Read the raw truth from Gen Z themselves.
They want you to hear them. Together, we can know and love them better.

The people of Young Life have a common goal — to know Jesus, to know young people, and to make the name of Jesus known around the world. This comes from spending time with adolescents, listening without judgment, and walking through hard things with them. It comes from showing them that they are loved, just as they are. It also comes from understanding them — their culture, trends, and shifts in perceptions — so that our relational ministry efforts continuously afford us opportunities to introduce adolescents to Jesus and help them grow in their faith.

• I feel like Gen Z gets a really bad rep of being lazy, we don’t want to work for anything, have no goals, and just want to be TikTok famous (which would be really cool). But I don’t think that’s actually how we are. We’re a hardworking and creative generation who thinks differently, but that doesn’t make us bad.
• I think my generation is going to be one of the most unifying generations because we’ve grown up seeing nothing but division and chaos. I see more unity amongst different groups that would have rarely interacted before.
• Sometimes I don’t feel like I can be myself in the church. It feels like I’m supposed to have it all figured out so no one has to worry about me. I haven’t found a lot of people willing to have deeper and harder conversations with me.
• Something that makes me feel like I belong is when people show me they were thinking about me when I’m not in front of them — an unexpected question about something I told you last week, a compliment on something I did, or an invitation to join a conversation. I love when I feel people actually see and know me.
• Sometimes I enter conversations with older generations defensive because I feel judged and like they already have an opinion of me – when I don’t have one of them. I just want someone to listen intentionally, ask questions, and try not to answer them themselves.