How Can We Reach Gen-Z? | Yolanda Solomon

something that's so simple in christianity you know jesus uh you know basically paul says that he says that jesus is the head of the body and we're the body and that might seem so simple but if people don't see christians actually doing anything they think the head is invisible if you can't see the body then how do you believe in the head thank you for watching another episode of the g3 project podcast as always i'm your host lisa fields the founder of the g3 project and i'm so excited to have my friend yolanda solomon with us today welcome yolanda hey lisa how are you my pleasure to be with you um so good to see you says always always a good time on the ju3 project podcast yes and you we tried to record this uh some months ago and had an audio issue uh but y'all know yolanda she was a part of our through asakula virtual experience uh many of y'all loved uh her episode and the clips we had around social a few of them did really well so y'all are familiar with her um for those who may not have seen you on those things tell our audience just a little bit about yourself sure uh it's my pleasure like uh you said my name is yolanda solomon um i am a very proud very proud brooklyn native um born and raised um and these days i have the pleasure of serving um as a director of discipleship at our local congregation epiphany church brooklyn been doing that since about uh january but prior to that for about seven eight years or so um i was able to serve um on columbia university's campus working in campus ministry with undergraduate students and um that's really you know what i've been doing for the past 10 years or so um and i'm just really a fan i'm a fan of the g3 project um i listen to the podcast and um just super excited in helping you know this younger generation um just figure out you know questions that they have about the faith there's so many um varying narratives about what christianity is especially in 2021 um and uh it's just my pleasure to just kind of help do a little demystification um you know as someone who is moving into auntie status i'm officially you know saying young people you're not a young person anymore yeah awesome to have you today we're going to be talking about you know how to engage the next generation specifically gen z um and gen z is different from millennials because i think people get that wrong they are calling everybody that's young millennials and it's like no i'm a millennial but i'm 35 years i'm almost 35 years old i'll be 35 in february but i'm a millennial uh that is not jinzy that's not the same thing um so just tell our audience what is like what is the age frame of gen z um if you if you know it but that college kids um are gen z right now we're focusing on engaging college students how do how do we what are the challenges with engaging that college gen z um culture oh lord um let me think i think gen z is anywhere between like age 12 to 24 in 2021 right now so yeah that definitely encompasses college students you know adolescents um and people even just in their early 20s maybe grad school age um and so i think some challenges with gen z is i am two generations removed from that generation i'm i would consider myself gen x very proud member of gen x um and i think that generation uh there's a deep biblical illiteracy i think even for millennials even the elder millennials people like in their mid to late 30s you could you could count on if you brought up a text if you referenced the scripture um talking to them you know they'd heard it somewhere you know maybe mama or grandma they grew up in church they grew up around um uh just the things of the faith but gen z i i you know regularly will just reference scripture and they just don't know you know you didn't really this generation really hasn't grown up particularly african-american um gen z with uh theological they didn't they're unchurched to be quite frank um i think we even see this in music um i think that's probably what really helped me to see the difference in this generation whereas with millennials like when you would have a new singer even like a r b singer oh where'd you get your start oh i started singing in the church this new generation you're not getting those answers you know um i was just listening to an interview with her and it was just like yeah i just started playing the guitar at home no mention of the church you know um so even in the music you know where people might say oh that music kind of lacks sort of that that soul that gospely feel it's really because generation z is largely unchurched the next thing i'd say is um a challenge to reach them is this is a generation um that from what i can tell has grown up online from birth right so just to engage them even the way we're engaging to to call them on the phone is so scary you know it's like super intimate a phone call so just communication um there's such a gap between my generation and their generation um they've grown up with you know snapchat uh texting is as intimate i would say for them as a phone call was as intimate for me or face to face um back in the day um and so just the communication gap um is a challenge and i would say the last thing which isn't necessarily particular to generation z but it's more so than i would say generation x is just deep and prolonged suffering um i i think back to generation x and my childhood and we had it kind of good like i'm even just trying to think about tragedies that generation x had to go through maybe you know the challenger shuttle uh i remember that explosion was a tragedy but i really didn't really hit deep deep tragedy you know on american soil until 9 11. you know that was a grown-up for 9 11 and so this generation just school shootings being the norm a plague an entire pandemic you know in your adolescence you know obviously um insurrections i mean the list could go on and on systemic racism um that's nothing new but i think just the the the issues of the world coming home to roost as it were on american soil being normal for generation z and so those are challenges um that i see when it comes to you know talking to this this group engaging this group listening to their concerns um there's a difference there's just a difference that's that's good that's that provides good context for even engaging or how we create curriculum or how we think about like communication to to uh younger people what are the apologetic questions that you think that they're asking or wrestling with now see this is now this is where it gets weird because i just went on a whole rant about how different they are you know even with communication like you know i could write write a devotional or something for a group that i'm teaching and i know they won't read it so i record a video because i know they're going to watch the video instead of reading the paragraph but when it comes to the questions that they have the questions aren't necessarily that different that's the that's the thing that i'm seeing that's kind of weird and ironic you know how can a good god allow so much suffering is a question that you know has been around for forever um and that's usually number one um why are christians such hypocrites number two um something that the yeah isn't this isn't just ha but i would say something that's more pronounced and nuanced is just how to deal with anger how to deal with feelings and emotions of hatred um not to be consumed by these emotions um it's and and and because of those emotions is forgiveness as described in the the the christian scriptures realistic um because of just just those first two the deep suffering the prolonged suffering the evil that is just you know on display for everyone to see the hypocrisy the seeming hypocrisy of the church you know how how it doesn't seem like you know christianity would do me any good it's not pregnant they don't feel like it's pragmatically it's not practical at all it's not practical for what they see as the good life what their vision is of of of the good life what it means for them to flourish what it means for them to figure out who they are and you know how the world works around them christianity really doesn't seem to have any uh you know substantive value doesn't it doesn't bring anything to the table because the christians that they see are a mess um and the persons that they see who are a mess you know and this is no surprise to you are their parents um you know who are maybe older gen xers um or even younger boomers um so yeah yeah and i think that's important to note and i know you make note of and not being a surprise for for me because of that tweet i posted that went viral about most people are wondering like what is the biggest obstacle to their children coming back to the faith and it's usually them jesus the parents um and if you don't have good models about what christianity is in the home but your parents claim to be christians then you're not going to really want to be a christian because it seems to be a waste of time why why is it consuming so much of your time why are you going to church if it never trickles down to your private life it never makes our home life better it's going to be hard for to win those kids back so interesting this weekend when we were doing um some recording and i was talking to uh the girl that the woman that um identifies with comedic comedic science and i said to her i said has there ever been a person that's a christian that you saw actually live out their faith and she said no my god my god and she was like i bought into african spirituality because the people that i saw in african spirituality spirituality actually lived what they were preaching you know i just wanted to connect with someone who actually was consistent with their beliefs and their practice and that she's never she said she had just doesn't have a lot of relationships with christians where they actually are consistent with their beliefs you grew up in church and so it's very interesting to see that and it's so funny because she said her dad was like she's doing better pragmatically in african spirituality than she was as a christian and i was like that's so interesting but i was i was thinking like okay this gives her identity purpose and structure and anytime you give somebody identity purpose and structure pragmatically they're probably going to live better on the outward um yeah i mean oh i'm gonna cut you off get it go ahead i was gonna say like i i'm i'm i'm working you know and and my what i'm doing right now is mostly just you know discipleship with churched people but you'd be surprised [Laughter] you know these are you know new christians but you'd be but people you know the phrase new christian don't mean what it used to be people have so many questions i think the good news is you know where the the church is because the church isn't all bad the church is meeting people where they are and i think um i'm trying to john i lost my train of thought when i when i speak to younger christians genzirs about what it means to follow christ i think what what is helpful is you know i say it just means follow christ like when jesus says be my disciple it literally just means follow me and when jesus says follow me and you see in the scriptures there's a group of men and women who he does life with right he eats with them and he teaches them and he serves them and they walk together and they you know celebrate together and they cry together and they see his healings and miracles yes but there is a lot that is caught and you know that's that's not like just a throwaway i think sometimes people think christianity is all the the miracles and the healings and the you know the casting out demons but there's some real practicality to what it means to actually be a christian in 2021 that we can learn from jesus and his followers in the first century and as you speak about this sister who's into this you know who's who's part of cometicism um i think the connection is that those people that you know you read about this first century church people who saw jesus walked with him if you believe in the christian scriptures they walked with him and then they continued to bring this message of good news to the world they lived it it was part of their actual lived existence if you look at acts chapter 2 where it talks about you know they you know sat under the apostles teaching and there was radical generosity and you know uh this was a daily occurrence right it it there there was identity as you said there but but there was actual embodied faith they were doing things they were you know making sure that no one went without right they were feeding the poor they were um there was a walking and talking faith is what i'm trying to say and i think something is so simple in christianity you know jesus uh you know basically paul says that he says that jesus is the head of the body and we're the body and that might seem so simple but if people don't see christians actually doing anything they think the head is invisible if you can't see the body then then how do you believe in the head there's this jesus is this disembodied transcendent you know ghost or whatever you know or this you know person that you know said some really cool things or gave some really cool principles but i think that's a huge part of it that that gen z needs to and we all need to see it but there needs to be an embodied faith and right now what christians are embodying doesn't really seem to jibe with what's in the scriptures you know when you look at i was just listening to the um the news the other day about you know you had these um police officers who were testifying about what happened at the insurrection on january 6th and they were saying that these people had signs that said you know jesus is lord and that is the embodied faith that the world saw on january 6 2021 now is that christianity of the scriptures i i would say obviously not but what i'm saying is the face of the church and what the people who are actually publicly embodying christianity who are who are who are very loud voices gen z sees as wicked evil and depraved now that's not necessarily their parents but for a lot that is their parents i mean when i worked in campus ministry there were a lot of students who saw their parents back in 2016 going in that direction of christianity being more about nationalism than about a new life and a kingdom of you know an extension of the shalom of the community of god right and they were like if that's christianity i don't want to i don't want any part of it and so yeah go ahead but but but for those people on january 6th they have identity they have a vision they have a clear mission and so i see why that is a compelling mission i see why it's also a wicked and depraved mission but it but but it gives identity and there there is there is there and they and it gives you a way to embody what you believe that's for a lot of people it's compelling because they feel like they don't have an identity you know in a in a multicultural uh america yeah like their identity is being taken so i'm gonna now reclaim my identity grab some scriptures slap it on top of it but at the end of the day it really is a hunger and a thirst for identity i know we we we just went a little far but watching that's all i'm trying to say gen z is watching yeah that's helpful and i um the the pushback i gave to to to the to the woman was you know we live in a a quote-unquote christian culture so because it's a christian culture you're going to have a lot of abuse of christianity but you never judge a faith based on its abusers and i was like you know there's a lot of abuse of african spirituality on the continent um wow you want me to judge your faith based on the abuse of the continent and she was like no i don't want anybody's faith to be judged with abuse of the content and i said well in that same way we can't judge christianity on this abuse because i was like if you go to india if you go to these other places where christianity is outlawed you're going to find some of the purest forms of christianity right um and i think we just see the abuse because we're surrounded by people who have taken on a name that they don't know what it meant because it was so intertwined with the founding of the the country right on a cultural side versus it being true christianity yeah and i mean and that's part of my response ironically a lot of students that i worked with um and you know at columbia were from the continent well that's that's a you know and i never want to paint with a broad brush every person is individual they have their own individual testimony but many of them had the most robust faith that i've seen you know um and they but they still had questions and so that's why i say people you know when you talk to people you're not talking to a world view you're talking to a person you know and i think one of the best things we can do is listen to people hear people's stories you know because i would have students come to me and say i grew up in nigeria and my parents were so legalistic and i was turned off by that whereas an american might look at their parents and say wow what a robust faith and they're saying no no it was legalism and it wasn't necessarily a conflation of white supremacist christian nationalism but it was a conflation of success in christianity looks like an ivy league degree and being a doctor or engineer and nothing else will do but then you would have other students um you know who again they saw their parents as um as hypocrites so you had extremes you know you had nuanced people and i think listening was so key for me because it just helped me to know what not it helped me to not give answers to questions that people weren't asking you know get to know people and and and just figure out um what are they putting their faith in you know what are they trusting in for salvation um what what is their functional savior you know and and just listening and and getting to know the person before trying to offer some some christian cliche one of the questions i want to ask you uh copes with the what you hinted at i think in the first or second question about gen z not seeing this faith as practical because of forgiveness and their anger how do we respond to that because i think you know you see a lot of people on a breakfast club charlemagne's always talking about the fact that he doesn't think forgiveness is something that's really attainable and that's one of the reasons that many rappers have said they have a problem with christianity because it's the forgiveness part that they struggle with um how do we respond to that well it depends on who i'm talking to so if i'm talking to a person who um maybe you know grew up in the church but they just feel like forgiveness is a tool of white supremacy they just feel like black people are always forgiving somebody oppressed people are always called to forgive and that is weaponized right if i'm talking to that kind of person you know once again i listen and i hear them out you know and i and i wrestle with why there's truth to what they're saying you know we do see forgiveness weaponized we do see you know every time there's some you know some sort of uh systemic uh well some instance of systemic racism police brutality um and and the person forgives i'm thinking of you know john botham from a few years ago it's like people who have nothing to say about police brutality all of a sudden look at this look at this beautiful example of forgiveness right um but then i think about you know people like james baldwin who would say you know to be black in this country is to be relative and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time right um and so if you're a christian and you grew up with be angry and do not sin but but you also grew up with you know jesus turning over tables what do you do right and so i think my response as of late has been listen um you know affirm that there's a lot to be angry about and then you know say is there a place for any righteous anger for the christian and i literally was just doing this last week in a bible study taking um some people to mark uh mark 11 mark 12 and mark 13 but but also in mark even in mark chapter three mark mark mark you see the angry jesus um and you see jesus embody righteousness but you see and because he embodies righteousness he expresses anger um i think of the passage in mark 3 where there's a it's the sabbath there's a man with a withered hand and everyone's looking to see what jesus is going to do and by everyone i mean the religious elite they're looking to see if he's gonna heal this man on the sabbath um and uh he does a surprise surprise he heals him and and as and as the religious elite look at him he says is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or do harm to to um save life or to kill and the bible says he looked around at them with anger grieved at their hardness of heart and he says to the man you know stretch out your hand and he heals the man and and that's that's one example because what he sees is the law of god of which he says i've come to fulfill this law y'all are twisting the law and you're caught and you're causing harm to actual people by twisting the law of god right um and and and the wild thing about it is he says i'm the lord of the sabbath and he can say that because he knows that the sabbath was given as a gift and it's being used um to kind of do the opposite it was a gift so that people could draw near but people are being pushed away and i think this goes back to what you were saying about the sister in cometicism where what the bible calls good news is people people are being repelled from it by the people who claim to have the knowledge who claim to be on the inside and that's just one example but when you look at mark um uh i'm trying to actually i think it's i think it's i think it's matthew 11. now that i think about it when jesus goes to the temple he calls out systemic sin he doesn't just say there's one mean priest here he says you've turned what's supposed to be a house of prayer into a den of robbers and he calls out the systemic sin of the temple which is extorting the very people that were supposed to be burned near namely the widows there's a passage in the bible when jesus goes to the temple he curses a fig tree um and everybody's like why did he curse the fig tree and and he says it doesn't have fruit he goes to the temple turns over tables because he says there there's extortion going on here you're over charging with the exchange rate for people to worship there's the the temple has been you know divided into you know uh partitions where certain people can enter close and others can't um and then he leaves and then the disciples see that the fig tree has withered and they see oh my gosh that jesus's curse has has has come true and then jesus a little further down points to this widow and some people grew up in church and they heard a sermon about this widow and you know they the widow was lifted up as you know wow this woman gave her last but i believe that jesus points to this widow as an indictment of the systemic oppression of the temple he says look at this widow the very person that our entire law the entire torah who are we supposed to care for those as as lisa sharon harper would say furthest from shalom the widow and the orphan and the refugee why is she why is she gonna give her offering and then go and die and starve and and he points out systemic sin and so i just say that to say if if anger is fitting for jesus it's fitting for us but then what do you do with that anger because i think there's a realization you know you bring up people like charlemagne like you don't want to let that anger consume you you don't want to let because you see we aren't we supposed to love our enemies aren't we supposed to you know you know uh turn the other cheek right and and you know yet for young gen zers who were looking at qualified immunity laws for police officers and seemingly a lack of justice who watched as we just said on the news people you know beat police officers with an american flag it's like how do i live in this tension of knowing what i'm looking at is injustice it's being perpetrated by christians but then i still believe in the beauty of forgiveness like it's still a beautiful and compelling story like deep down when people forgive me it feels good right so what do i do with that and i think um something that's been helpful for me is pointing them to um lament pointing them to lament this is there's a there's a sister dr shaniqua walker barnes and she has a book called i bring the voices of my people and she talks about how in the the movie the color purple uh celie you know she she writes letters to god as a form of lament because what she's going through is so horrific that she can't even speak it and just saying like you can do that like prayer doesn't necessarily have to be what you've seen your mother and father and grandma and granddaddy do you can actually give voice to the righteous anger that you have and not only does god receive it it's recorded in the scriptures there's an entire genre of lament when you look through the psalms when you look in lamentations right when you look um uh even even jesus laments on the cross right and so that's that's kind of a starting point um for for for people who are willing to look in the scriptures and say hey i recognize that you have anger and so does god and it's okay it's okay the god of the scriptures can can can can take that yeah and he says you know be angry but sin not so he's giving us permission to to be angry it's like what you said what do you do with that anger once you you you have it how do you express it um and one more thing like some and i know you just had this brother on the show shout out to dr issa mccauley who i know is going to be at your conference but something that he brought up in his book i can't remember the exact quote but he talks about how you know moses called not moses jesus called herod a fox but jesus prayed for him so you can like criticize political leaders right we don't just have to run to romans 13 where it says just pray for those in you know you can pray for them and offer a critique right jesus critiqued herod you know um and then and another point just look at moses look at what happens moses has to ends up running off uh you know for 40 years to to the desert because he expresses his anger through murder right and and and i believe when god speaks to him it's like i see the suffering i see the same suffering as you but that's not the route there's another route and and trust in my sovereignty and the thing is like getting back to what we were saying at the beginning of the conversation i really do believe that our best apologetic is our lives people have to see us live that out people have to young gen z millennial they have to see christians embody love for enemy that means praying for people you hate that means praying for people who aren't in your tribe people who don't agree with you but then also calling evil evil that's amos chapter five right like hate evil and love good right and so that's there's a tension for that but it's not new right when you think about even frederick douglass and and his writings that's something i love to put in people's hands it's free it's on the internet you know the narratives of frederick douglass where he actually talked about being a slave and and really i mean i i was i've never been a slave you know i'm saying being us enslaved but still loving the christ of the scriptures and being able to separate the christ of the scriptures from the christians who you listen he said you didn't want it you wanted to get traded to an atheist if you were getting traded as a slave the atheist would treat you better but somehow in the sovereignty of god somehow the holy spirit was was able to reveal to him that what you know those murderers you know with the women whippers he called them that that their their christ that that wasn't the christ of the scriptures that's so helpful and so important for our audience to note um this has been a very very rich conversation thank you so much yolanda what uh what would you recommend to our audience who are we're saying i want to read more to be more equipped to to engage gen z what what's been helpful for you that you read uh it doesn't have to be specific as it relates to age yeah what tools have you found the most helpful um through your engagement with gen z and and um yeah and what's your social media handles okay so first of all obviously the g3 project been very helpful um i i point uh them to you um something that i have recently discovered there's a woman named uh carla carla works carla swafford works um she has a book called the least of these paul and the marginalized i've read through it it's amazing and i love it because i really feel like what it does is it gives historical context to a lot of the passages in the bible that are a complete turn off for gen z um one that comes to mind is you know passages in uh first and second timothy about modesty i can't tell you how many conversations i've had with people who talk about how christianity all it does is police women and police what we wear um and has nothing to say to men you know and it's just propping up patriarchy but you know just quick nugget you know in this book she talks about how the passages in in first in first timothy about modesty have more to do with what she calls the real housewives of ephesus abusing their slaves because in order to have those ornate braided hairstyles that paul says don't have you need a few slaves to can't do that anybody ever got their hair braided you know sometimes it takes a few people and so it's actually an indictment of slavery it has nothing to do with yoga pants or hemlines but the conversation about modesty has to do with a wealthy group of of women who are who are uh abusing those in their employ who are also members of the ephesian church so what do you do when you have rich people and their and their servants in the same church and so that's that's one resource um paul and the marginalized by carlos waffen works and i bring that up because i feel like this generation generation z they really that's an issue they like if you if you don't have anything to say about justice they don't want to hear it um and so you know i i'll i'll just leave leave it with that and as far as social media um i like to hang out on twitter twitter i always say is where the where the angry people go i am on instagram as well um but on twitter i am at clay films um and you can you know get more of the same of what you've heard on this episode um also i'm a knicks fan so you're probably gonna get a little bit about the knicks so sorry about that in advance for the knicks stuff but nixon jesus next jesus and justice well thank you so much alanda it's been a pleasure having you on i believe our listeners will be helped tremendously by the conversation well thank you all for watching another episode of the g3 project podcast remember courageous conversations is a month away i can't believe this comes so fast september 3rd and 4th we have like a few in-person tickets away i mean a few they're almost sold out so you get them as soon as this episode comes out because there probably won't be any next week um and great to sell out a month before uh that's a blessing for me it's less stressful for me so shout out to y'all forget y'all tickets early um also if you can't get in person we have the virtual pass we are not live streaming this uh conference so if you want to watch it you have to pay for a virtual ticket so do so for in-person and virtual at courageouscombos.org you can catch all our past episodes on our website g3project.org or you could go uh wherever you stream your favorite podcast or youtube or facebook it's all available there remember you can get our curriculum through eyes of color we have another curriculum coming out that i'm excited about y'all be able to see that soon but you can take an online course get the curriculum or or get merch all at g3project.org backslash shop and remember here the g3 project we're helping you to know what you believe and why you believe it oh before i forget if you would like to become a monthly donor monthly partner with us you can do so on our website at youthproject.org backslash donate you can give by mail there's a tab to give you the address to give or you can give online and become a monthly partner or one-time giver we greatly appreciate it um yeah remember here at g3 project we're helping you know what you believe and why you believe it i hope i haven't already said that i don't remember but grace and peace and god bless [Music] uh

Channel: Jude 3 Project

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Length: 38min 17sec (2297 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 30 2021