Church Psychology

Navigating through the Layers of Generational Cohorts and Cultural Shifts

• Narrative Resources, LLC • Season 1 • Episode 14

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Are you ready for a  journey through time? Join us, Dr. David Hall and Matt Scheuneman, as we decipher the complex constructs of generational cohorts. We've cracked open history books and analysed social shifts and technological impacts to present a comprehensive view of distinct generational experiences right from the 'greatest generation' to the upcoming Generation Alpha.

Did you know the socio-cultural changes, historical events, and technological advancements of an era significantly shape a generation? We've dug into these aspects and more for each generational cohort. We draw insights from psychologist researcher Jean Twenge's enlightening books, IGen, and Generations, to give you an understanding of the 20th-century generations. As we discuss the fading influence of the baby boomers with their approaching retirement, we unravel the desire of younger generations for wisdom and insight from them. We also talk about how churches can play a significant role in fostering this intergenerational interaction.

Our discussion wouldn't be complete without mentioning the profound impact of technology. As we stand at the cusp of Generation Alpha, the role of technology in shaping communication and interactions is undeniable. This calls for translators who can bridge this generational gap, a role that's vital in understanding and appreciating the richness of these generational differences. So tune in, as we take you on an intriguing exploration through generational cohorts and their significant cultural shifts.

Show Notes:

Speaker 1:

Hello my friends, Dr David Hall here with Church Psychology. In today's episode, Matt and I are going to unpack a little bit about the different generational cohorts. If you're wondering where the line is between Gen X and millennials, or maybe millennials and Gen Z, or what do we call the generation that's coming up, and what does it really mean to be a boomer, those are questions that you're curious about in the context of your family life and ministry or wherever you are curious about this. I hope you'll stay tuned for this episode today. So let's slide into that intro music.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Church Psychology, a podcast of the Nagev Institute. We are mental health professionals looking at the intersections of social and behavioral science in the Christian life. Please connect with our free resources in our open community library at ChurchCycologyorg. We would be grateful if you would follow, like or subscribe to Church Psychology wherever you are finding us, and also leave us a review as we start. If we are to love the Lord, our God, with all of our mind, it makes sense to work on our head space. Let's get to work. Welcome back to the Church Psychology podcast. My name is Matt Schuderman. I'm here again with Dr David Hall. Hey David, hello Matthew, all right, do you want to call me Matthew? Yes, random people not even my family, I don't even know People just latch on to Matthew For a time. I mean, it is my official name but I go by Matt so often that it's very odd. It does bring up memory of being in trouble. Every time someone says Matthew, it's like you're not in trouble.

Speaker 2:

I'm not in trouble, all right. So, david, last episode you had an idea of what to talk about. This time I have an idea of what to talk about. Let's talk about.

Speaker 2:

We had our training recently and soon we'll be able to have some of this on our website of the Nogav Institute, If anybody would be interested in that. But in the training we talked some about the different generations that have come before and even maybe ones that are coming, all the differences there, and so I think it'd be a really good topic of conversation today to go through the differences that we're seeing within the generations, especially now within the crazy boom of technology too, and not that we're going to be only focused on technology in this conversation, but I think that's what's bringing this topic back to light, not just in this conversation. But I've heard other people talk about the generational differences, and so, yeah, why don't we talk about the different generations and how we're interacting with each other now? Because I think it'd be a really good conversation for those that are within the church, even from our model of those that we see, we have to kind of take into consideration some of these factors. So where should we start in the conversation of the different generations?

Speaker 1:

You know it's a fascinating one. I super. There are lots of things I geek out about. You geek out about a lot of stuff, but this is one of them. Yes, this is a good one, though. It is One of my favorite writers on this.

Speaker 1:

Who talks about different generational things is a psychologist researcher named Jean Twinge. She wrote a book called IGen Generation Me. Her latest book, at the time of recording, is a book called I think it's just called Generations, where she goes through multiple generations who were born in the 20th century throughout. So demographers, anthropologists, different social scientists began studying generations fairly recently, because it was we reached this place where people began to study in the social sciences and began to see that things began to be different in different age groups, whereas traditionally, as much as things were studied, there wasn't necessarily a lot of differences between different generations. There may be differences between 20-year-olds versus 30-year-olds, but throughout a lot of history, 20-year-olds were about the same in 1600, as there were 1700. And a lot of it was because the social and technological aspects of their lives were fairly similar.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, common yeah.

Speaker 1:

Common and so it's become a more recent thing. But we'll talk. I'm going to start chronologically with a generation that we barely have with us now, which is one that is most called the greatest generation, or sometimes the GI generation, and that's a thing. A lot of generations end up having more than one name. That one name starts but doesn't stick as much, or they become known by multiple names. But that's the greatest generation, or sometimes the GI generation. Those are the individuals that were born. The number I have for that this is what Twingee and other people use is 1901 to 1927. So the top end of that generation now is in their late 90s, mid to late 90s.

Speaker 1:

What's significant about those ages? Those were people that both grew up with conscious memory of the Great Depression, even the youngest bit of that I had. Two of my grandparents were of that generation. They were born in 1919 and 1920, respectively, and my grandpa was 11 in 1930. And he lived very consciously through the Great Depression. That was a very formative experience for them. In their youth, your young adulthood, they were ones that, for the men at least, saw some sort of service, often in the Second World War, that they were shaped by the experience of going through the Second World War and they were people that came back from that and began having families and began living into the post-war prosperity at least in the United States that came from, and so they were shaped by. But these were people I think of again. There aren't many with us, unfortunately, but I was very fortunate to have many relatives in my life of that generation that I came to know well.

Speaker 1:

And they were ones that were very tight with money, but you think about how growing up in the depravity of the Great Depression, wartime rationing, affected that thinking of things. They were very frugal, they were very hardworking. They had the benefit of particularly for the younger end of that generation that, even though they oftentimes grew up in deep hardship and experience, these are ones for someone like my grandpa who, through his childhood and early adolescence, was the Great Depression, through his early 20s, fought in the Second World War but then was able to come home and to a time of relative prosperity he was definitely far more prosperous than his parents were and the ability to raise a family in safety, and so they were ones that often carried with them that sense of gratitude. The next generation, and so, in the context of church and mental health, because of the age range of this, this is not necessarily a generation that we have much exposure to and won't for very long.

Speaker 2:

But I think that we look at I mean you look at the World War II movies that still come out and the stories that we learned from them. And it's not just about that war, although it's the most, I think, famous one that we kind of heroically popularize. But there's so much grit in the people of that generation, I mean they walk through so much stuff that we kind of look at them as heroes or people to kind of admire. And so, even though they may not be with us as much, I think there's still this longing that we have for them, at least from my generation. And I speak as and we're going to get to this I speak as an old millennial and so a couple, few generations removed from them, but still look at them as like, oh, that's the gold standard.

Speaker 1:

It is, and I think it's one of the reasons we use that phraseology. World War II has often been called in history as the good war, and part of that has been. It's one that, particularly from an American telling. It's one that we feel we can do with a lot less moral ambiguity.

Speaker 2:

Yes, that's right. There was a clear good and bad, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And there's comfort in that and how we tell the story and our experiences in it versus most of the conflicts that the generations since then have been a part of, are far more morally questionable and that becomes a difficulty in it. So we move from that and then the next generation, 1928 to 1945. This is what's known as the silent generation and this group. It was a smaller generation and oftentimes that's the thing in the generational trends is is trends is their large and small kind of troughs and raises. And it makes sense because these people that would have been born in the Great Depression and that wasn't a prosperous time for most people, so it wasn't where people were having these many kids and the economic opportunities for their parents were limited. Therefore the family opportunities were more limited. So it's a smaller generation and it was known as the silent generation, partly because they were ones that kind of came into this silence. But they were also called by that.

Speaker 1:

People began writing. Time magazine had. This article about them came out in 1951 where the term silent generation came out and they talk about the most startling fact of the younger generation is its silence. With some rare exceptions, youth is nowhere near as the roast room. I guess that means like rowdy or something by comparison with the flaming youth of their fathers and mothers. So like the 1920s youth, the flappers and the speaking.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

They younger generation is a still small flame. It's not an issue. It does not issue manifestos, make great speeches or carries posters. And these are ones where I have some uncles, some older uncles, that fall into this, and this is one where they were, you know, they were well into their later adolescence. The youngest ones in them were well into their adolescence, the 1950s. They're ones that oftentimes their older brothers fought in the war but they would have been too young.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

To this for the most part because, born 1928, you would have been 16 at the end of the Second World War, so you miss that aspect of things. I had a grandparent that was in the older end of this generation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they may have even missed the Korean War. Like I feel like they were using, kind of my grandfather fought in the Korean War, but he was born 1928.

Speaker 1:

And so he was the oldest of this generation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah yeah, you're right on that line.

Speaker 1:

Right on that line and so they weren't shaped by to go on the same way. Yeah, and so they're ones that you know they're still around us in community, but again, these are people. The youngest of this cohort is in their late 70s at this point. So so we get the greatest generation, silent generation. Now I want to get into ones, to get more, but we have more sense of tangibility and things. So we have the baby boomers. That's probably one that people talk about a lot. We call the boomer now becomes a slur.

Speaker 1:

That a lot of the young ins will use, but baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964. And I'm using now you get into some of these generational ages. There are some demographers that will state them differently. I'm using what Jean Twenge uses in her research for her numbers. But so again, this group. These were the sons and daughters of returning GIs, people that and my father was a part of this generation.

Speaker 2:

Same for mine.

Speaker 1:

Yep, and you know they grew up. They were born in the 19, most of them in the 1950s, some late 40s but early 60s. These were ones that were very much driven by optimism. They were growing up and born into generally was a prosperous time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

This was a time in the United States a rare time in the United States, where both working class and professional families could easily maintain a household with just one parent working outside the home. Wages were high, salaries were high compared to cost of living. Houses were cheap compared to what they were before. So Burby was being built up, which had issues with it, but it made owning a home affordable.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

The idea of the American dream came out of this you could have a car, you could have a home. You know this was an organization that had a lot of trust in the institutions. They were part of the military public school, at least at the beginning. They were shaped later in their later adolescence by the anti-war movement in the 60s and things like this. These are ones that they're pretty hard working. They were a fairly entrepreneurial group. They believed a lot in the possibility of things and I think of it again. I follow the journey.

Speaker 1:

For my family, my parents, who are of this generation, it represented some mobility. They both had the opportunity to go to college, whereas previous generations that would have either been a bit more qualified or not automatic for their gender. My mom finished a college degree and I don't think either. I know her mother did not. My grandmother started college but didn't finish, and her aunt may have not either, I don't recall, but she finished a degree and that was much more common. And the opportunity to be able to go to college affordably, the opportunity to start businesses. This was a very upwardly mobile generation for a lot of people not everybody, of course, but a lot of people and so that optimism comes through In churches now. This represents what is becoming a retiring cohort of senior pastors. It is the youngest boomers at this point are going to be around 60 at the time of recording this and many of them still have a lot of energies in that. But where they are in the arc of their careers are different. In the context of church leadership, you see that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely changing, and I think that one of the challenges that baby boomers are faced with is maybe the decrease in influence or ability to not the ability to lead, but maybe the desire for them to lead. I think that there's a lot of wrestling with so many and I hope we get to this in just a minute but why generations are being so studied now and the increasing rate of them being there. Like you said before, there was so much similarity in a person of their 20s in the 1700s versus 1600s, but now we're not even talking about 100 years yet almost 100 years to the point of where we are now, but that's a lot of change, and so I think that all that being said is that being at a place of retirement for these individuals some maybe being on the older end, of nearing the end of their life I think they feel like they're losing their influence, and that's a big challenge that I think I've seen within the church In my work as a pastor. I've seen the desire for people in this generation to really have opportunity to speak to younger generations.

Speaker 2:

Now, one thing that I think has been powerful is that younger generations, at least within the church, are desiring more from the boomers, not just the Gen X, not even Gen X really, because it's more, and we'll talk about that in a minute but I think that baby boomer to millennial or Gen Z is probably a longing that they have. So I think maybe that gives insight into you know, we oftentimes, especially in big churches, we do a thing to where we segment everybody out into like age-specific demographics. Now, not all churches do this because some are different sizes. But a caution I would have to big churches is that you remove the opportunity for intergenerational interaction. But I think it would be very beneficial for younger generations and this specific one, the desires to still hold some type of influence or imparting of wisdom.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and to speak a little bit to what you were saying about why weren't there major changes in generations in the past? And ultimately it's because the rhythms of life and the technology, particularly the technology that we live with, was pretty constant. The modes of transportation that Julie Caesar had to travel from Rome to Gaul were no more advanced than what George Washington had to travel to his inauguration and in some ways, julie Caesar had it easier. He would have had a better road system.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then comes along the Industrial Revolution, yes, and which speeds all this up.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and in the Digital Revolution and the Information Age were in changes even more.

Speaker 2:

I heard some statistic and I'm going to butcher it, but it's in a sense, in a lifetime we see a certain amount of changes, that it has exponentially grown that younger people now will see life I can't even remember the metric, but like 2,000 times more than someone born in the 50s to their end of life, and the changes they see in culture maybe is dramatically going to change from someone born in the 2010s to then become 70 and see what's there, and so it's kind of the exponential curve, so to speak, of that.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and it's a scary speed at times when we think about the compounding effect. So we're moving to things where we are able to look back and think well, why did demographers make the change over this point? And I think for in the boomers, the end of the Second World War and a true baby boom. Why they were called that?

Speaker 1:

because there were a lot of people having lots of kids in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War and that being the beginning. And why the early 60s? Why 1963? Well, the reason for that is this was the generation that did not have the direct memory or experience of the Vietnam War. In that way.

Speaker 1:

The Vietnam draft for the United States ended in 1973. And so the youngest of this, these weren't kids that were thinking about am I going to get drafted? They were less likely to have siblings that would have been drafted. And so you begin to shift into the post-Vietnam era in the coming age of this. And so this brings us to the next group. So you got baby boomers. Do you know the next one, matt? Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

Gen X Generation X.

Speaker 1:

Now this is one again talking about names and how those change. Gen X was initially called Baby Busters, but that name just wasn't very sticky with them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't like it. I don't like it as much.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, gen X went 1964 to 1979. Some demographers will say up to as far in 1981. But again, I'm going with, or even though ended in 1978 in that, the first year of Millennial, and I'm going with Twiggy's numbers in that. Twiggy's numbers. But this was the generation of when they were coming to age, the late 80s and 90s. They were labeled as slackers. This was a smaller generation than their parents' generation. Their parents were the older baby boomers and the younger silents. For the Gen X, this was the first generation of the Lachke kids. This is where their parents experienced the first major uptick of divorce rates. This was the first group to experience on that level being in single-parent homes because of divorce or having both parents working. These were ones that were in different ways, much more free-range than even the baby boomers. Baby boomers had a lot more freedom in their childhood in a lot of ways, but a lot of Gen Xers will talk about adults generally being sent or through a lot of their formative sorts of things.

Speaker 1:

This was the technology that they experienced cable television and home entertainment in the sense of Nintendo and things like that. This is a group that they got their Atari's.

Speaker 2:

The Atari. That's what I say. That's before a Nintendo. Yes.

Speaker 1:

Those became the formative things in their experiences. These are, for the most part, these are the leaders in churches. At this point, these are people in their 40s, 50s early 60s. Early 60s.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but no, it wouldn't be 60s yet.

Speaker 1:

They wouldn't quite be 60s yet yeah, late 50s yeah. But they're close. Yeah, and in the instance, in a lot of professional classes, these are the people most in their quote prime for visibility and leadership. This is a group that has a lot of independence and self-will. Yeah, they're very cynical because they were kind of left on their own quite often, fairly cynical. This is a group, this is the post-Vietnam generation, right.

Speaker 2:

Well, you have post-Vietnam, post-civil rights. Yes, we look back at and I don't want to get into the weeds of the decades, but we look at the 80s as being maybe a booming time for economy and different things like that. But I think there's a lot of turmoil that a lot of the Gen Xers looked at with this to then form one of the greatest eras of music in the 1990s.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was. They were ones that when they started making their own music it was real different than what had come before. Church Psychology is a production of the Nagev Institute, a research resource and teaching initiative that aims to provide Christian communities with practical education and consulting to faithfully speak to our needs in mental health, relational science and human habit and behavior. A great way to support Nagev is to start a free membership in our open community library at churchpsychologyorg and then stay connected with our email newsletter to hear about new classes, publications, live forums and in-person events. Again, you can find all that at churchpsychologyorg.

Speaker 2:

And I know I'm biased because I'm not a Gen X, I'm an old millennial but like the 90s are such a formative time. I mean, you think about some of the best Rock music, rap music, christian music all of it was like kind of forming in the early to mid 90s and that's based on the Gen X being the founders of all that.

Speaker 1:

The. So that was the main technology that came in all of a sudden. They had different access to Experience information in the world differently. Before cable television, you know, you had the major networks and there were only three. Yeah, and what you watch was is what NBC, cbs and ABC put on right and cable then allowed for you to see. You know, the MTV coming on the early 80s was this really formative thing for a lot of people because, yeah, and that really changed how music was.

Speaker 2:

That's right or disseminated and given away.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and you began to see things and experience things differently the and so you know there's a, there's a strong element of bootstrapping in this generation. This is generation two that came in, where the it's similar to the baby boomers and particularly the early baby boomers, and in certain way, they these are people that came in age, for a lot of them, with a lot of new economic opportunity. They were people that were starting their careers and graduating college in the 90s, in a time that, for a lot of people not everybody before, a lot of people represented a lot of new economic opportunities. That's right, and so now we move into the millennials. Yeah, now I am the oldest that I was born at the end of 1980, and so some demographers will make me a very young Gen Xer. Yeah, or I'm a very old millennial. Well, I the millennial generation used gone.

Speaker 2:

Well, what's that phrase that's like in, like in between generations? You may be for microgenerates and so, yeah, I think, I think we both kind of come from like a micro generation of the in between here it's called so, gen X or the millennials.

Speaker 1:

The initial term for them was in. Why so we had Gen X and they're like, okay, what comes after that will do Gen Y, and sometimes you'll still see that that wasn't as sticky as the millennials. Yeah, these were people that came to of age in the new millennium. I turned 20 at the end of 2020 and no, you didn't.

Speaker 2:

I turned 20, I turned 40, the end of 2020.

Speaker 1:

Sorry, I turned 20 at the end of 2000. Yes, and into the new millennium, but this generation runs from 1980 to 1994 and we'll get into the significant things there. So it is in the micro generation that Matt's talking about, and this is Oregon Trail. Trail generation is a company called the youngest Gen Xers and the oldest millennials, and because they have certain things that are a little bit different, yeah, I'm falling perfectly into it, but the the significant events for the millennials and what was these were ones where their parents were mostly middle boomers to later to early Gen Xers and Whereas the baby boomers were getting into their prime in their 20s and 30s, and certain half families it was there, and so this is another larger generation. Yeah, that, whereas it was Gen X, was a smaller generation. There were a lot more millennials, it ends. So we experienced, you know, I have no memory of not being cable TV, right, I've always been aware of Cape, I've, you know. But as an older millennial, I I'm have distinct memories of landlines. Yes, I remember remembering people's phone numbers.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I can. Even I could probably write rattle off numbers still on my head, or, knowing how to do it, on the, the keypad, or even I don't know if you said this the rotary phone.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I, my grandmother on my basement when I was a kid. It was only used a lot. Yeah, yeah, one in a pen, yeah yeah, and just even just landlines of TV guides and so many different things.

Speaker 2:

What happened, guys, that?

Speaker 1:

kind of defined. Well, here's what happened in in the cutoff year in 1995, when I was so as the oldest millennial, I was in eighth grade. What there was was there. There was the Decommissioning of the National Science Foundation. The significance of what's significant about that. Most people haven't heard of that, but that is when the internet became open completely commercially. The internet in its different forms had existed for Many years but was used in kind of a closed environment for research organizations, universities.

Speaker 1:

It was in the mid 90s that, and I remember when people I was in eighth grade where people started getting the internet in their home. It was at that point both personal or home computers To develop the capacity to do it, yeah, and the open for commercialization happened. And so this was the generation that came of age. The oldest of us Moved into our early adolescence with this happen, yep, and so the millennials were the generations that had internet as a part of their formative experience All throughout and that shaped how they thought about a lot of things. Yeah. Then we move into Gen Z, which is the next one on Gen Z, the starting year for that is the year post the internet opening up. So these are ones that, not that, whereas millennials all came of age with access to the internet, gen Z never had time without right, yes, yeah, and Significant years, things that happen in their time frame.

Speaker 1:

By the time they're hitting 12 years old. So the oldest Gen Z are hitting 12 in 2007. 2007 was the introduction of the first smartphones as we know them today. Yeah, there were blackberries and things like that before, but the iPhone came out in 2007 and that became the template.

Speaker 2:

So mobile devices, yeah, and social media on the phone on the phone Was it wasn't in 2003 was the first iPhone, I don't know. I think that like somewhere along those lines, but I think it was also that Facebook Came on the smartphone around this time too in 2007 was also year that Facebook.

Speaker 1:

Facebook had been around for a few years and there have been other social media is like my space, but things that hadn't quite caught on quite as ubiquitously. Yeah, two things. In 2007, facebook ended its restrictions on being a college student only platform. Before you had to have a college university email address to have a Facebook account. At the end of 2007, they Eliminated that requirement, mm-hmm, and within the next year there was a sense of everybody got on Facebook. Yep, that's when I got on Facebook for the first time, but that's when parents, my parents, started getting on Facebook and that was the first social media platform that became as ubiquitous as all-encompassing as it did. Right, right, oh, the Gen Z. Most topographers take the cutoff for Gen Z as 2012. So at this point, the oldest, the youngest Gen Z-ers are 10. Generation to come is currently being called alpha.

Speaker 2:

That's right.

Speaker 1:

And we don't know very much about them yet, because those are your kids, matt. Your kids are alphas.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's good, we'll see what happens. But you notice the technological boom where millennials we knew life without cell phones even, and then adapt it. So again we're the adapters in a sense. We have adapted to cell phone technology, we've adapted to internet, we've adapted to social media. Gen Z is much more the native of these things. That's all they've known. And even more so, I think, in alpha is that the technological things that my son can even do to navigate a computer or to navigate a tablet is kind of mind-boggling when you consider. Other generations before would have been like even the older, advanced people that are well educated and fully developed brains would not be able to even do the things that he's able to do, and so the impact of that is just really interesting to see. And so how?

Speaker 1:

As much as we can talk about in brain development, as a kid, then as millennials. Matt and I can interact with a lot of technology like a kid that moved to a different country at a young age. They learned the language, but they have just a slight accent.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and we can dialogue between the two.

Speaker 1:

Yes, we aren't a multilingual Like I can understand things in Gen Xers and boomers differently than Gen Zers can.

Speaker 2:

But I think this is part of the issue that we're seeing in the culture and that the church may be feeling, which I want to kind of push against a little bit but is the sense of Gen Z has no respect for boomers.

Speaker 2:

That's why they say boomers, you know, use it as derogatory language. The boomers, or the Gen Xers, are against, you know, the and this is not everybody, but the quote unquote generations of like, of social justice and all these things, and it's because they don't have the wisdom that maybe they do, and so, but I feel like the millennials kind of sit on the in the in between, or at least the Oregon Trail millennials like we. We sit in the in between and feel like we have to dialogue between the two, and so, as I say this out loud, is that these are the things I think as a church that people are going to have to see, and you're seeing the transition of leadership, like we talked about before, from baby boomers to maybe Gen Xers, but also millennials are becoming some of the leadership, and I think that churches need to look at millennials as that bilingual group that can maybe speak in between the generations that are having troubles with each other.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I definitely think that's a, that's a thought, the not like. I don't mean like it's one, just I hadn't thought about before you said it.

Speaker 2:

No, it's good. Yeah, that's a good thought.

Speaker 1:

That made it sound more condescending than.

Speaker 1:

I meant to. No, I think. I think every generation has. I think part of what I'm considering is that every generation has its relative liabilities, and I think one of the reasons, as you talk about a lot of the social justice bent that is very pronounced in younger millennials and in Gen Z, that in church culture let's talk about it specifically that it's difficult for the Gen X leadership because most of them are the ones in leadership at that point.

Speaker 1:

Gen X is a generally, as a generation goes, is known as being a fairly cynical one, and so that's part of why they have a hard time embracing what feels like an idealistic view. That can be much more pronounced in the more technology native generations. But the more technology native generations, part of their lived experience is so many things that were considered impossible for previous generations in the sense of the ability of technology have happened. Some good, some bad. Right, we have seen the sense of impossibility.

Speaker 1:

One of my favorite shows as a young kid, which was very much a Gen X show I was young, was Star Trek. The Next Generation yes, but if you go back and watch Star Trek there's a chunk of what they do and what their space age technology offers to them. That is pretty basic to our lives today and in some ways, their imaginations are even stunted to how we can do things Not everything, but some things and to thinking about your role, whoever's listening to this, whatever generation you find yourself in. I think it is key to really think about what is your role as a translator, based on where you are, who are you, and also as somebody who can speak with kindness and humility, because I think one of the difficulties that happens in the cross generation speak is there's often a lot of we amplify the most negative traits of the generation that we see that we're in conflict and I would say every generation has negative traits to it, but I think every generation has the sense of positive traits.

Speaker 1:

I do think, in the bias of what do people like Matt might have as older millennials in this is that because we lived into a very bridge period between the impacts of social media and the digital economy and things like that, we can empathize with people on both sides in ways that could be very needed. But I'm also this is something I think about a lot too of living into my age. Of that I continue. It's where you don't see yourself necessarily as older, but as I realized that I have clients now that could easily be my children oh, I know and it's how fast?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1:

Who can drive and vote and buy alcohol and all those things. I know that's required a recalibration of me and seeing myself in my role. So, as we work to wrap up, I wanna give the thing of encouragement of, and particularly if you are in a church and you have a multi-generational staff, how are you really learning beyond just the stereotypes about the?

Speaker 2:

different generations.

Speaker 1:

And so that's where I would really recommend Matt and I will make sure that it's in the show notes a link to Gene Twiggy's book on generations, or other resources just on generations, like how are you thinking about how these things are playing out and how can we see each other in the true sense of being a body, how can we see each other as gifts to one another?

Speaker 1:

Because I'll tell you, we need each other If we are going to navigate this much change and disruption. We need older generations and the voices of older generations in to speak from experience and wisdom and things, but we also need younger voices in who can speak more natively to the environments that we are in happening.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love that. And I guess my final thought is actually one of my favorite passages is a Relate to Generations, and some translations of it will kind of say like kind of a bringing down per generation. But the way I've read it is more in the sense of how it's shared between generations, and so it's Psalm 145-4. And actually I was looking at different translations to kind of not fit my desire, but more in the sense of what I'm trying to communicate. And this one was from the New American Standard Bible but it says one generation will praise your works to another and will declare you mighty acts. And that kind of one to another is not necessarily only one down, and I think that does need to happen, like the older generation needs to pass down its wisdom to the next. I mean Proverbs is basically that whole thing. But in the way that I've read this and kind of what way different translations are saying is one to another, more in the sense of like yes, from one down, but also to listen to the younger generations and how they praise and understand Christ in that way, hold to the theological truths, because that's oftentimes a battle between generations, but to also listen well and so Good, yeah, it's good stuff.

Speaker 2:

Well, david, thank you for your bringing this to the table Again. We'll also, once it's up, put this in the show notes too, but more of what this topic is coming from, of our training that we did in person recently over social media and youth development or youth identity, and so we'll hopefully bring that to you as well. But until next time, thank you so much for listening and, david, it was great to be with you. Always, man. Thank you again for being a part of our latest episode of Church Psychology. If you have enjoyed it, we hope that you will share this episode with others in your life, and please do remember to follow, like and or subscribe to Church Psychology wherever you're finding us and leave us a review. We look forward to connecting with you again soon.