Generation Z
Wow. It’s good to be back and I’ve loved settling back into home! I’ve enjoyed so much reconnecting with family and making up for lost time with those that I love. It’s truly been great. All that being said, I wanted to write this final blog including a thought I’ve had since I’ve been home and in the mix of it all again.
One thing that I’ve seen, read, heard a good bit since I’ve been home is a good bit of talk about the upcoming generation and I truly wish that I could say that it’s been more positive or optimistic. Especially as relates to this upcoming generation as relates to faith which has been interesting to me.
One thing I will say is that if we continue to give this generation an identity of falling away from morals, faith, or even responsibility as a whole, that’s going to be the only identity that they’ve heard of and they’ll naturally step into it. So, instead let us encourage this generation to live in the purpose that God created us for and call us higher to better things! We need to know of the God who gives life and purpose and hope to a reality that seems to contrast it. This generation will be an army that rises up and changes the world, the nation, states, cities, communities, but all beginning at the individual level. Full of leaders that are people willing to set aside conformity to society and are choosing to live the life God set before them, we will make a difference.
What if we told this generation that instead of being the generation that falls apart, we’d be the generation to rise up and restore walking in God’s purpose? With hearts set on God, goodness, kindness, compassion, selflessness, humility, and more, we could go a long way. But we need encouragement and we need people who will tell us that we can do it!! And this takes cultivation that can’t take place overnight. We need people to tell us to see things from God’s perspective and to tell us that with God, all things are possible. That in his strength, nothing is too much.
I’ve heard statistics about those of this generation ‘leaving the faith’ typically in the college age that continue to interest me as it feels I see a stark contrast that makes me wonder where statistics of this day come from and how reflectant of reality they are. So, I wrote a poem about a church boy who seemed to wander from the faith.
A Poem of a Church Boy
Born into a family
With parents of one desire
That this boy would grow to know
And know the One higher
Raised in the church
And many, not just one
As this boy would be a child
In what he thought was no fun
His weeks would move quickly
As Sunday morning would come
At two places he’d spend it
At church and at home
For worship he’d stand
By a congregation lined up in pews
And once singing had finished
On dads shoulder he’d snooze
The preacher would go on
As his mind would wander
But the hunger of his stomach
Was all he could ponder
Years began to pass
And a teenager he became
A phase of rebellion he entered
Because ‘church is just lame’
Sunday morning would come
‘ O’ my stomach, it hurts’
As the boy would make his case
‘I can’t make it to church’
And slowly but surely
This church boy grew away
As the life he was living
Mirrored the son who would stray
His years would go by
And His priorities confused
As all he thought of was fun
And not the life that he could use
Til one day in a church
In the back of a sanctuary room
In a pew by himself
He encountered a love he once knew
So familiar so comforting
As he thought of old days
Hearing of a God he could know
While on his dads shoulder he lay
How did I miss it
I was so far yet so near
But You say I was never too far
To come back to you here
No, it must be too late
I could never understand
Why a son who walked away
You’d welcome with open hands
It’s too good to be true
This has to be absurd
Til one moment it hit me
This is the grace I once heard
I thought I wanted the world
As I turned my back so quick
But a life to just exist
Is void of all you give
A life of purpose and hope
Of service and love I choose
My life for your glory
A broken vessel you can use
Born into a family
With parents of a single desire
That the Creator of all things
Would kindle into a fire
This generation is returning to its roots and those that have not yet will soon. Have grace and patience for us as we stumble as we’re attempting to get back up and learn to walk. And know that kind words and encouragement can never hurt. It began with the past generation. It will begin with this generation. But for now, it begins with me. And it begins with you.
