Millennials, Gen Z And The Church - a conversation on why young people leave the church

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That is Mu Lure Talks.

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Well, you know, it's going to take us like, what, 20 episodes to get it right. Welcome to MU Talks. Another episode with Rob and Aline. Today we are talking about something that we're both very passionate about, and that is ministry, youth ministry and stuff. So, Rob, reintroduce yourself a little bit to. To what you do in multivers.

My name, Reverend Dr. Robert J. Hildebrand. That's what I try to get the students to call me. Then they call me Rob every time. I can't. I can't make them call me Reverend Doctor.

You do.

I try.

You do, like, have their great book, though.

They're good guys. They're good students. I like them. Yeah. I chair youth and educational ministries here at the church, as well as ministry and pastoral leadership starting this next year.

Okay. So you deal with this on a daily.

Yeah. Youth pastor for, I don't know, 15, 20 years, and then worked at camps for seven years and then done a lot of camp speaking and kind of things.

Okay.

Events in the last 10 years, too. So probably. Probably about 30 years of youth men experience. Feel pretty old.

Okay.

And you, you've been doing youth men for a while.

So youth men. Almost 18 years.

Yeah.

I think I took a pause just last year. Last fall.

Yeah.

So last fall, for the first time, I just took, like, more. Hey, let me move into a little bit of a different direction, but very passionate about it. Still very passionate about it. A big portion of my life, really.

You took a demotion to adult ministry.

I did. I actually did.

Right.

Because the most exciting part of my adult life was really working with. Working with kids and students, and it was exciting.

So I was a worship pastor for a couple of years. It was like the dark years. I see the kids all go off to camp, and I'm like, I want to go. Can't I go?

So we're talking now, you know, we're talking out of our passion for this subject. There are a lot of things that are happening. So I'm. I'm going to let Rob lead our conversation as he truly is the specialist in the. In the room and at the table on this subject. But there are a few things that compel me to talk about this a lot. One is seeing what's happening in churches, seeing truly what's happening in churches with youth and youth men and all that. And then seeing how some parents are dealing with millennials and, you know, the gap with millennials and stuff, and some. The issues with the millennial. So a lot of these things, some of them are passive. I'm just watching them, seeing. Seeing what's happening. And some of them are really fully involved in the church and seeing all that. So because of that, take it away.

Yeah.

And I'll jump in with. With some of the things.

Yeah. Let's talk about it now. For a couple of decades, it's actually been quite a while, people have been talking about the attrition rate of young people from church. Like how the kids are not, you know, they're. They're graduating high school, and then we're told that they're all leaving the church. And. And there is definitely a problem now, by the way, sometimes the numbers get crazy. Like the books will say, oh, half the kids are leaving the church, or 80% or 70%. There was one stat that came out that was said 88% of young people leave, leave the church after they graduate high school. And then they said they never come back, which I have no idea how they know the future, that they're going to come back, but they say that. Then my good friend Ron Mars from Western Seminary, he did a study on this. He tried to track this 88% number that everybody was talking about. And so he tracks it down and he can't find everybody sort of footnoting each other kind of thing, and he finally finds out that the number comes from. Correct me if I'm wrong, Ron. Hopefully you're watching this. The number comes from some kind of denominational event in Florida where a bunch of youth pastors took the size of their high school group and the size of their college group and came up with the ratio 88%, which is like the worst social science ever. Like, that's not us. Oh, but there is a problem. It's not crazy. You know, it sells a lot of books. And so people go crazy with the numbers sometimes.

Fatalist. It's quite fatalist, yeah.

But there is a problem.

Yes.

And so people have been asking the question, what are we doing wrong? Is it something? Is youth ministry the problem? Is it just something that's happening generationally or culturally or nationally in our country? I was just invited to sit on a Stump Town symposium with a bunch of other city leaders here in Portland talking about the question. We're phrasing it around the sins. Has youth ministry lost traction? And a lot of people are concerned that it is. You know, you don't see the same numbers of kids coming out to youth group. Again, the fact that, you know, kids are going away and so. So there's been a lot of talk about that. Is it something you've observed too, or have you heard people talking about this?

Yeah, and. And it's enough. So I've been involved in youth men in a few, on a few continents, in a few places, even in America. So San Francisco and then Portland and then Chicago for five years, for two, three years, and then Moody Bible Institute and then back in Portland and. And then Eastern Europe. Yeah, I've done some work in Europe actually for a few months. Even Italy one time. Helped the church. And it's enough to talk to parents and see like how grieved they are that their kids are leaving and stuff. So not even a statistic necessarily, but actually seeing parents struggling with this and not knowing and then seeing a lot of churches. So I actually, fun fact, I preached in more than 120 Romanian American churches in America.

Wow.

Right from Seattle all the way to New York. So we, I was singing with Continentals one time and part of that band and we. We toured for three and a half months.

I remember those guys, right? Oh, Continentals.

Oh, yeah. I was part of that. So still part of that. He wants the continental. Always a continent. Shout out to the continentals out there in the world. Yeah, but we got to preach. And after almost every sermon or every concert, parents would come and be like, hey, do you want to come and serve us? As you'd mention. So there was a massive need of youth ministry and they just didn't have anybody to actually work with their youth and stuff. So ethnic church is a whole different ball game if they have the edit. The added pressure of losing their kids, not just to, to like the world, but they're living. So it's a really added. Yeah. Culturally, it's just added another layer of all that. So I see it. Yeah, it's right there.

Yeah. Yeah, I definitely do. I've often wondered. So I did a dissertation a couple of years, I guess about 10 years ago, a doctoral dissertation on sort of on the subject. And I wrote. I wrote. I guess it's sort of like a book on the Determinants of Early Adult Church Participation act. And it was a study of 318 to 25 year olds in the Pacific Northwest.

Okay.

And instead of asking, why are you leaving? I asked the question, why are you staying? Or why are you changing churches? Like, I was trying to take a look at it. And so again, 300 responses. Absolutely fascinating. Like you Know, we asked the question qualitatively, like, and quantitatively. So we gave him surveys and said, hey, here's the things. Here's the reasons people choose a church. Here's 62 reasons, you know, really nice pews or good looking people or the worship's great or whatever. Drama, or like an American denied drama. Drama for us Canadians, like. And all these reasons. And I wanted to see what they would say. And overwhelmingly, the young people responded with three things. Didn't matter how we asked the question, like reason you left your old church or reason you chose your church or reason you attend multiple churches. They asked the same. They answered the same way. And they're looking for three things. Number one, by far, they're looking for a sense of community. They wanted to find a place where they could love and be loved. Oh, wow. Number two, they were looking for a place. This surprised me, a Bible teaching. They wanted a place where there'd be relevant messages that would help them grow in their relationship with God and improve their life and learn about God. Yeah, I didn't expect that. I thought, yeah, people or something.

Yeah.

And the third one, Drums. Loud drums. I drop in a traditional church. The third one was opportunities to use their gifts and make the world a better place. And they wanted a church that was also interested in making the world a.

Better place, also involved in the community around them in the world.

And yeah, so it's, it was, it was actually a fantastic finding because everybody's saying, oh, young people are selfish and all of that. And, and if you ask them why they choose a church or why they go different places, no, their reasons are 100 legit. And, and when they don't see those things, like when they, if they perceived a church was shallow or a church, you know, just caring about themselves or had compromised on the message, they were really not tempted to stay along because we had a generation before, I think that when Christianity sort of was a little bit more dominant culturally in, in this country and in my country too, in Canada, you know, people would maybe go to church just because it was the thing to do, at least in certain parts of the country. Like more of a, you know, maybe they believed it, maybe they didn't, but they were going to keep up appearances. The younger generation comes along and they're like, no, we're not going to do that. They don't believe it. They're, they're not going to, they're not going to play the game. So I've often wondered if the actual, if the stat is not as Much people are losing their faith, but people are just not pretending as much. You know, I wonder if that's part of it.

I mean, they lost that. Why? They don't have the why, right. Generation.

How do you mean?

In the sense that. Why. Why should I go? Because they don't have an answer for it.

Yeah, right.

The answer is just because I'm going. Right. But I really feel. And that's, that's another thing. So I serve in ethnic. In an ethnic church. And Romanian Americans have a very strong. So I'm giving you an example for that. They have a legacy of, of living your faith in a socialist communist country. We're going to talk about socialism one day on this show.

We are find the courage.

We are going to talk about socialism one day.

It will be controversial.

I'm from Romania originally and I'm from Canada. Canada. So different perspectives, different socialisms at the table.

Yeah.

But 40 plus years of communism and socialism in Romania. Right. And the church lived through a massive persecution all close to 2 million people died. I mean, you're strong.

Yeah.

That generation comes out of that and yet does not spend enough time to communicate how and why they stayed strong in their faith throughout this. They came and they, you know, they came to us or they came to. They went to Europe and they stayed in Romania. But they were like, well, we're happy we made it. And a lot of them did not communicate the why. Look at how I brought this faith to you and why. Let's talk about it more like I'm doing it, you're doing it done. So I've not seen and heard a lot of communication, a lot of discussions happening in the tables or intentional discussions of mentoring and staying there. And let me tell you my story. Even the storytelling, even the storytelling, which is exciting. The stories you could hear if you really like if. But you have to poke around and create a lot of momentum. There's not even that to share that. Right.

A lot of youth ministry guys talk about the one eared Mickey Mouse and they talk about how one of the problems with youth ministry in North America is it's, you know, you have the church, it's kind of like a big circle and then you have this like little one ear Mickey Mouse on the top. And it's kind of like the youth group is completely separate from the church. They've been siloed and excluded. And so guys like, for example, Dr. Chap Clark with his great books like Hurt and Adoptive Youth Ministry, he talks a lot about the failing of the adults. He would say systemically abandoning young people. Like we don't, you know, we shuttle them off to their sports and we have them in a different part of the building on Sunday morning. And so the lack of a connection is part of the problem. When I was doing the dissertation, I started off doing the literature review. Right. And so I had about 100 pages, read a whole bunch of stuff, anything I could find and including a lot of developmental theory and trying to figure out what's going on in young people's minds. And I kind of came down to two kind of schools of thought before I get to them. It's entirely possible that what's going on with youth leaving the church is more a cultural reflection of the country and where Christianity is at. And I don't mind saying that Christianity has, it's ups and downs. Like it, there'll be a revival and things go great in certain parts of the world. That's the case right now in this part of the world and in Europe and certainly in Canada. It's been down for a while, you know, and, and, and so part of this trend might be just reflective of that. In Canada, for example, you would not, you would never pretend to be a Christian. Like, if you're in a restaurant, you don't talk about church out loud. Or at least this is for me. I mean, other Canadians, you guys can feel free to disagree on the Facebook, but it would be considered rude to have a conversation out loud about your church in a restauran. Or if you sit down on a plane and somebody asks you what do you do? And you say, yeah, I'm a pastor. It's like, conversation over. It's like, yep, not okay. Oh. And so consequently the only good thing about that is that nobody's, nobody's pretending to be a Christian because it would be social suicide if you're a kid.

Yep.

Whereas here it's still a bit murky. It's moving that direction, but it's still a bit murky. Sorry, back to where?

If you're from the South.

Yeah.

You know.

Right. So I'm told. So I'm told. It's more of a cultural thing.

It's a cultural.

Yeah. I've never lived in the south, but.

When I traveled, it was fascinating. It was a culture shock.

Yeah.

Because I've never seen all that part. Like every corner has a church.

Yeah.

Literally every corner. It's a. I loved it. I mean, it's fascinating to see. It was a culture shock to see that. And you're coming from a place that yeah, right.

But then people. Then it becomes. Yeah. Anyways, interesting. I know people always talk about Portland being so unchurched and coming from Canada. I'm like, this is the most church place I've ever lived. I don't know what you guys are talking about. Come on, we chill here. So anyways, while I was doing the study, I was reading all this literature review, and there's two kind of schools of thought. Is the fact that young people are switching churches and moving. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Is this a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Let me start with that one. And some people, as I was looking at some of the behaviorists. Is it that we've conditioned a sense of egocentrism in young people? Like, young people, that we give them their own special room and their special pastor and their special service, and we separate them from the church, and they come and the worship's theirs and the talks are theirs, and it's all their friends, and there's food and there's fun trips to mission trips and retreats. And they have all this, and they like it and they enjoy it. And then they get to grade 12 or 12th grade, as we say in the States, and they come to the adult service, and they're like, where's my songs? I don't like this. I don't like this. In fact, I had in my church, I was watching some of the young people, and they went to church all the way through high school. Then they got out of the youth service, you know, where there's one of those services where they separate the kids. And their first year in university, they kept trying to come into the youth service. And the youth pastor let him for a year, and then he's kind of like, you know, you guys really should come over to the adult service. They went to the adult services. Like, wasn't for them, you know, conditioned egocentrism. And so they would. Actually, some of them, a couple of guys would come every week and just hang out in the foyer.

Oh, wow.

And so I thought, man, if I ever wrote a book to college students, I'd call it Stuck in the Foyer.

Yep.

But is it something like that? Is it a problem where we've conditioned an egocentrism in young people? Might be part of it. You know, we've done this to ourself. Almost like. Like the natural selection of church ecclesial ministry has conspired against us. Or is it a godly discontent? Is it young people coming into churches and seeing adults sometimes that don't care about Christianity that are actually just using Christianity as a guise for selfishness. Like, we want our election people and our tax systems and our, you know, we want to protect our thing and use Christianity as a way to do that. And they're just calling bs. They're like, this is not what Christianity is supposed to be. And they're frustrated with it. So you see it. They pool in a couple of churches, they find somebody they like, and a lot of them go there or they skip between churches. My study would suggest that the latter is more the case, though potentially both are. And so it was actually very encouraging on the future.

You know, I'm actually quite comfortable, even though I think you've already given us some solutions and some. Some things to think about.

Yeah.

But I'm. I'm quite comfortable in this episode. And even. Even us, we talk further about this. To just be. To sound the alarm. Yeah, to just sound the alarm. Because that. I think it might. Both might happen in different churches. In some churches that they condition it so much and they invest so much in that. And I've. I've actually been part of that. One of those churches that they would invest a lot.

Yeah.

In that. But then the church service alone was like. Was like, please, somebody shoot me. Like, Sniper 1, Sniper 1, please take me out. Like, right now. Right. And you move them from, like, the most fun we've had and just being alive. And we. In the morning, we'll go and serve the homeless shelter and we talk about, like, faith in action and all that. And then you come and it's just very, like, just dry and dead and all that. So I, you know, it's that condition, but it also is looking into people's life and how they live their faith out.

Yeah.

You know, I do want to share something with you. So because we're going to transition. We're almost halfway through this.

We're moving quick.

But I want to transition to millennials and, you know, the millennial. Even though I. I loved your findings.

Yeah.

In your dissertation with. Especially that part where the younger generation wants to see involvement in the world and making a difference in the world. I love that. And even sound biblical teaching.

I know. Surprising is anything.

Right. And. And that can be an alarm sounded really loud for people that think they need to, like, kind of tone it down and not be like, theologically. Theologically infused in your sermon.

Like.

No, no. Just be.

Don't sell out.

Don't.

Yeah. Yeah. That's not going to help you. The solutions are clear. Have A church. If you're looking to reach young people, first of all, give them a chance to get involved, let them lead, let them try, put them up front, get them on, get them doing something instead of treating them like kids. I know people are stuck in this adolescent thing forever nowadays.

Oh, yeah.

And they need a chance to have the ball. And you know what? They're young. They might drop the ball, but we can. We've just as a kingdom, got to say we're going to give them the ball anyways.

Oh, cuz, cuz don't drop that ball.

Like, right.

Lord have mercy.

So we got to let them. We got to let them have the ball. We got to get them doing stuff. We got to make sure our churches are in the business of loving our neighbors and changing this world. We got to teach the scriptures and not be. And then we got to reach across lines. Like, we got to. We got to form community. You got to. As an adult, if you're an adult in this thing, you got to come to church and you got to look for some young adults and go, hi, how you doing? Welcome here. Yes, something like that. Like, hey, come on over to our house for lunch, you know, for dinner. A lot of college students are hungry. They'd love to have a free meal.

Oh, yeah, man.

Bring a couple. Them and a couple friends, you know, and say, hey, we're gonna have some whatever. Let's chill a little bit, build a relationship.

So I'm gonna. The most unnatural transition to the discussion. I. So I've taught online for more than nine years. I think love everything about it. I actually, you know, so my PhD is in the online. How do you build community and all that online? And how do we change the way we develop courses online? So there's a. There's a. There's a book that I don't know if you. If you read, and if not, I definitely suggest it. It's Myers on the concept of belonging. Yeah, the concept of belonging. And he looks specifically on how do we. People. How do people belong to a church and stuff. And so in this online class, we talk about the concept of belonging. And Myers talks about four spaces of belonging. So he talks about a public, a social, a private, and an intimate space of belongings. Right. So a public. Where it's like a waiting area or somewhere or it's like the, you know, parking lot or something. It's just public. Like everybody can be there. And then a social. Where it's like a social gathering and you don't know people there, but you Share a little bit and, you know, like, just the pleasantries and stuff. Some people are better at it than others and stuff. And just, you know, share some. Then a public, a private is where you share more about yourself. And it can be like somebody that you work with and, you know, you're not best friends, but you work with so long, and you share a lot about yourself and, you know, and then intimate. It's called the naked space of belonging, where people know you really well, like your family or somebody that is just really. They know you really well. What the conclusion that the author had is that in order for you to really belong to a place, you need to touch on all four spaces. Right. You need to truly touch on all four spaces of belonging. Now, this is the shocker that happened in the online class is we're talking about. And the question was, to which space of belonging do you think you think this class, this online class belongs to? Right. You know, what's the shocker with that, Rob? The answers were across the board, including a few students identifying as that online class as an intimate, I believe, belonging. Right. And so we kind of drilled a little further in that and said, you know, hold on. Okay, I understand. And the student said, I've shared with you more than I've shared with anybody in my church right now. I'm an online guy. I love online learning. I was not okay with it. Like, I was bothered with that. Right. To say, like, okay, I understand. I wish the most I wanted people to get to is, like, that private, like, where. I understand you invest a lot and you create actual community and. But intimate, really like that space. What makes your community. What is it. It. What is it about your actual physical church or space.

Yeah.

That makes it that you can't really, like, it becomes a naked space of belonging where you can truly share, like, with the people there. Exactly. Like, who you are and how, you know. And so I'm talking about, like, millennial hate and. And the disconnection between, you know, that disconnect between the. The generation stuff. I don't know if that plays into it, but it left an echo in my mind of, like, and how comfortable these people were with online, with social media, with. That's a. That's an environment where they live and they communicate and they. They spend a lot of time in there. Right. So that's another component. And for me, I'm seriously thinking of developing a theology of technology, of how I believe technology these days competes with fate.

Yeah.

It's not a tool used by churches and stuff, but it actually can compete interesting with faith in some regard because it provides you through the cloud, everything that you need, connection, answer to your questions and everything that you might need. And the faith actually says it provides it competing. I'm not saying it's successful at this point fully, but for some people, it is replaced prayer. It is replaced like, you know, thinking for themselves. It replaced like desiring and longing for God and all. It just keeps you connected to something because it's not to a real thing. So talk. Let me. I said a lot.

No, that's super interesting. I'm just off the bat. We should do one on. On technology and social media. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, you've certainly, certainly technology can offer a virtual love or relationship, you know. Yes. The way people misuse that or for. For people. It can offer virtual vocation, like with video games. Like you feel, you know, a guy, a dude goes on, he's saving the world here, you know, his real life, you know, he's sitting in his mum's basement maybe. But his, you know, online, he's saving the world. And it gives you that virtual and maybe a virtual relationship. Although, on the other hand, sometimes folks just feel more comfortable being honest over, like the space of the Internet. Like, I. I'm a bit that way. I get in front of somebody and I'm kind of. I get intimidated. But then when there's nobody there, I'm like, oh, I can just raid this. So I don't know if that's fake or not, but. But certainly there has been a lot of millennial hate. And it kind of bugs me, I think. I just, I think it's unfair. And what I think people don't realize, you know, whether it's millennials or Gen Z, you get the older guys saying, oh, those guys don work or whatever, and they got all their debt and all that. You don't realize how comp. How complex it is to move into adulthood in this world like it used to be. The studies say they've studied this kind of stuff. And, you know, puberty used to begin, you know, 15, 16, 14, 15, 16 pretty late. Like the Vienna choir boys, you know, that was the age when their voices are changing. The average age of menarche and things like that. And then you get married, like maybe 200 years ago. You get married when you're like, like 18 or 17. And so you think about it, you know, you're hitting. You're hitting sexual maturity at maybe 15, and you're getting married at 17. Well, that's pretty doable.

Yep.

Now, you know, they said it's moved down. I think it's like one week for every decade or one year for every decade. And so, you know, kids are having. You know, kids are hitting adolescents, you know, hitting puberty at 11, 12, 13.

Some of them.

Some. I know. There's crazy numbers. Crazy. And then they're getting married at 28, you know, 30, 20. Well, how do you. And so we've created this whole category of adolescence that's gone. Like, it's almost a couple decades. It's insane. So think about how easy it was to make the transition from being a young person to an adult. Like, 100 years ago, you're living in a town. You got, like, 150 people in your town. How many potential people there are there to marry? Well, let's say there's 200 in your town. So there's 100 girls and, you know, or maybe there's 100 in your town. There's 50 girls and the right age. Within a couple, you've got maybe two or three choices. You don't have the Internet. You don't have tv. There could be three or four boys or girls, and you're looking. You're like, I like that one. So it's one out of four to choose. And that could be the most beautiful girl you've ever seen in the world. And so you're like. You go for that. You don't have anything. Competing technology. You need each other. Your vocational choices. What are you gonna do 200 years ago? Well, you're gonna be a farmer or blacksmith or teacher. I mean, there's not a lot. You're gonna be a housewife. There's maybe, what, 10 choices? So the transition, pretty easy. Easy selections. Now, young people come in, and there's millions of jobs, and then they've been watching Disney their whole life, saying, don't settle. Pick the thing of your dreams. You can't just pick anything. You got to pick the perfect thing. And so they're. And by the way, you're gonna have to go through whatever 15 or 16 years of schooling, elementary school. You got to go through four years of college before you can pick your job. And you're gonna have to pay $100,000 in debt, so you're gonna have to carry that stress. And they can't feel like they can't get married until they get a job. They can't buy a house till they have a job. They can't have a job till they have their education. So all these. You Know, all this weight we're throwing on young people, the incredible complexity, and then we diss them for not having their life together. Oh. And everything's more like houses are $300,000.

Oh, my goodness.

How are they supposed to do this? You know, we've. It feels to me, and I get angry about this, but it feels to me that the adults of this world have failed the younger generation. It feels like we need to help them to have a way to navigate this path that's doable, that doesn't drive them to cutting and suicide and despair and coffee addiction now. Oh, yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

I don't want to stop you from that, because I think it's a brilliant thought. But we are. Somebody said this, and I remember. I remember such a powerful statement, really, that we are sending kids to college with the. With the Bible knowledge of Sunday school, fifth grade.

Yeah, Right, Right.

So we are. Yeah, maybe that would be a good one. So even in that regard, we're not preparing them. Yeah, even in that regard, we're not really actively getting them ready for meeting and facing.

Yeah. And so they're coming. I mean, again, they're coming. They're coming into relationships. Not, you know, previously a lot marriages were a lot more intact. There's been an assault on marriage. The last, you know, a lot of divor. So a lot of kids are coming in with baggage and the difficulty of coming from that situation. Then not only that, like, you think about. You think about young people. And again, they have the Internet and they have all these fake versions of beauty. And so let's say you're a girl nowadays, you're growing up, and you're, you know, you try to comb your hair and you try to make yourself attractive. Back, you know, 200 years ago, you had two other girls to compete with. Pretty doable. Now you got, like, gazillions. And some of them are digitally altered and surgically enhanced. And they're posed. We got pictures. And then we send all these images out, and dudes are like, oh, this is what a girl should be.

And he goes beyond the. The, you know, adolescence and all that. They're mothers now that, you know, they're social media influencers and they're showing you how to, like, you know, to be a parent. And then you compete with that even as a mother or like, you know, not just, like, beauty or all that. Right.

Yeah. So, I mean, you know, so the age of marriage keeps getting later, and you get these young people, and in my mind, a lot of them would like to find intimacy and would like to have somebody. But the sexual revolution and certainly, certainly pornography and technology have not helped young people, you know, so they're in a tough spot. That's my say. So when people get down on them, I'm kind of like, you didn't go through the world that they're going through. You didn't have to navigate half the problems back in the day. I could go to college and if I worked real hard in the summer, I could pretty much pay for tuition. But now that's not an option.

Nope. You know, that stays with you for a big portion of your life.

Now I will say, you know, the young people, and I love you guys, young people. And I say this in class too, you guys, I love you guys. But you do spend a lot of money on coffee, you know, so there's some things like, you know, you go out to eat and my kids and I love, I have awesome kids. They're actually really good with money, my kids.

Okay.

But they still spend more discretionary income on themselves than I do. And I, I have.

And it's not just the Portland thing, right?

Yeah, no. So it is two faceted, this whole financial thing, you know, you got to be disciplined. But I think that's partly a factor of, you know, all them, a lot of them have part time jobs and so they have the income coming in and then it's easier to go spend the money on coffee or whatever.

Love the conversation. Today. We're, we're getting close to, to the end of this, this podcast time. A few things that I took away is be, be careful where you belong. You do wherever you invest time and whatever you, you're going to invest time and energy and being in a place, you are belonging to that place. You're intentional about belonging to that place. So be careful where you belong if you're a Gen Z or millennial here. But then the reverse side of that is a shout out to churches across the world that are listening to us. Are you creating a place for people to belong? Whether they're Gen Z's and they have different questions, different needs, different approaches, but nevertheless there are needs and there are questions to answer. I went to a church one time and somebody approached me with a question and it was such a pure question. It was a beautiful question, really. Like a young person and I engage in conversation and those. He said, I'm so thankful that you answered that. I asked one of the elders here and he said, I'm not answering foolish questions. I'm not engaging foolish questions. Or the. The foolish questions of the world. Like, he was quoting Paul. Right? And I'm like, what? No, no, no, no, no. This was actually a legitimate good question. Right. So for. For churches out there, are you creating a place where, you know, Gen Z's and millennials and all these can actually truly belong? Right. Don't put them in that. That Mickey Mouse kind of like ear over there where they're separate. That's kind of the takeaway that I have from this.

Yeah. Yeah, I would say the same. Don't sell it on the gospel or don't. Don't sell it to your fear. Get to know some young people. They can learn from you. There's a lot of value. And they live in a world where they've been separated. That's great. Community opportunities for service. Those are all important things. And. And as the adults of this world, can we create a system that young people can. And, like, let them get married? Don't be the parents that say, yeah, you can't get married until you. Until you get your job and your house and all that. How's the youngest person supposed to go, like eight or 12 years dating and stay pure? Like, if they're. You got to give them a chance. Let the kids get married. Let's find love, help them get into a job. You know, we got to do it. If you're adult. Come on, let's. Let's show up.

Let's do that, and let's do that and, you know, send them to Multoma University. Should we not send. Should not finish that?

That's right.

Well, thank you for being with us. We, you know, if you're on Facebook, we post this on social media. Not just on Facebook, but we post on social media. So ask us questions there. Questions there. But also ask. Ask us any questions, guarantee that we don't have answers for all. But we would like to engage with you. So ask us questions on. Ask us questions on. Wherever you hear this podcast. Reach out to us. We'd love to continue this conversation. Once again, thank you so much for being with us. This is it.

We're out. Oh, here we go.

And the views and opinions that were expressed are not affiliated with Malnoy University in any way.

See, that was. You did that better than me.

Oh, thank you.

I never considered.

Have a good one, everybody.

Okay.