The Generation Nobody's Discipling Into Generosity

The Generation Nobody's Discipling Into Generosity

Frank: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the next Sunday summer session. I'm here with Jim Sephard for episode number four where we're talking about Gen Z. What we're hearing, reports are saying that their faith is growing, that we're seeing these unique highlights and special moments that are showing up all across our nation and parts of the world. We're seeing this draw and this attraction to the faith that comes only from Jesus.

But the question is, is there generosity keeping pace? Have we been discipling them? And I think one of the complexities that we have to overcome and maybe we could talk about today is Jim. This idea that Gen Z has been under the leadership if they watched their parents or other leaders give digitally and so they've not been exposed to a time of prayer or handwritten checks at the kitchen table. And so some of the checkmatic nature that's what I call automated given the checkmatic giving that occurs is actually removing opportunities for little discipleship moments along the road as we read in Deuteronomy 6, right?

Teach them as you walk around along the road and at bedtime and whatnot. It's not coming up because that's checkmatic. It's out of sight, out of mind. That you have people in the church that are giving, but it's not naturally sparking conversations around generosity.

So now you have young people that grew up in the faith that haven't necessarily been modeled generosity or aren't aware of the tactical parts of it. You have new people coming to the faith where it's not being addressed, which is creating a pretty sizable gap.

Jim: Well, first of all, I'm still getting over the word checkmatic. Check the theme. That is dating yourself.

Frank: It is dating myself.

Jim: That's probably what y'all called it in the insurance industry when you got somebody on a monthly draft. Check them out.

Frank: Yeah. Monthly reporting. That's such a good term. I love that.

Jim: But nobody who's I mean this is an episode on Gen Z. We're not talking to the Gen Z's. We're talking to the boomers probably about the Gen Z's in this scenario. Frank, look, I think what you've exposed here is an issue that is not just Gen Z.

The predominant response for the church for oh I know as long as I've been doing this three decades has been I'll just give you a Bible and you'll figure out the generosity thing. We haven't gone specifically to that which you know. I've used the example I think makes about as much sense as taking somebody who's never been into a gym and buying them a gym membership and telling them to go get in shape. Well, they might end up on the, you know, on the cardio machine or, you know, the treadmill or whatever they want to do, but they won't end up having a balanced fit body. Yeah.

They won't end up exercising all the muscle groups, right? And this is a specialty muscle group. Yeah. Giving is like having one of those specialty muscle groups.

You're probably not going to get it on the treadmill. You're probably going to have to go to one of the specialty machines back there, right? And so from my perspective, I think the boomers didn't do it really well in discipling Gen X. Gen X didn't do it very well in discipling the millennials.

And the millennials as a result have not done a great job of, you know, at least initially trying to disciple Gen Z. What happens is you have this generational kind of everybody who gets a little bit less than the last one and now the one that's there is not getting a full dose. Yeah. And we've got to and and I think a lot of what we're doing here in this conversation is bring it back to focus as this is not so much a giving issue as it is a discipleship issue.

Yes. It's not about you not having enough strategy. It's not about you not having enough information. It's not about you don't have I mean whatever else you it's about the fact the gap is discipleship and while a lot of people are leaning in and discipling Gen Z I'm not seeing nearly enough voices disciple them on generosity giving and what the Bible has to say about that.

I think it's a really needed conversation. You know, there's, you know, there would be those who would say, "Well, Jim, I'm not sure that millennials in Gen Z actually want to give to the church." Well, the data refutes that, right? The data doesn't suggest that.

We have Barnes, recent real data, a Bara study, you know, that shows that their propensity to give is at or above the level of the boomers, which nobody who's a boomer wants to believe that.

Frank: I do. Yeah.

Jim: Because I'd seen it out there. So their propensity to give is high. And it's not just to give to charities, but they love giving to a church if they're properly educated and discipled. Yeah.

Right. And so we know it's there. Of course, my boomer friends would say, "Well, Jim, you know, we give more money than they do." Yeah.

I know you do, bro. You got more money than you didn't have when you were 23 years old, so hush. Right. Right.

This is about developing the heart desire and then letting everything else take shape from there. And so as we begin speaking in and we begin to get so excited about what we see in Gen Z, I mean I get excited about that. You know that you get excited about that. Your kids are Gen Z, right?

We've got to take note that there is this one area that we have to disciple them in as well as much as we do in the other generations and not do it apologetically or backing off but leaning in from a discipleship and biblical standpoint. You know, it's interesting.

Frank: It feels to me and Jimmy, you can speak to this and correct me, but with a boomer generation, some elements of giving were taught by previous generations as an expectation. It's our part, but it was also good to be known as a donor in a community. You were philanthropic. It was a status thing.

It kind of had some elements to that, too. Okay. I think a younger generation, I'd love for you to speak to this, has been a little confused because they've been convinced not by the church but by others that giving is good and necessary. Let me give you an example.

Starbucks, you buy a bottle of water. It provides water somewhere else. Now, it's only 10 cents of that bottle, but still you're giving something somewhere else. Tom's shoes, Warby Parker glasses, whatever it may be.

It's like, oh, no, no. When you buy, when you spend money, you're giving back. And what it was, I believe, is it did create a narrative in a generation to say it's our responsibility to help address these issues around the world that it's not necessarily focused on. It's not necessarily clear and it's not certainly centered on Christ, but there's been a narrative, a different narrative.

It's not necessarily a status narrative, but there's been a narrative with Gen Z that all of us have a part to play to make the world a bit of a better place, but no one's disciplined or focused or really helped plan that and guide that. And the church has a tremendous opportunity because there are some building blocks that are already there. So it doesn't surprise me to hear Barnes like, "Hey, they're giving more than others, not more in dollars, but as a percentage of their giving or more willing to give." Yeah, they've actually heard that narrative in secular and Christian environments, social media and whatnot, everybody's saying, "Hey, the world's broken and there's things that need to be fixed."

But that doesn't mean that just because that's been sparked in them that they've been discipled in the area and why Jesus actually intends this for us.

Jim: Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a point and it's with Gen Z, Frank, but I think it's a multigenerational issue where we have to define the difference between what giving to a church does and giving to a good cause does. And I think that's a discipleship issue.

It's an education issue. It's a fairly simple concept, but if you don't state it out loud, nobody gets it. And that is the church uniquely and only carries the mission of God. So when you're giving to a church, it's not just like all these other charities, even good kingdom based charities, right?

The church solely, uniquely, and exclusively carries the mission of God. that thing that Jesus spoke to Peter about at Cesaria Philippi, right? And these other places do good works, maybe even good works in Jesus' name. Yes.

But they don't carry the mission of God. And so I would say to someone who's engaged in those other things, yes, I'm all for that. Mhm. But let's make sure it starts with your focus on giving to the mission of God in the world where you through your worship through the releasing of your hand through the the the cultivating of your heart which results in the releasing of your hand your resources which then come over into God's church to accomplish the work of God in the world.

So you're not shooting at wallets. You're developing hearts which release hands which cause resources to flow over here to the mission of God. And then you're free to do these other things with all these other causes as well. In fact, I would say this.

I think it's probably a poor witness to only give to the church and then maybe not give to some of these causes, right? That you should say, "I'm for the church and I'm for these other causes as well." Because a lot of those causes exist. Frank, not to go into a long essay around this around gaps that the church doesn't fill.

Jim: And so these ministries have sprouted up to take care of those things. International justice maybe for being one. Right. So there's nothing wrong with all of these things.

Tom shoes, Bomba socks, war glasses, Starbucks water, whatever it is. But that should not be done to the neglect of the Lord. This is the first place your mission in the world and I get to participate in that now I have to.

Frank: So how do we evaluate this summer? How does a pastor leveraging these summer sessions and thinking about Gen Z? Where do they go to evaluate how they're doing in this area? What would you have them practically?

What's that invitation you've got for them to say, "Hey, take a look at this. Do this. How are they evaluating how they're doing in this area?"

Jim: Yeah. Well, I think one of the things you could do is, you know, in my church, we have pretty good dates of birth for almost everybody who comes on a regular basis. We're unique in that regard. And so, if I had that information, I would look and just see what the participation rate is among people in that age range.

Not the money because we're not looking at I mean, they don't have that much at their disposal. Probably some do but not many. But the propensity to give what is the willingness there right and make sure or if you don't have that date of birth information just go to your people who are teaching in that area and say hey Frank you're you're pastor over all the young adults what are you doing to nurture these people ask questions don't as the pastor of the church or the executive pastor of the church assume that that's being taught if you haven't checked on it

Frank: that's so good so that's probably where I would start do a little diagnostic work

Jim: yeah to figure out where you get started

Frank: That's really good guys. Hopefully you find this helpful and you see how these sessions are building on one another to just hopefully help you set you up for success this summer to a really powerful fall and into the new year. This has been another episode of next Sunday's summer session.