Reaching the Next Generation Is Easier and Harder Than You Think

The Easier Thing

It is true there’s an easier and a harder way to reach the next generation. Let me start with the easier. Sometimes we feel this burden that if we’re going to be effective as pastors, Christians, or parents that we need to have this cultural expertise. You need to know what Taylor Swift is singing about. In fact, my kids will just say, “Dad, please don’t ever mention Taylor Swift in a sermon. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Or at a more sophisticated level, we think we have to understand what’s being put out in The New Yorker or what exactly critical theory is. Those things do matter, and we need people—at least with some of it, not as much the pop culture end of things—who really can help us understand how we got here and how we dissect things.

But the fear is that we’ll be so tied up in knots thinking, I can’t possibly reach the next generation because I don’t understand how TikTok works. I don’t know what they’re into.

And people then almost do the worst thing, which is to try to make an awkward cultural connection that just seems like an old guy or a middle-aged guy trying too hard. So I want to say to people that it’s easier than all that.

The Harder Thing

But here’s the harder: love people.

In a good way, I think many Christians are trying to use cultural connection as a shortcut for the harder work of love. Meaning, what are you trying to do? At best, you’re trying to make those cultural connections to say, I care about you. I want to understand your world. I’m somebody who you can trust, who you can listen to.

Again, some of that is okay, but much more important is being the sort of person who invites people into your home. Do you give people the gift of your curiosity? We’ve all known people who, even at a very old age, can be very instrumental in the life of someone very young. And they don’t know all about the culture. And in fact, sometimes it’s kind of refreshing. But they love them, and there’s wisdom.

So it’s easier in that you don’t have to have a PhD in cultural apologetics; and it’s harder, but also better, in that what God calls us to do is to love them, to speak the truth to the next generation, to be the sort of person whose life is marked by holiness.

Second Peter says if you have these godly qualities in your life in increasing measure, you will not be ineffective or unfruitful. If you are a growing, godly Christian, you can be effective in ministering to other people and leading other people to know Christ and follow Christ.

That’s the good news. And that’s what’s easier and harder but better than we might think.

Kevin DeYoung is the author of The (Not-So-Secret) Secret to Reaching the Next Generation.