57. AI, Discipleship, and the Future of the Next Generation with Dr. Josh Straub

Artificial intelligence is changing the way we learn, communicate, and relate to one another. But what does it mean for discipleship?

In this episode of the ETCH Next Gen Podcast, Chuck Peters sits down with Dr. Josh Straub to explore how AI is shaping the next generation and what ministry leaders and parents need to understand as technology continues to transform everyday life. Together, they discuss the opportunities and challenges AI presents, the importance of authentic relationships in a digital world, and why spiritual formation must remain deeply personal.

As technology becomes increasingly integrated into the lives of children and students, this conversation offers practical wisdom for helping the next generation develop discernment, pursue meaningful relationships, and build a faith that remains rooted in Christ rather than shaped by algorithms.

Whether you're a parent, pastor, kids ministry leader, or student ministry leader, this conversation will equip you to think biblically about technology while keeping discipleship centered on relationships and the life-changing hope of the gospel.

Subscribe to the ETCH Next Gen Podcast for more conversations that help church leaders disciple the next generation with biblical wisdom, cultural awareness, and practical ministry insight.

SHOW LINKS: 

Connect with Dr. Josh Straub

Register for ETCH Conference 2026

Connect with Lifeway Next Gen Ministry 

Transcript

Why AI Changes Discipleship

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. We are here to help you understand the unique cultural needs of Gen Z and Generation Alpha. I'm your host, Chuck Peters, and I'm so glad you're here today. This is the Etch Next Gen Ministry Podcast. Hey listeners, welcome to another episode of the Etch Next Gen Ministry Podcast. Today we're tackling one of the most important conversations that's facing us as leaders right now. What does it mean to disciple the next generation in the age of artificial intelligence? AI is transforming nearly every aspect of our lives. It's changing how we learn, how we communicate, how we create work, and even how we seek answers to life's deepest questions, not just for us, but for our kids and our students. For Gen Z and Generation Alpha, AI won't be a future technology. It is the backbone of everyday life. There are generations who are growing up as AI natives. And the technologies that simulate conversation, companionship, and even emotional support are new, and we need to know how to address them. While they offer incredible opportunities, they can also raise significant questions, especially for us in ministry. The reality is that AI can provide information, but it can't compete with the incarnation. It can generate answers, but it can't offer presence. It can imitate empathy, but it can't truly love. That's what our job is as the church. That's where we need to intersect the next generation. So, how do we prepare our kids, our students, and families to navigate an AI-shaped world faithfully? How do we leverage new technologies wisely while protecting what is uniquely human? To help explore those questions, I'm excited to welcome back to the podcast my friend, friend of LifeWay, friend of the Edge podcast, and friend of yours, Dr. Josh Straub. Josh has spent years helping parents and leaders and families cultivate emotional health, relational intelligence, and deeper connection. Josh is a speaker, an author, a coach. He's the co-host of the Famous At Home podcast with his wife Christy. And his work sits right at the intersection of leadership, relationship, and ministry, making him the perfect guest to guide us as we have this conversation. Join me now as Josh and I talk about discipling in the age of AI.

When Kids Ask AI First

SPEAKER_03 2:40

Guys, we're talking today about a topic that we cannot avoid. It's AI. So, what happens when a child gets more answers from AI than from their parents? Or when technology becomes their counselor, their tutor, their research assistant, their creative partner, and in some cases their friend. We've heard a lot about people having relationships with AI, and that is just seems so peripheral and tangible and scary that we would have relate to this technology as though it were human. And our kids are up against us. And that it's very hard for them, especially at a young age, to discern the difference, even for some adults. So if every answer in the world is only a click away, how do we help this next generation of kids hear the voice of God outside of technology? And so today we're talking about the challenges of discipleship in an age or the age of AI. So, welcome to the podcast, guys. I'm glad to have you uh listening again. And I'm really excited to welcome back my friend Josh Straub. Josh, welcome back.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Thank you for having me, Chuck. I always love being with you. What a delight.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

So glad to have you. This uh even just catching up with you off-air before we started. I just so appreciate your friendship and your wisdom, Josh. God has really gifted you and given you a fantastic perspective on things like this as a counselor and an author. I know that you're very thoughtful about things like this and well read and well-informed. So I wanted to seek your input in this area. So, man, AI, artificial intelligence is changing everything. We know that kids are using it for their homework, students are using AI to answer all kinds of questions. People don't even use Google anymore, right? They just consult AI immediately. And families are using it for advice and coaching and guidance. But discipleship is a different animal, right? Discipleship has never been about information. It's about transformation. And so, how do we go about discipling kids in a world where knowledge is infinite, answers are instant, and technology feels increasingly human? What do you do with that?

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Yeah, I mean, it's a very big question, and uh, we need to break it down, I think. And and and I want to start by breaking it all the way down at in the beginning.

The Modern Tree Of Knowledge

SPEAKER_00 5:03

So let's go to Genesis chapter one, and you know, one of the biggest things you see is you you see God creates the every day, and then he gets to a place where in the Garden of Eden, there are two significant trees. There's the tree of life, and there's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the one tree that he advised Adam and Eve to not eat of was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. AI is the knowledge of good and evil. It is our modern day tree of knowledge. It's not even bad knowledge, okay? It's not even you know bad, but the reality is we use it, we try to use that knowledge to take control of our lives and find life itself when there is another tree, that is the tree of life, Jesus Christ Himself, that we are to be eating of. And I think that we have to pay attention to the idea that when it comes to the information age that we live in, our kids are being informed, as you said, but they're not being transformed. Right. And, you know, even the scriptures say, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Yes. Uh, my concern is twofold with AI, and that is number one, how is it forming our children's hearts? How is it forming the heart of the next generation? And then number two is how is it forming their minds? And we already know, we already see in Gen Z in particular, how social media and the rise of the internet has formed, has formed and shaped their neuropathways. AI is only going to increase that. So AI is it's it's kind of like our it's Gen Z Google, right? If you needed to know something, you quote unquote Googled it. Google became a verb. We Google things. Kids are bypassing Google these days and going straight to AI. Yes. And the information is much faster. It's put in much more detail and summarized, and I mean, and now it can write papers for them. And so my concern is that we're not, you know, we there's a brand new research study that just came out about two months ago that shows that what technology is doing to the white matter of our child's brains. In other words, their ability to be able to think and logically move from one step to another, all of that's being done for them. So there is, and I think it'll be fascinating to see what parts of the brain atrophy when it comes to AI. And we're experimenting. We experimented with social media on Gen Z. We experimented on an entire generation with screens and social media. Now all of a sudden, we're experimenting on the next generation with AI. And I believe as believers, we must be at the forefront of thinking through this in a very critical way of what is good, how can we use it for good? But then instead of our children turning to the knowledge, to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, how are we pointing our children to the tree of life? That's going to be critical for this next generation.

SPEAKER_03 8:31

That's uh, man, really well said. That is I think through, you know, just kind of history in my lifetime, right? Every generation has had its changes in technology, right? We've had television was introduced. That was before my time, by the way. Television was was introduced, and that was a huge game changer. The internet was another big one. Social media, like you just mentioned, those were all huge paradigm shifts in how we receive information and entertainment. And technology has just kind of become a ubiquitous part of life for everyone. Smartphones were a huge uh shift that brought a lot of new challenges. So that, you know, information, all the information in your hand in the world, right, that you can get instantaneously through Google was there. But even with those developments, there was there was something of uh uh an understanding that this is technology and it's it's a search or it's a show, but but AI is different, right? That it goes beyond that to the point where it feels like it's a a person or a personality. It learns us. So as I even as I've used it a little bit for you know doing research and things like that that are that are innocuous kinds of things, it learns who you are and it and it knows your background, it learns how you think and questions you've asked, and it feels like it's a person, but we know that it's not. Our kids don't

Formation Of Hearts And Minds

SPEAKER_03 10:05

necessarily aren't able necessarily able to separate those two.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Well, and that's where the formation really, especially relationship formation, really comes about. Because, you know, what's fascinating about this, and I just want to take us it a little bit higher of a view here, you know, we know more about, we know more, let's go back to information. We know more about psychology, counseling, people helping than we've ever known. And yet our children are more anxious, depressed, and lonely than they've ever been since we've been keeping record.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

And I think we have to begin to pay attention to and ask the questions what is happening? What is actually going on? And we see that increase in depression and anxiety and loneliness at around the rise of the smartphone, the social media, the the advent of social media and so on and so forth. So so you have to be able to start asking questions. Well, why is this the case? And is is technology alone to blame? I don't think so. I think it's a major component, but I don't know that's the only reason. But but as a result, what are we going to do? I think we are in a generation right now where we have the ability to be able to change. We see what it's done. We've seen what it's doing, we're aware of it. We might not have been as aware 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Now we're aware. Now we're responsible. And as parents in particular, and I think, you know, I'm speaking as a parent, raising Gen Alpha, uh, also in in helping leaders and families uh navigate this world that we live in. We have to start asking ourselves the question: why are we doing what we're doing? Why are we, why are we saying yes to the things that we're doing with our kids? And why are we giving them access to the things that we are? Now, let me just say it this way. I genuinely believe that we have to be super careful about how early we give our kids access to some of these devices, some of these uh tools, and that sort of thing. However, we can't live under a cave acting as if they're never gonna have access to them. Right. So there is a healthy balance, and I can't answer this question black and white for you because I don't know your child's maturity level. I don't know what they already have access to. I it's hard, you know, Jonathan Haidt and the Anxious Generation will say that we shouldn't have social media before 16. I would I would agree with that. I would hold to that wholeheartedly. Like we are waiting and you know, for our kids to have that. They're not, they don't have any access to social media or anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

However, there's that wait till eighth, right? That wait till eighth movement is another one that's talking about eighth grade uh before you get to those smartphones. Jonathan Hype moves it to sixteen. We've always been careful about that as a family, and we, you know, delayed a lot of those things, smartphones and whatever. But the other thing we know is that as soon as your child has that phone at whatever age, it's not that they have access to the world, it's the world suddenly has access to them. And there's so many things that are introduced that are detrimental that although we see the good things and there's a lot of good, it's a mixed bag, and you're getting the whole thing, and it can be really dangerous.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

When I think we have to pay attention in our own formation, right? Like, uh, you know, um, man, I I just think that our kids watch us more as caught than taught. And so our kids are watching us more than they're listening to us. And so the thing that I would say is how is social media and screens, AI, how is it forming you? Because we know through research that our children become who we are. So I'm thinking as a parent here, but this goes to ministry leaders. This goes like you the the children you lead, the families you lead, are watching how we they model how what we the life that we live. And it's that life that we live that might be countercultural in many ways that intrigues people. And 2 Corinthians 3 is a great uh illustration of this when Paul writes, you are our living letters. Like, how are we living letters to the world where we are proclaiming Jesus Christ to the world by how we live? And that's even in the decisions

Distraction And Hearing God

SPEAKER_00 14:24

that we make day to day by our interaction with screens. And the problem today is that it's a spirit of distraction that is influencing uh our attention to other people, to how we are formed. And that spirit of distraction is something we have to pay attention to. So as soon as a child is given a screen with access to the world, as you said, yeah, now all of a sudden they're distracted. And and it's it's almost impossible to teach them to hear the voice of God in their life because now all of a sudden they don't need God. They're distracted by so many other things. And if I need something, I'm just gonna ask AI, I'm just gonna ask the internet. And now all of a sudden, they're in a position where they're turning to AI rather than to the voice of God in their life. And I think discipleship really begins by helping us help kids understand the voice, hearing the voice of God in their life. How, what does it look like to experience and hear the voice of God? And when we're so distracted, the enemy doesn't need to get us to sin. All he needs to do is distract us. C.S. Lewis wrote about this. That's right. Like all he needs to do is distract us. We live in an age of distraction. And so it's like Elijah in 1 Kings as he's as he's fleeing, you know, and he's in the cleft of the rock. I mean, God shows up in the fire, he shows up in the earthquake, he shows up in the mighty wind, or he doesn't show up in any of those things. There, there are all three of those things. God's not in any of them. Right. Instead, he shows up in a quiet whisper, a still small voice. And I think our lives are so noisy that I think true discipleship is teaching our children what does it look like to truly get away from the noise? What does it look like to sit and, as Matthew 6 says, Jesus writes, this is a Sermon on the Mount, this is Jesus' sermon. Consider the birds of the air. Just consider them. What would it look like to have your child sit outside, watch a bird fly around, and consider just consider it for two minutes. Consider that it's it didn't wake up this morning with a refrigerator full of food, it didn't, you know, have have an air conditioner last night, it didn't have all of the comforts that you have, and yet it's still flying around and God is taking care of it. Just consider now how much more. And then it's a moment for your kids to have a moment of gratitude with God, to go, thank you, God, for taking care of me the way that you do. I think more than ever, discipleship has to look right-brained, it has to look experiential for our children because so much of everything else has gone left brain, knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, and you can have all the knowledge in the world and no relationship. Right.

SPEAKER_03 17:23

And when that knowledge is free and everywhere, it honestly the knowledge becomes low value, right? The more accessible it is. First of all, it concerns me. This is a whole different thing that we may not go to right now, but it concerns me as I look at what AI brings to this generation that even the notion of learning is devalued. What why do I need to learn anything when I have all the answers on my phone? I don't need to memorize history dates or understand things that happened. I can ask, ask AI, and it will tell me those things instantly. So that's one concern is that that it causes us at some level to stop being a think a thoughtful and discerning generation. And so that that ability to discern is something that artificial intelligence can never do, that the Holy Spirit brings to us as humans. And so one of my concerns, Josh, is that you know, we just thinking about interacting with you know high school students, there's always been a struggle of, you know, asking God, bringing our cares to him, casting our cares on him, asking him for something and feeling like he is silent. I'm waiting for God to bring an answer. You know, and we say there's always an answer, it's yes, no, or wait. And we kind of grew up with that understanding that God's timing is what it is, and he will answer in his time. He makes all things beautiful in his time. But we're an impatient generation too, right? We've also lost our ability to wait for anything. We want, we've been conditioned to get an instant, immediate answer. And I can see how it would be easy to have this inclination to pray about something and instead to ask AI about it, and the answer is immediate and it's thorough, and it comes through in a way that's gives dogmatic advice, which may or may not be useful or helpful. It could be detrimental, right? There's so discernment is one factor, and then that whole instantaneous factor.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Well, and I think you hit you hit it. What AI does not have is the Holy Spirit. Right. So the tree of life is, you know, we are we are superseding, we live in a comfort world. So though we are distracted, we also want to be comforted. And and that instant gratification component, you you cannot instantly figure out how to navigate conflict with another human without getting in the muck with them. We hate conflict, we don't want to go through conflict. But if you're married, you understand that when conflict is resolved in a healthy way, it leads to deeper intimacy, it leads to deeper connection. And what we're doing is we're ignoring scriptural John 16, Romans 5, where it says, you know, rejoice in suffering. James, count it all joy. We we we bypass all of this because why? Suffering produces perseverance and perseverance, character and character, hope and hope in Christ Jesus given to us through the Holy Spirit does not or you know, through the Holy Spirit given to us through Christ Jesus, does not disappoint. And I think I I supersede it, it by it it bypasses that process of healthy relationship development. And this gets back to what I was talking about in the beginning, where my concern is is that we're not fully going to develop the hearts and the minds of the next generation when we're bypassing the very process that builds creativity, that builds intimacy, that builds trust, that builds connection. And what we end up doing when we are getting quick answers is you can eat you, you alluded to this, you can run ahead of the Holy Spirit in your life, and Ishmael comes before Isaac, and what with whatever that situation is in your life, and and and that's what we're doing. We're running ahead. We're bringing Ishmael before Isaac, and we are not allowing ourselves and and and we have to before we can lead young people, before we can lead the next generation, we have to look in the mirror and pay attention to where we're doing this ourselves.

SPEAKER_03 21:44

That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

And and and really sit and and process with God in nature, process with God in the senses, in our senses, to experience Him, to experience His goodness. Because I What ends up happening is and and and and this is when when we use God to get things, you know, or we're using the get things for our life, that's a worship of Baal. Like that's that's what we're doing, and it it's not it's not much different than witchcraft. It's like I'm trying to use this thing to get good out, to get good for me. Like we have to pay attention to supernaturally spiritually what we're doing. And if my if if if getting rid of my pain, getting rid of my conflict is more important than becoming like Jesus, we will bypass every time the process to true spiritual formation because we're not fully surrendered and we don't fully trust him. We don't trust him. We trust AI more than we trust him. We trust the knowledge of the world more than we trust him. Because as you said, man, he's not answering me. He's not there. Well, he's probably not answering. He might be answering, but we haven't quieted our souls enough to hear him. And that's the challenge of this next generation. That's the challenge for me.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Well, because we know God is always at work. Sometimes we can't see it. Sometimes it's happening in places and ways that we are not able to, that we're not aware of. And we find out only later that God has been working all along to work out his will and his purpose and his plan in our lives. We're not always privy to what that plan is. And honestly, sometimes it's better if we don't know what's coming next. Oh, right. Because if we knew at all about what our life would be like, we'd be, we'd be paralyzed and we wouldn't wouldn't move forward. And God uses hard things, he uses difficulty, like you said, to generate perseverance and to strengthen us and and to build help us grow our trust in Him, right? To rely on Him.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

And so there's a couple of things in there that you touched on that I want to make sure we don't miss, listeners, that you don't miss. One is we need to get this right as ourselves, as leaders. So as we're leading kids, as we're leading students, we need to think about our own, I have to use this word, our own relationship with AI. What are we using it for? How are we uh leaning on it in ways that may not be appropriate? Because again, what we do is gonna carry more weight than what we say. That will all come out. Uh kids see through uh empty words and they they cut to the motive and to what's real underneath it, the authenticity. The other side is we need to, as ministry leaders, we need to speak directly to this with our kids. This isn't something that we can, and as parents, right? We need to equip parents to have these conversations because it's dangerous to just turn kids loose uh with open access to all that AI offers without coaching them and teaching them and instructing them how to use it in a way that is healthy with the right boundaries or what to do with that. And I think, Josh, as you said earlier, avoiding it altogether is probably not realistic. We need to build in some good uh boundaries for how we do interact with it. How do how do we go about

Practical Boundaries And Family Meetings

SPEAKER_03 25:20

that?

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Yeah, great question. I think that depends on, I mean, it particularly with teenagers, teenagers, many of you working with teenagers are teenagers are in it, they're using it. Um, you can assume that they are, um, even younger than teenagers in many cases, depending on the school that they're in and and what they're you know, have access to, they're probably using it at some level too. I I was recently asked a question. Uh, we were speaking at a church in in Orlando a few weeks ago, and we did a Q ⁇ A, and one of the questions came in. My nine-year-old is using AI companions uh to navigate his relationships. How do I prevent this from happening? You know, and or how do I help my child, how do I disciple my child to understand, you know, what healthy conflict looks like and that sort of thing. And and and and I mean, at nine years old, you know, at some level, parents, we have to be the responsible ones in shepherding the hearts of our kids. The fact that our nine-year-olds have access, so much access to AI that they're using it as a companion, I think is um, again, there's no shame or condemnation in Christ Jesus. This isn't me shaming. I'm just saying we've got to find a better way to disciple the hearts of our kids into healthy relationships, into relationships, friendships that, man, they're on, they're on sports teams, they're on, they're in activities at church, they're in youth group, they're where they're wrestling with healthy conflict and friendships and navigating life in that way. Celebrate those things. I think those are those things are really, really important. And and I would also say this too. I think it's healthy to have somebody in your life who keeps you accountable to AI. You know, for me, I'm gonna say this publicly, like as part of my accountability. I'm working on a book right now, and I'm not, I'm not gonna, I've chosen not to use AI for the writing of my book. I'm not gonna throw anything into AI because it doesn't have the Holy Spirit. If I want someone to experience the power of the Holy Spirit, then I want the power, I genuinely believe the power of the Holy Spirit can work through me to on the put on those words of those pages to inspire and convict and encourage another person reading that book. I don't want to bypass that process because the Spirit of God is gonna speak to me something that AI has no clue of. Like it just can't happen because it's all it's doing is is is gathering data from thousands and you know, millions of other uh databases. And so I have people in my life, you know, my wife being one of them, where if I'm using AI for something, I want her to know what we're using it for, how we're using it. Because I don't want to be, um, I don't want my book to be AI. It could, I could make it sound like me, I could make it look like Lee, and I'm sure there's people using it and doing that very thing. Yeah. But I know what I'm convicted of and and and I know what the Holy Spirit is showing me and guiding me to do. And I think it's really important that we have those conversations in our home. So I would start with a family meeting. I would encourage parents to have a family meeting around AI. If you're not talking about it's it's it's like having a sex conversation. If you're not having a conversation about it, your kids are picking it up somewhere. They're learning it somewhere. And we need to be having the conversations with our kids. I think a family a weekly family meeting, we do a weekly family meeting on Sunday evenings, um, and and we're setting our stage for the week. We're looking at the calendar, and we're addressing anything that we need to be addressing. So we have rules set for what Nintendo Switch looks like. So our kids get 45 minutes on Saturday and Sunday, and um, you know, they can earn more throughout the week depending on what's going on, and they might ask, but we might look at how are screens influencing how we're behaving? How are screens influencing our attitudes? Uh, what where do we feel distracted? Where do we feel like God isn't talking to us right now? Where do I feel like God isn't showing up? Where do I feel like I've been having trouble reading the Bible? Is there a passage of scripture I've been wrestling with that I need some answers on? Allow, I would what I would really encourage you to do if you're a leader in a church that you help disciple families, your discipleship of the kids is as important, discipling the parents to how do they have conversations around these particular topics? Because it's the parents who are discipling the kids in the use of AI. It's the parents, and and so we have a box in our home that we put all of our phones in, my wife and I, so that we hide it away. And and I would set up a couple different things, you know, parts of the day where there's no screens at all. Um, I would say parts of the house where there's no screens at all. So, you know, no screens in bedrooms, um, that that sort of thing, so that there's a clear children know clear boundaries on what they can't when they can and cannot use it. And so I I think it starts there. It really starts with what are the conversations you are having, um, and then it can it it expands from there. That's the detail, that's the day-to-day having those conversations and and and helping parents learn how to have those conversations.

SPEAKER_03 30:35

At the end of the day, it the the question remains, and we we've always talked about this in terms of human uh interactions, is we we need to teach our kids who to and who not to listen to. And and so who's what voice is you allow into your home, either through music or television or interactions now through all the different ways that kids have access to different people or that those people have access to our kids, but it's always been people. And so now we add on top of that this other thing, which in many cases it's easy for uh for a person to justify, well, this isn't a person, this is a computer program. And and I can maybe know that, but engage with it in a way where I give it, where I trust it in ways that I might not trust a stranger, right? Because there's no character to AI that you can discern, right? You tell a tree by its fruit, you look at the fruit of a person's life and say, this is a person that I do or don't want to influence my children. None of that is there with AI. But if we think of it as having morals or values or or a character, it does not, right? That's completely lacking. And so I think about just how that importance of discipleship happens in relationship and in relationship with a person who knows Jesus, right? That's Paul in First Corinthians 11:1. Imitate me, therefore as I imitate Christ. That's what we need to be doing, is we we follow Jesus and then we follow others who follow Jesus who help lead us there, and then we do that for those coming behind us. But when when you remove that relationship with him uh from that, we it all falls apart.

Why Church Community Heals

SPEAKER_03 32:20

We we must have human relationships and discipleship.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

And Chuck, I would say too, the thing that drives me crazy about AI is the questions it'll ask me at the end, you know. Um, you know, it it'll it because they they wire it to be super friendly. They wire, I think ChatGPT is like the the most it makes you think you're you're the bee's knees, you know? And so it it wants you, it it's designed to keep you on it and it drives me crazy. It makes me angry because I'm like, you don't know me, you don't like you you you know a lot about me, potentially based on the questions I'm asking. But even still, like, don't don't pretend to be my friend. You're not my friend. Like, I I kind of because I genuinely believe that at the end of this, we're gonna look back on, I think we're gonna look back on it as soon as five years from now and realize if we are relying on AI more than we are other people, that our brains are atrophied for creativity. They're they're they're atrophied for relationship. And we are going to see increased loneliness and depression even more than we see it today because we our young people are not learning how to communicate with others. And I think we have an incredible opportunity to show, and I genuinely believe this more than anything, Chuck. I'm telling you, I I have a PhD in counseling. I have been benefited, I I've been I've I've benefited from counseling as a client. Um, I have seen people, you know, grow through it, you know, clients and so forth. But I have come to the conclusion that there is no greater healing agent on the planet than a healthy church community, a community of healthy believers who are leading you toward Jesus and becoming like Jesus. And the only way that we can become like Jesus is to be connected to him, to be connected, to remain, to abide in the vine. And and at the end of the day, to your point, we have to, I think it the part of the responsibility of the church, and this is who we are, do not neglect the coming together of believers, right, is cultivate community. Cultiv, I think it's more important than ever. And I'm not just talking about small groups and and and so on and so forth. I'm just saying cultivating organic community where relationships can thrive, where they can grow, where that you can see fruit, where you can have conflict with each other, where you can, yeah, yes, you don't want conflict, but listen, churches are are are ripe with conflict. It's a great place for kids to learn how to navigate conflict in a healthy biblical way. And and being able to set up, I think there's no more important time for youth groups, for ministry opportunity to get kids into healthy relationships. And yeah, that's just I think what an opportunity. It is a great time to be alive in this regard. It's an exciting time, but I will say this, and I, and, and, and this is very important, as leaders in the church, we cannot neglect discipling parents. And you might be a 23-year-old youth pastor right now, next gen pastor. You might be a 25-year-old youth pastor who is talking to 40-some-year-old parents. Listen, do not despise the day of small beginnings. Do not let them look down on you because you are young. You can't step into the shoes of a parent and say, hey, this is how you parent your kids. It's not gonna work. Why? Because shame parenting is the most shaming role on the planet. Uh, parents are already feeling like they're not doing enough. But what you can do is you can come alongside them to make suggestions on how to have these conversations with their children because they their children are in it, their children are experiencing it. And so don't try to tell parents what they should or shouldn't be doing, because that's just gonna not end well. But when you come alongside them and say, hey, these are issues that are prevalent in our youth today. I want to be on top of it. I've been studying it, and hey, here are some of the suggestions that I'm finding really help through research and so on and so forth. And I want to make some suggestions and please let us know how we can, as a church family, come alongside you. You may even be able to, based on the size of your church, bring along quote unquote parent mentors. One of the greatest things that I have done is I have used, I will look in my community and I will look for the people who have five, six, seven, twelve kids and uh and who've done it really, really well. And I look at their kids and I go, man, whatever you've done, teach me your ways. And and I'll invite them to coffee, I'll invite them to dinner. I'll never ask them to mentor me, never ask anybody to mentor you. They don't have time for it. So you just say, Hey, can I take you to dinner? Would you come over to my house for dinner and just say, hey, what have you done? Tell me everything that you know because I see the fruit of your life. Find those people in your church community and ask them to come alongside you in ministry so that we have multi-generations coming together, championing the next generation. That's genuinely how this thing is done well, is when the community feels supported as a whole.

SPEAKER_03 37:50

I mean, we know. So yeah, I want to add my yes and amen to what you're saying there is we we need to, as ministry leaders, our ministry to children and our ministry to students is not just to kids and students, it's to the whole family. And it's so important that we make a real connection with parents. We know, so I can't quote the numbers off the top of my head, but we have research that we've done recently in our next gen team that says that the vast majority of parents want and welcome advice and guidance from their kids' ministry leaders, kids and student leaders in their church. Parents are looking for help. They're desperate for help. Uh, parents want to disciple their own kids, but they don't know how to do that. They don't feel qualified or equipped to do that. And so, one of the most important things that we can do outside of the Bible studies that we're teaching our kids and students directly is investing in equipping their parents to walk with the Lord and to be equipped to answer some of these big and difficult questions that come. So, statistically, parents want your help. The other statistic, Josh, though, that I know is that most ministry leaders feel ill-equipped to advise parents. Like they feel well equipped to maybe teach the Bible to kids or students, but they don't feel, as you were just suggesting, you might be that in your 20s and you're how and you've never been a parent of a teenager. How do you advise a 40-year-old who has multiple kids? And I would say this desire and need is there.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Yep. And I would say this, practically speaking, you are closer to being a teenager than the 40-something year old parent. Right. And so it's true. You bring personally have more experience of having been one most recently, number one. But number two, I would say if you're a leader of a church, start having parent meetings. Consider having quarterly parent meetings or monthly parent meetings where parents can come in for an hour. Uh, their kids are being watched, they're being taken care of, but you have parent nights. And I would start with a town hall type of situation where you're learning from the parents, hey, what is most on your heart about how to disciple your kids? What are you concerned about the most? Let them be the ones to ask questions. Let them be the ones to give you feedback. You could even do this in a survey. Use AI to come up with a questionnaire that you send to your parents in your in your church ministry to learn from the parents what they're most looking for. And then it gives you the ability to be able to come alongside and equip them with the things that they have been asking for. And so I think there are there are a number of ways to be able to do that. But you, again, this is learning how to form relationships. You are forming relationships with the parents in your community to really grow and build and be thinking of this as lifelong mentorship, lifelong discipleship, lifelong relationship where you are influencing these kids because it won't be long, and you'll be officiating their weddings, and then you'll be you'll be seeing their babies come and and and you realize you're in this for the long haul. And so really enter into their into the parents' world and in and ask them what they're genuinely looking for. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

And they they want you to do that. Parents may not approach you and ask you, but when you offer advice and input and uh information to parents, strategic information, discipleship information, they want that. So, listener, whether you believe it or not, know that the parents in your church are hungry for that kind of help that you are in a unique position to be able to provide.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

Yeah. And it's hard because you get stuck, we get stuck in our boxes and the ways that we do ministry and the ways that we think. And some of these things might be like, man, I just don't even know if I have time to start. I would just pull your team out and say, hey, where could we start thinking outside the box here? What could start making a bigger dent in how we reach these, reach the next generation, how we reach these children? What could be a new way to start doing that? And I think just start having those conversations because otherwise it's easy to get stuck in a rut in terms of how we've always done it. And and we can't keep doing that because AI is moving very fast. It's moving very fast.

SPEAKER_03 42:10

I think for some of us in ministry, we might see AI as a threat, right? And I think it's justifiably so. What that it threatens the influence over our kids, uh, where they go for advice, all those are real threats. But in it all, Josh, you you've spent years helping leaders become emotionally healthy and relationally connected. So as AI grows more and more capable in this space, there are places in ministry in particular and discipleship where there is a uniquely human advantage. But what would you say, or what are the uniquely human advantages that we need to be well aware of and lean into in our ministries?

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Great

The Human Advantage In Ministry

SPEAKER_00 42:53

question. Yeah, I think the uniquely human advantages that we have is that we carry the love of Jesus with us everywhere that we go. And I genuinely believe that at the end of life, when Jesus says, Well done, good and faithful servant, that what will have mattered most is how well we showed up and loved people who were in our presence. And so what AI cannot do is sit and listen to you in your deepest, hardest moments of life, put their hand around you and say, You are loved. You are loved by a God who sent his son to die for you. Um I'm here for you. You could pick up the phone and call me at any time. Um the the feeling of connection uh that that a person feels when someone is. Yes. And and the need of others, the to be able to share and say, hey, would You pray for me? Would you would you come alongside me in this? Or to be able to say, Hey, I'm gonna come alongside you in this. It's Job's friends in the first seven days before they started opening their mouths and blaming him for his right. But but it's just the ability to be present. It is the ministering presence of Jesus, the ability to ask questions that get to the deeper parts. Jesus asked so many questions in throughout the scriptures. That's what he did. Do you want to get well? Who do you say that I am? These are questions that he would ask of people. He didn't left brain just, you know, uh, you know, tell them who he was and and and say, hey, go do this and be on your way. He he would ask questions to get into their story. And I think the human advantage is we can ask questions to get into the heart of a person's story so they feel seen and heard and known by another human and feel loved in that. Feel loved in the that that my wife knows everything about me and still loves me in spite of it, is is a testament to what marriage is, but that God knows even deeper how sinful I am and and and my thoughts at times, and and that he still loves me. He loves you anyway, and he loves me anyway, is is a profound truth that we want our children to experience. And that's the advantage that that humans have that AI will never have the ability to be able to do, is to be able to feel for another person, to feel sorry, to get a text to say, Hey, I know you're going through this. Today's a year since your dad died. How are you doing today? I I want you to know I'm praying for you and I'm thinking of you. AI isn't gonna reach out and do that for you, right? Or for the person in your youth group, for the person in your ministry. Yeah. So I I think more than ever, our ability to remember dates, to to pray for the people we say we're gonna pray for, to come alongside them in their difficult circumstances, what an opportunity. What an opportunity.

SPEAKER_03 46:13

At the end of the day, discipleship is all about connection. It's connecting in relationship with other people and with God. Ultimately, it's about relationship with him. And there's a huge difference between knowing about God, which you can get a lot of information from AI and other places, and in knowing him in relationship. And our goal is to lead our kids and our students not to just know about God. There's a ton of people who can answer trivia questions who are far from God relationally, right? And we and we see Jesus as he spoke to the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the teachers of the law. They they knew the law inside and out, John and Tittle. They obeyed the law and followed it in how they lived. And yet he said, You're there, they honor you with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

And he was harsher with them than he was any other person on the planet.

SPEAKER_03 47:03

Anyone else?

SPEAKER_00 47:03

Yes. You know, I that's Paul in Ephesians writing where he writes the Greek word is gonoso and epigonoso. He says, I pray that you might know beyond knowledge the love of Jesus for you, that you might know in your heart the experience, experience the love more than head knowledge. And and I think we have a lot of head knowledge out there, but but when you see how broken people are in their stories, you realize they haven't experienced at a heart level the love of Jesus for them. And that's what we get to be and do as ministers of the gospel, is we get to be that for them and we're and and allow God to work through us to show them that.

SPEAKER_03 47:48

Josh Straub, thank you for participating in this conversation.

Key Takeaways And Next Steps

SPEAKER_03 47:54

It's so important for us to talk about things like this, and listeners, for us to think about things like this, pray about things like this, and to understand that that we offer something in personal relationship that cannot be replaced by artificial intelligence, right? There is no artificial relate, the relationship is artificial with AI. We need real authentic relationship that is uh has empathy and compassion and presence and listening and genuine caring. And our kids and students are hungry for that. They the this lonely and isolated generation needs real human interface so that we can model and demonstrate what it means to have a real relationship with the real God. And so we need to keep it real with our kids. That may be my biggest takeaway, Josh. Josh, thank you so much. I appreciate your friendship and thanks for being here today. Chuck, thanks for having me. It's always a blessing. I think one of my biggest takeaways, listeners, is that our artificial intelligence may change how information is accessed, but it can't replace the relationships that within which discipleship take place. The future of discipleship is gonna belong to those who are strong relationally. And so we need to invest energy not just in conveying information, but in creating real human connection of influence in the lives of our kids. We want to earn their trust, gain their respect so we can have influence in their lives. Josh, thanks for joining us again on Etch Listeners. Thank you for listening. Uh, I want to encourage you to, if this episode is helpful to you, would you share this with a friend, a ministry leader, a volunteer? Share it with a parent or some parents or one of your pastors. Uh, and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Until next time, let's continue disrupting tradition for the sake of the next generation and helping our kids and students know and walk with Jesus in real relationship. Thanks for listening. We'll see you back again soon for another episode of the Etch Next Gen Ministry Podcast. This episode of the Etch Next Gen Ministry Podcast was brought to you by our incredible production team, executive producer Angie Elkins, producer Nikki Hogman, edited by Trey Garza with sound engineer Donnie Gordon, and recorded in the Lifeway Podcast Studios at Lifeway Headquarters in Brentwood, Tennessee. I'm your host, Chuck Peters. Thanks again for joining us. We'll see you back again soon for another episode of the Etch Next Gen Ministry Podcast.