What We're Getting Wrong about Gen Z (with Dr. Tanita Maddox of Young Life)

In this episode of the In & For podcast, we talk with Dr. Tanita Maddox - National Director for Generational Impact for Young Life - to explore the complexities of Gen Z. We discuss common misconceptions about this generation, emphasizing their empathy and resilience. Dr. Maddox highlights the importance of cross-cultural communication and understanding the unique challenges Gen Z faces, including mental health and safety concerns. She also shares incredibly helpful insights on how older generations can better connect with Gen Z by addressing their specific questions and experiences, ultimately fostering a more meaningful dialogue about faith and spirituality. Join us for a conversation that will help you have more meaningful and winsome spiritual conversation with Gen Z (and Gen Alpha)!

Pre-order Dr. Maddox's upcoming book: What Gen Z Really Wants to Know about God: 7 Questions about Life and Faith

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to In & For Podcast
• 1:10 Understanding Gen Z: Misconceptions and Realities
• 3:56 The Empathy and Resilience of Gen Z
• 7:34 Cross-Cultural Communication with Gen Z
• 10:56 The Importance of Safety in Faith Dialogue with Gen Z
• 16:37 The Impact of Language on Generational Relationships
• 19:57 Practical Steps for Engaging Gen Z
• 23:32 Positive Spiritual Trends Among Gen Z
• 27:17 Introducing Dr. Tanita Maddox's Book

Transcript

Shelley Komoszewski (00:15)
Hello and welcome to the In and For podcast, where we are in and for Christ and in and for culture. This is Shelley Komoszewski with a bit of a cold today, but this is not a day I could sit out because we have a special guest that I am so very excited about, Brock.

Brock Anderson (00:33)
Yeah, so I'm excited to be here today as well for this In & For podcast. It's a great reminder as we go into episode 6 here as to why we're called the In & For podcast because we are in and for Christ. As those who follow Christ, we are in Christ and we are for Him in all we do. But the Bible also makes it clear that we're in and for culture. We're not against culture. We don't alienate ourselves from the world. And we're also not of culture. We don't look so much like the world that there's nothing

that distinguishes us as those who follow Christ. We are both in culture and for culture. And here's the important part that we always like to remind people for its ultimate good. And what that means is pointing culture back to the essential truths of Christianity. And we have an incredible topic to discuss that today in relation to Gen Z. We talk about what are we getting wrong about Gen Z? And Shelley's going to introduce our guest in just a minute who's an expert on Gen Z.

Shelley Komoszewski (01:10)
Yes.

Brock Anderson (01:27)
Dr. Tanita Maddox, and I'm just, you guys are gonna be just incredibly blessed by what she shares today. But I wanna just lay the groundwork a little bit of why we're talking about this. There's a lot of misconception around Gen Z, and a lot of it comes from some great works that have been done in the past. Jean Twenge has written a seminal work on generations, and Jonathan Haidt wrote The Anxious Generation.

And there's been other resources that have come out about Gen Z touching on Gen Alpha. And they have all sorts of stats and trends that are really helpful. But here's what happens. What we see on social media, what we see in sound bites and clips and short videos ends up just being a small portion and it gets taken out of context. And so what we end up seeing is and thinking is that Gen Z is this generation that's always and only apathetic.

and they're always and only non-religious, and they're always and only the most anxious and depressed and mentally damaged generation on the planet, only to be accelerated upon by by Gen Alpha. And that's just not a full and good and comprehensive picture of who Gen Z is. And as we look to do in this podcast, as we take a cultural apologetics angle,

to look at what's good and beautiful and right in the world and how that can only be best explained by the God of the Bible. This gives us an opportunity to talk about that in regard to Gen Z. So that being said, Shelley, who do we have with us?

Shelley Komoszewski (02:51)
Wow, that was a little dark. That was a little dark, so I'm

glad you lightened it up just a little bit. So, and I were at a conference a few weeks ago, and we were at a Lunch and Learn hosted by Young Life, and there were three speakers on stage, and they were talking about Gen Z in a way that was so captivating that before they were even finished talking at the end,

Brock Anderson (02:57)
Okay.

Shelley Komoszewski (03:15)
I am running for their table going, how can we partner? So thank you for not being scared off by us, but instead reaching out to engage. And so Dr. Tanita Maddox is with us. As I said, she is with Young Life and she is the National Director for Generational Impact. That's a very fancy title. I know.

Tanita Maddox (03:37)
Look at that.

Brock Anderson (03:37)
Super cool title Super cool title

Shelley Komoszewski (03:40)
She's

been married 20 years, has two Gen Alphas at home, and she is author of the upcoming book, What Gen Z Really Wants to Know About God, Seven Questions About Life and Faith. Thank you so much for being with us today. We are so honored.

Tanita Maddox (03:56)
Oh, we're going to have some fun today. I can already tell.

Brock Anderson (03:58)
We always do. And we always, we love to talk about apologetics and cultural apologetics and things that are trending in the world that we live in. And this topic is just really on a lot of hearts and minds ⁓ of all generations. And so I just want to kick us off just in an overview sense, Tanita, like a just...

Shelley Komoszewski (04:11)
Yes.

Brock Anderson (04:19)
two to three things that Christians just tend to get wrong about Gen Z from just the exceptional research that you all have done at Young Life and that you've done yourself.

Tanita Maddox (04:28)
think there's a lot of things that we are looking at Gen Z through our own lens, that cause misconceptions of what's going on. But one thing that comes up is that they just don't care. That Gen Z doesn't care about faith, doesn't care about God or about a lot of different things. And the truth is, is they are a very highly empathetic generation. They want to be seen as kind and as loyal and calm and responsible.

They may not care about the same things in the same ways as previous generations do. So it gets lost in translation a little bit. So that goes back to, I think the bigger misconceptions are coming from miscommunication between generations because we read each other differently. So if you've ever visited a different culture or a different country and we learn about communication and how to carry yourself and what different things can be interpreted as we get.

Shelley Komoszewski (05:05)
Ew.

Mm-hmm.

Tanita Maddox (05:17)
educated on that because you're entering into this cross-cultural experience to prevent miscommunication. So the mistake we're making is we're assuming that these interactions with Gen Z and older generations are not cross-cultural and they are absolutely cross-cultural. And so when we don't recognize that, miscommunication happens and then misconceptions start to explode from that.

Brock Anderson (05:40)
Gosh, that was so well said. And it reminds me why we ran up to the stage after you all.

Tanita Maddox (05:45)
hahahaha

Shelley Komoszewski (05:45)
Wait, we did

it. You sat at the table and said, yeah, you should go do that.

Brock Anderson (05:50)
That's true, but I mean, was the royal "we" It was you that ⁓ went up there. I mean, I felt like I was a part of that. Tanita, do you have just a most surprising kind of trend or a most surprising kind of fact you've come across about Gen Z that you've been excited?

Shelley Komoszewski (05:54)
the royal we yes, we did then.

Hmm.

Brock Anderson (06:11)
to share with others to help kind of push back against some of the misconceptions people have.

Tanita Maddox (06:16)
know if there's a most, like a most important fact. I think once we start to really understand their experience and how their experiences growing up has impacted how they're viewing and experiencing the world, it starts to go like that light bulb goes off. of course that makes sense. Like I didn't deal with that. So of course you would have a different way in how you're engaging the world.

You know, like social media didn't exist when I was an adolescent, right? Like there had never been a school shooting until I was in college. And at that point we thought it was so horrible. We thought this will never ever happen again. Meanwhile, right? My children in their elementary school have active shooter drills on a regular basis. There was never a global pandemic that landed in the middle of my development. And when you start to put together all the ripple effects of those things, I think that becomes more like

that makes sense. I actually had no idea the things you were dealing with. And when I walk through this with different populations of adults and I say, and then people ask me, why is there so much anxiety? I look at them and say, I do not know how they are standing. I don't like adolescents was hard enough to get through. You add these layers, these very complex layers that are hard for us to navigate as an adult. And I don't know how they're still standing. They're incredibly resilient, incredibly courageous, but they're

in different ways than previous generations recognized. And so then they get misunderstood.

Shelley Komoszewski (07:38)
Mm-hmm. So good. Mm-hmm.

Brock Anderson (07:39)
Yeah, that's yeah, Shelley, that's one of the things

that we had talked about before when we talked about Gen Z is just their resiliency. And I think what you said there was just again, just very well said, because we do have this tendency to look at them through our own experiences and just kind of be like, hey, why can't you be more like the way I am? And I come from a completely different cultural context. And I think we saw this a little bit with Gen X looking at millennials and there was like

Shelley Komoszewski (07:45)
Yes.

Yeah, me, yeah.

Brock Anderson (08:05)
Why are they so alien to how we are? But now we do that with Gen Z as well. And there's just been so much more, especially with the rapid increase in technology and information and just global events and compacting the world to the size of a rectangle in our pockets that Gen Z was born with, as opposed to other generations. When you talk about just...

Shelley Komoszewski (08:25)
Mm.

Brock Anderson (08:29)
views of God. I think that's interesting for those listening just to kind of hear how you've seen how those differ among Gen Z as opposed to maybe older generations. Some of the things that set apart Gen Z as maybe unique to maybe help generations relate more to Gen Z.

Shelley Komoszewski (08:42)
Dude, good.

Tanita Maddox (08:49)
Well, even thinking about what we've just talked about just now, which is we tend to view things through our own lens. So when we talk about who God is or we're sharing the good news of the gospel, we share it through our lens. And we have to remember, and I think we do forget this, we all received a contextualized version of theology and of the gospel in a way that we could understand. But that was contextualized for a specific audience, at a specific time, a specific place, and a specific culture.

The bad habit that we can get into sometimes is that that was good news for me, so it should be good news for you. So let me just repeat what was told to me and it'll make sense for you. But when you're trying to do that in a cross-cultural setting, then those aspects of theology tend to get lost in translation. And then what's happening too is that this was important for you to know, so I think it's important for you to know. And when we repeat that over and over again.

What we're doing is we're not actually addressing the questions that Gen Z is asking. We're telling them what they need to know. And then we're actually ignoring the ones that they are asking. And that has led to a division there too, because what happens in is they look at faith and said, it's not relevant to my experience. It's not relevant to what, how I'm experiencing the world, my values, because we're just repeating what's important to us instead of looking through, well, how are you like navigating the world? Because the truth is,

The Bible addresses all these things and the good news of the gospel is good news for everyone everywhere throughout history and moving forward. And so we just have to figure out where that intersects with who they are and what they're experiencing.

Brock Anderson (10:24)
Yeah, yeah, that's really good. And I think really helpful, and I hope those listening are really catching on to that, that the gospel never changes, but the context that the gospel is in, it does change. And we see that throughout scripture as well. ⁓ Yeah, in the New Testament, you see different people, different apostles speaking to different cultures. And so you see Paul speaking in Athens very differently than Peter is addressing his audience.

Shelley Komoszewski (10:38)
All throughout it,

Brock Anderson (10:49)
and so on and so forth. There's some context specificity that changes how they address. To me it looks like you were going say something there.

Shelley Komoszewski (10:53)
Right.

Tanita Maddox (10:56)
Well,

I'll say that you mentioned, yeah, was just saying that you mentioned even Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge who talk about this whole safetyism and the value of safety. And so if you think about that, that is something that is a generational experience for Gen Z, the high value of safety, the longing for safety, looking for safety. I that's in multiple studies. mean, UCLA just came out with a study last year that also said that the number one goal of young people is to be safe. So if you know that that's going on,

And you layer that next to how we are doing evangelism and discipleship, how we're doing Bible study, how we're doing apologetics. Do we have to address that idea of safety? And we have to address it through their lens. You know, you can't just throw out the C.S. Lewis, Aslan quote, right? Who said anything about safe? know, because if you say that, yeah, right, he's personally not safe, but he's good. He's the king. I tell you, if you say that and go see, answered your question.

Shelley Komoszewski (11:44)
He's good.

Tanita Maddox (11:52)
It actually didn't answer the question because for their mind safe is good. So if you're not safe, you're not good. So you just presented this really incredible point of tension for young person thinking that you provided an answer or in peace. And then that's where the misconceptions, that's where the miscommunication happens. Instead, we have to work through their lens of what they're really asking and how does God actually answer that question? Is God safe? Well, in a lot of ways, yes. I mean, because our

Shelley Komoszewski (11:52)
Mm-mm.

Tanita Maddox (12:21)
Once we follow him, we are his forever, right? And there's countless verses in the Bible about that. Are we safe in the sense that nothing will ever hard happen to us, we'll never experience suffering, death will not come our way? No. So we have to really figure out what's the definition of safety we're talking about so that we can address it more specifically with our young people.

Shelley Komoszewski (12:24)
Mm-hmm.

Keep going on that just for a little bit because I know people listening are going, my goodness, I have never ever thought of the definition of safety. And so there's a security piece of security of being unshakable in Christ. And I love that. And that resounds well with this generation. But then there's the other piece of, can I trust you with my life? So walk through, let's walk through that just a little bit.

Brock Anderson (12:42)
that

That's right.

Tanita Maddox (13:05)
Sure, because like I am a Gen Xer and I think that the be safe. think we had two main rules, right? Don't talk to strangers and don't ride in the bed at the pickup truck. Those are really the two rules. That was the definition of safe. OK, so now we go to this generation and their generation is so broad, right? It is so encompassing. It's right. Not just physical, it's emotional, intellectual. It's sometimes even safety from failure, safety from risk, safety from being uncomfortable, safety from being disagreed with, like

Shelley Komoszewski (13:18)
you

Tanita Maddox (13:34)
It's vast and then it's individualized. So it's personal at the same time, which is one of the reasons it's been really hard for anyone to get their arms around it because we use safe as a general term. And then we don't really recognize that everyone has a personal definition of what it means to feel safe. So I think one of my favorite places to go to is when Jesus invites Peter to step out of the boat in the middle of the storm, because everything about that situation looks unsafe because you know where the safest place to be is on the water in a storm?

Shelley Komoszewski (13:37)
Mm-hmm.

Tanita Maddox (14:03)
It's in the boat. That's where you want it. Like that's the place that makes sense. And I think we can acknowledge it with our young people. Like logic says stay in the boat. And actually there's a bunch of guys in the boat. There's 12 guys in the boat, right? Like, and all of them stay in the boat except for one. So also you're walking there going, yeah, the group think right there is like be in the safe spot. That's the boat. And that Jesus does not stop the storm.

When Peter gets out, it continues to go. And that is what freaks Peter out, right? He looks around and is like, my goodness, this has not stopped. And he begins to sink. And I like to stop and say, did Jesus stop at that moment and say, Peter, you should believe more. You should have read your Bible more. You wouldn't be sinking then. He doesn't, he catches Peter. So this was never reliant on how good or strong Peter was, how righteous he was.

all relied on who Jesus is and Jesus was there and Jesus caught him. And so there's pieces of that we get to pull out of going, you know what's safe? Jesus was there. Jesus was gonna catch him. It only relied on Jesus. The storm's still going on. Your buds are still back in the boat. You might feel like you're sinking because you actually are, but it doesn't rely on you. And those are pieces that we get to pull out and say that, that is what safety is.

Brock Anderson (15:16)
Yeah, that was, that's incredible. And I hope those listening that we talk every now and then during a podcast of like, Hey, there's a section to go back and listen to again. That's a section to go back and listen to again. Because when you're talking about practicality and you're looking for avenues, whether you're of Gen Z itself, or whether you're of Gen X or whether you're millennial or boomer or whoever, when you're looking to connect with, with either those peers or those in the younger generation and you're thinking of, Hey, where's a good avenue to start from?

Shelley Komoszewski (15:26)
Yeah.

Brock Anderson (15:46)
that was just provided. Like, hey, here's a good general place to start from. How do I approach from the area of safety and start a conversation of what it actually means to be safe in Christ? And it's interesting that you just took the approach that you did. First of all, Peter going on the water is a major part of Shelley's life and of my life and of the life of the ministry as we talk about. I know I'm certain for lots of people's lives, but just incredible significance.

Shelley Komoszewski (15:47)
Mm-hmm.

Brock Anderson (16:14)
just for the group that you're with right now. But when we also talk about the answer to evil and suffering and how there's older generations tend to give the very intellectual answer of, here's why God allows evil and suffering. Instead of like, hey, I know what it's like to suffer without God and I know what it's like to suffer with God and suffering with God and the safety of His presence and His sovereignty.

is much more preferred. Now here's why. And walking through that instead of instead of trying to give just that intellectual response and so I love very much just how you walked through that just so very well. ⁓ Okay one more thing.

Shelley Komoszewski (16:51)
Okay, one more thing. One more thing.

What do we get wrong about Gen Z? Let's do one more of those.

Tanita Maddox (16:57)
What do we get wrong about Gen Z? Gosh, I just feel like we just get so many things wrong about them. And I'm to get a little weepy on this because this does get me a little weepy.

Shelley Komoszewski (16:59)
Yes.

That's

okay. Let's go. We believe in real emotions.

Tanita Maddox (17:07)
But our young

people live into the words we speak over them. And so we think that we don't have responsibility in what we have spoken over our next generation and taught them to live into. So when older adults use words like lazy, apathetic, snowflake, weak, over-emotional, self-centered, and then we get shocked that the young people, A,

Shelley Komoszewski (17:12)
Mmm.

Mmm.

Tanita Maddox (17:32)
don't want to talk to us, don't want to be around us, don't want to trust us, or that they live into the prophetic words that we have spoken over them. The misconception is we don't have responsibility. You turned out the way you did and now we can blame you for that instead of actually accepting responsibility and accepting that we've pushed our young people away from us by telling them a message that we don't like them. So I think we change. We recognize that we are stewards of young people.

at all times, which means we get the privilege of speaking vision over them, of hope over them. Of course we're speaking truth, but if they know we love them, they will listen to us. If they don't think we like them, then they will not.

Shelley Komoszewski (18:11)
Yes.

So practical steps, grandpa and grandma are listening to this. They're having their Gen Z kids over for dinner this weekend.

How can they reframe that in preparation?

Tanita Maddox (18:24)
Yeah, I think just the practical dinner around the table, it becomes this whole cross-cultural communication experience, right? And we've all been there with young people, where it's like, how's your day? Fine. What'd you learn at school? Nothing. That's my favorite answer, nothing. But I think when we open up different kinds of questions, that opens up the conversation. So globally, what we have found in research, globally, which is such an interesting thing about Gen Z,

Shelley Komoszewski (18:35)
No.

Tanita Maddox (18:50)
The number one thing they want to talk about is mental health. And that's not what we talk about. Typically older generations. But when we stop and ask the question, hey, scale one to 10, how's your mental health today? Now, how older generations understand it, they're going to hear something different. Mental health is like just locked into your brain. I'm talking about your head. What are Gen Zers hear when they hear that question? They hear very holistic question. You're asking how my day was, how my body feels, how my relationships are.

Shelley Komoszewski (18:52)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Yes.

Tanita Maddox (19:16)
It's just different language. It's just like if I said, Shelly, how's your heart today? know, there's a cultural meaning to that question. So their cultural meaning is one to 10, how's your mental health? And they can give you an answer really quickly. And then they can tell you why. So, tell me why. Tell me why it's number six or whatever. And they will tell you so much of what's going on in their day. Now, grandma and grandpa, if you try this for the first time, your young person will look at you and go, why are you asking me that? And you can say,

Shelley Komoszewski (19:20)
Mm-hmm.

Tanita Maddox (19:41)
I heard this lady talking about Gen Z, so I thought I'd try it and see if it's real. And even that, just that conversation says, I'm interested in you enough to try something different, right? I wanted to learn about you.

Shelley Komoszewski (19:51)
Exactly, exactly. I care about

you. I love you. I want to speak your language.

Tanita Maddox (19:57)
Yes, yes. And if

you're really, now this is a very risky question and I'll give you a second one. This is high risk because you have to be in the right place to ask this question. But you can also say in a scale of one to 10, how well do I listen to you? I know, because the rules are you can't defend it and you can't explain yourself because this is not about how you feel like you listen. This is about how they feel like you listen. So you got to let it lie.

Shelley Komoszewski (20:11)
Oof.

What a beautiful gift.

Brock Anderson (20:15)
Yeah.

Shelley Komoszewski (20:17)
No.

Yeah.

Yup.

Tanita Maddox (20:26)
And you can follow up with what would move that up a number. Yeah. What would move that down a number and you will get some more quality feedback on that. But just that question, if you're willing to ask that humility and just listen, think that's a, just asking the question will change something that dynamic.

Shelley Komoszewski (20:28)
How can I get better?

Brock Anderson (20:43)
Yeah, you talk about like one of the key things we talk about in apologetics is less about how much you know and more about how well versed are you at asking good questions. And that's an incredible question to ask. And you're right, not just humility, but vulnerability to be able to hear the response and not get defensive and be like, well.

Shelley Komoszewski (21:01)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brock Anderson (21:05)
That's what you think. But let me tell you all the reasons why that number should be should be higher. Like you haven't considered all the evidence here. And that's let's walk through then. So that's that's a so please those listening like that's that's the takeaway. The takeaway is an ask that question and then and be like, well, because I know the nephew, the niece, my child, my peer, I know that they're going to give me a high number.

Tanita Maddox (21:06)
Right.

Yes. Let me tell you why you're wrong.

Shelley Komoszewski (21:10)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Brock Anderson (21:30)
that when they tell you three out of 10, that you don't immediately think, what? You must be misunderstanding me. Instead of just really opening up to them saying, wow, I never would have thought that. Tell me why. And now you have a lot of information.

Tanita Maddox (21:44)
listening doesn't necessarily mean like actually listening. think that's where we get when we talk about miscommunication and cultures, right? That we think listening is I just repeated back what you said to me. I was listening like I heard it, but I literally I just watched this interaction with a mom and a teenager where her daughter is complaining about something and her mom's giving the response like she's listening and answering, but the daughter's getting more and more agitated. I can feel her saying like, you know, you're not listening to me.

And the mom is definitely listening. She's giving advice. And, but I watched, really went, I thought, the daughter's not asking for her to listen like with her ears. Her daughter wants her to feel it with her. She wants her to be upset like she is. That was her version of listening in that moment. And so that's where we start to lose those places where we think we're listening, but we're being asked to do something different.

Shelley Komoszewski (22:17)
Understand.

So good. Years ago on a podcast or a speaker said, when you're in a moment with your kids or your grandkids and it gets hard separating our feelings. I heard this and I've just never forgotten it and I've used it mightily. I put my feelings into a box and then give it to the Lord to handle so I can focus clearly on their feelings in the moment. And later I'll take that back and deal with it and feel

Okay, what do I need to hear Lord? What can I change? And so being aware enough to say, this isn't about me at all. This is about this precious relationship the Lord gave me to steward, as you said earlier, Tanita, stewardship of the, know, there are stewards, being good stewards of our young people and our young relationship. And so when we're in those moments to say, Lord, keep my feelings so I can be all in.

And it's just, it's a sweet thing that I just thought of when you were saying that.

Tanita Maddox (23:23)
It's beautiful and it's

so reminiscent of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, right? Because he could have told everyone like, slow your roll, everyone, calm down, it's going to be fine. You don't need to cry about this. Like you didn't need to, he could have belittled everyone's experience knowing what he was going to do. But like you said, he entered fully into the experience of Mary and Martha and wept next to the tomb, knowing what was going to happen next.

Shelley Komoszewski (23:28)
⁓ so good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Brock Anderson (23:47)
Yeah, yeah, that was a powerful example. So moving to a more positive side, not that we've had some positive moments here, we will even more positive than hyper positive if we can be because I'm gonna use the word positive in this question, which is some of the positive spiritual trends, even if they're not easily recognizable as

Shelley Komoszewski (23:56)
Well, I think we've been very positive. Yay!

Brock Anderson (24:14)
spiritual trends by older generations, but what are some of the positive spiritual trends to give an older generation kind of hope that, this generation, these younger generations, they haven't lost all faith and hope in God, even though it looks different.

Shelley Komoszewski (24:20)
Mmm.

Tanita Maddox (24:27)
Well, one of the things that our younger generation, especially Gen Z is pushing us into is they would like to know how our faith impacts everyday life. They want to know why it matters. So if Jesus is truly God and human, how does that help me tomorrow when I walk out the door and they're pushing us to make those connections rather than keep faith, this very vertical, isolated thing, which is how they are perceiving it. They're saying, but okay, push it into real life.

How does this impact the little decisions I make through my day? The money that I spend or save or give, the people I'm in a relationship with, the classes I take, all those things. So they're really pushing us to really explain why these things matter. And that's been really, really helpful for me because it's making me really look at why does it matter? Why does knowing that Jesus loves me matter in my everyday life? How does it impact me? And I love that they're pushing us that direction.

Shelley Komoszewski (25:19)
Mm.

Tanita Maddox (25:22)
It's been an interesting time of research these last couple months with, you know, the Pew research landscape of, you know, the religious landscape of the U.S. coming out with the Quiet Revival Study coming out of the UK with BARNA coming out with their latest research. And then and then there's a plethora of research coming out on 13 year olds right now because people are

eager to try to capture who Gen Alpha is. And so they're starting at those places, a lot of folks. And so it's a lot to take in. It's really actually hard to get a grasp on what's going on because terms like, so I pulled this from Springtide. said, the vast majority of 13 year olds are at least slightly religious, slightly spiritual, or believe in a higher power. All of that, like the vast majority of 13 year olds. Now all that's positive language. But the problem is we actually don't know what our 13 year olds mean when they say those things. And so

Shelley Komoszewski (26:14)
Right.

Tanita Maddox (26:14)
it should push us into a good conversation with our young people and say, what do you mean by slightly religious? What does spiritual mean to you? What do you mean by higher power? So we see those kinds of reports coming out, but it's going to take the extra work to lean in and find out how our young people are defining these things. Because again, the majority of Gen Z, think it's 68 % of Gen Z agree with many religions at the same time. And that is not a

Shelley Komoszewski (26:40)
Mm-hmm.

Tanita Maddox (26:42)
exclusive or not

Shelley Komoszewski (26:42)
Mm-hmm.

Tanita Maddox (26:43)
exclusive to Christians. So we're just having to lean into what these what we're really asking.

Shelley Komoszewski (26:48)
Definitions matter, that's so good.

Brock Anderson (26:50)
Yeah, and what an incredible opportunity it is to ask those questions and they begin to be pointing winsomely toward toward Christ and instead of just, you know, as we talked about before, just taking kind of a more packaged approach of just like, well, hey, I told you the bad news, good news, and we just finished up the Romans road. So, I mean, it's time it's time for you to do to do your part. You say yes or no. And then when they ask a question, you're like, no, no, that's not what we do.

Tanita Maddox (27:10)
You hate? Yes.

Brock Anderson (27:17)
You say you say yes, and then we pray or you say no and then I re-explain it to you until you say yes

Tanita Maddox (27:23)
So I'll say

that, gosh, you're, I, that's like, I replaying all those things in my head that you just said that is actually what's happening right now. Yeah. And so we have them pushing us into like, how, how is this impact their identity? How does it impact their community? How does it impact their sense of purpose? You know, those are really the three big questions that, Kara Powell and Brian Griffin pull in their book, three big questions that change teenage, every teenager change every teenager. Yeah.

And so we get to ask the gospel. But then even just going further than that is, gosh, I just lost my train of thought. We were so, I was so locked into your Romans road explanation. ⁓ here's where I was going. Is that overall, you'll see in a lot of these reports is they'll say, Hey, there's an openness to spiritual conversations. There's an openness to God. And that's true.

Shelley Komoszewski (28:01)
Three big questions. Okay. ⁓

Tanita Maddox (28:10)
The barrier that we may feel is that we still are having to earn the trust of our young people. And that's really a high barrier at this moment. Gen Z specifically has really, in their cultural experience, learned not to trust people older than them, people in power, institutions, anyone who's historically had power or been trusted as they've been told don't necessarily trust. So we are working harder at that. It takes a lot longer. It's much slower. And I respect it, man. They do not see their trust as cheap.

They're like, you've got to earn this. I am worth it and they are worth it. So once we move into that trust barrier, then they're much open to those conversations.

Brock Anderson (28:47)
Yeah, that's great. I resonate with that because I came to faith later in life and that's kind how it was always repeated to me. And even though I wasn't Gen Z, it was still more of that, I need to know little bit more about why this matters. So I resonate with that as well. So we're coming close to about time, but I don't want us to leave this podcast without having an opportunity to talk about.

this book coming out in September which just has an amazing title, an amazing subtitle, and so tell us about this book and tell us a couple things that people can look forward to to pull away from it.

Tanita Maddox (29:23)
Well, so seven questions about life and faith. So these are questions that Gen Z is asking based on their experience and worldview. Some of these questions are really timeless. Like we might look at it and really go, I've asked that question. I'm still asking that question. But what this book will really do is explain the generational context around that question. Because if we think we're, again, we think we're speaking the same language, asking the same question. So we give an answer that works for us and we miss what was really underlying that. So we're really gonna look at.

how these questions came to be and why they're so important. And then how do you answer those questions through the gospel and through discipleship so that we're actually offering a picture of the Bible and a picture of Jesus and a picture of life in Christ in a way that directly connects and addresses the questions they're asking.

Brock Anderson (30:09)
⁓ that's a great summary. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the next question. Where do people go if they want to pre-orders? And then we'll put the link in the show notes as well.

Shelley Komoszewski (30:09)
Okay, I want it.

Where can we pre-order?

Tanita Maddox (30:20)
Yeah, can pre-order pre-order on Amazon or an InterVarsity Press. Both those places have the book up. Ready to go.

Shelley Komoszewski (30:26)
And one more time the title.

Tanita Maddox (30:27)
What Gen Z really wants to know about God, seven questions about life and faith.

Shelley Komoszewski (30:33)
Amazing. Amazing.

Brock Anderson (30:33)
Yeah,

so that's the book. Dr. Tanita Maddox, if you didn't know her before, you know her now and you know why we had her on, because she's super smart. And if you were listening closely, you're super encouraged. If you're earning on a treadmill, you're also lighter and in better shape and super encouraged and smarter about how to engage with Gen Z, which is a great place to be if you're driving, you're at your destination and better off for it. With all that said,

Shelley Komoszewski (30:41)
Yes.

Brock Anderson (30:59)
Dr. Maddox, thank you for joining us. Shelley, thank you for doing this, even though you're under the weather. And thank you to me for coming as well. That'll wrap us up for this episode, and we'll look forward to the next episode to

Shelley Komoszewski (31:08)
you