Theology in the Raw - 858: Understanding GenZ: Grant Skeldon

Episode Date: April 15, 2021

Grant Skeldon is a leading expert in understanding GenZ and has spent the last several years of his life raising up and discipling GenZ leaders. In this podcast episode, Grant walks us through an indepth look at GenZ and corrects some wrong assumptions older people have about this vibrant generation.  Grant started Initiative Network when he was 23 with the goal to develop young leaders into Christ-loving, city-changing, church-investing, disciple-making local missionaries. Initiative has united and accelerated some of the most diverse and dynamic next gen leaders from across the country. In 2020 Grant got married and moved to Nashville to become the Next Gen Director for Q. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Relevant, and The Gospel Coalition. His book on millennials, The Passion Generation has helped thousands of pastors and parents who are trying to reach, raise, and retain the next generation. Grant serves on the board of Catalyst, as well as an associate for Leadership Network and Exponential. Learn more about Grant on his website: http://grantskeldon.com Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have on the show today, my friend Grant Skelton. Grant is a leader among the next generation. He started the Initiative Network when he was 23 years old with the goal of developing young leaders into Christ-loving, city-changing, church-investing, disciple-making local missionaries. Grant, that's a mouthful, but that really does capture your heart. And just in the short time I've known Grant, I've learned a lot, so much about Gen Z. Gen Z, those who were born after the year 2000-ish. And Grant is 30 years old, so he's a millennial. So we talk a lot about the difference between millennials and Gen Z. And I learned a lot in this episode. And every time I hang out with Grant, I just learn a ton about how to not just reach, but

as he says, disciple the next generation of Christian leaders. Grant is the author of The Passion Generation. Oh, what's the subtitle on this? The Seemingly Reckless, Definitely Disruptive, but Far from Hopeless Millennials by Grant Skelton, published by Zondervan. leader of Q ideas. A lot of you know about Q ideas. In fact, when this podcast comes out, I will either be at or getting ready to leave for the Q conference out in Nashville. No, it is not Q and on. Okay, people. It is Q ideas, the conference, the cultural culture summit, I think it's called in Nashville, April 22nd and 23rd. So anyway, if you would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw and support the show for as little as five bucks a month and get access to premium content, including once a month podcasts that I record answering all of the questions sent

in from my Patreon supporters, once a month blogs that I write for my Patreon supporters. So join the Patreon community, or sorry, join the Theology in the Raw community at patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. Okay, without further ado, let's get to know the one and only Grant Skelton. Hello, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I'm here with my friend Grant Skelton. Grant, thanks so much for being on the show for the first time. Yeah, man, thank you for having us. We're wearing the same thing, bro.

You got the memo. Oh, good. Thank you for having us. We're wearing the same thing, bro. You got the memo. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. For those who are listening only, we are, this is also a video. We do this video and audio. So there is a YouTube version of this conversation. But Grant, why don't you give us a little introduction to who you are for people that don't know your name. Why don't you give us a little introduction to who you are for people that don't know your name? And then I really want to dive into this. I mean, just a really pertinent topic of understanding and ministering to and coming alongside and learning from Gen Z, which I know that's the world you've been living in for a while. But who are you, Grant?

Yeah, yeah. My name is Grant Skelton. You know, the Skelton name is a South African name, actually. So my dad's South African. My mom is the youngest of 14 in this massive Mexican family. And so I'm half South African, half Mexican dude from Dallas. I've been in Dallas, honestly, my whole life until four months ago in the midst of COVID. four months ago, in the midst of COVID, some things started shaking up and I started feeling some clarity from God on stuff to where I kind of got to know you through this transition even is

about four or five months ago, I got married. I moved to Nashville and I moved to Nashville because I just recently joined Q Ideas with Gabe and Rebecca Lyons. I have a history of speaking on behalf of younger generations, especially more so the millennial generation, but mostly to older generations to help them either, whether it's pastors that are just trying to reach the next generation, parents that are trying to raise the next generation, or sometimes a lot of times business leaders that are trying to better retain the next generation. So many millennials were job hopping. And then I wrote a book with Zondervan called The Passion Generation. The keynotes version is, it's kind of a Trojan horse book that acts like it's a book to help you better reach the next generation. But it's really just a book about how you should disciple the next generation and how to practically do that. It's a very practical book on discipling the next generation where instead of meeting with them one-on-one once a month or once a week, it's more about including them in your life. I say it's a lot less about mentoring them and saying,

hey, come and meet with me, but it's more about discipleship where you say, hey, come and follow me and join my world. So that was a book I wrote two years ago. And then a big thing I'm probably known for among young leaders, but it's more private on the larger scale, is I've stumbled into and found that I have a gifting and even I would say a calling to try to the best of my ability to unite. first to find, unite, and accelerate some of the most diverse and dynamic young Christian leaders across the country to reach probably the most lost generation we've ever seen. And so I do a lot of retreats and sometimes international trips where I take very high caliber young Christian leaders who are, let's say, professional athletes, speakers, authors, online influencers, musicians, worship leaders, pastors, itinerant speakers. Just get, if you're a young Christian in your 20s or maybe early 30s and have a national platform, very intentional to kind of recruit this group into a growing family of young Christian leaders. Because I just think it's

going to be crucial that the next generation Christian leaders are united. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. What were you doing in Dallas before joining QIdeas? I mean, those retreats and speaking a lot were what I've been doing about seven years now. Was it part of a bigger organization or you do it just more as an independent leader? Yeah, the group was called Initiative Network. Okay, cool. I wasn't planning on asking this but i i need to know because people keep asking me this has has q had to rebrand itself i mean yeah yeah i mean a year ago nobody knew what q anon was but now it's like everywhere and i i can't even wear

my i hate it you guys gave me a this a sweet looking hat with a Q on it and I can't wear it anywhere because everybody's going to think I'm queuing on. Um, yeah, I know it sinks for, I mean, Preston, think about, okay. So I, I got married in November and then joined the staff officially after getting married, but I only got to finally move to Nashville around January, uh, the first week of January. So I movedashville as my first week working for q ideas and honestly uh some older people when i was telling them that i was moving to nashville to work for q they some of them were saying stuff oh so your your true colors are finally coming out huh and i'm like what does that mean it's in text form and so i'm like uh

haha yeah i guess so and i i'm like they start saying stuff about conservative and ultra conservative yeah and i'm like i don't get it like i don't feel like q's known that like as a strong ultra because i don't get it um yeah but i kept getting those jokes and once i uh started looking into it more i was like why do people keep saying this and they told me because i don't think young people really at that point yet knew too much about q yeah non it was mostly from the older people that got it however my first week was january and then whenever the uh the capital uh event happened that's when i feel like really even young people knew especially what q was because that dude with like the horns uh and that weird outfit and like barbarian kind of look he He actually held a sign that said, Q sent me.

That was the sign that he held. If you Google him, look up Q sent me and that guy. And I was just like, oh my goodness, it's terrible. So it stinks because the organization has been around for 18 years. But yeah, we definitely usually say Q ideas now more than we used to just say Q because that's the website. A lot of times that's some of the branding. But I do think we are heavily considering what does rebranding look like so we don't have to just say who or not.

We get to just continue to be like who we are. But I think we also – we're thinking about potentially announcing that here at the conference. But we want to put a little more time and not just be very knee-jerk reaction responsive to to all of it it is i mean it's part part of me is like oh that kind of sucks i get it another part's like oh come on like whatever so somebody else used the letter of the alphabet and it's an entirely different organization like whatever but then you do have to put up with or do you guys get emails or this or that of people assuming you're part of QAnon or is it really not that big of a deal?

Yeah, I mean, some people, some people. And I think bigger than that is, I think we did a survey and found that a little bit less than half of the people that would think about sharing our content have considered, they said they consider, would this get misconstrued as q and on instead of q ideas because the the videos and the content we have online all has a little

q at the bottom and so uh that's probably more problematic that they have to even consider should i share this or will they get uh yeah just sort of people proceed i think people i think people are way overly self-censoring these days. But I get it. I mean, it's one of the reasons why I don't walk around in public with the hat on, just because I don't want – it's just more like, I just don't have time for anybody to say something or whatever. Or I live in Idaho, so I don't want people to kind of give me a high five. Yeah, yeah.

But I don't know, like I would have zero problem sharing something, even if loads of people were like, I can't believe you're 4Q. I'm like, dude, use your brain for half a second and just realize that maybe I'm, the letter is used to identify another organization. Like, come on. Um, anyway, that's not why you're here, Grant. You're, you're here because I, here because we were at a private gathering in January, shortly after he moved to Nashville. And we had a panel of young Gen Z leaders. And I was blown away. I was really blown away at their heart, their focus, the questions they're asking, their passions. And yeah, one of the things that,

and this is not a word for word thing, but one of them said, one of the people in the panel, I think 19, 20 year old said something like, you know, yeah, you millennials out there, you tried to make Jesus really cool and sexy and attractive. We don't care about that. We want a meaningful Jesus. We want the authentic Jesus. We want a Jesus who's not afraid to tell us, hey, you should do this and shouldn't do that. We want a Jesus who cares about holiness.

I was like blown away. But then I thought anecdotally, I'm like, yeah, I'm raising four Gen Z kids and they're kind of, they're just, you try to make Jesus cool, they sniff that out and they actually can't stand it. So I'm like, ah, that kind of resonates with even my little world here, but, um, can you give us a, yeah, maybe even start there, but help, help us understand, I mean, you've done such extensive work with a broad range of Gen Z leaders and Gen Z people. And, um, what's how, how help us understand this generation as, as older Christian leaders, how can we, um, yeah, have a more accurate perspective on what gen z is thinking through right now yeah i mean kind of commenting on that i remember basically i think that when i look at the xers um

because just i mean a lot often whenever we talk about generations people are going to kind of so i want to know what ages are we talking about. So millennials would be kind of generally around 1980, born between 1980 to 2000. And then Gen Z would be born after that. So Gen Z is usually about 23 to 25 or younger. And then Xers would be kind of like millennials, of course, parents' age. And when I – I think when millennials saw church, they saw that Xers had kind of shifted and built a church. Or actually, let's go to let's go to just even boomers church. I mean, boomers got to live in maybe the last Christian generation where it's like everyone kind of just assumed Christianity, kind of generally went to church.

And it wasn't as, I guess, postmodern, if you will. And I just feel like I grew up in Dallas. And I remember asking an old lady in Dallas once, I was like, you know, surely not everybody was a Christian. I'm sure everybody was churched here in Dallas, because Dallas is such a church culture. But I was like, what about there must have been people that just didn't really buy in and didn't really have a true faith, didn't go to church. And I was like, what did those people do? Like, would they hang out on Sundays? Or just what do they do on Sundays instead? And she said, you know, I knew I had friends definitely that didn't go to church when I was younger. However, they would never hang out outside of their house on a Sunday, because you never would want to be seen not in

church on Sunday. And I was like, man, that's like the culture of church that really bled into the community, at least of Dallas, again, a very church city. And so all I have to say is I feel like church was this sacred event, but could sometimes become like a somewhat of a stodgy, judgmental place as well. And that burned a lot of people and that hurt some people that we started seeing de-churched and some unchurched people uh that when i think like the bill hybels and the rick warrens and andy stanley's an extra generation kind of created or these would be like older extra guys built um church they kind of i think every generation personally responds the pendulum

to the other side. And there's some really great things that come out of that, but there's also some dark sides or shadows to that, if you will. And so to my opinion, they kind of created, they went away from like the sacred event and they kind of say, how do we make this an awesome event? Or, or at the very minimum, I feel like they try to make church more comfortable. Like how do we make Jesus or church more comfortable for those who have been hurt by church or don't see church and think of it as something they could connect with or relate with? But they actually come and like, they have, they feel welcome. They love the experience. They have something for their kids. I really feel like family church, especially kind of came out of that movement of making church comfortable.

I feel like my generation of millennials saw that and were like, man, church is so comfortable that it's kind of just fluffy and it's not like, it's not that raw, if you will. And I feel like an authentic that they swing the pendulum over to the other side where they're like, we don't really want church to be comfortable. We really want a cause. And I think we try to make it a cause. However, the downside or the shadow, I think, of millennial generation is as cause-oriented as we wanted the church to be. And we've tried to make church and all that to be. The downside is we've also tried to make church cool. We've tried, like, how can we make church cool?

How can we make us cool? And how can we make church cool? How can we make us cool? And how can we make somehow Jesus cool? And so I think that was the rise of the Judah Smiths, the Rich Wilkerson's, the Carl Lentz, the, this, I mean, you look at what a pastor, a youth pastor today looks like compared to a youth pastor, like in the 90ss the 90s youth pastor was like the puka shells and like a type t-shirt from camp and just some cargo pants or shorts and now a youth pastor looks like straight out of new york like fashion i mean there's a reason why preachers and sneakers has so much content to build off of is like uh we we have like millennials have the shadow of

trying to which the irony is i think jesus i, the gospel does permeate into what we would call causes. It's just the shadow is like you can't make Jesus cool. Like there's only, it's only, he can only be so cool until like people don't like what he's saying and they have to change or they have to transform. And all I have to say is, yes, it was comfortable. We responded and made it cool. And I think, uh, what I love about what Gen Z right now is, yeah, I think that they don't want to make Jesus cool. Um, they, they really want to get back to the heart of the gospel, the power of the gospel. Um, I, and I don't want to make this everyone, but I am meeting

more and more Gen Z, more Gen, more Gen Z leaders that i've met than millennial leaders um that i have met that have this like revivalist type posture and they remind me of like a leonard ravenhill or a billy graham whether like yeah just kind of how you said we need a we need a um run from sin we need to be like a one of the young guys, I was just with one of the guys, I just respect so much this Gen Z. And he was just saying, so often for the next generation, we're like, how can we give up just a little bit so we can have Jesus, but just give up a little bit. And he's like, I'm reading Abraham and Abraham was willing to give up everything to have Jesus. And we got to stop asking the question of how much can I give up and still have him instead of how much can I give up to still have him instead of how much can I

give up to have more of him? And I'm just like, dude, you're so old soul. But I think this is so refreshing. And yeah, I just think focusing on Christ instead of focusing on cool is their big thing is while the world is heating up and they're being bold with what they believe, we need to stop trying to give a soft gospel or a palpable gospel. And we need to be just as bold, if not bolder in what we believe. And so I'm pretty pumped about Gen Z. And I think for millennials, our role will be very crucial to be disciple makers of the next generation and door openers for them. It's funny. I mean, from my vantage point, when Christians try to do cool, it's kind

of like Christian cool, which is always not really as cool as non-Christian cool. So it ends up being kind of like, eh, no, if I want coolness, I'm just going to go, I'm not going to go to church. Like I, you know, so I wonder, I guess that's kind of leading up to my question. Like where, where did that come from? Where, where did the, the kind of shift come from? Is it by just being unimpressed with Christian cool or did it not even really come from even looking at? And maybe there's no easy answer to this, but I mean, like what's cultivating that hunger for depth and meaningfulness. Is it maybe the bankruptcy of social media? I mean, I'm just kind of throwing that out there. Like there's that kind of hunger for community, but it's like, ah, this might, it doesn't quite satisfy. I'm in the search for something more meaningful. I'm just, my world around me is not giving that to me. I don't know. Yeah. I think, I think probably the most hidden, subtle killer, I think, to the next generation.

And this is young people in the church or out of the church. I actually don't think people in the church that are young, that are Christians, struggle less with this than young people out of the church. For whatever reason, it's just something we don't address too much. And I think Gen Z sees it and is hopefully going to address it better. I think Gen Z sees it and is hopefully going to address it better. I think comparison is one of the most subtle killers to the next generation of Christian leaders and Christian Christ followers among young people in the sense that, yeah, when you talk about bankruptcy, the irony is when you're young and you're running away from the Lord, you care so much in that season of life before Christ about what other people think. You care so much in that season of life before Christ about what other people think. And something happens where then you meet Jesus and you could care less what the world thinks for a season, for the beginning. And you just all you care about is God's approval and being hearing well done and just serving people. You have this like boldness that comes in that season.

And it's the kind of boldness that, again, Gen Z reminds me of right now. season i and i it's the kind of boldness that again gen z reminds me of right now uh but something happens i feel like whether it's months in or years in where all of a sudden you go back to your old ways where you may not care what the world thinks anymore but i feel like a lot of millennial leaders at least uh maybe cared still about what christians thought of them um and so like uh we are kind of living in our own little castle of, yeah, we're cool within this small bubble or we have approval or points. And I remember going to I remember being in Israel once, actually. And it was I don't know why I always run into cool people in Israel or like in the church. Cool. And it's like I was at the Wailing Wall once and Carl Lentz and

Brian Houston were there. And it was like at the wall, like, it's not like this is one of there's a whole bunch of these, there's one place in the world and we happen to be there at the same time. And there's hundreds of people around us and no one knew who they were. Just the Christians did. Um, just the, our crew was like, Oh my God, look at who it is. Uh, I also, this is a different trip. And I remember, uh, at a restaurant andy stanley comes into the small restaurant but no one's looking and being like it's any family except for us the christians that were they were like blown away um and i think uh yeah i think that it's it's eye-opening even to me be like you know in our little kingdom or castle this is a big deal but to everybody else in the world it's really not and so i i think uh

i don't know what i'm really attracted about is a cool can get you so far there's what i'd associate probably with next gen leaders that i know that have this like purity of heart is this boldness that you you have and i think they get to keep as long as they're like i'm going into a world that and i do i will say person I do think that there maybe was a facade that you could make Jesus cooler, maybe eight, 10 years ago. And now I think there are certain, I think with the reality of being a Christian can often get you canceled and how holding biblical values can often get you canceled, that facade is just gone.

It's kind of like either you stand here uh with him or or or you don't um but i i mean i'll tell a quick story of uh these two guys that i was hanging out with this weekend but they're here in nashville is they did this big rave uh where they didn't do a rave they they partnered with some kids here in nashville that were doing raves for high school students and they were having these kids who were not believers, were having hundreds of kids come to these raves, get drunk, get high, go to a rave and just go crazy and dance. And they basically, these two kids were like, one of them here,

his name's Luke Lefevre, felt like God had called them to go and preach at this rave. And it's a crazy story where they got a venue called the Rocket Town that's owned by Michael W. Smith here, met with them, said, hey, if we could get you this venue for free to do your rave, would you let us preach the gospel for 30 minutes at the end of your rave? It was like the boldness that these guys have. And the kids said, yeah. They said, we'll get it for free.

And they said, all we ask also is that you put the money you would have put into venue to get as many people as possible. And they had a little over 1,000 kids come to this thing. And I just thought to myself, I wasn't even asking. I was like, how do you go into a rave bold to preach the gospel? I mean, like, they don't want to hear you. The last thing they wanted you to do was to stop the music and say, hey guys, I just want to tell you real quick about Jesus. And the kid told me, he was talking about how, you know, none of the prophets were welcome, but they did have a boldness that came from God

and a word that came from God. And he also, one of the things he talked about was how Goliath mocked David until the minute, the second even, that his head came off. He was mocking him. And he said, so I might be at mocks, but I know I had to pray. Because he said he was nervous. He said he was crazy nervous. But God just kind of reminded him. None of my messengers have been welcomed.

But there's a moment, there's like a shift in the room where you could just, the king, whether it's King nebuchadnezzar whoever it is just notices the pharaoh whatever hey god is with this person right now and uh i i hundreds of kids responded to the gospel at that event really and i'm just thinking man i uh so crazy is actually one of the two kids, unfortunately, months later, which actually happened about a month ago now, because this story is from about a year ago. But the kid that did the raves, who was really moved by these two kids, it was actually his influence in some way that he was so influential

among all these young guys that when they were mocking the preacher, the young guy, he said, listen to him, listen to him, because he was wanting to listen to him. And the rest of the crowd kind of like, listen to this guy. I kind of would consider that guy like the person of peace, if you will, that God gave him. And unfortunately, that kid was really moved by the gospel in that and built a relationship with them more. But he actually passed away in Texas in a car accident about a month ago. but he actually passed away in Texas in a car accident about a month ago.

And they had a funeral and they had about 1,500 people that showed up to this kid's funeral, 18 years old. And their parents said, Hey, we know that he would want you to preach the gospel at his funeral. And so with 1,500, again, hundreds of kids responded to the gospel. And I'm just like, again, blown away by the boldness of these guys. The last thing I'll say is like, my hope for Gen Z is, you know, I heard David Platt once say one of the biggest problems for young Christian,

I mean, sorry, for just Christian leaders is we all want to raise God's name. I mean, we're trying to elevate his name, but we subtly kind of hope our name raises with his name as we're raising it. And my hope is that just for all generations of Christian leaders, but especially for Gen Z, that they can maintain this idea of let's just raise his name and it doesn't matter if our name is raised. In fact,

the more biblical posture would be let's decrease our name in order to raise his name. So we don't care whose name raises with his name. It's just straight, hey, we just want his name to be known. And we have no other option. I mean, for Gen Z, hey, we just want his name to be known. And we have no other option. I mean, for Gen Z, it's the most lost generation they've ever seen. The biggest difference, too, I would say with Millennials and Gen Z is Millennials grew up seeing most of the, I grew up seeing most of my friends leave church. All the guys I mostly went to high school with that were key leaders in youth ministry are not Christians or in church anymore. But Gen Z didn't grow up seeing them leave.

They just grew up not ever having many Christian friends is what I'm finding. And so they have no option but to be a missionary. When you say they're the most lost generation, what does that mean? Like they are growing up outside of the church or in the church without a faith commitment? How are they more lost than millennials or Gen Xers? I think that is that at least a lot of millennials grew up in church and then left. I think from what I'm seeing is a lot of them, yeah, didn't even grow up in church or, uh, I would assume even growing up in church and then just knowing, Hey, this isn't my thing. This is

my parents thing. Just a more openness of, uh, this, this isn't mine, but, uh, especially, yeah, I'm just meeting more and more Gen Z leaders, I was like, what was it like in high school when you were a Christian? And I'm seeing more and more than I did with millennial leaders is they didn't grow up with many Christian friends. So I think that pressure and that reality check kind of pushes them to be missionaries sooner. Okay.

So, I mean, it's interesting you said that they – let me make sure I understood you correctly, that Gen Z – and again, this should go without saying, but we're speaking in generalities. Obviously, there's going to be exceptions. Yeah, exactly. Maybe even geographical differences too. And that is because some of these guys I'm talking about are more up north.

Like if we're going to talk about Dallas, Atlanta, Nashville, maybe some Texas cities, that might be a little different. But a lot of the guys I know, especially up north, they're like growing up with less Christian community, their own age. wrong assumption is that with the pervasiveness of social media that they are more prone to compare or want status platform name more views on their youtube or tiktok whatever is that a wrong aside i'm not going on any data i'm just kind of connecting dots in my head but is that not really a correct assumption that they don't necessarily want status as much as millennials or gen xers did yeah i mean i think uh i think definitely there's the more access you have to online the more access you have to or more ammunition i guess the enemy has for for comparison um and for any of that kind of stuff uh i would say and this is again where I'm similar to you, I don't have like all these stats on Gen Z when it comes to social media, is I do think I'm focused on high caliber young Christian leaders.

So I couldn't even fully focus on like the general Christian and Gen Z. But I'll say the difference I'm seeing is there are more young people in gen z than i saw in millennials that i think maybe because the oversaturation of social media also they get to see a generation that's maybe 5 10 15 years ahead of them and seeing the effects of social media because it still is a somewhat new experiment i mean yeah uh millennials and my i would i think most millennials would have got social media around late in middle school. And now we're seeing the effect of like, and that would have been MySpace, at least for me. And then it was Facebook.

So we've even seen like a handful of social media platforms be the biggest thing and then dying, like MySpace. Facebook's not dead. I think it's pretty dead to millennials and especially to Gen Z. And then continue to adopt new platforms. So seeing the negative impact or maybe even like the fruitless impact of, man, that used to be so important. Now it's not even something I check or care about anymore. So there are I think they're getting to see a little bit of the impact of that. the impact of that. However, I think the biggest thing among the young leaders that I'm working with that is the game changer that makes them care less about what other people in the world

think or even other young Christians think is just discipleship. I mean, I personally think the biggest tip or trick you could ever, I could ever give someone on reaching the next generation truly is discipleship. I go so far to say that I don't even think there's a next-gen problem, really. I think that there's a discipleship problem in our world today. And it may look like, no, we have the generations keep getting worse and worse. I think that young people, young singles personally, are always and always will be and have always been associated with like doing dumb stuff. I just think for boomers, when they were young and single, they were immature.

For Xers, when they were young and single, they were immature. I don't think – I think the only two things that have really changed is the lack of discipleship keeps getting worse and worse. And I do think the culture is changing too. And so when you don't have a generation getting discipled and you keep getting less and less of each generation getting discipled, because we're just dropping the ball on that, every generation gets worse, plus culture is shifting more and more away from the things of God, away from the church. Then when we choose not to disciple the next generation, I believe the world gladly volunteers to do that instead of us. I was going to say, I often say people are being discipled by somebody, whether it's

by the church or a Christian leader. That's another question. I always bring this up in sexuality conversations with churches that remain silent. I'm like, well, your, your congregation's being discipled daily, but in sexuality, gender conversations, uh, what role your voice has, that's another question, but don't pretend like discipleship isn't happening. It might not be in the direction you want, you want it to go, but, um, I want to come back to actually the sexuality piece with the younger generation. I know that's a huge question, but, um, so with the social media thing, like, yeah, I, I'm, I'm, my hope is that Gen Z will be the generation that sees the bankruptcy

of, of, um, and I don't, how do I use social media? I'm on social media and stuff, but just the enslavement to social media. Yeah. And seeing that as kind of your primary form of friendship and community and identity and all these things. I'm hoping that Gen Z will kind of say, this isn't working. I'm going to kind of go a little bit i'm going to kind of start swinging back to rejecting kind of a life that's saturated technology or maybe maybe more specifically social media do you see that happening um or not yet or it's like i do want to say just yes and no like i see the high forms both ways in the sense of um i just start with the bad and go to the good of like, I see more an acceleration of young people that are every generation's millennials had a high

amount of this. And I think Gen Z has even higher of like believing they truly are going to, and will be famous. Um, that is a struggle for the next generation of thinking. Like, I wish I got to get the stats for this this but i know it's gone up by like a ton with millennials and i know it's gone up a little bit more even with gen z that the idea it was they did a study where they're like uh it used to be i think i think it was generally around two out of ten uh of like extras or boomers thought they'd be famous well now it's like four five out of millennials think they will be famous almost half of them and then i think it was at six i around there generally i just know it's incrementally got more um and i will say that isn't crazy to think it is it's it's a little improbable but in millennial generation and gen

z generation there's more access to i think what we need to do is better define what fame is uh it's more like do you have a lot of people watching you because because getting a lot of people to follow you online and uh through instagram and especially through tiktok it's actually quite sometimes easy you could either do a viral video sometimes i mean it's just being attractive um and unfortunately how much you'll show of uh your body uh can get you a lot of views and a lot of likes um it but i and i am seeing more and more people do that where it's like wow there's so many social media influencers uh that have over 50 000 100 000 uh followers and likes and all that but they're very unknown in their actual real world if you will like they might have a hundred

thousand uh followers but uh do door dash as their full-time job uh so they might and i i even remember when i first started getting into this about six seven years ago i was like this kid that was like really well known posting videos all the time a lot of people across the country online knew who he was and then i when i met him in person he worked at chick-fil-a and i was like that's not bad i mean that's what i actually expect of a 20 year old or an 18 year old but um i just wouldn't have thought that based on the way you portray your life uh to be and so uh there are more again that are pursuing i want that because it looks really good at least online until you get maybe a little closer and realize it's not as big as it is i also would assume that it's kind of probably can be uh difficult to be so like i'm known but i'm actually not that known or i'm known but i'm actually not that successful

uh however i also am seeing young people that are caring less and less about social media uh and old soul is a phrase i use a lot for young Gen Z leaders. Yeah, just like you. Dude, you guys are like old souls. I feel like I'm around as old people. And those are the ones that are more mature and they don't care. And I almost would liken it to this person is like for millennials, I don't think they bought into the American dream like Xers and boomers did, especially boomers. Xers and boomers did, especially boomers. The idea that they I think that boomers pursued provision and they were also raised by and a little bit post the Great Depression.

So the idea of making money and putting food on the table and making a living, even a great living, if possible, was something that they pursued. And I would say that while they pursued provision, the millennial generation especially pursued passion purpose over provision and so i almost think of the book uh the movie uh dead poet society as a great example symbolically of what i think a generation did where it was like the dad boomer got him into the school and the kid wants to go do theater arts and he's at this incredible like prep school for uh ivy league schools and dad's like we have a quote from the movie when he finds out he's like he told his son neil he said we me and your mother have sacrificed way too much and worked way too hard to get you into this school so that you could go and be a doctor um for you to go and throw it away throw your life away by going into theater arts but for this kid he doesn't see it as throwing away it's

he sees it as pursuing his passion maybe even even his purpose. And so, uh, I mean, 52% of young leaders in the millennial generation or young people, sorry. Um, they found through business journal, uh, did a survey and found that 52% were willing to take a drastic pay cut in their job. Um, if they got to, uh, do something that had, uh, was, uh, fulfilled their purpose and their mission, uh, in life and in their gifting. And so I, I think there was a shift away from seeing that experiment of pursuing provision, getting the white pig offense, the house, the car, maybe the boat and all that. Uh, but if you're familiar with halftime, uh, by Bob Buford, uh, it's a big book for

marketplace leaders. It's kind of this like half midlife crisis where people got that. And these are for like a lot of successful marketplace leaders. And then they realized, man, is this it? Like I gave up so much. I mean, I think like you're saying that you hope that Gen Z sees that the bankruptness in uh social media and platform and being known and being famous i do think millennials definitely saw that in xers and boomers from pursuing and especially for millennials seeing their fathers pursue jobs that they

absolutely hated didn't even enjoy at all and you could just tell by when they came home from work it's like all they wanted to do was veg out they had no joy at that job And you could just tell by when they came home from work is like, all they wanted to do was veg out. They had no joy at that job. However, they provided an unbelievable life for their family. So they kept doing it for many, many years, like for 20 years, our dad did this job. And for millennials, they can't even fathom doing a job they don't like for six months. And so they shifted away from that again. And that I think is actually a good thing. But then their shadows, because I always say millennials might be one of the most passion driven purpose driven generations that are absolutely broke yeah they have no money so so we we uh yeah that's why again i think discipleship is key in that again too is it's not either or it's both and but yeah when the enemy

gets us to to just critique one side swing the pendulum the other uh we're gonna miss out some good stuff it makes sense that they would see going back to the famous thing like that makes sense because given the fact that oftentimes the people they see as famous are you know youtubers tiktok whatever and oftentimes i mean correct me if i'm wrong, but like, well, you said it. I mean, you can get a huge platform and not really have much talent. I mean, we live in a world where Kim Kardashian is now a billionaire. And she even says like, what do I do? Like, but I think that, so, you know, you have a kid that's like, has their favorite

YouTubers doing funny cat videos with a million followers. Like, well, I can do that. Create a channel in five minutes. And it's like, well, of course I'm going to get a million followers. Like, they did it. Like, why wouldn't you know? I am nervous, Grant. And even this came out, I wouldn't say necessarily with the specific people at the gathering we were at.

gathering we were at, but just the idea of being able to get such a massive influential platforms at such a young age. Um, I would say this of anybody really, but because Gen Z, well, not Gen Z, but because we live in a generation now where you can go from nobody to still a nobody, but with a massive platformer, like there's no, like, you didn't, in a sense, you didn't gain the life experience and wisdom of getting there. So I've got a, like, um, my oldest daughter is a musician and we talk a lot about, you know, like, like the old days of how did, how did you make it in the band in the eighties? It's like, man, the, the, the, the, the steps you had to take to work your way up to playing in coffee shops on the streets and bars and this that maybe get an album you know way later on whatever now it's like

gosh you can oh crap oh you there yeah yeah so so no that's right um so now you know now you can get famous if your youtube video goes viral. And it's like you can bypass some of the – and I sound so crotchety by saying it, but like the hard work. But not just the hard work, but just the life experience and wisdom. when you've had lots of ups and downs and ups and downs and denials and then success and down, you know, it's easy to be cultivate some level of maybe humility of like, man, I, I got beat up a lot, but I now have this platform, whatever, but to just go from nobody to all of a sudden super famous,

I'm nervous about that with a 19 year old all of a sudden is a huge platform. And now they think that they're influential, but it's like, that's, that makes me nervous. You know? Um, people are like, Hey, what do you think? Okay. What's your view on sexuality? Well, actually, it was like, well, you don't know. Like, like, um, they don't. And we do, we, we, we, we tend to think that just because somebody has a platform now we do this with celebrities, right? I mean, what does Robert De Niro think about politics?

Like does he have a degree in poli sci like when did he become an you know um you know anyway um are you is that is that is that is that right for me to be nervous or do you see that as a concern you're spot on i mean so uh preston before three years ago all i did was focus on leaders in d Dallas because that's that was my heart was Dallas Texas and uh I I used to joke and say I want to be the like I my title technically was George Bailey Enthusiast um and George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life is just my favorite movie and I just love that guy and the concept of that movie when you really think about it is I think if you were a Christian especially is like this is a guy that for his whole life had to live for decades in a city that he couldn't wait to get out of, go move somewhere else because he thought the grass was greener in some other city and there was greater experience to be at another somewhere city. or a city, but he never got to leave. And I kind of liken him to young people where they're like,

man, I want to go and move to LA or New York or Nashville or some other cool city. And I don't think Dallas is not a not cool city. I could be in like Oklahoma or something. But I didn't see, I saw a lot of people wanted to leave Dallas and leave that city. And basically, they want to go change the world and be a part of something bigger than himself, like George Bailey. But what I like about that story is he gets to see what the world looks like when if he didn't exist. And when without his the lack of his presence in that city, drastically changed the community he was. I mean, the city was just darker, it was different, it was in such a bad place. And I kind of thought to myself, man, just one person not existing made that kind of impact. And so that's a long way to say I was so dedicated to I want to start getting young Christians to commit to the city of Dallas for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years, or at least unless God says otherwise, we're all in at the city. We're not waiting for him to give us the go to leave or do something else. We're just all in together, united in the city. And so the only thing that made me shift away from just focusing on Dallas leaders was from speaking and traveling and

meeting all these other high caliber young Christian leaders from other parts of the country that were getting huge book deals, huge online platforms, speaking, author, whatever it may be, professional athletes. And I started realizing, man, these guys need community and they do need others pouring into them. Because just like you say about Robert De Niro is you can't assume just because they're a professional athlete and they're successful in that one arena, that that means they're just a leader and mature in all these other arenas uh because at the end of the day they may have a million followers or a huge book deal or whatever but they still have uh they're still 19 years old and uh they're still 25 or whatever it may be and so uh i started doing retreats for

young leaders uh my whole my last seven years i've been doing it and, uh, I've been doing, there was a group that let me sponsor or not even sponsored. They sponsored 20, 25 young leaders that were high caliber young leaders to go to Israel for free. And they let me pick them. And so I did like six trips where I had to take all these young people to Israel for free. And I got to know them deeply because of nine day trips each time I did like tons of them. And that's where I met a lot of these young guys too, because most people say yes to a free trip to Israel. And I got to know all these unique high caliber young leaders.

And I just was like surprised by, uh, some of them are like more mature than you realize, but I would say a lot of them still need development, still need discipleship as much as I would say I still need discipleship. But I think people would be surprised how much, yeah, they're wildly unprepared for, one, the culture that lies ahead of us as Christians in the next 10, 15 years, two, the discipleship and biblical development that they need. You know, I'm seeing so much fruit come out of these side projects of this Israel trip and some of these retreats I'm doing that I'm just doing because people are offering these free trips or, hey, you want to do a retreat for these guys? I have a great place. Three years ago, I'm like, I'm just going to go all in and try to help what I was doing in Dallas.

I'm going to broaden to America, starting to bring us all together. Like, what if we could change our nation and impact our nation united? And one of the things that we got to do was uh this mentor day with greg laurie uh are you familiar with him out of california does these massive evangelistic crusades if uh for those listening that may not be hundreds of thousands of people coming to stadiums um over over several days and um we did a day where we came to his crusade, but the day before we met with him. And I was actually consulting his church at the time. This was about a couple years ago. And I was consulting his staff under 40, and he was in the room.

And he came up to me. He's like, hey, tomorrow we're going to meet with all these young leaders. And all my staff is telling me that you have all these connections. And the guys that are coming are like just unbelievably influential young people he's like could you tell me about him and so i tell him yeah this kid is huge on youtube like i can almost guarantee if you brought him to speak uh to your youth uh i i think more than half of the youth would know who this guy is if not more um he's just like in the same way that uh i mean basically i said i don't know if you know but like gen z doesn't really watch tv anymore they they watch youtube channels and subscribe to them like this is one

of the most subscribed to channels i was like this girl's 19 uh and i was like he's a multi-millionaire and he's 19 years old uh he has a huge mansion in newport Beach. And then I was like, this girl right here is 20, 20 years old, maybe 19. She just signed a huge book deal with Zondervan. And I was like, this guy has millions of followers here. This guy is like musician. And they're all like mostly 25, 26 or under. And he's like, wow. I said, collectively, this group probably has like 20, 25 million followers online, if not more.

There's only a group of like 20 people. And he's like, that's crazy. Like, absolutely insane. And he said, also, I want to mention, it's absolutely like terrifying. And I'm like, why? And he said, here's why. He said, think about this, Brandon. He's like, when I was 19, like you're talking about this girl with a huge book deal with this guy with a mansion when i was 19 i'd be lucky he said i'd be lucky if some of

the youth pastors let me preach to the youth at that time and he's if they started letting me do that my character so my opportunities here he's like my character starting to catch up over the next season to where the opportunities are because god does tend to give you opportunities bigger than your character could handle. But your character starts to catch up, and then you can be trusted with a little bit more. And I get some more opportunities and more platform, if you will, and maybe even more some money. And then my character starts to catch up to that, and then I get some opportunity. And he's like, honestly, you're about my age, and you feel like your character is finally starting to catch up

to the things God's doing through you. But your generation, it sounds like they're making sometimes more money than I am at my age. They're getting bigger book deals and they are still just 19 years old and you just can't microwave the kind of character and development and failure and just humility checks that are going to be needed at that time. And so he just said, and this is at the time, James McDonald, who was one of his best friends, I think one of his best friends, had just fallen out of ministry.

And so he mentioned, he's like, and James McDonald, he's like, how many guys have we seen fall out of ministry? And that's from the older generation, and they still didn't have the kind of accountability it sounds like they needed. He's like, with your generation, we might just see one of the worst falling out of generation in Christian leadership that we've ever seen because of the massive amount of platform influence finances that this group is getting just let's unite and let's come together to even joining Q. And Gabe was like, I can only pour in so much. I'm barely sometimes I'm the same age as you guys.

And sometimes I'm just a few years ahead. But there's a group that's been around for 18 years that is all about equipping and preparing the next generation of Christians for what lies ahead. Plus Axiom and all the great mentors that can come out of that. So we're just getting started. But that, that was the, I think a God thing to bring that relationship at the time he did. That's good.

No, that, that, yeah. When I hear millions of followers, eight, 19 and book deals and stuff. I mean,

I, yeah, I, we need, we need more. We have access to unlimited knowledge, no doubt, but we need wisdom. And I love your phrase, you can't, what did you say, microwave that? Yeah.

You need that life experience to cultivate genuine wisdom. And I remember, well, Francis Chan told me that he's like, I told myself I will never write a book until I'm 40 years old. And he's like, what do I do? I'm a 35 year old. What do I have to say to people at 35, you know, only 15 years of ministry experience. And he did, he grew up with crazy love when he was 40 years old. And even someone like an N.T. Wright, he loved when he was 40 years old. Even someone like an N.T. Wright. N.T. Wright wrote a couple scholarly books in his 30s and

40s, but he really didn't start writing at his... The one time I talked to him, he waited until his kids were out of the house. Think about this. This is so awesome. He's like, I don't have time to write. I was teaching, doing this, and I wanted to be with my family and kids. It was after they were out of the house when he was like in his late 40s, early 50s,

when he started to really write. And he spent the last 20 years publishing, you know, 10 books a year or whatever. But, yeah, just that idea. And, again, that sounds so – I don't – I'm not saying that's gospel truth or that's, you know, that there's no 25-year-old that has wisdom. I'm not saying that. But as a general pattern, I think at least having that caution, at least having that like, man, I don't need to race.

I need to focus on cultivating virtue and character and wisdom and humility and let my platform and leadership flow out of that when God decides to bring it. You know, what if somebody who wants to write a book at 25, what if they waited till they're 40? What if? Like, why not? You know? And I'm saying, I didn't do that. I wrote a book at 32, I think. So I'm not saying that that's something anybody should do. But just that knowledge that, man, that, that slow, that long obedience in the same direction, um, that, um, Eugene Peterson book. Uh, I just, I, yeah, I, in the, in the discipleship process, I want to instill that in the next generation. What do you, do you have any thoughts? And I know we got, we got to wrap this up, but, um, I know there's lots of conversations about just changes in how we do youth group. Do you have any thoughts on that? I mean,

there's some people who talk about even like a, you know, the, the youth group crisis that how we did youth group for the last kind of in the pre-internet age is just really live in a different world now. And we need to do, we need to disciple, not just create avenues. That's going to always be my answer. Okay, yeah. Do you have any thoughts on if you have youth pastors listening and like, man, I want to disciple my kids,

what would be some pieces of advice that you would give them? Yeah, I mean, this is an answer for the whole church, but it definitely would impact youth ministry is, I would say if the church can do one simple thing that would inevitably lead to several new things is I would just say measure discipleship in your church. Simply doing that of measuring discipleship in your church inevitably would lead to so much because I feel like it's not that we have the wrong scorecard. I just don't think we have as robust of a scorecard that we need in the church. Our scorecard, according to Jim Simbla, he kind of says in Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire,

that we mostly just count butts, budgets, and buildings. And I have a mentor who said, what you count and what you celebrate, it creates your culture. I really thought about that. I was like, man, it really is true of different churches. I think of even just not even churches, but organizations or even parts of culture, um, little pockets of culture. I'm like what they count and what they celebrate. You'll get a good idea of what their culture is based on what they're counting and measuring the success, the kind of person they're celebrating. And, um, yeah, and measuring the success, the kind of person they're celebrating.

And yeah, I just think in the church, we mostly celebrate speaking. That's the most over-glorified gift in the church, in my opinion. We don't glorify the gift. We under-glorify the gift of disciple-making. We over-glorify the gift of speaking. And I just think what we count in the church specifically is, again, budgets, buildings. And I think that's good.

I'm never trying to say let's stop counting giving and let's stop counting attendance and let's stop counting whatever we're going to add to the building and the campaign or whatever it may be. However, I just want us to start counting disciple making because the sad sad part is so many churches actually have disciple-making, the phrase, and the action in their mission statement. It's like we exist to glorify God through making disciples, blah, blah, blah, in our city, whatever. And then you ask, okay, it's in your mission statement. How many disciples did you make this year? And they'll be like, oh, well, you know, this many people came to church. This many people are giving. This many people are in small groups, which is great. I'm glad we count those things.

It's just not discipleship. And so, yeah, I think about that. I'm like, man, Chick-fil-A really cares about making chicken sandwiches. And I can guarantee you they know how many chicken sandwiches they made last year. Like Nike makes shoes, and they know how many shoes they made last year. Tesla makes cars. They know how many cars they made. We make disciples and we have zero idea how many disciples we make each year.

And so, again, I don't think we have a next-gen problem. I think we have a discipleship problem. But what that means for youth is if we started making of measuring discipleship, it would force us to define discipleship. It would force us to create a plan for discipleship so we know if we are not on track. And it would start to kind of tell the people it's not enough to just show up. It's not even enough to give. It's not enough to even be in a small group. On a one-to-one level, we want to know, do you have a relationship with someone younger than you in the faith? Statistically, Barnum's found that only 17% of Christians do. Only 17% of Christians have a relationship where they have committed to pour into someone individually

younger than themselves. And I would actually ironically think fixing the discipleship problem would fix a lot of the next-gen being in church problem, because although the next generation may not connect to institutions, they do connect to individuals who represent institutions. And there's already been statistics to show that one of the key factors of young people who stay in church post-college when they have to leave their home and they're no longer living under their family's faith is when they had someone who was mentoring or discipling them because they had a connection to the church that was bigger than just am I going to show up it's like someone was going to ask someone was who they sat with someone was there in small group or on mission with them and so uh I I too often think that churches kind of treat discipleship like a luxury instead of a necessity. But I think if we added it, it would actually lead to better giving and better attendance and all that kind of stuff.

You know, I wrote a whole book on this. Nobody's read it or even heard about it. It's called Go, Bringing Discipleship to the Front Lines of Faith. It's based on a Barna study on discipleship, the state of discipleship in the church. I think it was 2015. So Navigators commissioned Barna to do the study. Then they commissioned me to write kind of a book that draws out the implications of the study.

And then it kind of turned into more of my kind of vision for what discipleship looks like in the church, the kind of categories and stuff. And anyway, I would fully agree that we have, yeah, that's the whole premise of the book and the study is we have a growing, I mean, it's been growing, but it continues to grow, discipleship problem in the church. And maybe it's because we do measure, like, and this is a generality, but I mean, maybe it's because we think that if the church is growing numerically, that we're fulfilling our discipleship job. And it's like, maybe, I mean, sermons can contribute to discipleship. Even small groups can contribute

and this and that, but like, is it actually happening? And how do you even measure that without being overly weird about, you know, quantifying it. But I mean, yeah, are people being more generous and being more, you know, reaching out to the poor more? Are they, are they serving others? Are they preaching the gospel? Are they, you know, various way, or even like, I even have a whole chapter on like multi-ethnicity as discipleship, you know, like that's a's obviously a massive blind spot in the church. It's like, if you're all white church in a diverse neighborhood is growing and doing this

and doing that and being gender, all this stuff. But if it's still all white, not multi-ethnic, I think that's a problem. I think that that's a piece of the kingdom of God that you've kind of missed out on. But Grant, I've taken you over your time. I know you've got stuff to do, but man, I thank you so much for what you do. And how old are you? Are you 30? No. Yeah, I am. Okay. That's what I thought. So you're, I'm 45. And so you're just in a sweet spot of having that wisdom and maturity and yet young enough to where you truly do understand. I think you're so deep in the younger generation. So, um, I, I, I'm going to, I have leaned on you. I'm going to continue to lean on you for helping me out. Cause, uh, man, huge, huge need in the church, right. To pass on this faith mantle to the next generation. So thank you. And bro,

and I would encourage you and I would be glad they helped because I would say after this, I'd get one or two Gen Z leaders on and ask them. I mean, that's the one thing I wish that would happen. I used to say that when I was in my 20s and every time I would speak on the next generation, especially at a church,

most of them would be 80% of the people, if not 90, were above 40. So they're there to learn about the next generation. And a small most of them would be 80 of the people if not 90 were above 40 so they're there to learn about the next generation and a small percentage of the group they would always sit together were the actual young people interesting and i always knew i'd be like i'd be like that too if i was young and i heard my pastor say hey we're getting this guy to teach us about the next generation so we can better reach them and i've been in the church for a while i've been helping but you guys don't listen to me but now you bring this other guy in to come talk about it. So they'd always sit, they're always kind of judgmental. And I get it again, like, who is this guy that talked on behalf

of an entire generation? But at the end of almost every time they would say, hey, we totally agree with a lot of what you said. We've been saying almost everything that you've said. You just say it a little better than we do and they invited you in to speak or you're more well known than we are and and i would tell people a lot is like you know i cost a lot more money than these guys that are at your church every week that are saying apparently the same thing that i'm saying and so i was like you should always start with asking them um yeah because i'm in there and they're gonna stay because i'm gonna leave uh but they're they're actually there and so um yeah the lucky the good thing i always joked

i was like the the irony about the next generation is so often we ask people that are influential among the next generation instead of asking the next generation the great thing about the next generation is unlike if we did a study on like whales and we were trying to find out, hey, why are whales migrating away from the church? Why are they migrating over here? They're not eating kale anymore. They're wanting this or whatever. Like we can't find out why we can make assumptions. But with Gen Z or millennials, so you can just go ask them.

They speak English. We can talk to them. ask them they speak english we can talk to them and so anyway all i have to say is i think i can bring a unique perspective because of i i can see the difference between my generation and their generation but i'd love to also uh bring some some gen z guys on too and i i want to listen to them and see okay what where am i right where am i wrong well let's connect offline and maybe you can throw me some names i thought that's a great i I've got four living in my house, but that's a little different. But yeah, I would love to. That's a great, great idea.

Absolutely, man. Awesome. All right. Well, take care, man. Thanks for being on the show. See you, President. Thank you.