138: Faith, Missions, and Gen Z (with Dr. Allen Yeh)

Dr. Allen Yeh shares about generational distinctives and provides perspective on how this impacts views on faith, values, church, and global missions.

• “When we talk about culture, it’s not just ethnicity and nationality or even gender, it’s also age. So the different generations are different cultures, even if they come from the same country.”
• “With Gen Zers, it’s harder to reach them with the institutional church. It’s not necessarily that they are less interested in Christianity; it’s just that the traditional methods don’t work as well.”
• True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In by James Choung
• “The four generations each have a gateway question in order to reach them. For Boomers, their gateway question is ‘what is true?’ For Gen Xers, our gateway question is ‘what is real?’ For Millennials, the gateway question is “what is good?’ and for Gen Zers, the gateway question is ‘what is beautiful?’”
• “If you look at Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the numbers of Christians continue to grow, and in the West, the number of Christians continues to decline.”
• “If the Global Church is starting to look more like the first century church, I think this will attract Gen Zers.”
• “We need to be much more sensitive about our language with Gen Z. Maybe a better word than ‘mission’ could be something like ‘witness.’ That is actually a Biblical word.”
• “The chief verb of the Great Commission is not to evangelize; it is to make disciples.”
• “Discipleship is a long obedience in the same direction.” - Eugene Peterson
• “In the West, we often teach that people have to do believing, then behaving, then belonging. But, in the Bible, it’s more belonging, then believing, then behaving.”
• Jason Dorsey, The Center for Generational Kinetics
• “If the older generation always rolls their eyes at Gen Z and denigrates them, then Gen Z is not going to fulfill their potential; in fact, there’s just going to be generational warfare.”
• “Gen Z has such a huge potential for fulfilling mission in this world.”

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Taking a trip to the mountains in North Carolina to go sledding
• Heather: Unseasonably warm days to read outside on my balcony
• Allen: Job transition

Weekly Spotlight: Thinking Christian International School

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