Episode 214: Next Gen Ready KidMin with Chuck Peters

In this episode with Chuck Peters from Lifeway Next Gen, we explore five enormous needs facing today’s kids and students in Gen Z and Gen Alpha. If you want to better understand and disciple the next generation, this conversation will help you focus on what matters most.

To access Chuck's latest book, Flip the Script, for FREE, visit https://utm.io/ujxKw. Check out their new curriculum at https://tinyurl.com/2zx6kan4, or connect with all of their resources at https://tinyurl.com/3wdf95zx. To receive a FREE KidMin Academy class, email support@kidzmatter.com.

Transcript

Introduction to Gen Z and Gen Alpha Interview with Chuck Peters

If you have ever felt like the kids inside your ministry are speaking a different language, it kind of is because they are. With rapid advances in technology, the booming influence of social media, and the demands of popular culture, today's kids and teens are constantly growing and changing. 

So if you're struggling to keep up, you are not alone. The good news is you still have what it takes to meet them where they are and help them find their way to Jesus. And we're going to help you discover that in today's episode.

I'm your host, Hannah Augustine, and we're going to dive into a conversation about the current needs of Gen Z and Gen Alpha. These dynamic generations represent the kids in our ministries, the teens who serve with us, and the young adults who are rapidly becoming parents. 

Now today's topic is incredibly timely for our KidzMatter community because we just wrapped up our brand new KidMin Academy module on next gen ministry. 

If you don't know what KidMin Academy is, it's our 12-month, 12-module certification in children's ministry featuring live virtual classes, cohort-style small groups, and interaction with top-notch faculty members like Chuck, who we have on the call today. This program is a great investment for KidMin leaders of every experience level. 

So if you're looking to sharpen your skills and strengthen your ministry, we'd actually love to extend the opportunity for you to try a free class to see if this is your next best step. You can email support@kidzmatter.com to get the link to join, and I'll set up a time to have you join our class.

But we are privileged to have Chuck Peters, the director of Lifeway NextGen with us today. His extensive experience in family ministry is really just the tip of the iceberg. We were chatting before we joined the call. But before joining Lifeway, Chuck had a prolific career in television and video production and is actually – fun fact – a three-time Emmy Award-winning producer. I know, very fun, and we won't go there because I know we could talk all day about that. 

But he also recently co-authored an incredible book. I've got it with me, Flip the Script, Disrupting Tradition for the Sake of the Next Generation. And I read it in December and January. I enjoyed every page. But Chuck, we are excited to have you with us today. It's an honor to have you on the call.

Chuck Peters (02:30) 

Hannah, I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for the opportunity.

Hannah Augustine (02:33) 

Of course. 

How and why did you make the switch from the television world and producing and directing to ministry?

Chuck Peters (02:41) 

Yeah, that's, you know, God writes our stories in such fun ways. 

I never ever would have imagined that I would be doing what I'm doing now as a leader, you know, in the next-gen ministry space.

I went to bible college and I studied television and video and Bible. And I always had a desire to want to put those two things together, ministry and media, being two of my great passions. I met my wife there. We went to Columbia Bible College in Columbia, South Carolina. Shout out to CIU. And then I grew up in New Jersey and she's from Chicago. 

So we moved to New Jersey and I was a student pastor at our church. I became a youth pastor. This is way back in the early 90s and she worked in the preschool department at our church. And so we did ministry side by side. 

Then my television career kind of kicked off and we moved from New Jersey to California to Orlando. And there was a pivotal day after winning those Emmys when I came home from work one day, doing good in terms of making money and doing well. But not doing good in the sense that this wasn't what God made me to do. So I came home and I said, honey, I feel like I need to quit my job and figure out how to get back into ministry. 

There was an opportunity to come to Nashville to join a company that made media-driven Sunday school curriculum, KidMo, if anybody knows KidMo back in the day with Johnny Rogers. That was my introduction to the children's ministry space. That was in 2008, and I have been involved in kids ministry ever since then, and I absolutely love it.

Over the last two years, God opened up a new opportunity for my team at Lifeway to expand and include student ministry again. So I went from students to kids, fell in love with kids' ministry and preschool ministry. And now I have student ministry back as well. So it's been quite a journey. 

When you look backwards, you can see how God used every step along the way and it makes perfect sense. But when you're in that journey, each step is a huge step of faith. And we just have to trust that God's lead is there. And as I look back, He absolutely was in my life. I never could have imagined that I'd be doing what I'm doing today. And I'm so grateful that I get to.

Hannah Augustine (04:56) 

Hearing how people started in children's ministry always makes me smile because I think for most of us, we didn't wake up and just say, “I want to be in children's ministry”. We weren't thinking that in elementary school or even in college. And so to hear how people get led by the Lord into that season is always encouraging. So thank you for sharing that.

Chuck Peters (05:14) 

My daughter is the children's minister at my church. And so my wife and I serve every Sunday. I lead large groups every Sunday morning for our elementary, K through five. So I'm still deeply involved with the hands-on part of ministry too.

Hannah Augustine (05:29) 

That is so huge because I think sometimes we can get involved in the behind the scenes and we forget what it's like to be boots on the ground, right? 

So I love that you're living it out that you're having that opportunity to be involved. Elementary is my favorite. So I'm a little biased. All the ages are important, but that elementary age is a really special time. 

And you actually, in your role, we were just chatting about this, how you get to oversee all the way up through college. You know, kind of children's ministry through college ministry. And I want to, as we start this – don't tune out if you're listening – and think okay, well the teenagers are not you know part of what I do I truly believe in children's ministry. You are ministering to the entire church family because you have babies, you've got elementary, you've got teenagers, who are volunteering with you. My story, I started serving in middle school and that's kind of what got me to where I am today. You've got high schoolers involved in your ministries. You have young adults who serve. And at this point Gen Z, who will be talking about today, they have children in your ministries, which is wild, but they have kids.

And so this conversation about Gen Z and Gen Alpha applies to every phase and stage of the church. So whatever your role lean into this, take some notes because we're gonna be diving into some ways that we can help minister to these generations. 

But I'd love to hear Chuck, why are you so passionate about this next gen ministry concept?

Chuck Peters (06:35)

Absolutely. Yes. So having been in kids ministry for quite a while, you observe children as they move through our programming in church and to see how they engage with the gospel, how they engage with God's word. And this generation, they were profoundly, deeply, impacted in a very negative way through the whole COVID pandemic.

I have a son who is now 17, who was 12 at the time. And during that season, the school shut down, our church is closed. We all remember this, right? Our church is closed, we distanced, we were masked. My son during that season had five different adult men in his life - two coaches and three dads of friends - who died during COVID. And that's the story of a lot of kids in this generation. And so what we see as we begin to look at how this generation interacts, it's very different from any previous generation. 

So our millennial friends, I'm an X-er, it was different for us, right? And so although many of us were deeply impacted by that, it was during the formational developmental years for this generation that that happened. 

And so because of that, it's driven them to what we see and can observe as chronic loneliness, isolation, depression, and anxiety. They are the most connected generation of all time through technology, but they are the loneliest and most isolated in real life. The idea of having a relationship with God is something that is a concept that we need to take some extra steps to help them connect those dots. 

We know also statistically that this generation is the most unchurched generation in all history of America in the West. So we can see the decline, generation after generation in those who attend church and who identify as Christian. 

And so the current generation is a generation of kids whose parents didn't go to church and whose grandparents didn't go to church. Or if they did, they walked away at some point in time. And so it's a generation that really functions as an unchurched generation. They've been unchurched, underchurched, de-churched, or never-churched. 

When they come into our spaces, we can't just do what we've always done. We can't use the same language we've always used. We can't assume any pre-existing knowledge that they know who God is, what the Bible is, they don't know the stories of the Bible, or the names of the people in the Bible. And so we have to back up three steps from what we used to do, right? 

We maybe could have used to assume that if a child was in our church that they were ready to listen and learn or that they had some sense of understanding and we cannot make that assumption anymore. In fact, we need to assume that the ones we're talking to don't have any biblical background or Christian worldview and we have to start from ground zero every single week.

Hannah Augustine (09:50)

That is great insight. You had a wonderful analogy in Flip the Script that if you're trying to teach someone how to run, you lift, okay, lift your leg, then lift your other leg, and then start doing it faster. And then as you're trying to teach them, you realize that you're talking to a fish and a fish can't run, that is what we're doing with this next generation. I loved that analogy because it's so easy to think, what worked for me or what I learned, depending on your generation, how you grew up, is going to work again. 

And I think there are some timeless things, and we'll talk about some of those, but there are methods that need to change. There's some ways we need to approach this differently. 

When I lived in West Palm Beach, it was one of the most unchurched areas at the time. And so you even mentioned a couple of terms, right? Dechurched, meaning you went to church and no longer go. Churched, meaning you go regularly or unchurched, meaning you have no concept of church, right? You don't know what that looks like. 

And that is where a lot of our kids are coming from. They don't know how to "behave" in church. They don't know how to relate to what we're trying to teach them. So I really am excited to dive into these five needs you're going to talk about.

Chuck Peters (10:58)

They don't know the verses, they don't know the songs, they don't know the hand motions. And something we need to be very careful of and that we need to be aware of. So much of this Hannah, is about how we need to change our awareness as adults. We need to be aware that we need to communicate differently with this generation of kids. And so part of that is we inadvertently, unintentionally be sending a message to them that you don't belong here if you ask a question. 

And so I've completely changed the way that I lead large group at my church. We'll have five or six hundred kids over the course of several services every week at our church. I have begun to change my way of leading away from asking a question to the group. 

So something like, you know, there was a man who was in the desert. And this bush was on fire, and God spoke to him from the bush. What was his name? 

And you know, in the past people would be like, Moses, that was Moses. 

Now there's crickets, right? 

Nobody knows the answer. 

Even the kids who are church kids are afraid to answer it so they don't want to be embarrassed if they're wrong. 

Everyone feels dumb. 

No one feels like they belong. Right? 

And so I've flipped the way that I do that now where I feed them the answer. Guys, there was this moment in the desert where this guy named Moses. What was his name? Moses! Everybody speaks the answer. 

They learn it by repeating it and now I can set up the story. Okay, let me tell you what happened with this guy named Moses and how God used him. 

And so now everyone feels that they belong. No one feels dumb. And so it's a way that everyone feels included. We really have a generation of kids who need to feel that they belong before they believe.

Hannah Augustine (12:47)

That's an excellent example of what y'all talk about in the book. 

But also just adapting and recognizing. Again, you did the same thing. You taught the same truth, right? But you adapted how you did it and you made it where anybody entering in can feel comfortable. Whether they're an adult, a child, a teenager, they feel welcome. 

And even this is a totally different conversation, but your volunteers in your ministries don't have the same biblical foundation that maybe you have, right? They're learning for the first time, potentially some of these stories.

Chuck Peters (12:55)

That's right. That's right.

Absolutely. That's great.

Hannah Augustine (13:17)

Now obviously if you have volunteers teaching and leading, you want to make sure they have a certain level of understanding. Depending on where you are, you may have people who are very much early in their faith serving in your ministries and that's a wonderful thing because they're getting to experience Jesus at a level that's foundational. 

It's not childish, but it's foundational.

Chuck Peters (13:22)

And we have so many leaders or so many testimonies of people who started leading and teaching in Sunday school with kids, who grew their faith or came to faith. I had a leader a few months ago who was in the middle of a service with kids, Mr. Eric. He came and he said, I need to leave right now because we were doing a baptism service. He's like, I need to leave and go get baptized right now. 

And so we were able to put the video on the screen and let the kids watch their teacher go get baptized. And it was such a powerful moment, right? 

God is working the lives of not just the kids. 

Kids' ministry, next gen ministry, is all gen ministry.

You had mentioned all those who serve the ones who we are. It's really this is how we come together for the sake of the next generation is really what we need to be aware of.

Hannah Augustine (14:24)

So good. And I'd love to kind of turn towards these five needs of Gen Z and Gen Alpha that you've unpacked as a Lifeway team. And the first one is the need to feel emotionally safe. And you've already helped demonstrate how we do that. But dive a little deeper into that, that first one.

Chuck Peters (14:37)

Yeah, so there were two big, huge takeaways that were profound takeaways. Spoiler alert, if you haven't read the book and you don't want to know, plug your ears, but I think you want to know. 

Those two big things, Hannah, were the huge need for belonging. 

I mentioned the kids need to be able to belong before they believe. They're longing for belonging. They're looking for someone to accept them, to love them and care for them, regardless of their behavior. They're looking for belonging. 

The other is this huge need in the culture to define identity. 

And so they are looking to identify as something and we've heard that language in the culture with gender identity issues and all kinds of different things that enter in. And at the end, the strategy, everything that we're pointing to is to speak to those two huge needs. We need to be aware of the need for belonging and the quest to define identity. 

And the short answer is this, we need to lead our kids to find belonging in the church and identity in Christ. That's it.

It's simple, it's timeless. And so part of that is we need to know who we're talking to. And that's where we get to these five things. So as you said, the first one is they have this huge need and this comes back to that need for belonging. This huge need to feel emotionally safe. 

And so the key word for me there is that they need to feel emotionally safe, So we can say you are Safe, you're gonna be okay here. But if they don't feel safe, they won't be able to hear what we have to say. It's like there's this invisible force field that goes up and the defenses and the shields are up. And until they know that we care about them and that they can trust us they will not be able to listen to what we have to say.

So this is a generation who does not carry great admiration for corporations or for institutions or for denominations or for accreditation. It doesn't matter how many degrees we have or how many Emmys, whatever it is. Kids don't respect that. 

What they want to know is that Miss Hannah knows me and she cares about me. And when they know that you care, then it's that old saying, it's trite but it's true, they don't care what you know until they know that you care. It is so true for this generation. And so in order to do that, we need to invest energy to win their trust and gain their respect, so that we can have influence in their lives. And it has to be done in a way that's relational. 

So statistically speaking, 48%, these are some stats that are in the book. 48% of this generation say that they are moderately or extremely depressed. That's half of them.

61% say that the adults in their life have no idea the extent to which they truly struggle. 

And 50% identify with 10 of the 11 feelings that are associated with chronic loneliness. 

It's a medicated generation. 42% have been diagnosed with a mental health condition. 

And of those, 57% are on some kind of meds to regulate their mental health. 

18% of older kids and students believe that they think about self harm or they think that things would be better if they were dead. This idea of the weight of depression and anxiety on them is massive and immense. And if we don't acknowledge that we can just plow through and be like, just suck it up kids, you know, whatever toughen up. 

But when we're aware of the deep effects of traumas in the lives of this generation, we can change our posture, right? So that we can care for their fears, their anxieties, their insecurities. 

And so part of that for me, a practical way that I address that in a ministry would be we need to allow kids to show up, and I see this every week, some of them show up just fine, but others show up either ramped up or shut down.

And when they're in hype mode, hyper mode, they can't listen. And when they are shut down, they can't listen. We need to build in some time in our ministry at the beginning to intentionally find ways to help them regulate and assimilate so that they can take a breath and relax. 

And it's when they feel emotionally safe that their eyes, ears, hearts, and minds are open to hear what it is that we have to say. But we have to take that extra step, one, to be aware of this need, and then two, to find practical ways to help them settle to a point where they can engage.

Hannah Augustine (19:03)

That is incredible. The book that comes to mind, I don't know if you've read it, but it's Trauma Informed Children's Ministry by Dr. Robert Crosby. My goodness. I probably should be getting royalties. I think I reference it on this podcast all the time. 

But what you're talking about is recognizing how many of these kids have been affected by a trauma and large, small, whatever, know, little T, big T trauma. It is a legitimate trauma. And many of these kids just by living through COVID, right, are automatically inducted into that category. And then you add all the other things. So for those of us who, you know, millennials and up, who grew up differently before the prevalence of cell phones, before the prevalence of social media, and even tv was different, right? So we may not understand how they're coming in and what they're experiencing digitally, with their parents, in their schools. 

And so putting that aside, that idea of "well, toughen up". Is there a place for that? Sometimes, probably, but our general approach should be seeking to understand. And saying, hey, let me meet you where you are and try to understand where you're coming from. Instead of this, “well, they're acting up”. Which again, it is frustrating. 

It can be difficult on a Sunday to navigate behaviors and things like that, but I've always felt the Holy Spirit speak to me when I would walk up to a child and I'm frustrated because they're throwing a chair or poking someone with a pencil or whatever it is. And then the Holy Spirit would slow me down and remind me behavior is communication. And let me pause and see what this is communicating to me. And let me make room to care for this situation instead of just shutting it down or correcting it.

Chuck Peters (20:26)

Yes. It's a great opportunity when there is a moment of acting out of some kind. Our initial posture, mind, where my mind goes first, is this child is giving me a hard time. They're being disruptive in some way that distracts everyone else. But when I shift my mind away from thinking they're giving me a hard time to their having a hard time, then I can be there to help them rather than be against them. 

We're partners. We're not adversaries with our kids. No, those disruptions are not okay. We need to not have that happen. But we need to meet that with a form of gentleness and understanding that will get us there. And again, I have found that in a relationship, when I know that the child is having a hard time, had a hard time last week, or the last two or three weeks.

I've got a little girl like this in our ministry. I have found that when I see her come in the room and she's got a grumpy face, if I approach her, and kneel down, and call her by name, and ask about her art project that she's worked on this week, or asked about her dog, she began to engage with me. And then when she is having a harder time later, I can then call her by name and say, hey, are you okay? Do you want to tell me what's going on? And she responds much better in that context of the relationship rather than I'm the leader, you be quiet. That sit still, be quiet, face-forward sort of format doesn't work well in kids' space, right?

We need to allow there to be room for some noise and some engagement. We need to, as adults, change our sense of awareness to those who have some sort of an emotional need that we can meet if we just meet them in a relationship.

Hannah Augustine (22:20)

And that ties in really well actually with the second need, right? Which is the need for a leader who loves them. And you touched on that and even what you just shared about that intentionality of having the conversation, remembering a detail about them, right? 

Remembering to follow up on a prayer request, shared in a small group, or the pet that was sick or whatever it is, is so huge. 

But what are some other aspects to that second need?

Chuck Peters (22:25)

Yeah, so this is the second enormous need that kids have and that's for a leader who loves them. The key word there is who loves them. 

We all have kids that we know. So it's not just a leader who knows them, right? We would say know them by name, know their name and their need in their situation. And that's kind of where I started two years ago with we need to know our kids and they need a leader who knows them. 

And as I have spent more and more time in this space, just knowing them is not enough. What they need is a leader who loves them. For most of us, Hannah, our testimony is not about a program we went through, although many of us maybe came to the Lord through camp, or VBS, or some sort of a program, but it's always connected to a person. To an adult leader who cared enough to share the gospel. 

For me, it was a little old lady when I was in fourth grade named Mrs. Meyers, who was my Sunday school teacher, and she led a little Bible club I went to in the summer. And I had grown up in the church and heard the gospel many times, but when Mrs. Myers shared it with me I received it in a different way because of that relationship. Because I knew that she loved me. She cared about me and she wasn't just trying to sell me something, right? She genuinely was concerned about me.

The key here is we, knowing that they have this longing for belonging, right? This is a generation that is lonely and isolated. They have a deep need for human interface and have somebody who just loves them. 

What we need to do is we need to find ways that we can love our kids.

There's a couple leaders, teachers actually, who I like to quote. So Dr. James Comer is an educator, he's a child psychologist at Yale University. He said, "No significant learning can occur without significant relationships". 

That's profound that a professor at Yale would say learning and relationship go together.

We need to have, as teachers or leaders of any kind, we have to teach and lead from a place of relationship. 

Another one is a teacher named Rita Pierson. She's an educator. She's now passed away, but she has a really famous TED talk that you can find on YouTube. It's got like 8 billion views or something. In her TED Talk, she said this, she said, "Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best they can possibly be." 

Here are two secular educators who say the power of connection is so crucial for kids and every child deserves a champion. And Hannah, if that's true in a secular educational setting, how much more true should that be in our church? 

That every child in your church needs a champion in your church who knows their name and their need and their situation, who loves them, who misses them when they're gone, and who celebrates them when they come back. 

When Kennedy has been away for three weeks and Mr. Chuck, when she comes back says, "Kennedy, where have you been? I've been looking for you." She just lights up, right? Because it shows the value that I have expressed to her, and they need that from us. Every child in our church and your church needs some adult to be a champion in their life.

Hannah Augustine (25:56)

And this is where I think there are some things that are universal, right? 

And I encourage people that I talk to, think back to when you were, like you shared, five, six, seven, eight, whatever it is, and remember what you needed. And maybe you got what you needed in the form of a Mrs. Myers or some other adult influence. Maybe you didn't have that. And so I think sometimes we don't know what to do because we didn't have it exemplified for us. But think, what do I wish I had? What would have changed my life at that young age if I had someone who would listen or care or speak into me.

So thinking that way, right? How do we have those moments, big, small, everything in between, where we communicate value? And we communicate, I care about you. Not just the crowd, but you as an individual.

Chuck Peters (26:46)

And the other part, Hannah, that's so key is that I am challenging and encouraging kids' ministry leaders to develop a new vision for volunteers. There was a day pre-COVID, let's go back there where many of us had leaders, teachers like Mrs. Myers who've been leading for 25 years. They're a master teacher. They teach Sunday school. They open the Bible and speak to kids. We lost a lot of those folks, not because we physically lost them through COVID, but a lot of them took that as an opportunity to step away, to step back. 

We wound up with a whole new type of volunteer. That's the post-COVID volunteer who may not have the spiritual maturity, who may not have the experience as a teacher or the confidence as a teacher, but who has a heart that wants to serve and help, that wants to be involved. 

I have five C’s that I recommend as requirements things that I look for in a volunteer, okay? So the five C’s – it's committed, consistent, connected, Christ-like in their character, and care about kids. 

So none of that is, they have to be cool. Cool is not one of the five C’s. Leave that aside. We need them to be committed and consistent. Those two are huge ones. 

Obviously to care about kids and have a Christ-like character, it's more important to me that you live your life in a way that exemplifies God's presence in your walk because you can teach the Bible story but kids will watch what we do more than they hear what we say, right? 

And so if they see that my life lines up with what I'm teaching, they'll be more inclined to build that trust and respect that lead to influence. But the committed and the consistent are two areas that I believe we need to address with our volunteers right up front. And say, look, here's the deal, we have to reach these kids in relationships. And that means as they become more infrequent and less consistent in their attendance, we need to be even more consistent in ours. Because kids need to see the same faces in the same places, right? 

So I am the opposite of a proponent. Opposite of a proponent of the idea that everybody, every parent has to serve one week. Everyone serves out of need and obligation. When we're begging people, just anybody, we'll take anybody who can be here so we don't have to shut down the nursery. No, no, no. We need to be selective about people to choose people of the right character. 

There's a great passage in Exodus 18 where Jethro comes to visit Moses out in the desert and his father-in-law sees what he's doing and he says, “Moses, what you're doing is not good. You need other people to be involved, to share the load, and you need others who can carry these things with you.” 

So we need volunteers who are committed, that we select based on their character. Equip and then empower them to do the work. When kids are gone for a season and they come back, they need to see that Mrs. Myers or that Miss Hannah or that Mr. Chuck, that we're still there. If they come back and we're off that week and then we come back, and they're not there that week, we can miss one another. 

The cumulative effects of face-to-face hours over time of an adult with that child in a group setting is powerful in that child's walk. And if it's a different adult each time, the relational side of this goes away, and it becomes a functional side. 

For many of us, it's a practical thing, but I'm challenging leaders to change our thinking about that, that we need to ask leaders to run for a stretch where they just are there every single week, and then maybe we give them a longer break. But it's so important for those children to see those leaders. 

So the word FLIP in Flip the Script, Hannah, is an acronym for four big relationships that every kid needs to have. We've talked about leaders, that's the L. So it's friends, leaders, influencers, and pastors. So there's three more that we can talk about another time or that you can look for in the book. But those relationships are so key that we actually call them out in a subtle way in the title of the book itself.

A free digital version that I will get you the link for. I would love for you to buy the book. That's great. I don't get anything if you do. If you want a physical copy, that's great. But I would be just as happy to send you that digital PDF. Fill out a form and we can make that available for free and you can use it. Share it with as many people as you want to.

Hannah Augustine (31:10)

That's amazing. I will throw that in the show notes for sure. 

Moving to number three, the need for a biblical worldview. This is huge. Let's talk about it.

Chuck Peters (31:15)

Yes. Our worldview is the lens through which we interpret what happens in our lives and in the world around us.

For the first time in history, the Judeo-Christian worldview is the minority worldview in this generation. That has been passed by the secular worldview. Everything that they hear in music, movies, and at school, from most of their teachers, or many of their teachers, is really based on a secular understanding, an atheistic understanding of how things happen. It's just luck or it's, you know, good or bad people. 

But even that idea of good and bad is something that's foreign to them, right? Because that's part of our worldview. To these kids today, you know, we used to say the meaning of life is – not the meaning as Christians – but generally in the population, it was to do good and be kind. And that was understood by people who even didn't know the Lord. It was just part of the culture. 

Well, that is not what it is anymore. So now the primary worldview is secularistic and it's really the center of life in the world is self. It's about my wants, my needs, following my heart. That is antithetical to the gospel. 

This is a generation of kids who do not accept the concept of sin. And so the idea that someone is a sinner, which we would say is we're all born sinners by nature, right? And so, and that's why we need a savior. But for a generation that doesn't accept the concept of sin in the first place, does not see a need for salvation or forgiveness. Why should I be forgiven? I haven't done anything wrong. 

If the highest measure is my own opinion or my own perspective, then your truth can be your truth and my truth can be my truth. Truth becomes something that is not absolute. We wind up in a place where we have a disconnect for how we even communicate with the generation.

We at Lifeway have Lifeway Research, which is a renowned research organization. But I also see all the other research too. Our friends at Barna did some research recently where they asked several questions of the generation about, I think about 56% of those surveyed said, Gen Zers said they had a biblical worldview. But as they asked questions about what that look like, Barna found that only 4% actually live a biblical worldview.

So this idea that the Bible should be the lens through which we understand the world is what we need to work on, right? So if we interpret what we read in the Bible based on our secular worldview, we read the Bible differently. But when we interpret the world based on what we read in the Bible, we get God's perspective. 

We need to be leaders who point kids to the Word, to Scripture. We need to celebrate and elevate scripture. 

I would say if you're doing kids' ministry without a physical Bible, you're doing it wrong. Kids need to know that the things we're teaching don't come from a sheet of paper that you printed. They don't come from your phone. I'm a huge proponent of having leaders bring their own Bible. Not even just using a classroom Bible, although that's better than not using a physical Bible to look up the verse. But when I can bring my Bible and my kids can see when I hold that up. That the cover is worn, and they can see the highlights, and the underlines, and things that I've written in the margin. They can see that that's a book that's special to me. It's a way, again, of modeling that the Bible is such an important book.

Worldview is the front lines of the battle for this generation. So Satan wants to undermine the worldview that the Bible is the answer and we have a generation of kids who have not been instilled in them that value. 

So again, it comes back to we need to know who we're talking to. It's a generation who doesn't know the books of the Bible, the people of the Bible, the stories of the Bible. 

But I see the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, God's heart for the ones who are far from him. If we're honest, I believe over the course of history, the Church, universally, has focused our ministries on the care and feeding of the 99 who are already in the fold. And I think it's time for us with this generation to begin to seek the ones in a new way, the ones who are far, who are distant, who need to be found and carried home. 

God's heart for the ones who are far from him is so beautiful as we see it in the lost, the son, the prodigal. We need to be speaking in our classrooms, in language that the ones will understand, with examples that they understand. 

I'm also a huge fan of object lessons. A child may not know what it means to have a connection with God, but they all understand what it means to have your phone connected and plugged into the power source, right? And if you don't plug it in, it's going to run out of battery and die. And then I can use that as a way of saying in the same way, we need to connect with God every day through reading our Bibles and through prayer so that we can stay charged up and energized to live for Him. So I love things like that. That's a picture that anyone can understand that frames biblical truth in ways that are easy for kids to grasp.

Hannah Augustine (36:43)

I love it. It's so critical. It's like you said, to start with God's word. Let that be what's guiding every moment of your time with your kids, right? And reinforcing the importance of scripture. 

Now moving to number four, the need to know that God has spoken to their identity.

Chuck Peters (36:58)

Yeah, we know it's a generation where they feel not only the opportunity to define themselves, they feel the pressure to define themselves. How do you define? How will you define? They are pressed to choose an identity and that is just not how it should be, right? Again, talk about counter to the gospel, right? So I think that we have not been consistent in the church. To tell kids who God says they are. 

We read a lot of stories and we pull out moral applications – be good, be kind, whatever those things are, be generous, be forgiving – but we don't often get to what God says that you are. The Bible's full of things that God tells us about who we are. 

Our identity is something that's God assigned, not self-defined.

We need to tell them that. God has spoken to your identity. 

He tells us who we are. 

And then we need to be faithful to find moments in our studies when we can say, wait, wait, do you see that? God says that he knows you. He knows the hairs in your head. Psalm 139, He knows what you're gonna say before you're gonna say it. There's nowhere you can go that He's not with you. You're never alone because God is always with you. So although you may feel alone, God is always with you. You are never alone. That's part of your identity. You are broken. 

And so I mentioned the sin concept is a hard one for kids, but they all understand the idea of brokenness. They can see the broken world, they see the brokenness in the news, they see brokenness in their families, in relationships, even in their own thinking and feeling, we sense that my thinking is broken. We can start with that and say, okay, yes, we see all these things that are broken.

They're broken because of this thing called sin. That's what broke them. It's not how God made it. It's not how he intended it. He made the world perfect. Sin entered in and broke everything and then he sent Jesus to put it back together. He takes broken things and fixes them, right? And he does that for each of us when we trust in what Jesus has done. 

So we need to build those bridges. Ultimately, everyone needs to know that who I am is because of the great I Am. As I get to know God, I get to see what He's shared with me. 

In chapter four in the book, we unpack 12 simple biblical identity truths that every kid needs to know before they leave your ministry.

So as I said earlier, the whole idea of becoming a Christian is to find a new identity which is your true identity in Christ.

Hannah Augustine (39:33)

You need your leaders to be reinforcing this on an individual level in their groups in their activity time. When they hear someone say I'm a mistake or no one cares about me, they can respond with that truth from scripture. Actually, the Bible says God knows you by name God knows the hairs on your head and flipping that script and saying, we're going to change the internal dialogue and even learn how you can help your kids learn. 

I think there's this huge culture shift, right, of affirmations and naming, claiming things. But saying, man, let's write some declarations, right? And say, hey, what are some biblical truths that you as a child for this whole week? I want you to write out this verse and say, I am known. And I want you to learn how to write this on your mirror or to put it in your backpack so that when you're feeling this way, the truth can be known instead of the lie.

Chuck Peters (40:24)

And you don't need to have a curriculum that does that for you to get there. It doesn't matter what you teach. Now we make curriculum at Lifeway. That's what we do, curriculum and VBS. We have created a brand new line called Hyfi where the whole study is around these 12 identity truths to help kids find identity in Christ. So if this is something that resonates with you, check that out. 

But regardless of what you use for your resource, we do need to do, just like you said Hannah, instill within our leaders eyes to see. And we can even look ahead as the leader of leaders and say, "hey, this week there's a couple really cool identity truths that we can pull out”. As you have discussions in small group time, look for ways to introduce this concept that shows that they're never alone, because God is always with us. Or whatever that truth would be. We just need to have eyes to see so that we can begin to elevate that.

One of the best ways like you said is through that leader who loves them to be able to share that not from the big stage, but in that small circle face-to-face.

Hannah Augustine (41:22)

Lastly, number five, the need to know Jesus relationally.

Chuck Peters (41:25)

Absolutely. The goal isn't for them to know about Jesus. It's to know Jesus in relationship. 

I've got a large, wonderful team at Lifeway Next Gen, 45 or 46 people who live all over the country. So we're now in a work from anywhere environment. We get together a couple of times a year. And so often when we get together, I like to take the whole team out to do some kind of activity, right? So we went bowling a recent time. And as we were bowling, things like that always turn into word pictures for me, into object lessons. 

So I think of that bowling alley with the two gutters, right? There's a gutter on each side, and the goal is don't get in the gutter, because it's a zero on the score. It's harder to do than you would think. And I think this theme is true in our kids' ministries. 

Okay, there's a couple gutters that we need to be aware of to be careful to avoid. The first gutter is one that what it means to be a Christian is about what you know.

It's intellectualism. If we have kids who did know who Moses was, we have a kid who does know the books of the Bible, we've got a kid who did memorize a bunch of verses or who could raise their hand and give that Sunday school answer in the moment, we think that kid is good because they know it all. Clearly, they're in relationship with God. Not necessarily, okay? 

So the other side, the other gutter is what I would call behavioralism. That what it means to be a follower of Jesus is seen by how you act. So there's knowledge of facts and then there's evidence of act, what we know, what we do. And that is how being a Christian means you don't go to certain places and you do go to others. You don't have certain friends and you do have different ones. You don't watch certain movies or listen to certain music and it becomes about a list of do's and don'ts in and of themselves. Neither one of those things is wrong, right? 

We want to have Bible knowledge and we want to have good behavior, but behavior modification is not the same as heart transformation. Same with mental transformation or mental information is not heart transformation. 

And so the middle of the lane where the pins are that we're trying to hit, it's all about the heart. It's heart transformation. 

So the goal, the heart of our kids' ministries has to be reaching the heart of the child. The reason that we know that those gutters are real is because the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the teachers of the law knew everything. They had the Bible memorized, all of the law. They could recite the details of the law and they kept it. They obeyed the law to a fault, right? And they accused other people who didn't obey the law as good as they did. Jesus, when he interacted with them, what did he say? He said, you're like whitewashed tombs. You're painted white and clean on the outside, but on the inside you're full of dead men's bones. You're like a cup that's clean on the outside, but filthy inside. And he said, these are people who honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 

Guys, that is not what we want for our kids. I think of those two gutters, instead of when you go to a kids party, they put up those bumpers, let's let those gutters become bumpers, right? So knowledge is great in that if the ball bounces off it and is redirected to the heart, yes. Behavior is great as long as it redirects to the heart.

That's the caution, that the goal is not just to fill their heads with knowledge, it's not just to make them do better, nicer things. The goal, and so this is another big kind of a profound thing, which may be an unpopular statement, I don't know. 

For me, the goal of kids' ministry is not to make better kids. The goal of kids' ministry is to train up godly adults. When we set our sights on short-term results,one, we can manipulate things to get the result we're looking for. If they're nicer, better behaved, we're succeeding. 

At the end of the day, we know that more than 60% of students or young people walk away from the faith when they leave home after high school. That's the time that matters, is that it would instill in them a knowledge of who God is and who he's made them to be and connect them in real genuine relationship with him so that they don't walk away when they leave home, and that they continue to live for the Lord and walk with him into adulthood. That's the goal. We need to set our sights on something bigger and farther away. 

We need to aim for the heart. And when we aim for the heart, the behavior and the knowledge will follow. 

I have little hand motions that I use for these five things. So I use the thumb for number one, right? They need to feel emotionally safe. They need to have a leader who loves them. I rotate the finger up and make an L. They need to have a biblical worldview. There's my W. They need to know that God has spoken to their identity. There's my four little people. Hey little people. And then raise a hand that can praise. They need to know Jesus in relationship.

So those are those five enormous needs of Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

Hannah Augustine (46:15)

Okay, every KidMin leader loves a good motion, so thank you for the hand motions. That was amazing.

Walking away from this. I hope you can really summarize for yourself, what are these five things? And this is a good framework: look at your children's ministry. How am I doing in these five areas? Am I meeting these needs? You may find you're thriving in one area, maybe relationally, but maybe there's areas where you could change how you're teaching to better reflect identity and biblical worldview. So take some time, assess this, get the book. We'll link that. It's a great read, an easy read. You can sit down, give it an hour, two hours, you can read through that and grow and learn and just prepare yourself for this next year and for this season. Because it's okay to not know everything. 

So the first step is admitting, "I need to grow in this area." Because we don't know. We're not Gen Z. We're not Gen Alpha. You know, I'm not five years old anymore. I don't know what they're watching on YouTube. But take the time to learn it, and to say hey, I want to meet them where they're at. I want to understand where they're coming from so that I can minister most effectively for Jesus so that like you said, we're gonna have not just behavior-modified kids, but godly adults in the future. Chuck, thank you so much. We're so thankful for you and the Lifeway team. Y'all are making such an impact on the next generation and the church. So thank you. And I would love it if you would close us in prayer.

Chuck Peters (47:24)

I would love that. Let me pray over you. God, thank you for this group of leaders. It's not by accident, God, but you have brought this session to our ears so that we could have greater understanding of how we might change our thinking and adjust our strategy so that we can more effectively reach this generation of kids. God, we do what we do because we love you and we do what we do because we love kids. And God, we want to be effective in connecting them to you in relationship.

God, may we walk in close relationship with you and may the overflow of that fill our ministries.

And it's in His name that we pray, amen.

Hannah Augustine (48:12)

Amen. If you're listening, you want to connect with Lifeway, feel free to check out that link in the show notes to grab that book and that'll I believe get them on your email list. So you'll be able to hear all the awesome updates from Lifeway. And if you want that free KidMin Academy class, you can email our team at support@kidzmatter.com and we'll get you set up for that. Chuck, thank you again and we will see you all next time.

Chuck Peters (48:33)

Thank you, Hannah.