s also but i did 27 i've done 27 grades of school but still like my 15 year old can stump me with her questions about god so so first off let me just say that if if as much as i love and believe in the apologetics work that you and others are doing i mean that's so important so that our our young people in all generations are equipped i think to balance that there are there's something about god that's not fully explainable like if if we could explain everything about god then i think god just becomes kind of a cool guy um instead of a holy other god so so i you know welcome to the club all parents all leaders who feel like they're going to be stumped by their kids so so let me offer myself and you and your listeners and viewers kind of a placeholder statement um and i've used this with my own kids i've used it with youth group kids i know a lot of parents and leaders who've used it and it's this phrase i don't know but i don't know but um so if a young person asks you a question or raises something and you're thinking i don't know how to respond to that you just say boy i don't totally know how to respond to that but and the use is where you have a lot of options but how about if you and i get together with our pastor who i know is asking those same questions about science and let's involve her in the dialogue too or i don't know but how about if you and i study scripture together i'll read up on it and then we can look at scripture together you can read up on it let's let's go out for pizza next week and let's talk about it or i don't know but here's what i do know about god um and i've used this a lot a lot of a lot of questions that teenagers have asked me that have stumped me um have had to do with suffering and it it's hard to explain the role of suffering in the world i can give some explanation but i can't fully explain it and so for me to say boy i don't know but romans 5 3-4 3-4 has meant so much to me where paul writes that suffering leads to perseverance perseverance character and character hope so in the midst of suffering that gives me a sense of how god's trying to use it and redeem it so you know i don't know but let's involve another person in the conversation let's schedule a time you know tomorrow next week whatever it might be but you definitely want to look back to that conversation once you've had a chance to prepare you know look up look up wise people like you sean who are equipping those of us who are parents and mentors to know how to have those conversations or simply pointing to what you have experienced about god your own experience and um and how powerful that can be so so i don't know but is a great like keep it in your hip pocket default phrase that helps you continue the relationship and come back when you're a little bit better informed i love that because it shows that you're okay living with questions and i think if i was to guess when you said it's not just doubt but unexpressed doubt that hijacks of faith it's not the intellectual side it's this emotional just kind of tension somebody's living with and when they see somebody who's a leader and a parent who's like i believe but i have questions and that's okay that just gives huge permission but second it's also relational let's look this up together let me follow up with you yeah i think that's awesome one thing my dad did with us which surprised a lot of people is he just asked a question back he'd be like that's first thing off new and i get a question is i'll say to my son this week he asked me something i'm like such a good question i love your questions buddy and the second i'll say if you were going to answer this and you had to make a guess what would your guess be that's good that's really good and sometimes he's like i don't know dad that's why i asked you i'm asking you right exactly other times he would say well here's what i think and i just ask questions but what both of us are trying to do is not answer it too quickly leave some level of mystery engage that relationship you know and sometimes i look back i'm like i could handle that better with my kid but these are principles that we try to live out and that's what you're doing in the book these very practical handles you always do this like another thing that you say cara is three words tell me more why do you do that why are those three words so powerful relationally with kids yeah you know before we get to tell me more i was just thinking something um that i've actually probably used more with youth group kids than my own kids but i'm i'm being convicted here of using it more with my own kids is when they ask a question ask huh can you tell me a little bit why you're asking that question because usually there's a deeper story you know it's something they saw on social media it's something a friend asked them with something a teacher brought up and you know so to understand the full context i think helps me really appreciate like you said it it's often not just an intellectual question but there's an emotional relational dynamic to it that i absolutely want to understand also so tell me more my fuller colleagues steve argue he and his wife have used this statement and in fact at one point when they had teenagers at home like they had a they had a sign in either their kitchen or their family room that said tell me more because they just wanted to be a safe place for young people especially their own kids and their kids friends to to tell them a little bit more and you know if you have tried to connect with a teenager i'm guessing many of us have and sometimes it'll that kid will open up but a lot of times maybe even the majority of the time you know it's not this amazing conversation you asked them how was school how was church you know how was volleyball practice whatever it might be and you get good you know the normal so uh you know and then their eyes go to their phones especially say if you're in the car or whatever it might be and so tell me more is just a non-intimidating way to again take the conversation a little bit deeper so um you know so how was how was school oh it's pretty much normal well tell me more about the most interesting thing that one of your teachers said at school today or tell me more about what you did for lunch and who you hung out with or tell me more about pe and you know how's it going with softball or whatever it might be so it just helps you kind of stretch things a little bit more because often you know that that it's the second or the third question that you ask or that you nudge that really opens the door now i will say um in fact uh josh with dcla was uh an event that ether christ used to put on every three years and evangelism training i i know you and your dad were involved and there's one image from that that i think is important in all conversations with young people it was in the context of evangelism but i think it's true for all conversations they talked about like a fruit tree let's say an orange tree when you're when you're picking that orange you give a gentle tug and if the orange is ripe then it will come off in your hands but if it's not ripe you don't want to like shake the branch and try to get the orange to come down and i think in my insecurities and this might be interesting because this ties back to an identity for me and my insecurities as a parent or as a mentor and my desire to connect you know i i give a gentle tug the kid maybe still isn't opening up and then i try like even harder um and that usually doesn't go well so so i think there's something about testing it out is that young person open to sharing a little bit more how do they respond to the first tell me more but then we don't need to force it um most of us are in these relationships for a marathon not a sprint and we can trust god to give us an opportunity tomorrow next week whatever it might be where that gentle tug maybe does yield ripe fruit and a young person who's ready to talk those of you who just join us we're here with kara pal who is a youth ministry guru i hope you're okay with that title you've been doing it three decades a ton of research just been i think that just means i'm old sean but yeah okay we can we can label it either way you know it's better than calling you a legend because then that would be really old and just past your time so we'll we'll stick with that that compliment um but then in just a few minutes we're going to come to your questions uh for dr cara powell related to her recent book three questions that change every teenager research based but also very very practical now you might mention a moment ago kind of pulling that fruit off the tree sometimes we tug out of our own insecurities i love your vulnerability in the book where you talk about and give a specific example of how we can lead or love from a place of deficit talk about that if you will well let me get i'll this gets pretty personal for me sean so i think uh of those three questions identity belonging and purpose when we spent time interviewing these teenagers we were trying to hear how they currently answer those questions and what are the jesus what's the jesus-centered answer to those questions and i think in many ways that's what discipleship is it's all of us walking ideally in community from our current understanding of our identity belonging and purpose to a jesus-centered version of identity belonging and purpose and i also think that most of us have one question that is a little bit more predominant you know my my husband like when he hears a need in the world he wants to get a hammer get on an airplane and go fix it he's very purpose driven uh my 18 year old she's just all about belonging all about belonging wants to be with people wants to create a sense of belonging for me i lean more into identity and that that tends to be both the challenge and the opportunity for me to grow and when we listen to young people's current answers a lot of what young people feel currently when it comes to their identity is i'm not enough i'm not smart enough i'm not popular enough i'm not attractive enough i'm not athletic enough for young people of color who feel torn between multiple worlds i'm not latino enough i'm not black enough these were all things that kids verbalized now i'll hold it thinner to myself where i struggle with not feeling enough it's it's not on in the work the ministry the leadership side of me it's totally in the parenting and in the wife side of me where i feel like uh dave could have a better wife my kids could have a better mom and you know this is where our research doesn't always help because i study all these amazing parents right so like you know i'm learning from these exemplar exemplary parents basically and leaders and so i remember like one day i did three parent interviews in a row and you know afterwards i'm like oh my gosh i stink as a parent like oh so much i've blown um which is true but but generally when i i'm realizing when i when i am my worst parent it's usually because i'm struggling with identity as a parent and not feeling like enough so let me give you an example today's tuesday saturday our 15 year old uh came to me and said hey mom would you mind taking me to the mall um and i said uh yeah sure i'd be happy to you know who are you gonna meet and she said oh i just want to go by myself and buy some clothes and i said well how about if i come with you you know wanting to connect with my mom with my 15 year old thinking you know shopping is a great thing to do a great way to do that with some kids and so i said well how about if i come with you and she said no i think i just want to go by myself um and in my identity insecurity and not feeling like enough i mean i went right to the pit of my 15 year old doesn't want to be with me and here i am offering to take her shopping and she doesn't want to be with me and i didn't handle it very well like i didn't get angry but i i said well i got you know if you're not going to go with me i feel i'd feel better if you went with friends and so she ended up finding a few friends and they went to the mall and she bought a couple shirts and etc but but i knew i hadn't handled it very well um and i think she felt that too so actually last night we went out for frozen yogurt as a family and as we're driving home i said to jessica jessica i'm sorry i feel like i totally blew it on saturday when you wanted to go to the mall um and and i'll be honest the fact that you didn't want to go shopping with me made me feel like a bad mom and so i was struggling with that and she said oh no mom it's not that at all i just i like doing things by myself and and she's right like her identity is i'm an independent person and she is um you know she likes to walk to the park by herself she'll ride a bike and get boba by herself she'll take the dog for a walk by herself as much as she loves people she also loves doing things on her own and being that independent and so you know here jessica's healthy developmentally normal quest for identity bumped up against my identity insecurities um and so you know i really wish i'd handled it better on saturday but i think the second best thing is to apologize afterwards and you know then it opened up a conversation and jessica you know i wouldn't do this with a five-year-old but jessica's fifteen and i think it's fine for her to understand that sometimes i struggle with feeling like a bad mom um and i happened to when you said that so so anyway i mean that's just the last three days sean of identity but but i mean i think what i would boil it down to is a lot of times our teenagers a developmentally normal quest for identity belonging or purpose somehow triggers our own insecurities um and and and then we we tend to not parent or mentor them from a place of healing and freedom but more from a place of of scarcity and and so we're not our best influencing at that point so thanks for being vulnerable we had an issue with our daughter coming home we're like don't go try to your room somewhere else and just get on with your phones come see us we want to talk we want to connect this is important and she didn't so right away i'm sitting there going she's not listening i'm not a good parent got to crack the whip she wants her friends more than us like and then i go up there and i talk with her and i could not have been more wrong about what was going on breath i'm like you know what i'm parenting for my own deficit and my own insecurity just as you described so if you not write books on this and people assume we have it together we don't which means we all have insecurities now kids often don't realize that and they think when you grow up you're supposed to have it all together so that vulnerability just builds that relationship with our kids i think in a powerful way so thanks for modeling and for sharing that now there's a study in your in your book that really it didn't surprise me but i want you to talk about it because you asked kids what does it mean to be a christian in terms of belief behavior and relationship and it's vital and i think we miss this talk about what the research showed yeah well you foreshadowed it well sean like we were very curious how young people would define what it means to be a christian what it means to follow jesus and so we ask these 27 youth group kids um and you know i need to say we did an app we usually got nominations from a youth pastor from around the country we didn't ask them hey uh you know point us to your youth group superstar the kid who's always there and goes on a mission trip every summer and all that but we asked for you know a more typical kid but i think youth pastors tend to nominate you know a kid they know is articulate probably pretty involved we'll say yes etc so so while we didn't select for leadership more spiritually mature kids these kids definitely skewed that direction so keep that in mind with what i'm going to say like these were kids who one would think they would have an accurate sense of what it means to follow jesus and so uh we listen to their answers what does it mean to follow jesus what it means to be a christian and then we coded it uh in three categories behaviors and this was where these young people were the strongest like here's what i do and don't do as a christian so fairly strong on behaviors um also then we asked this question and saw that for a lot of them it was belief so you know it's i believe in god i believe in heaven i believe jesus was resurrected etc and then the third category was relationship and i guess the good news is that of the 27 kids that we interviewed about a third mentioned two out of three of those categories okay um well i'm not sure if that's good news or bad news you know a third a third nation should have three of those only one really mentioned all of them and so you know this is a limited sample 27 kids but i think it raises a question if these you know probably more mature than average youth group kids weren't seeing faith in a holistic way they were seeing it you know primarily about behaviors or or maybe about beliefs relationships but not about the three together because you know sean that's that's the faith of scriptures i mean it's it's certainly all three i i there's a lot of behaviors that are um emphasized in scripture there's a lot of do's and don'ts and even in paul's epistles you know the last chapters of paul's epistles is where he gets very very prescriptive with a lot of commands that's right um so i'm all for those behaviors it's just that they need to be grounded in relationship in belief and so it's really the three coming together that make for the robust faith and that's lacking in the young people that we interviewed that matches all the other data that i've done that christianity can be legalistic or moralistic or just belief based not tying those three together which is scriptural relationship and it's what we believe and it's how we live which comes out of what we believe so that's really important for something that those of us who work with students need to think through what we're emphasizing how we do it now i've got just a few more questions for you and then we're going to come to questions i've seen a ton that have listed here recognize some familiar names join us live stream some new uh names and folks if you've already stated a question i missed it in a minute gonna have you copy and paste it at the bottom we will do our best to get through as many as we can but let's get really practical with one what you walk through in your book again i'll just show people watching because i really want to pick it up three big questions that change every teenager is to try to take these questions on identity belonging and purpose and reframe them from the way that jesus answers them rather than the answers they're getting in the world in which we live let's get specific with identity because everybody's talking about identity today what would it take to help a young person see themselves in the way jesus does rather than some of these cultural messages about identity yeah so as i already said when we interviewed young people on identity they one of their two most common current answers was that they didn't feel like they're enough smart enough pretty enough etc the other current answer is their identity was really defined by external audiences so you know their their parents wanted this their extended family wanted that friends wanted this etc uh pastors and small group leaders and christian mentors wanted you know something else perhaps and so like there's all these different theaters of action that a young person feels like they have to perform uh for and match those expectations match the script and so you know as we reflected on what is it that we want young people to know there's a lot of different ways and a lot of different answers to that question but especially because not feeling enough was such a theme and i think it is a theme with this generation of young people we want young people to know that jesus makes them enough in fact jesus makes them more than enough and you know we talk about john 6 in the book where a young person comes to jesus with some loaves and some fish and you know that the cheapest bread the smallest fish and jesus blesses it feeds thousands and then there are 12 basketballs left over you know that's an abundant god and so you know i mentioned i struggle with not feeling like i'm enough i have a handful of prayers that i pray for myself every day and that's one of them that that i would know that jesus makes me more than enough um and that i would lean into that and live that out so so for i'll just quickly foreshadow for belonging we want young people to know that in the midst of unconditional acceptance that there's actually conditional acceptance there's unconditional acceptance with god's people so the big word for identity is enough the big jesus word for belonging is with and then lastly for purpose we want young people to know that their lives have meaning when they're part of god's story so story is the big word in the midst of a world that says you have meaning when you're rich or successful or get a certain degree or get a certain job or have this certain family no no no ultimately our lives have many more part of god's story so enough with and story those are the three big narratives that we want all people uh to journey into one of the points that you make about students is they can only know what they ought to do when they understand first what story they're a part of yeah and that's where the world view comes in because the world views a story about reality for sure through relationships and asking pointed questions and you really walk through your book some very specific practical questions and give people permission to just hold up the book or make copies and just use it like hey i'm a dork but that's okay i really want to know like that's fine it's really a it's it's a study that's practical which is what i appreciate about not a lot of academics do that as you know thank you and yeah and i'll just say i mean the book has over 300 questions and sean you you've obviously read it very carefully which i appreciate because we do say like feel free to take the book with you and in fact use this podcast use the book as an excuse to kind of interview a kid and be able to ask them these questions i mean there's times when we want to set it up more organically and and all that but you know i've had some really powerful conversations with young people when i say hey i was reading something and i'm wondering if you and i could get together for 45 minutes and i could interview you and better understand make the young person the expert you know and let them kind of inform you about their life and other young people it's okay to make it structured and overt like that as well as more subtle and organic i think there's a place for both good that's awesome well let's let's shift to some of these questions here's a thoughtful one from tiffany who i've seen in a number of live streams before thanks for joining us tiffany she says how do you encourage students to seek the answers to their questions while not promoting society's ideal of self-love following's heart etc wow great question tiffany sean how would you answer that question though i'm just kidding that's my default if i'm ever leading the discussion and i think oh that's a really good one i need to think about that a while i open it up to the group so um yeah you know what this is the the one of the themes in the book and this is a mantra that i've tried to make in our own family is that only jesus satisfies only jesus satisfies and there are other things that you know bring some degree of satisfaction short term that grade that making it into the play that relationship that boyfriend girlfriend etc like that brings some level of satisfaction but it ultimately lets us down and so you know i think helping young people think about and and debriefing with them as they after they've experienced a letdown how something that they were counting on just didn't last and then contrasting that with the jesus who does last that jesus who does satisfy etc so um so you know i think pulling at those threads i think the other thing is um young people remember stories in fact we did family church last night we we do it every week and we were looking at ephesians 4 speaking the truth in love and so i i shared a time i shared a time when a friend had spoken the truth to me in a way that didn't feel loving and how hard that was for me and like our two teenage girls just got riveted on that like well who was it mom and what did they say and you know and they were asking me all these questions which i didn't answer and i made clear like i'm not going to get into details i just want you to know the difference but what what stood out is like that story really resonated with my girls and as much as i want them to remember a lot of ephesians 4 from our looking at it last night because we're working through ephesians i just it's that story that's going to be one of the things they remember so i think as we share our own stories of ways that jesus has met all of our needs as well as ways that other things that we thought were going to be meaningful getting into that college getting that car getting that boyfriend girlfriend whatever it might be as we share that as we expose our kids and teenagers in our church to other adults who can share those stories so so in addition to kind of pulling the threads of how jesus satisfies versus other things i'd also expose them to stories your own and others where you realize that i love that sounds like it's a lot of people in their life and a lot of conversations over time it's not one conversation taking opportunities that are there it's like one continual conversation it's like a conversation that never ends good here's one for i'll be curious how you answer this one it says beyond the ethnic cultural diversity which we talked about earlier do you find in your work with students there's a greater worldview diversity and how does that impact conversations with students so i would just say over the 30 years you've been doing this and maybe tied into this conversation is there greater diversity maybe even within the church and outside of the church on world view than in the past yeah i mean sean you're actually more of an expert in this so i'll share my uh impressions but then i would love for you if you have a different take um i think yes there absolutely is more diverse world views both in general as well as inside the church more disparate understandings of what it means to follow jesus um here's here's what i would encourage us as we're talking to a kid um i mean it's it's listening and it's speaking the truth and love that i just quoted from ephesians 4. so you know i think that if for sensing a young person has a very different world view from us it's rare that in the first conversation you're going to argue that young person into adopting what you consider a more christ-centered worldview first off it's usually a series of conversations and a longer-term relationship and then secondly it's a lot of listening and what jim rayburn from young life called earning the right to be heard so in fact i know a a christian school i think this is a great assignment to give christian kids is to ask them to talk to a non-christian only to ask questions and try to understand like you're not you're not trying to just at some point in a regular relationship you will explain you know your beliefs and why you believe them but let's not start there let's start with understanding empathy and then you'll be closer to them and they'll also be more receptive but i'm curious sean what would you how would you nuance that add to it correct it i've got great respect for you in this area oh that's really kind well i alway i think what he said is exactly right i think there's always been a range of different beliefs but what's different today is the access to kids they're seeing more beliefs infinitely but they're also told more than ever express yourself and tailor things to your own beliefs rather than tell your life to some external truth that's out there so yeah there's a lot more individualized belief than we've seen at least in my experience now cara i've i've got a tough one for you i got to be honest there's not a lot of people that i would ask questions like this without prep but honestly i know you can handle it's a sensitive question it's important and so this is from uh telly kaler she said my two daughters in their 20s now were deeply affected by my husband leaving me for another woman and sense have turned away from god advice on how i can handle this as their mom and a as you're thinking one of the data that i've seen over and over again is that divorce rocks a kid's faith it just does so telly you are not alone i get this question a lot my encouragement would be not to blame yourself for this please give yourself the grace when it comes to this but any thoughts that jump to your mind care for someone trying to navigate this with their kids in their 20s which is different than having a kid still in the home who've turned away from god because of the choice that their dad made well uh sean you're absolutely right i i think i would never want telly to blame herself feel guilty herself for you know anything that's happened and how her girls are responding to god and telly i'm actually a daughter of divorce myself my parents uh divorced when i was six and so growing up it was mommy jim and dad and helen and like you know so to say mom and dad together those words didn't go together for me because it was mom and jim and dad and helen um so i can i think i have some empathy for what divorce does to a family and what divorce can do to a kid even though i've actually researched it a little bit um you know here's i was going to say this earlier and this gives me an opportunity to um sean sean and i have already talked about the power of other adults and so you know you um you might not be the adult that god uses to draw your daughters back to god it might be some other adult and so you know anything you can do to encourage any relationship that they have with a favorite aunt with a neighbor with you know somebody at their church that they just kind of always liked um who you know you may be able to invite over for a sunday meal or whatever it might be with your daughter so so i would say um you know as well as we can surround our kids who have strayed with jesus followers the better but the the second thing i would say is uh for us as parents when our kids are pushing away from us or from our faith it's easy to take that personally it's easy to react to that and and you know maybe want to either get smother the kid or distance ourselves from the kid and this is where the work of lisa damore uh a child psychologist has been so hopeful for me because what she says that we as parents need to do and b is we need to be a wall we need to be a wall and what let me interpret that a little bit more i grew up swimming so i think of a swimming pool and our kids are gonna push away from that wall they're gonna they're gonna in developmentally appropriate ways they're gonna push away from us they're gonna have other relationships they're going to maybe distance themselves from god in the church as you're experiencing and when they when they kick away from us we are left feeling dented and bruised and hurt and like i said we might smother we might distance ourselves and what demore says is this is our opportunity as a parent to just be that consistent emotional presence so that when your child is ready to come back you haven't moved you are still there so uh you know this is where and we can't always tell that as parents so you know i'd certainly ask friends of yours who know you and know your daughters well hey how do you think i'm doing at being a wall i want to be present so that when my daughters are ready to return back i can i you know i'm i'm still there i'm that safe place so um those would be a couple of my thoughts sean feel free to add anything to that if you have another thought my goodness i love the idea of playing the end game i love the idea of encouraging other people to speak in you know one thing that jumped to my mind was maybe you've already done this telly but just inviting that conversation pulling the fruit off softly you know what was it what was your first memory when dad did this um how did it make you think about god how did i respond well what are things that you wish i had responded differently now these are i actually just got goosebumps thinking about these because these are real conversations you know my wife's parents separated when she was younger and i've seen her work through some of those issues but the long game compassion modeling for your daughters i believe you said your two daughters and just praying before the lord is all that you can do and just remember that god's heart is more broken for your daughters than your heart or my my heart could ever be that's humbling when i think about my own kids that that is god's heart for them so carrie you handed a a just a curveball thrown at you i knew you could do it just with beautiful i think biblical advice telly thanks for answering asking a very honest thank you um those of you gosh there's a bunch of questions i was hoping we got to we just didn't have time i always get the best questions on here kara and apologize we'll try to do a live q a soon where i just tackle as many as i can but there were three questions one was about self-love how we train young people uh in a culture that pushes self-love number two is kind of the worldview question not only diversity with race but diversity with beliefs and the last one with telly very practical about with their 20 year old daughters which one would you like to get a signed gift of so the next generation will know whatever criteria intrigues you wow okay uh i i i would love to do all of them i can't not choose telly though after that final question and how personal that was so so thank you telly for risking sharing some of your own story with us and we want to give you one of josh's great resources to help so sorry sean's john is great research oh that's funny that is awesome i'm sure i'm the first person to do that sean cara honestly i love that on so many levels that you said that and corrected yourself and i have this on film so if i ever ask you to speak and you're like no i'm going to blow this up and make you feel guilty remember how you discussed me from our dad for my dad yeah totally that'd be great that'd be great sean well i know you've got a meeting coming up but let me say very quickly uh telly if you email to apologetics at biola.edu apologetics at biola.edu we'll send you a signed copy of so the next generation will know the rest of you pick up a copy it's coming out august 3rd releasing soon cara powell is a co-author three big questions that change every teenager research based but very very practical questions like i don't know but tell me more some very what what do you believe now that i don't what do you not believe that you think i do these are really practical tools you can put into practice with kids immediately last thing i'll say we'll let you go is make sure you hit subscribe we've got some other interviews coming up on some fascinating topics miracles today social issues progressive christianity make sure you hit subscribe and if you thought about getting a master's degree we have a full distance program in apologetics now in fact i'm teaching class this fall on equipping and reaching gen z and i didn't tell you it's kara i assigned this book by the way for my students at biola so if you want to explore this more with me and your questions on the side weren't answered sign up for our apologetics program and study reaching gen z with me this fall cara i'm going to call you a rock star instead of a guru i think that will be better but i so appreciate your ministry keep it up and if there's everything i can do to help you let me know i feel the same thanks so much sean blessings all you got it see everybody soon

Channel: Dr. Sean McDowell

Views: 8,190

Rating: 4.9160838 out of 5

Keywords: Youth, students, Gen Z, research, data, youth ministry, youth culture, teens, teenagers, questions, conversations, discussion, ministry, connection, pass the faith

Id: 3ngDwaBYun0

Length: 59min 12sec (3552 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 27 2021