Who are Gen Z and Alpha?

When it comes to Generation Z, we are talking about those who were born between 1995 and 2010 or 2012, depending on who you ask. They are also known as centennials or post-millennials.

They are young people who are immersed in the digital world, screens and social media—who are very much dependent on the digital world. They have no idea what life is like without screens, without social media, without voice assistants. They manage that level of digital communication and chatbots and all those things as digital natives.

They are also, curiously, often very connected to causes such as caring for the natural environment or different social causes that they believe are noble causes to fight for.

Something I find interesting that I see also in my own children is that this generation is disruptive. They like disrupting things. 

Beyond just this topic of being digital natives, they are young people who have now joined the adult world in a way that no adult generation has seen before.

They know they have a lot to share and a lot to say. It is time for us to hear what they have to say. They have things to say that no other generation has ever had to say.

What we need to realize about intergenerational interaction

In other earlier generations, wisdom and knowledge had been attributed to the older people, and ignorance attributed to young people and children. That has changed.

Perhaps not every adult has realized this yet. Perhaps we think that we as the older people are the exclusive owners of wisdom and knowledge. Sometimes we may think it is about sharing our knowledge and our abilities with them and to illuminate them and correct them.

We do not realize that the generational gap between us and them will become greater, and they will feel that there is a distance because they are not given the right to participate in a more equal way.

In this way, and in this line of thought, I would like to share something else that I think is very important. When we look at the topic of interaction between generations, we have this prejudice as adults: We think that young people are immature and lack experience.

There are some social mechanics between our generations. Often, we older adults believe that Generation Z is ignorant or has not much to share or contribute. On the other side, Generation Z might believe that we as the older adults are out of touch.

A generational gap that God desires to see healed

This is a generational gap which needs to be healed. There is a Bible verse about this generational gap, Malachi 4:6, “He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the hearts of the children to their parents.”

There is something in the very heart of God’s intention for us to heal this generational gap.

That is why in the final verses of the Old Testament we see this expression of God’s heart for humankind. That is why the practice of writing for this generation requires us to comprehend the wealth and the value of each human being.

Every time we sit down to speak to another or someone who is different from us, we have a lot to learn from them.

That is not conditioned by age.

I have just come back from a trip where I met some young people who have been through things in their short lives that I have never experienced in my entire life. I had a lot to learn from them and it was not even anything to do with the digital world or technology. Many had been through some very difficult situations. I had a lot to learn, and they had things to learn from me as well.

If we see young people in this way, then we will be able to connect much better with them and understand the multi-generational purpose behind connecting with them. 

It is vital if we want to reach people to enter into a dialogue with them. To write and publish for young people, we need not just to investigate and research them and know about them as a social group, we also need to connect with them in dialogue.

We need to be able to think with them, speak with them, share information, experience an exchange of ideas, experiences.

It is through that exchange that we will be able to nourish and develop this connection. If I want to communicate what they need, I not only need to understand their needs, but also understand their wants.

What they actually need, not what we believe they need

Adults often communicate to younger generations based on what we believe they need.

We don’t just do this with young people. We do this with everybody. 

In fact, we often do this in our own conversations with others.

If I sit down to speak with you, often I will not ask what you think you need, what you think you want. I will bring my prior knowledge or understanding of what I think you need—and then I will share with you based on that.

We need to be very careful because this can lead us to arrogance and a mistaken understanding of being more knowledgeable or greater than those who we share with.

That is our great challenge: to ask the right questions in order to understand what people really need and want.

What the Bible says about what we actually want and need

To consider what people need, we need to look at what the Bible shows us—because the Bible reveals who we are. It is God’s approach to us, His desire to share with us, “This is who you are, this is how you are.”

One of the great problems of humanity is our ignorance. We do not know these things. We don’t know who we are and how we are.

Thankfully, God Himself comes to us, and in the Bible He reveals how things are, who we are—and He makes himself known to us. The whole Bible is engaged in revealing to us who God is, what God wants, transcendent truths for our lives as humans.

Another thing that the Word of God does is it helps us understand ourselves and others, to understand the human condition.

There are so many Psalms that tell us that we are like the grass of the field, that we are like a mist that vanishes quickly.

The Bible helps us understand that we are a beloved creation, despite being so finite.

The Bible helps us to understand the mechanics of reality.

The world was a chaotic, empty place, but God ordered it and made order. The sun and the moon are not gods, they are created by God.

The Bible tells us that it is better to give than to receive. It tells us that if God cares for the birds of the air, He will also care for us.

There are so many aspects of reality that the Bible reveals to us.

As we operate in this world, we can understand and function within it, based on what the Bible is telling us.

So everyone’s need is to understand these three elements: to know God better, to know ourselves and others better, and to understand the mechanics of reality.

This applies to every age group.

It is important to observe this and to know this, because if we want to be witnesses of the gospel and make disciples of Jesus, we need to teach these three elements.

Of course, we are not always going to have an audience that is ready to receive these things. However, we can work on making a connection or a bridge between what these audiences need and what they want, so that they will hear our message.

Basic needs of humanity (including young people)

There are five important elements for every young person:

• sense of self
• identity
• independence
• relationships
• healthy values
• vocation

Sometimes when we meet young people, we notice that they are not able to clearly identify these five needs.

Perhaps they will not say that they are looking for identity, but they will speak about the need to know their worth or their value. It is something that they are often in crisis about, because they want to be valued and considered worthy.

Children and young adults are often looking for freedom, because they are always noticing their freedom curtailed by their surroundings, their homes, the adults in their lives. So, the desire of young people versus the adults in their lives is often a question of freedom.

Of course, this is a challenge for us. Many of us also want freedom, and many of us consider that freedom is all about doing whatever we want. However, we need to work on that concept of freedom a little bit more.

And then, of course, their need for important relationships in their lives is expressed in the young person as a need for acceptance, belonging to a group.

Often, these important relationships in their lives cover much more than acceptance. In fact, someone you are in a close relationship with will sometimes challenge you and not accept everything about you.

When we see their need for healthy values, the way young people express that is in their desire for purpose and a cause to live for—how to make a mark in the world, how to be seen by others, and to be seen to be contributing.

And then, finally, their need for vocation, which is to do with service, too. Many young people express that in their desire for fulfillment.

God answers and provides for our core needs  

It is important for us to show young people how God provides these things.

Our need for identity is answered by the wonderful creation of God—the fact that we are a creation of God, that we are part of His original design, which was good.

The Bible says we are a wonderful creation, and that cannot be changed. That is not conditioned by what others say of us. It is not conditioned by our stories. It is not conditioned by our own creativity, our own self-creation, or the way that we design our own identities.

In fact, our identity is originally based in the fact that we are His creation. That is what makes us valuable.

Freedom is about knowing the truth and knowing Jesus. What really frees us is knowing the truth. It brings us to an ability to be independent in a healthy way.

When we look at relationships, the Bible tells us that relationships are our mission field, that we can bless people through relationship, that Jesus sent out the disciples two by two to bless others.

Through that relational interchange, we tap into the beautiful richness in each human being. We are able to share the richness of God in us and also receive from others that same richness.

Our need for a purpose, a cause, for healthy values is answered in the Bible by the purpose and the culmination of all value in the gospel and the reconciliation that the gospel brings.

We have broken our relationships with everything around us—with each other, with ourselves, with God and with nature—but God has reconciled all to himself through Christ. He is willing to bring everything back into relationship with Him.

Vocation is something that helps us to serve others, but it is also part of our fulfillment as people. God answers this need with agape—His love which is central to the gospel. God’s unconditional love invites us to decide to act respectfully and care for our relationship with ourselves and with others.

When we write, we don’t always cover all these topics, but when we write, we should seek to cover some of these and connect with them somehow.

When we look at what they want, we can connect it not only to what they need, but also to what God is bringing from His word.

Writing for Gen Z using the storyteller method

I would like to discuss one specific method of writing for Gen Z which helps us to tap into this mechanic of wants, needs and God’s word called the storyteller method.

To construct this narrative, we need to identify:

• what is the evil agent that is seeking to destroy our lives?
• who is the agent of good who is seeking to rebuild us?

We can find this in the Bible. When we look at the archetype of evil in our faith, this reminds us of John 10.10, when Jesus says that the evil one seeks to steal and destroy.

This idea of the evil one trying to destroy our lives is linked to the desire to take away all of these things that our young people want and need. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy our sense of worth, our sense of freedom, our sense of acceptance and belonging, our sense of purpose, and our own ability to be fulfilled. All these things are under attack.

1 John 2:15-16 says that the evil one does this through the lust of the flesh or the desire for the world—that is, through selfishness, through greed and through vanity.

The enemy has a strategy. His strategy is for us to go out and seek all of these wants and needs, but through a lens of selfishness, greed and vanity. This makes us vulnerable to his stealing, destroying and killing in our lives.

However, the Bible says that Jesus has come that we may have life and life lived to the full.

The presence of Jesus arriving in our lives, seeking the lost, is His way of bringing back His Word in our lives. He affirms that we are a wonderful creation. He is the one who helps us to know the truth and to know Himself, who is our source of freedom.

He also brings us our mission—to share the reconciliation that He has brought between us and Him, between us and others, between us and ourselves, and us and our broken world.

We can see from Genesis onwards how God is working to restore those broken relationships. That is how He is bringing purpose back into our lives through the gospel.

Through His sacrificial death on the cross, Jesus pours out His love in our lives.

So, we have the evil one who desires to steal and destroy all of this, and we have our good God who wants to bring this back into our lives—and the presence of our good God in our lives allows us to find again every one of those needs that we know young people need: identity, freedom, relationships, healthy values and vocation.

The story then moves on to ask the young person, the young reader: how will you respond? How will you respond to these alternatives?

That is the challenge we want to leave them with.

Finally, we need to consider how we understand the mechanics of reality. How do we operate in our reality as humans, limited by our needs and also in harmony with each other, with creation? How do we receive from creation, from others, the things that we need without destroying them, without destroying creation, without destroying others? And how do we contribute to others from our own lives without destroying ourselves?

That is what I mean by the mechanics of reality and the justice of God’s kingdom. This mechanic is based on God’s love, God’s agape.

It is important to be able to see all these elements in order to write for young people and their needs.

In summary, the elements are:

• the evil one—the plague, conspiracy, the sabotage
• the agent of good—goodness, heroism, a solution, an alternative
• the protagonist’s response—what they’re going to do: results, triumph, rescue

When we wonder how to act and how to respond, we see challenge, partnership, and accomplices—the idea that God wants us to be partners with Him in this.

When we think of the idea of being young disruptors, we also think of the idea of accomplices. God invites us to be partners with Him, to be His witnesses, and to be disciples.

He is asking us to be His accomplices in His conspiracy against destruction and death against Satan. For young people, I think that is an interesting word to use.

Reaching young people beyond the story

We need to make sure that our books are not too long—but once we have tapped into what they really want to read, they are happy to read something more extensive. However, in general, small screens will usually limit what we will be able to share with them in terms of word count. So, we need to keep that in mind.

We need to understand that the book continues to be a bridge, an important portal into knowledge—while considering at the same time the importance of the multiplicity of channels through which we can reach them, which includes audio, books, videos, podcasts, reels, YouTube videos and illustrations.

The book itself should not be the only way that we seek to reach them. We must use these multiple channels in order to get the concept across.

There is a beautiful space of intergenerational sharing. We, as older people, can contribute something really valuable to them too. I learn from them how they speak, what their vocabulary is, what their new words are, but they also learn from me. So, the richness of this interaction comes from the fact that it goes back and forth.