What Gen Z Really Wants to Know About God : Tanita Maddox

Full-Text Transcript

Jason Daye
Hello, friends, and welcome to another insightful episode of FrontStage Backstage. I’m your host, Jason Daye. Each week, I have the privilege of sitting down with a trusted ministry leader, and together, we tackle a topic all in an effort to help you and pastors and ministry leaders just like you thrive in both life and leadership. If you’re joining us on YouTube, please give us a thumbs up and drop your name and the name of your ministry in the comments below. We love getting to know our audience better. And whether you’re joining us on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform, please be sure to subscribe or to follow so you do not miss out on any of these great conversations. I’m excited to have Tanita Maddox with us today. Tanita serves as the National Director for Generational Impact at Young Life, and her most recent book is entitled What Gen Z Really Wants to Know About God. Tanita, welcome to the show.

Tanita Maddox
Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Jason Daye
Yeah, super excited to have you with us. Really looking forward to this conversation, Tanita, because you’ve dedicated your life to really understanding younger generations and understanding how we can engage them more deeply with the gospel, which is so important for the church at large. So, thank you for the work that you do. Very excited to have a kind of an expert in this area join us and help us understand exactly that. How can we engage specifically Gen Z with the gospel? So, Tanita, to start off, I think we should start with just some foundational things. Explain to us who Gen Z is. What do we know about them?

Tanita Maddox
Yeah, if you use the birth years of 1997 to 2012, those are pretty widely accepted birth years of Gen Z. It always gets a little squishy on the front and back end of those, but those are kind of the birth years people have really landed on. This is a group of folks who had access to smart, interactive technology from a very young age. Think smartphones and tablets. Millennials got the internet. Gen Z got all this technology that was right in their hands. And because of that, they are often called digital natives, meaning they are first-language speakers in the digital space. It has its own culture. It has its own norms. It has its own language, and they are very, very accustomed to it because of that technology, and because that technology has really spread around the world, it is the first truly global generation that we have. So, we see the term Gen Z and a lot of the same traits happening in a lot of different parts of the world. With Gen Z, as we all know, we’ve seen a large rise in mental health issues with anxiety, depression, self-harm, and loneliness. So all that has kind of come up with Gen Z, and that’s what we’re studying a lot about. And this is also a generation that has a very, very high value for safety.

Jason Daye
Interesting. Yes, and I think we see that in our interactions with those who are in this generation, and we can sense sort of this, you know, it’s interesting, Tanita, that oftentimes, I don’t know why it is, but we tend to focus on some of the things that are lacking in younger generations, or maybe in every generation that’s not our own. Maybe that’s our problem, right? We’re human, right? So we tend to focus on things that are lacking rather than things that are hopeful or exciting. And I’m looking forward to Tanita, us touching on both of those things because they’re both important, right? As we serve. I would love for you to share with us a little bit about right now, what does the landscape look like when it comes to Gen Z and the church? Because there’s been tons of research over the years, and it seems like everyone loves to do research on younger generations. So, Tanita, can you help us better understand what we’re looking at today?

Tanita Maddox
Well, I know when we look at the research leading up to 2025, we see a lot of Gen Zers who have never been to church before, or maybe their ideas of what Christianity is, maybe our traditional or orthodox views of what Christianity is. It’s a little hard to get your arms around some of the research because we’re not 100% sure what is being asked of every young person when they’re being asked about their beliefs. Is it about a higher power? Is that a Christian God? All these things are going on this year have been interesting, with Pew Research’s survey on the landscape, religious landscape of the United States. What their survey said is that the unstickiness of faith is what’s sticking with Gen Z. So the idea is that maybe young people will leave the faith and then come back when they have children and re-enter the church. What their survey is saying is, hey, it is not like the unsticikness is what’s staying, and actually, if we want to maintain where we are in the United States in our religious landscape, Gen Z would have to become significantly more religious than they are right now. And then, of course, we have some newer research coming out of Barna and the Quiet Revival talking about Gen Z being interested in God. And Barna does use more specific language about relationships with Jesus Christ, but it’s interesting to watch what’s happening out there and compare it with our experiences as we’re working with young people. But, if you’re feeling like, I think things are changing, or I don’t think things are changing. It’s an always-moving target right now. But what we do know still is that Gen Z has a lot of questions that the church is not addressing and not answering for them. So that is pretty true across the board.

Jason Daye
Yeah, so that’s fascinating, that point that we’re not really answering the questions they have. But that is also hopeful, because if more people learn these things, if more people listen to what you’re sharing, Tanita, and the research you’ve done, if more people read What Gen Z Really Wants to Know About God. I think as a church, we can lean into this a little bit more. So there’s definitely hope in that because, as you said, they are curious, and they do have questions. And so, Tanita, can we begin to lean into what some of the primary questions are that Gen Z is asking that the church is not answering right now?

Tanita Maddox
Oh, well, I would say some of the questions we think we’re answering. Can I just say that, too? We think we’re answering the question, but we may be just missing what’s behind the question. So, for example, one of the questions that you’ll hear a young person say is, Am I enough? You know, and I’ve heard that, just as a statement by myself, and I’ve heard young people say, What if I’m not enough for this job? What if I am not enough for this relationship or this friendship? But this question of, Am I enough? And then you can transfer that to, Am I enough for God? Well, some of our older generations who are thinking through that lens, in more of a righteousness or holiness lens, like, am I as a sinful person enough for God’s salvation, you’re right, or to make my way to heaven, or those things, and that is not what Gen Z is asking. And so if we hear, Jason, am I enough for God? And you say in that lens, No, no, you’re not. You’ll never be, right? Your good works are filthy rags. Like that is a theological answer, but it’s not necessarily the theological answer to the theological question they’re asking, right? The question really is, Does God care about me? Does he love me? Basically, am I a failure to him as I am a failure to everybody else in my life? That their relationships and friendships are conditional. They’re temporary. They’re easily disposed of with a push of a button. Is God like that with me, too? And when we really start to evaluate how they’re asking that question, and where it’s coming from, then we can actually start to say things like, Actually, God created you and decided that you were valuable. He decided you were worthy, so worthy of a relationship with him that he made a way for it to happen before you were even born. He made a plan because he decided you were valuable and he loved you enough to create an opportunity for you to be in a relationship with Him. Because the idea that you couldn’t have a relationship with him was not acceptable to him, because you’re so valuable to him. Now you can see when you lay those on top of each other, we can give a fuller picture of how God feels about people. Where do we fit in this? What’s the theology around it? But if we just start answering questions without understanding where they’re coming from, we can accidentally give the wrong answer to that.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s huge. I mean, that’s such an important perspective shift, and that’s what I love about your book. How you walk through a lot of these big questions that they’re asking and help us not jump into maybe just like the answer that we would give from our perspective, but try to fully understand where they’re coming from, which is so vital, right? One of the things that you mentioned early on was this idea of safety, and how this is like a prevalent value for Gen Zers, and it’s such an important thing. It’s just a cultural part of this entire generation. How does the idea of safety relate to how we engage with Gen Zers from the view of the church, the perspective of the gospel, how does safety, because it’s so important, so we have to pay attention to it? How does that fit in?

Tanita Maddox
Safety is really interesting because they didn’t come up with this out of nowhere. It was really raised into them. And I remember in youth ministry when we started talking about being a safe place, having safe people, and wanting kids to feel safe. And this is when Gen Z was very, very young. So this was something they were kind of raised with. And we continue to use that terminology in schools, in ministries, and various places where young people or even adults, where we’re saying, Hey, we want this to be a safe place for you to be able to talk about what’s going on. The difficulty is because the definition of safety is so wide and yet narrow at the same time, right? It’s gotten widened. Safety is not just physical safety. I grew up in the 80s, so safety was like, Don’t talk to strangers and don’t ride in the bed of a truck. Those were kind of the rules that we had, right? Like, everything else you could do is fine. But now it’s like physical safety, emotional safety, psychological safety, spiritual safety, and emotional safety. It’s gotten even further to safety from failure, or safety from risk, safety from being uncomfortable, and safety from being disagreed with. And so it’s gotten so broad, it’s really hard to get our hands around. At the same time, it is very, very personal and very, very individual. And so if I just say to a group of people in my house, a group of Gen Zers, and say, This is a safe place for you. I have an idea of what that means in my head, and they each have their own ideas of what that means in their heads. If we don’t clarify what that means and what I’m saying, then I can break someone’s idea of safety without even realizing it, and now I’ve proven myself unsafe and untrustworthy. So if safety in a group is, I feel safe when you call on me because then I know I have the space to talk. And for some people, safety is, please never call on me, because it makes me feel like everyone’s staring at me, and we don’t have an agreement on which one we’re going to call safe in this space, then it becomes just bananas. And so anytime we’re using that word, I tell this to everybody. If you’re going to use the word safe, you’d better have a very clear definition of what you’re talking about in that space, so that people know exactly what your terms are. And then it gets really difficult when we talk about the journey of faith. The life with Jesus. Because if you open the Bible, I don’t know if there’s a whole lot of not safe in there, you know? I mean, there’s lion’s dens, there’s beheadings, there’s like, just craziness happening in there. And on the surface, it looks like God cannot be safe. There’s no way. But we have to redefine and say, Hey, if safety is good, and then God is good, then what is God defining as what it means to be safe with him and wrestle with it? I know that there are a lot of us CS Lewis fans out there who want to pull out our Aslan quote, right, and just drop the mic and say, Who said anything about safe? He’s not safe, but he’s good. And we think we’ve answered the question, but we’ve actually just started a conversation. We need to ask our Gen Zers to wrestle with us. What do you think that means? How could he be both of those things, and start to help them wrestle through a lens that they’re putting down their own ideas of what it means to be safe, and really looking at a biblical lens of how God is safe?

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s good, Tanita. Let’s press in a little bit more. How would you walk into that conversation? What would you say to help frame that? I think this would be helpful for our entire audience to help frame this idea of safety. What would you say as you enter into that conversation?

Tanita Maddox
right? So, when we have our group settings for young life, and kids are coming in and we share the Gospel, one of the things that we will repeat throughout the semester is we’ll say, Hey, this is a place where we ask big questions and we talk about big topics, and they’re not always comfortable, and you may not always agree with the things that are said in this room, but wherever you land and whatever you think, we will always treat you with love and respect. So, I got permission to be able to share things that people may not agree with in that room, but that also my agreement with them is that I’m not going to ridicule what they think. I’m not going to admonish them for what they think; I’m going to walk with them as they process.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s good. That’s really good. Well, what do you say to people who might say, Yeah, well, you’re just softening things too much, Tanita. You’re making it too easy on everybody. The Christian journey isn’t easy. How do you respond to those types of comments?

Tanita Maddox
I don’t soften it. My favorite passage to go to is Peter being invited to walk on the water with Jesus. And I like to point out that there is nothing logical about this at all. In fact, if you were there and you said, Hey, Tanita, there are 12 of us. We’re in a boat. It’s really windy outside. Where’s the safest place to be? Like, where should I be? And he’d be, like, in the boat. Stay in the boat, like, right? That’s where the smart person would be in this situation. But when we actually look at that passage, what we realize is that the safest place is actually with Jesus. Wherever Jesus is, that’s the safest place to be. Logically, in our heads, it feels like the boat is safe. Not getting out. Not walking on water. And then we also think safety is well, if I do walk in the water, at least I won’t sink. But that’s not true either, right? Peter starts to sink. But the safest place is where Jesus catches us. So, I do like to point out and just say, those disciples, they use their brains, too. like, stay in the boat in a storm. The reality is, is that Jesus’s way is better, and it moves past our logic. It moves past our idea of safety. It can be very scary. Look, Peter got scared. His brain works, too. I’m on the water and it’s windy, but Jesus caught him. So, the safety is to be with Jesus in all those situations, not to be on our own, fighting for ourselves in a boat. And I don’t think that’s softening it. And I also realize Peter was the only one who got out. He was the only one who got out. 11 people stayed behind. So there are going to be times that maybe you are the only person out on the water.

Jason Daye
Hey, friends, just a quick reminder that we provide a free toolkit that complements today’s conversation. You can find this for this episode and every episode at PastorServe.org/network. In the toolkit, you’ll find a number of resources, including our Ministry Leaders Growth Guide. This growth guide includes insights pulled from today’s conversation as well as reflection questions, so you and the ministry team at your local church can dig more deeply into this topic and see how it relates to your specific ministry context. Again, you can find it at PastorServe.org/network.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. That’s helpful. Tanita, one of the things that you mentioned, a word came up as we were talking about safety, and that is trust, which is another key value for not just for Gen Z. I mean, for all of us, the idea of trust is important, but Gen Z really attaches themselves to this idea of trustworthiness because it seems there’s so much in the world that moves so quickly. And their entire lives have been things moving rapidly. That’s all they know, right? Gen Z, for the most part. So, help us understand a little bit about this idea of trust. What questions around trust is Gen Z asking that we can help answer?

Tanita Maddox
Well, I don’t know about you. Were you taught to respect your elders, Jason? Was that a thing that you were taught? Part of respecting your elders was that you had to listen to them. You trusted what they said. You were kind of taught that what they have to say is the wisdom that we’re supposed to follow. That is not what these young people have grown up with, right? So, what they’ve grown up with because of social media, different Netflix documentaries, other streaming services, or exposes, we’re looking for our heroes to fall. We’re looking to find the ways that they were misleading folks, as well as our institutions. So they have really been growing up in a cultural moment that says, hey, you know what? Actually, the older you are, the more powerful you are, the higher level degree you have, you’re actually proving to be less and less trustworthy, versus previous generations, who would say, No, you’re more and more trustworthy. They’ve been around social media. That’s what they know. They know it’s lying. They know it’s toxic. They know it’s curated. But, a survey came out on UCLA a couple of years ago where Gen Zers ranked the most trustworthy media, and they ranked TikTok as the most trustworthy media. And I know some of you are shaking your head. You’re like, No, and I’m like, No, here’s the deal. If you ask them about TikTok, they’ll still say it is full of lies. It is toxic and it is edited. What they’re really saying is that everything is so bad that this is the best that we have, and it’s still terrible. So, they’ve been taught not to trust anything as you navigate the world, instead of putting your trust out first. What I love about these folks, what I love about Gen Z, is they actually realize that their trust has a value to it, and they’re not going to squander it. So, they’re actually being pretty discerning. Are you worthy of this thing that I have that is valuable, which is my trust, and I will not give it to you lightly, and if I give it to you, it means I have seen you, I have watched you, and I’ve determined that you are a person who is worthy of the value that I bring to this table, and I’m going to give that to you? That’s so much different than giving trust and then waiting for someone to break it and then taking it away. They’re going to hold it back first, and it’s going to be slow, and you have to be patient. They’re looking for a lot of things. They’ve been hurt, both personally and just kind of on a larger scale, watching lies hurt others. And so they’re going to be slow to give it to you and say, Are you who you say you are all of the time?

Jason Daye
That’s good. So, in understanding that, as we seek to engage with Gen Z, what are some things, some ideas, or some thoughts, Tanita, that you have in mind that can help us do this in a better or more effective way, maybe?

Tanita Maddox
One of the simplest things we can do is meet with Gen Zers at our house. Like, come over for family dinner, essentially. I mean, the office and the restaurant are fine, but you know what happens when you walk into someone’s home is you see how they interact with their pets. You see their pictures on the wall, you see if there are roommates or kids or a spouse, and you see all of those things. And when you do, I’m saying, don’t pull out the fine china and do a rush cleanup job around the house. They want to see real life. And so it’s okay if there’s a pile of laundry that’s sitting on the couch and there are backpacks on the countertop. They want to see how your faith in Jesus Christ actually impacts how you do your life in all the little, tiny ways. Bring someone over and have them do yard work with you. Bring them over while you’re doing grocery shopping. They want to see the real, raw, behind-the-curtain stuff. And you can still have those real conversations, those professional conversations, or those mentoring conversations. But what’s going to happen is they’re going to see how you engage with your everyday life in what they would probably consider more intimate settings. Yeah, I went grocery shopping with Tanita. What are you going to learn about Tanita while you’re grocery shopping? Besides just whatever you’re talking about, you’re going to learn my diet, you’re gonna learn why I choose certain foods, you’re gonna learn how I budget, and you can ask all those questions as we’re doing it. And you don’t have to wait to have them ask a question. I can just say, Here’s why I buy these things, and here’s how my relationship with God actually impacts the food and the budget and when I do it, and who I talk to, and how I interact with the cashier, like all of those things. They want to see that holistic picture of who we are, instead of maybe the version that shows up at a coffee shop, which is wonderful. It’s still focused and professional. And all those things that we don’t get in those other spaces, but we have to let them into those other spaces, too.

Jason Daye
Yeah. That’s good. One question that I have, and this kind of raises this question in my mind, is that Gen Z, as we’ve said, is kind of a digital-first type of generation. Social media is huge. Digital world is huge. So you have this kind of mass communication, right? Then you go to what you just shared, which was a very authentic personal communication. How do those two fit together? How does that all work? Because it seems like two extremes, right? And yet, there’s something that Gen Z attaches to both of those things. So what do we learn from that? And how can we lean into that?

Tanita Maddox
Well, I think we are, because we’re from different generations that are Gen Zers, we think they’re more separate than they actually are. They’re much more fluid for our young people; those are much more combined things. And we have to remember, too, like, not everyone wants to come to our house. Again, there’s some trust that’s also built before you walk into my house. Maybe it’s my front yard. Maybe it’s the grocery shopping together. Those other places before you walk into our house. But there are different levels of trust in social engagement and how people are going to engage. And behind a screen is a safe place for a lot of people because they can watch me without me watching them. Or when I was growing up, there was something called windshield time. Do you guys have windshield time, Jason, when you were growing up? It was the conversation in the car because you’re both staring at the windshield. Sometimes that was where big conversations happened, and we did that because it was easier to do that than to have eyeball to eyeball, sitting across from one another. That concept’s not new. Now we have a phone. So the phone can become the windshield time for some of us, and it feels really uncomfortable if that’s not our first language. For young people, it’s very comfortable. It’s not crazy to have personal conversations or questions being asked in those places. I’ve even heard some of our young teenagers say, Sometimes I feel safer texting about these things with you than looking you in the eyes and talking about these things because it’s not as vulnerable to be able to do it through a screen instead of looking into your eyes. I think we can still go for a walk. We can still do windshield time. You can still talk while you’re pulling weeds. But instead of thinking of it as separate from those things, it’s actually just like those things. It’s another extension of having a conversation where you’re not being face-to-face in those places.

Jason Daye
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Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s good. That’s super helpful. One of the things I really appreciated about What Gen Z Really Wants to Know About God came at the end of your book, and it’s when you kind of walked through in a very, very practical way kind of, Okay, how do we think of Scripture, as we read through Scripture, How do we think of scripture from the perspective of a Gen Zer? And you actually give this really helpful little matrix in there that you can kind of walk through these big questions they’re asking and think. Talk to me just very practically from a local church level, youth ministry, or even just regular weekend worship gatherings, and those types of things. How do we approach the way we communicate? If we truly want to engage this younger generation, what are some things we have to keep in mind as we minister, as we serve?

Tanita Maddox
Well, I actually use that matrix all the time. Actually, they’re printed out and I put it next to my Bible. I still absolutely use it because my brain works like a Gen Xer. It doesn’t work like a Gen Zer. So that little worksheet that has, hey, here’s what kids are asking, young people are asking, or Gen Zers are asking. As I move through a passage, I can look at those questions, and I say, Where do these questions, where do these values interact with this passage? God is like so cool in the sense that he created this scripture that’s been around for a very, very long time. It has gone around the world in multiple languages. It has been through different eras of time in different parts of the world, and it has consistently answered the question of whoever is sitting in front of it. It doesn’t matter tribe, nation, tongue, or period of history. It continues to do that, and this is just another iteration of it, which is so cool to me, I don’t know why I was so surprised when I started looking for the answers to the questions Gen Z was asking, and I found them in Scripture. They’re here. It’s because I had never actually looked for those exact questions before, or the values that they value, or the traits of a disciple that pair along with their values. Once I had that next to me while I was reading scripture, I saw things I’d never seen before, and then I could pull them out and then address those values, those experiences, and those questions as I speak with Gen Zers. Sometimes I’ll even use their language, the language of enoughness, the language of authenticity, the language of safety. I’ll bring it in also because it is language that they’re familiar with, and they hear it in their terms, in their values. And so it becomes really easy at the more and more I practice this to say, There it is, when I’ve read this passage. There it is. There’s how God answers the question. There’s how he addresses this value. And rope it right in.

Jason Daye
That’s awesome. I love it. Other thoughts on how we, on the local church level, can engage with Gen Zers, especially those who may not be walking through the doors of our ministry?

Tanita Maddox
I’d start listening to your Gen Zers is where I start. So, there are probably some in your church, and you just pull them together and say, I just want to hear from you. We do listening nights sometimes for our Gen Zers, and we have a list of questions like, What do you wish people my age understood about what it means to be your age? And let them write it down. Let them share letters. What do you hear about yourself? What do you hear about your generation from older generations? Let them hear how they feel like they’re viewed. And then we get to replace those with actual words of what God says about them. But you start pulling them together and start asking, Why would you come to this church? Why do people not come to this church? What do you like about it? How do we answer the questions? What questions do you have about God that we are not answering? And then I know that we see a drop off of kids who go to youth group and then maybe don’t participate. If you can, pull those kiddos back and just say, I’m not here to get you back into church. I just want your feedback on this. If we go in there with a really humble, I value you, I want to know what you have to say posture, our young people respond to that. So the rule is, here’s the rule, and I do the same thing. When you talk to a young person, you say, How well do I listen to you? And ask them to rate it on a scale of one to ten, how well do I listen to you? The rules are that you do not get to argue with them about it. This is not about how you think you did. This is about how they think you did. You do not get to excuse anything and say, But, but. No, no, you asked for their thoughts. They give their thoughts. You just nod. You can ask some clarifying questions. You take notes, you thank them, and that’s it. This is not about us defending how good we did or how well we tried. It’s really about the other person feeling, did we meet them where they were at?

Jason Daye
Yeah, yeah, that’s so good. So helpful. Tanita, this conversation has been incredible. Thank you so much. I want to encourage everyone to read What Gen Z Really Wants To Know About God, Tanita’s newest book. You can find links to the book in our toolkit. We create a toolkit for every single episode so that you and the people in your local ministry can go more deeply into this conversation. In that toolkit, you’ll have links to the book and tons of other resources, including a Ministry Leaders Growth Guide with questions for you guys to wrestle through and dig more deeply into what we’ve just shared here. You can find that at PastorServe.org/network. Tanita, as we close down, I want to give you the last word, really. What words of encouragement would you like to leave with those who are watching, those who are listening, the men and women who are serving on the front lines of ministry?

Tanita Maddox
Our Gen Zers want to be with you. This is where I get really weepy. Keep showing up when it’s uncomfortable, when you get ghosted, or when you don’t get responded to. Because essentially, many have abandoned this generation and thrown up their hands and said, We don’t know what to do. If you don’t do anything after today, the one thing I say is to speak vision, words of vision, and hope over this generation. Change the message they are hearing from the adults that are charged with stewarding them and discipling them. Let them know that there are those of us who see how they reflect the image of God in this world and call it out.

Jason Daye
Love it, sister. Amen. Such good words. Thank you, Tanita, for making the time to hang out with us here on FrontStage BackStage. Incredible, incredible work that you’re doing. We’re continuing to pray for the work that you are doing, and all of those engaged in Young Life and all the other ministries reaching out to young people. Certainly appreciate you making the time to be with us.

Tanita Maddox
Thanks for having me.

Jason Daye
Here at PastorServe, we hope you’re truly finding value through these episodes of FrontStage BackStage. If so, please consider leaving a review for us on your favorite podcast platform. These reviews help other ministry leaders and pastors just like you find the show, so they can benefit as well. Also, consider sharing this episode with a colleague or other ministry friend. And don’t forget our free toolkit, which is available at PastorServe.org/network. This is Jason Daye, encouraging you to love well, live well, and lead well.