Why Gen Z is Hungry | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Well, they caught me right here in the middle of trying to crunch up my cough drop right quick before we started. This is Ron and Hope, unfiltered, real, raw, and relevant. And no, this is not Hope. This is Pastor Jonathan. He's head of our Society 242 ministry, and you've seen him before. We've had several podcasts with him. Also the lead pastor of our Spanish congregation. And we're gonna chit-chat today. We got a lot of things. We wanna talk about some generational things coming out of our Transfer Conference we just got through with. And maybe some things you can say, because you're one of them, versus, you know, me saying, being out of that generation. But I love these discussions from generation to generation. Those of you that wanna hear me and Hope cut up, we are well aware she's missed a lot, but here again, she had to take a flight back to the East Coast that was unplanned. She is the primary caretaker of her mom and dad. And problem is our two homes, East Coast and West Coast, are 2,400 miles apart. And so that has made it challenging to say the least. And so anyway, her being here on the days that we have to drop the podcast, it's been hard to do it. And so I know it's funnier when she's here. I know she's a whole lot nice, Hope Carpenter's more fun to look at than I am. So it takes on a more conversational tone maybe with somebody else, maybe even a little more teachy tone. That's not really what the podcast was designed for. It's for people to hear me and Hope go back and forth at each other and they get the kick out of the entertainment value of it. But sometimes I do want to come in here and talk about things that are really a part of my vision and what I feel like I'm called to do. And what I'm called to. So let's go ahead without any further ado and let's hit that. Thank you guys for joining us. I appreciate you being a part. I do still have a cough drop in my mouth, so if you hear me crunching, and I'm finishing up the cough drop. Our Transfer Conference, for those of you, I think we showed the nights. Some guys on my production, we showed the nights live.

Yeah, the night session.

We didn't show the daytime. The daytimes were, We're crazy. Crazy too. The meaning and the theme and the vision rather behind Transfer was that God uses treasures old and new. Yeah. And the whole theme of a transfer is that one generation should leave its blessings, its anointings, its mantles with the next generation. That happened systematically in generations before me. It happened with me. And then I made the statement on several, I don't know if I did on the podcast, but several different meetings. You know, now I'm 57, in 6 weeks I'll be 58. I can't believe it. So I'm at that age, I'm wanting to now turn around and start giving some stuff away. But nobody was standing in line because I'm not sure most of the millennial pastors want what I have. They kind of, "We respect you." They've never disrespected me ever. All of them's been amazing. I have a good relationship with many of them, but you can feel they love me with their arm. "You stay right there. I love you, but stay right there." Mantles, anointings, even discipleship have not been a normal mode and mantra of the millennial generation.

Yeah, it's true.

We are now seeing the emergence of Gen Z, who's just crazy. They're just crazy. I'm not talking about in a bad way. I'm talking about, man, they love Jesus. They'll wear the shirt, they'll march with the sign. Yeah, they'll worship for 3 hours. They'll cry for an hour. They'll eat carpet. But they look to a previous generation to pass them something. And I don't know that the millennials ever received it to pass it. My life is a conglomeration, Pastor Jonathan, of a lot of people not just laying hands on me, but imparting things to me, knowledge, wisdom, understanding. Rod Parsley laid hands on me in an impartation service, Bishop Jakes, laid hands on me and installed me as a pastor. My dad laid hands on me as a man of God, taught me how to be a man of God. Myles Munroe threw his coat on me and referenced passing a mantle of the kingdom onto my life, really not long before he passed and went to be with Jesus. Reinhard Bonnke and Benny Hinn laid hands on me at the same time in a green room. Maybe one of the greatest evangelists of the last 2 or 3 generations. Sure, yep. And then a healing evangelist in many, I mean, and so here I am and I got all this stuff that had been imparted by Tommy Barnett, largest church built. He was building churches of 20, 25,000 people in the '80s. Nobody was doing that then. He's laid hands on me and said, "I'm gonna give you my multiplication anointing." So all these great, Powerful vessels have turned around and said, I want to give you something. Well, I want to give something, but it has to be valued because you don't throw your pearls before swine.

Swine. Yeah.

Shh. And so Transfer Conference was an effort to let a young generation say, I need some stuff they got. And an older generation say, I need to be taking everything God's given me and passing it and making sure it is instilled in another generation. That was the essence behind it. I think this past year we moved the needle in getting closer to accomplish that. I really do. This gathering was unreal. Yeah. And it wasn't just worship and word, it was signs and wonders and demonstrations and deliverances. I mean, we were laughing about it in the debriefing meeting, but there was on a couple occasions, ushers were carrying around throw up buckets. Buckets. Yeah. Throw up. And you probably got millennials going, "What?" It is normal when, demonic power is broken and demons are cast out, that that is sometimes a sign. And that was happening all around the altar. And so I'm seeing a young generation getting exposed to, "Wow, this is the power of God." But I'm seeing a generation my age and up who's looking at Generation Z coming down here, and worshiping for 2 hours and don't even break a sweat. And they're going, "Wow." And I think I'm blessing Gen Z and Gen Z's energizing me and almost restoring my youth and restoring my strength. Something very good is going on here. That's my perspective. You are it. What I want to go after, you live in. Tell me some of the things you're seeing and are seeing.

Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head, to be honest, because of the fact that there's this passion that they're carrying and that we try to carry. And I see—

Where'd it come from?

I don't know.

I don't either.

I don't really, I don't know if there's a reference.

It's like it's organic.

It's just, yeah, I think it's just something that I think this generation has shown themselves to be very passionate. Like if they see something, I wanna be a part of it. Like it resonates with me. And I think the same way with the Lord, of course, the demonstration of his Spirit has this enticing for them to be like, I wanna follow that. And I don't know. I mean, obviously social media's been a big part of it being the fact that everything's more visible. So people see—

One of the positives of social media.

Yeah.

That it's— they, they see that it ain't just going on here, it's, it's everywhere. Yeah.

And so we see things like what happened at Asbury last year, what just happened in SEU, uh, this year. And those, those are the things that I think, um, that a lot of these millennials, young adults, uh, or more so Gen Z rather, they're, they're the ones kind of like, I, I kind of want that, and, and how can I get into a room or be around the people to, uh, to experience that? Now, I, I would I would challenge that because obviously being a millennial or being in this group, I see that's also like the good part about it, but it's also our demise 'cause then we're putting too much weight on the experience of something. What I mean by that—

It's very experiential right now.

Yeah.

Very experiential.

So like if my experience is a bad one, then I equate that to God not being there or God not moving or— That's good. So then I struggle right now that I'm leading the young adults and helping in that area and pastoring them. I struggle with, with them, sometimes if they're not feeling what's happening in the room, like if they don't sense it, you'll kind of catch them kind of just like looking around. But then if they see a big group at the stage and then they're a part of it, and then they, you know, they start getting, um, and I just, I don't think, I think it's good for a time maybe to experience it that way, but it's not going to be good for longevity's sake.

Let me— point taken on that. So let me ask you a question.

Yeah.

This doesn't have a good or bad answer. It's truly a question. I'm seeking information. So you're saying this tends to be something that is more common in the crowd than maybe with the individual.

Yes.

Yeah. So maybe it's not an individual pursuit, but if you can get them together, it's a corporate pursuit.

Yes, sir.

Okay. Well, then that's a challenge because the whole walk with Jesus Christ is a very individual and personal. Yeah. Relationship. And I want to come back to the next side of that, which you talked about— I talked about this week, discipline. Don't everybody cut off your computer right now because that ain't the word— nobody's going on YouTube, "I want to hear about discipline," you know. But it is something— if the Spirit of God is moving, then one of the fruits of that is self-control. That you are in control of yourself and other outside forces are not controlling you. And I want to talk about that, but let me first of all, I want to go right here and pay some bills a minute. A lot of people don't know how this thing functions, but our podcast is something where we do have sponsors and we love our sponsors. And one of our very best sponsors, and I eat their food, okay? So this is a sponsor by experience. Real talk, we've tried our fair share and this is one of the— we tried our fair share of diets diets and super strict and hard to keep up with. Honestly, these eating fads, they've never lasted. Quick fixes were just never sustainable. And we love Green Chef. Where fad diets fail, they deliver real food and recipes that make healthy eating feel easy and actually lasting. It's been one of our favorites, and it felt effortless, like we were eating well without overthinking it. With Green Chef, every week you get over 40 recipes made with organic produce, Responsibly sourced proteins and nothing, nothing that you can't pronounce. And meals come pre-portioned and ready in minutes. And if you want guidance beyond the plate, they include free unlimited one-on-one nutrition coaching that helps you stay on track. I feel better. I'm eating real meals. That means a lot to me. And it actually fits into my life without being overwhelming. Head to greenchef.com/jerry 50 Ron and Hope. Okay, I'm gonna say it again. GreenChef.com/50RonandHope. Use the code 50 Ron and Hope to get 50% off your first month, then 20% off the next 2. That's 50, that's code 50 Ron and Hope at GreenChef.com/50RonandHope. We thank our partners at Green Chef. Thank you for your sponsor. You help us do what we do. And I want to get back to this. We've laid the groundwork, and I think people have said, "Pastor, we get it. We've heard you at Red Worship. We've heard you with several young pastors. We get it. You've got a passion, and God has given you some level of favor with the younger generation." Okay. Now, moving the needle of this generation toward a deeper experience with God, I don't think takes another experience at all. I think there is something I talked about this past Sunday, and I forget exactly how I couched it. You might remember more than I did because I was preaching it, but you were sitting and listening to it. Jesus said in his parting statement, Go into all the world and make disciples. Make disciples. This is going to challenge a lot of people. He did not say go get everybody saved.

Yeah, it's good.

It's good.

That's the whole thing, right?

Didn't say dunk them and give them a t-shirt and a coupon for a free cup of coffee. Not being hypocritical, we do all of that. We do all of that. Okay, he said make disciples. I don't know all the dynamics of why. I've told people, I think the millennials looked at me, Gen X, and a lot of us didn't end well. I've had my own life's calamities. I've, you know, almost seen my own house burn down. And a lot of us had very powerful, seasons, but usually didn't end well.

Mm-hmm.

This is what— this is my hypothesis. I don't have data, but I have interviewed some people, and I think they're like, you know what, that's not attractive to me. I don't want to operate in signs, wonders, and miracles and, you know, come to the end of my life and lose my sanity. I can't explain why there was a lot of spiritual calamity in mine and the generation before me, but there was. There's a lot of sad stories where people for 40 years did it right and for 5 messed up the previous 40. I know one of the big desires of my life is to finish well.

Yes, sir.

I put a lot of emphasis on finishing well. I really, really, with all the opportunities that life will offer you gray areas, I try to keep my life very much white or black. And I said that to say I think the millennials, to not be like us, meant also to not operate in what we operated in. I think they associated too. Those power guys, those anointing guys, those glory guys, those mantle guys, those prophetic guys, those miracle guys, man, I'm telling you what, it didn't end right. So I don't want to do that. And there came the rise of the seeker movement. And the seeker movement has taken corporate models and employed them in church to build great systems that can service many people and service them well.

Mm-hmm.

Revenue-producing systems, fill buildings up systems. And it's based on the American model of consumerism where the people fill the chair as a taker. And not a giver because you have got to provide some level of entertainment. So whatever you did to get them, you've got to do to keep them. So discipleship is confrontational and the seeker is everything but. The very root of discipleship means I have to offend the areas of your life that are out of line. That's the whole nature of discipleship. It's discipline. Why did my daddy discipline me? Because this behavior is unacceptable. Yeah. Why did he discipline me? Because you can't talk like that in my house. Why did he discipline me? Because you have a curfew and you have to be back by a certain time. So when my life was outside the lines, discipline came. And Jesus said, "Make disciples." The root word of disciple is discipline. "Go into all the world and I want you to equip disciplined people who are known not by what they say—" Exactly right. "But known because their life preaches a a greater message than their lips. Exactly right. I think there's a whole generational gap in that. Now, am I missing something? Permission to speak freely. Yeah. Is there something I'm not thinking about in that? Or have you, as one— are you millennial or Gen Z? I'm a millennial. Have you witnessed kind of that to be the truth?

Yeah, yeah. I think that resonates big time. And as you're talking, I just keep thinking, I guess what culture has become is you get to pick and choose what you wanna deal with. And that has translated to church. And I think in social media, I could choose what I watch. On the market, I could choose what I wanna buy. Everything has options. Exactly. Everything. So within that, I can curate what I want. And I think that's what ends up happening with when we see the power guys, we see the guys who carry those mantles, we say, well, if that's gonna, because it costs, it's a costly life.

Oh, it's a cost. Yes, it is.

People will see that and say, "I don't know if I want to pay that price for that. I can pay this price for it." And I think—

Powerful ministry is people's lives being impacted by the oil that crushed you.

That's exactly right. That's exactly right.

That's what powerful ministry is. So yes, there is a cost to true discipleship and ministry. Gathering a bunch of people in a room and continuing to entertain them to fill the seats I don't know how much of a price there is to that. It just takes good systems and good leadership. That's where I see the divide. Yeah, for sure.

And that's what I'm alluding to that fact. I think of course you still gotta work and you gotta build a system, whatever. But within that, it's a different price to pay. And I think ultimately Christ showed us that there is a price to pay to follow him. If they persecuted him, he said, "If they persecute me, they'll persecute you. If they hate me, they'll hate you." So within that, we can't always be comfortable with the fact that Jesus is now becoming an aesthetic because right now it's an aesthetic for our generation. I'm just speaking clearly. I mean, to my people, they're my people.

Right now Jesus is vogue. Yeah, yeah.

It's like the cool thing. He's in vogue. I'll wear him on a t-shirt or do. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm so glad that we have these brands that are popping off, these people that are doing. But within that, I don't mean to sound bad.

See, my generation, I don't even have any Jesus t-shirts. Yeah. I don't ever remember ever having any. A picture of Jesus on something I wore around. Now, people don't even like Jesus. Crosses are fashionable. Jesus wears, fear of God essentials by people who've never stepped foot in a church. It's a part of their garb. So you are right, it's a way that it's in vogue that my generation never had that. So I think that's healthy. Yeah, yeah. It's the cost of the oil and the anointing that changes lives that I haven't seen paid. And a lot of the calamity that I think a lot of my generation may have fallen into is— Paul said this, Pastor Jonathan. these are the scriptures that never get preached. He said, "We were pressed beyond measure so that we even despaired of life itself." He said the pressure of real power ministry was so great that I dreaded getting up. Yeah. If you went and preached that to a seeker-friendly group of pastors, you're talking about a strange sound. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because there's self-help, self-love, self-care, you know, 3 months off in the summer, let's show movies all July, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yep. And you got Paul, Chained to walls, being in— why? Because when he showed up, everything in a town and everything in a city shifted and moved. Exactly right. So I want to be a guy that has that kind of impact, although I will tell you, the price has been overwhelming at times. I think that we have a generation that looked at that and said, "I don't know that that's worth it to me." So I'm gonna do it this way. What say you? And by the way, you have permission to say, I see it differently. No, yeah.

I mean, I guess the odd part is that I don't really see it differently. I guess growing up in a Spanish world and all that, we're very much miracles, signs, wonders type. And—

It's embedded more in the church culture of Spanish.

I will say that. So within that, like, that's what you seek. You seek for a move of God. You seek after those things. But within my culture, I mean, just also born and raised in the United States and grown up here, I can just see, I could see the pros of what consumerism is becoming and I could see the cons of it, but I also see how that's bleeding into the church. And I think one thing that you were just mentioning about that, that what Apostle Paul was saying, like the fact that the pressure is what people are running from, I think it just really, a moment ago was saying, like, we are gonna have to choose something. You're gonna pay a price for something, right? So some people, I was telling the young adults the other day, like, you're gonna pay a price for something. You don't wanna wake up early, but you won't go to sleep early. Like, you're gonna pay a price somehow, some way at some point. What price are you willing to pay now? And I think part of our generation—

If you're willing to do nothing, then you have to pay the price of nothing. Exactly.

So everything has a price tag. So within that, I realized that if my relationship is solely built on my friends coming to church, being around church, people being at the altar, then there's a price to pay for that. And if my desire to seek after the Lord is more so because of what he can bless me with, there's a price to pay for that. So then when we are pressed on every side, when we are pressured, then we won't really produce that which was supposed to be produced because we never really allowed God to, press us throughout the process. So I just find it like, uh, encouraging to see so many young adults wanting, and, you know, millennials, Gen Zers, wanting to know God in a deeper way. And within that, I hope they continue to open themselves up to conversations, just being honest. Can, can we allow ourselves to be disciplined? I was mentioning to you before we got on the, on the, on the podcast about Hebrews 12. The writer of Hebrews says, don't be discouraged from the discipline. And I think oftentimes we equate discipline with God's wrath or God's mad at me. Or the devil.

Or the devil. Yeah, exactly.

And they'll be like, well, God, Satan's attacking me. And sometimes it's the Lord disciplining. And within that, I guess the most revolutionary thing that I think young adults and people need to capture, that especially the young ones need to capture from that, it says that he chastises the ones he loves. He disciplines his sons. So I have a daughter now and it's like, I can't correct her if she's at a distance. The further away she is from me, the harder it is for me to discipline her. And I would say, I would often challenge the fact that if you feel distant from God, but you're seeing discipline in your life or God being disciplining and disciplinary towards you, I wouldn't equate that towards a distance. Rather, I would say he's trying to chasten, he's trying to build something in you.

Confrontation is the opportunity to continue and to strengthen a relationship. Yeah. If I quit confronting you, that's a bad sign. I've given up. That's really good. That's really good. If I'm willing to confront something in you, that means this relationship and you in particular have value to me and I care. I care about this being fixed. I care about this being changed. And I think that's why I'm willing to speak up and risk maybe some people not texting me back, not inviting me back, is because I care. And I'm gonna tell you something that I see, I think prophetically, that's gonna have to happen. Another thing the millennial generation of pastors have enjoyed is they've enjoyed a season where their wineskin has been the wineskin. And I think they're about to be confronted with their first, "I gotta tear this wineskin up and build a new one." Now I've had to build about 5. I've told people, I said, "I've had to reinvent myself about 4 or 5 times to stay relevant to the generation I seek to serve." They've never had to shift. Millennials has never had to shift. Gen Z, I don't see them going to an ankle-deep church. Mm-hmm, that's a great point, actually. I don't see that. It's a great point. And I think you're gonna, for the first time, guys who've sailed for about 2 decades, about 20 years, and haven't had to modify a thing, you know, the 55-minute service, 18 minutes of music, you know, everything's in line, bring 'em in down the aisles, fill 'em up seat by seat, make sure the parking lot's good, you know, everything's contemporary, we have a coolness factor in our production, and that's the way we've done church. But now Gen Z that is becoming really what I call a God-seeker movement, I don't see them going into a place 55 minutes wanting to be entertained. Whenever I get in front of your group, Society, the young adults, they're sitting down in there, they don't even bring iPads and computers, they bring old-school notepads and pencils. And they're sitting there and they're like, "Teach me. Teach me." I can't deepen a well if I don't have a well myself. And so I'm interested, I think in the next 5 years, you are going to see some people's churches begin for the first time to deteriorate, or either they're gonna have to shift to a new model. And that's gonna be interesting because shifting to a new model is not easy. I've had to do it. I've had— when the social media explosion happened and Facebook Live, I had to just about take everything I had built and tear it all the way down and start all over again. That changed everything. Everything. Dang. I had to let go of whole portions of staff that had become irrelevant to a society. And go around over here and rebuild a whole staff in an area that 5 years before, I'd have laughed at you if you told me I was gonna do that. That's correct. Where now the most expensive thing in a building program, the production equipment costs more than the facility. Mm-hmm. It's crazy. My building was $8 million. My S-site and sound and light and everything was about $400,000. I have heard of people building $5 million buildings and having $9 million production budgets. That's crazy. Do you see how the whole thing is shifting? Okay, well, what I had worked for me for about 15 years, and then boom, everything changed. Another generation is rising. I'm here to serve them. I'm not here to be a one-generational preacher. I'm here to serve all the generations in my lifetime. And so it took real hard decisions and intentionality that I don't believe your group of pastors have ever had to make yet. I think Gen Z may force them into that. Or either you just keep the millennials with y'all and y'all all go get old together. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah. And one of the things that I've done as I've tried to really understand Gen Z and make space. They are worshipers. You've done a great job. They are worshipers. And so what have we done? Create a worship label. That's not anything I ever needed to do. That was a 7-figure investment. You know, we had to seed that thing and then trying to package all the stuff it is to do. So if there's a worship movement, Build worship ministry. You know, seek to serve, what it is. But look at the deficiency. What is the deficiency? They've not been trained. So what else am I trying to do? Create space where word, I mean, just solid word is being pumped into them through AI, through the Vault, through everything we do on Sunday, through our small groups, for our society meetings. Exactly. You know, our men's hangs out, all of our grief shares and all of our healing the heart, word, word, word, word, word to try to help them be discipled and become a disciplined people. I'm gonna tell you, I'm excited about Gen Z. You take their passion for God and accompany it with knowledge. You're talking about something globe-changing. It could affect the whole globe. Because one of the biggest problems Paul addressed is zeal with no knowledge. If you just have wild, unhinged passion, but you don't even know what you're doing or why you're doing it, it sometimes can be fruitless. That's exactly right. Or even counteractive to what you want to do. But if you ever take that group with that kind of internal passion for God and then discipline it with the Word of God, that's dangerous. That's what we're seeking to do. I think so.

And I'm glad that we've been able to make the space here. I think Redemption's done a great job as a whole too. We try, we've been intentional about it. Because I think, I know I was saying some challenging things, but within the whole, I think they're very much seeking after God. They're seeking to apply what they're understanding. The Sunday I preached for you, I very much talked about Luke 11. It says, "Don't let the light that's in you be darkness." And a lot of them came up to me after, it was like, "That's exactly." I wanna be able to apply the things that I'm learning that Pastor Ron is teaching us. And so you see that vigor, that you see that desire, that passion. So I think, I love the point that you made. I think we're about to see another shift across, you know, Western—

I think Gen Z's gonna force it. It's gonna, and they're like— They're gonna force it. The head of spirit of the church. 'Cause Gen Z strikes me, they're just emerging right now. They're emerging into adulthood. They're emerging into leadership positions, so they are an emerging generation, but here's the thing, they strike me as a generation, if I can't get it in your $20 million building, I'll go out in a barn. Barn, yeah, I'll go somewhere. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah. They will not settle no matter how good and polished what you have is. They know what they're looking for, and if it's not there, they will keep the search until they find it. That's exactly right. I think that is a positive trait. Yes, sir. That doesn't bother me at all. I think that's a very positive trait. There are many things about Gen Z I wish my generation would have had. We need to wrap this up, but my generation, passion had to almost be inspired. I felt like a lot of my ministry, I was a cheerleader. And even on Sunday morning, you know, it wasn't moving. You got to go get the mic and you got to— they used to call it priming the pump. You got to exhort them. You got to get it going. Gen Z? New. I come up to the stage and grab the mic least than I have ever done it in any generation. Why? Because it's going without me having to move it there, which means the motivation is internal and not external. That's good. The Bible talks about acceptable worship. I've always said if there's acceptable worship, that has to mean there's unacceptable worship. Unacceptable worship to me is when you have to be told to do it. Who wants that?

And we're gonna end like that, huh?

Yeah, who wants that? So they're telling me it's time to wrap up. We try to keep these around 30 minutes. Well, I don't like doing much more of a half hour. Let me tell you something, even when Hope's not here, like I said, I know we're not nearly as pretty to look at, but I do try to have fruitful discussions. If you know somebody, I need you to subscribe to this. And be a follower, because you help us do what we do and keep this on. And like you said, everything has a cost, everything has a price, but the more this gets out there, the more it helps us pay for it. And so, but if also what is going on and being talked about is helpful or intriguing to somebody you know, tell them about us. Yeah. And let us know, and send somebody a text and say, "Hey, you need to watch this one." But guys, I appreciate so much the time that you give us. Me and Hope love you dearly, and we're believing. We're believing, we're sitting in something like, I feel like I'm sitting on something under me that's rumbling, and at any time, like a volcano could just erupt, and it's something I prayed for, and it's something I waited for, and I can't wait to when God does it. I wanna be right in the middle of it, so thank you, God, that my eyes get to see all this. Love you guys, and until next time, it's Ron and Hope, unfiltered, real, raw, and relevant. We'll see you real soon. God bless.