On the communications/marketing team at FLBCS, I think a lot about brand voice: “What words do we as a school use to describe what we do?”
My team constantly evaluates how we come across to prospective students, parents, grandparents, and people of influence in our students’ lives. Often the parents are the hardest to convince that a Bible education is worth the time and money.
It’s awfully tempting, and only occasionally worthwhile, for us to cite statistics on the percentage of young Christians who lose their faith in college. These statistics may be the push a parent needs before they will encourage their student to come to FLBC, but these numbers sometimes also have the opposite effect.
Hear me out:
What Gen Z Wants
From the majority of our culture, Gen Z receives a vote of no confidence. The Greatest Generation, Baby Boomers, and Millennials are naturally all a bit discouraged with the trajectory of the world, and it makes sense to them to blame the soft, inexperienced young people who fuel the giant culture engines of social media.
Well-meaning parents and grandparents look towards the future with fear. Fear that their children are not prepared to take on the world.
But what our children hear is that the people who raised them have no confidence in their maturity, abilities, or competency. Naturally, a child loses respect for any voice in their life that says that. That have to ignore that voice in order to have any kind of hope for their future!
Or worse—they believe that they don’t stand a chance in the world. So they give in to nihilism, discouragement, depression, apathy.
A much better way to voice our concern for the next generation is to steer it towards the positive. While parents should be concerned for their children’s future, the following is also true: If they are in Christ, these same children are destined for more—created for more—than they can currently envision.
Parents, grandparents, youth leaders, students, FLBC staff: We are all on the same side. The next generation needs to believe that they were created for something greater. They are craving meaning!
If they believe that they were created for something greater, they will be more willing to take steps to prepare.
What Are We Doing Here?
If we don’t believe that God can transform culture into his image through His Word—through our children—then we might as well give up now. Our faculty can all set down their whiteboard markers and go home.
But, if we trust that God can not only protect our children, but also use them for his glory and for the renewal of our world, we’ve got work to do. They need training.
Our goal is not simply protecting or insulating the next generation from an attack, we are equipping them for an infiltration. They are Gospel messengers. That doesn’t mean they need to be missionaries, pastors or ministry leaders. Churches and foreign lands aren’t the only places that need your child’s light. When your child goes on to become a firefighter, mother, astronaut, politician, or farmer, they will bring with them the tools to understand their world, and impact it with the light of Jesus Christ.
“Our goal is not simply protecting or insulating the next generation from an attack, we are equipping them for an infiltration.”
Being fearful of the future is natural. But FLBC has reason for hope. Gen Z is amazing! I see in our students a genuine excitement to learn—even Bible topics that I find less interesting. They have an ability to be real with each other that my generation lacks. They are funny. They are ready to build things. They are creative. They have endless energy. They are looking for ways to cope with the technological world they’ve inherited. They are kind. They are looking for meaning, beauty, and success in a complicated world.
Let’s not sell them short. They deserve your confidence.
What Does My Child Even Get from FLBC?
Don’t send your child to FLBC to keep them from losing their faith. No one wants to be thought of as a “flight risk”. Instead, live your own life like there is reason to be excited for the future. Model being an active member of your congregation, family, and community. And push them to prepare for an exciting future, in Christ, in His beautiful world.
“Don’t send your child to FLBC to keep them from losing their faith.”
Studying God’s Word is the route to an engaged, exciting life in Christ. The future will have its challenges—but it all makes more sense once we understand the world and the roles God has given us to play in it.
But let’s not be overconfident either. Preparation is necessary. More than ever, people are feeling disillusioned with the American dream. Whether they find success or not, young professionals today are becoming discouraged by how hard it is to make their way in the world, and how meaningless life feels. Their successes seem hollow and their prospects for meaning are elusive.
Rather than viewing a Bible education as delaying your child’s entry into “real college” or an insurance policy against apostasy, see it as imbuing the rest of their life with greater meaning.
We at FLBCS believe that the Bible not only contains knowledge of God, but also the wisdom of God and the very meaning of life. Life seen through the lens of a Gospel worldview is a better life—even a more enjoyable life!
The more that Gen Z understands Scripture and the God who communicates with them through it, the more they are prepared to get the most out of life—regardless of the inevitable challenges—and influence it with the light of Christ. Not only will they have the answers to many of life’s toughest questions, but they also will be able to better communicate those answers to a discouraged, disillusioned world.
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