Members of Generation Alpha present a challenge to outreach ministries of today’s churches since their values differ from their parents’ and teachers’ generation.
“Alpha are the sixth graders and younger,” Jana Magruder explained. “They’re expressive individuals whose worldview is unique, and they’re global citizens because of the internet.”
Magruder, strategic initiatives director of LifeWay NextGen, was keynote speaker at “Reaching and Teaching the Next Generation,” an event held at Westwood Baptist Church in Alabaster on Aug. 18. State missionary and children’s specialist Belinda Stroud of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions served as host.
Overcoming wrong assumptions
“What we did worked well in previous generations,” Magruder said, “but today we can’t assume our children have a Bible or church background, plus we only have them two or perhaps three times a month due to current attendance patterns.”
LifeWay Research indicates Generation Alpha believes human nature is good and institutions are suspicious or even downright evil, Magruder said.
“Traditionally our model was ‘hear, believe and share,’” she said, “but I think we need to bring children to the ‘here’ before they can ‘hear.’”
Isolated and lonely
Magruder noted research indicates that this generation of children and youth, though permeated with social media, is isolated and lonely.
“We must work to make them feel welcomed, included and wanting to come back,” she said.
“First we try to foster relationships. We provide safety and comfort and offer fun experiences so they enjoy the atmosphere. When they begin to trust us, they begin to listen and understand. Believing and growing through conversion come as a later development.”
Reaching children is also important because Lifeway Research suggests 66% of church attenders stop attending between ages 18 and 22, Magruder said.
“We lose them in college,” she said. “The most oft-cited reasons given by dropouts in our research include their belief that the Church is critical and judgmental (32%) and their own feelings of being disconnected due to a lack of belonging (29%).
“Seventy-three percent of Gen Z — the next-oldest generation (those age 13 and above) — say they feel alone sometimes or always. They need peers in the church who are their friends, and they need leaders, influencers and pastors to be their friends too. Relational ministry takes time. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.”
Digital, connected, very visual
Jennifer Foster, minister of family discipleship and administration at Heritage Baptist Church in Montgomery, directed a breakout session titled “Do You Know Gen Alpha?” After surveying the breakdown of generations from builders and boomers to Alpha, she said the current generation — those born between 2010 and 2024 and whose parents are usually millennials — is the largest in history. Some 2.5 million are born every week in the world.
“They’re digital, connected to the world and very visual,” she said.
“Their most often used search engine is YouTube, while the rest of us use Google. Their idea is why read information when it can be read to them? We can regret this but it won’t change. They’re also influenced by their friends on social media and this, sadly, includes bullying.”
And this generation is more mobile than previous ones, she said. They’re not in the job market now, but 65% of Alphas will work in jobs that don’t yet exist.
“We can only speculate what their mobility will be,” she said, “since currently the average longevity in a particular job is under three years. This is a real contrast to builders and boomers who worked at the same place for a lifetime.”
Church leaders, Foster noted, should continue to use technology but also employ planned discussions, hands-on ministry opportunities and generating caring relationships with children and youth.
Restoring the music
Karen Gosselin, coordinator of worship resources for SBOM, directed another breakout session titled “NextGen Worship.” Discontinuing children’s choirs and youth choirs, she said, has been detrimental for our churches.
“What we teach is handed down and handed down again, and music is part of the church’s teaching,” she said. “In Deuteronomy 31, God told Moses to write down a song and teach it to Israel, so music has always been a great way to learn and proclaim the faithfulness of God. Scripture commands us more than 400 times to sing.”
Churches should encourage children who take piano and other instrument lessons to play at church and be given the opportunity to serve as young as age 8 to 11, Gosselin also suggested.
She noted during the terrifying day of the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, students waited outside while law enforcement entered the building, and the anxious students sang “Amazing Grace.”
“Music calls us to praise God, trust Him, live out our faith and be comforted by Him,” she said.
Further children’s resources are available at kidzlinkal.com.
Daniel Edmonds is director of the SBOM Office of Sunday School & Discipleship.
Stroud can be reached at 800-264-1225, ext. 2271, or by email at bstroud@alsbom.org.
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