The world is a hard place. It seems especially so these days.
Last month, I turned 46. I was determined to make my 40s a strong decade, but, so far, it has been more of a survival decade. It must be the case that each person goes through phases like this sooner or later. I had a pretty easy life in all the decades prior, so I guess my time was due.
I can only hope I’m laying the foundation for the next 4 decades, especially because I keep hearing that the lowest year for happiness is 47. I haven’t even hit the bottom yet!
But if every day is a little bit of a fight to find some goodness, here is what I’ve found works:
Evening walks with a friend, especially in horribly hot So Cal summers
Any time you can get to a beach and lay eyes on water
Any time you can be in weather in the 70s
Bookstores
Handmade/artisinal ice cream or custard
Visitors – family, old friends, colleagues. We take them all
Reading that beautiful book your friend worked on for over a decade!
Attending a Creative Writing class at your new church with friends.
Attempting to join the prayer ministry at your new church.
Writing with your new Montblanc calligraphy pen, your husband found you on Facebook Marketplace after years of giving up calligraphy.
Noticing that you are lonely in some common adult ways, but you are cared for by a circle of people who feel like your people, even if they don’t make up one group.
Staying on top of your health and lowering your A1C and cholesterol despite doctors telling you it wouldn’t be possible.
Getting asked to preach at new places.
New doors you didn’t plan for that answer some prayers.
You are at the time in your life where you are exploring what you believe, piecing your world together as it expands and grows.
My precious daughter, ever since you were born, we aspired to teach you many things so you could grow into your full, beautiful self as a child of God. In some areas we succeeded and, in others, we missed the mark. I am sorry. I seek your forgiveness and I am trusting God to cover my failures.
I just want you to know while you launch into adulthood at this unstable time in the history of our country, and, by extension, the world, that the choices are not what you think they are. It may look like there are two paths in front of you: one involves sticking with Christianity and buying into things that seem wrong, and the other involves taking the values of Christianity and turning away to do what is right. Even so, there is a somewhat hidden path if you choose to seek it. It is going to be increasingly hard for young women like you to see it and hear it because of the forces obscuring it, but it is the truth that we have most wanted you to know. It is the path of Christ. I understand why you do not want anything to do with what you see around you, but what you see is not who he is.
Since humankind was created, God’s disposition toward his children was not to force them into loving him. We have always had a choice. This tells us something about how God uses his power. He wants relationship and not dictatorship. So when he sent his son Jesus into the world as God in the flesh, it is no wonder that Jesus abided by the same standards. The Bible tells us that Jesus had all the powers of God available to him, but he did not use them to coerce people to follow him, glorify himself through show, or overturn oppressive empire.
Of all the ways that God could choose to come to earth, he sent Jesus as a simple boy born to a no-name family, who grew up to be an offbeat Jewish rabbi with great compassion, supernatural authority, and divine insight. Instead of instigating a bloody revolution or demanding allegiance to himself, he taught the secret of the kingdom, which required people to draw near with openness and curiosity in order to behold that which is hard to see. He preached that happiness came through meekness, peace, righteousness, and suffering for God. He drew from a deep well of truth that was other worldly, but he walked in the nitty gritty of the world, touching untouchable lepers, the bleeding, dead, and demonized people.
Christ’s most powerful action was his unjust death at the cross, which he willingly submitted himself to without a fight. Because of his sacrifice and his resurrection, death in this world is life in the next. None of his followers had to fear death when they were martyred by earthly powers. After Christ, no king could terrify Christ-followers because they lived unto a heavenly kingdom rather than waiting for an earthly one.
You told us the other day you passed someone on campus who was yelling about salvation with big giant signs and you argued with them. You may not be following Jesus yet with your life yet, but you know him. You know the kind of person he is. You can identify fruitless things done in his name and the kinds of things that represent his character.
What concerns me is that culture is splitting things in a way that makes you think you have to choose. You do not need to choose between forceful governmental Christianity and a Christ-less path. You can cling to the true Christ and his ways in the midst of this broken world.
Your dad and I have watched generations of students deconstruct the parts of cultural Christianity that are off track, but it has broken our hearts when they lose their desire to connect with Christ altogether. My prayer for you and all our students and friends is that Christ will not be lost in the midst of this culture war. At least my confidence is in this–even if you lose him, he will not lose you.
What I am trying to say is that the forces making choices today in our world in the name of Christ are not necessarily representing Christ. Christianity means to follow Christ and Christ did not assume a position of controlling the government for greater influence or usurping government powers. Christ led the way for us to follow, despite these systems. His very being goes against all systems of earthly power and control. The greatest resistance to all forms of evil was laying down his life.
So, please, don’t think you have to reject Christ because of the mislabeling happening in society right now. Christian Nationalism is a co-opting of the symbols of Christ for national power and domination, two things Christ had no interest in. Christ is still the most powerful antidote to all the powers of darkness in this world. He disarms them through his refusal to wield power the way institutions and leaders are tempted to.
So Christ is for you, not only because you are a young woman and the gospels show us so many cultural and religious-upset moments where he crossed barriers to give women dignity and honor, but because history will show that the powerful cannot advance Christ’s cause in the way that the meek can. Your instincts are correct. The trick is to resist using earthly powers to counter the ones you face in your generation.
In seminary, I learned some things of particular importance now.
Weak Vessels Can Display Christ’s Power
The way Jesus came into and left the earth is just as important as who he was and what he did. It’s not an accident that he came and left humbly and vulnerably. As a gospel minister I will resist all forms of power that invoke the name of Jesus while acting contrary to his very essence. The Bible is clear that we are made strong in our weakness. Weak or meek vessels are the only vessels that can cooperate with and be filled by the supernatural power of God. There’s a lot of pressure to be a strong woman, but there was nothing wrong with our innate vulnerabilities in the first place. God can use those over and above the strength of men.
Earthly Dominions Contradict Christ’s Power
Every time Christianity is combined with government power it is a disaster for Christianity. When Constantine did this it was called Christendom. It probably looked like a great idea to make an empire Christian, but government power and Christianity are like oil and water. They cannot go together. They do not make sense together. If you put them together, you lose the essence of Christ and his kingdom entirely. You have grown something in the name of Jesus, but you have not allowed the Spirit to grow the Church, which happens through conditions of desperation, persecution, and clinging to Christ in our broken world.
A lot of Christians are afraid of what students like you will learn in university to undo the Christianity we have tried to put inside of you. I know God is bigger than that. I just want to make sure that when you learn these truths about Christianity getting mixed in with power, you do not miss Christ. Christ is there on campus. He loves you and the students there. He invites you to something life-giving, freeing, and true.
He will find you.
*A letter to my daughter coming of age in our culture wars. Written in early 2025 during her freshman year.
One Friday in mid-December, I spent an afternoon in Manhattan Beach while waiting for my daughter to land at LAX for her three-week semester break. Just a few days prior, my new spiritual director had encouraged me to squeeze in a half-day of quiet retreat. I designated this waiting time as such, bringing along a book, my Bible, and a journal, and planting myself for a couple of hours at a cozy cafe.
During my time in the cafe, three separate Gen Z employees paused an extra minute while waiting on my table and asked me about the Bible in front of me. I found it noteworthy. (Especially so because I had already paid the tip at the counter, so there is no chance they were trying to butter me up.)
Late that afternoon, I picked up my daughter, and the app we were using mapped us on a two-hour drive through side streets, avoiding accidents and backups on the freeways. My daughter was, understandably, in decompression mode. She processed aloud about her stressful week — finals, packing, and traveling through one of America’s worst airports.
As we slowly made our way through neighborhoods, making small talk, I mentioned my unusual encounter in the day — people her age asking me about the Bible in Manhattan Beach. “Well, isn’t that pretty close to Trump country?” she asked. (The answer is not quite – only 33% voted for him. Her impression likely comes from further down the coast, toward Orange County, where the wealthy “Beach Cities” are notoriously Republican, particularly Huntington Beach. Several megachurches and ministry movements exist there, and it’s not uncommon to see beach rallies for Jesus as well as MAGA flags and MAGA hats, not necessarily sponsored by the same organizations.)
“Mom,” she said, about to provide a humbling contrast, “at my school, no one goes up to talk to the Christian club table.” I was not surprised. My husband and I have been lifelong campus ministers between us. I am familiar with the religious context of the Pacific Northwest, where she attends school. It is described by sociologists of religion as the most secular and post-Christian region in the US. Beyond that, I have many experiences of sitting at such a table. It’s not unusual to spend a day receiving minimal interest.
I admitted to her that being approached in the cafe in Manhattan Beach felt a bit like traveling back in time, perhaps to the late 90s when I was a student on campus. We chuckled a bit, acknowledging how times change and the distance between our experiences.
But the truth is, both ends of the spectrum represented by our two anecdotes seem to be true at once. Some Gen Z folks are adopting expressions of faith that closely reflect my experience in the 90s (Bible study, church groups, worship nights, camps/conferences). There is a resurgence that is still small, but significant. At the same time, the more broadly known trend of disengagement and disinterest in institutional faith still exists, particularly for those tracking politics or trends of abuse.
What unfolded in our car conversation is at the very heart of what can be seen among young people in the United States in 2026.
Developing Integration
With no better prospects for conversation on this long car ride, my daughter sat back and, with all the confidence of a 19-year-old who just received tens of thousands of dollars of public university education, used an inquisitive but strong voice. “Ok, Mom, what I don’t get is how some people think that Christianity is a justification for doing all kinds of bad things.” In her question, which has been asked by generations of students, she means racism, sexism, bigotry, homophobia, xenophobia, authoritarianism, colonialism, genocide, and more.
My specific answer is refined by over two decades of experience with young adults in such conversations. “Well,” I said. “They take a seed of an idea from Christianity and use it to have power over others.”
I relished her openness to discuss this with me. After all those years of working with students, having hard conversations together, mine was finally letting me use my hard-earned skills instead of dismissing me as the annoying, irrelevant parent.
“Ok, that actually makes sense,” she said.
(Gasp!)……
We were having our first grown-up conversation. She was integrating her upbringing with her current self and it was satisfying to behold. I can’t tell you how often I doubted this day would ever come.
I felt permission in the pause between us, so I continued.
“You know, Jesus is the exact opposite of all that…”
“…Jesus did not use force or that kind of power, but instead came as a baby. Many expressions of Christianity may mess this up, but this aspect of Jesus is why I would choose to follow him every time.”
She gave a subtle nod.
“Mom,” she added with a perfect blend of respect and sass, “don’t let this go to your head…”
(I paused, held my breath. Kept my focus on the road.)
“…you and Dad already prepared me for school, and the types of conversations we have there.”
When she elaborated about learning to be a critical thinker, I was pleased. I might have expected her to mention all our deep ethical conversations on morning commutes or around the dinner table. Instead, she led with, “All those audiobooks you used to play for your book club when I was in middle school…they exposed me to thinking about things.”
What she is describing surprised me a little. This was a book club of public school moms who shared an interest in fiction and memoirs that touched on family, identity, and culture. When I played Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime in our minivan while driving to art lessons, basketball practice, and the orthodontist, I did not expect this to come back to me as my first parental appreciation moment. Nonetheless, I can see how these storytellers and their stories introduced new worlds and concepts in an accessible way. After all, we discovered in early elementary school that she’s a very strong audio learner.
The conversation continued. It was going so well, I couldn’t resist.
“You know, that’s why your dad and I liked our college fellowship and made a career out of it,” I replied. “Because it was a place to grow in your faith while also doing critical thinking as a college student. The two were not at odds.”
“That makes sense,” she affirmed.
She seemed to be getting a glimpse of who we are and how we raised her while she said it.
What a gift.
Two Trends at Once
In the bigger picture of the United States, there is a reported resurgence of church attendance among Gen Z. I believe it because I have former colleagues I trust who have firsthand witness to it. Some say it’s the first spiritual swell since COVID, filling campus ministry Fall Conferences. Still, the overwhelming majority of kids raised in the pews are more like the university students my daughter described, averse to organized religion and not wanting to approach the Christian club table. Two-thirds raised in church don’t stick. How do we explain the stark contrast she and I discussed in the car that day?
In 2019, I attended a summit where we heard predictions about Gen Z. We anticipated they might feel drawn to spirituality in a structured form. Our guest speaker, who video-called in from Australia, cited Benedictine rhythms, such as the “rule of life,” as a possible draw. Predictions are only predictions, and none of us anticipated a worldwide pandemic within the year. But, perhaps the surge of faith is somewhat affected by this prediction about structure — to be in formal groups with meaning, as well as to adopt some comforts of a bygone era. Rapid change in society always carries with it a resurgence of something that feels more traditional, a subgroup’s attempt to keep things as they were.
Pop culture is also having a 90s-nostalgia phase. It shows up in fashion and television (current shows set in the 90s, as well as those filmed in the 90s, streaming with a new cult following). This past holiday season, I even saw multiple social media posts proclaiming, “All I really want is a 90s Christmas.”
It’s an era that harkens back to a simpler time. No internet or cell phones. The last remnants of an analogue life. Gen Z’s 90s throwback culture was my generation’s 1950s. They stream Gilmore Girls on their devices via Netflix; we gathered in the living room as a family to watch black-and-white classic TV programs on Nick at Nite.
Gen Z faith observers did not go as far as the Benedictine rule, but perhaps joining a third space, like the church, which has historically been a major part of American life, has a comforting and grounding appeal. The impulse to recapture something lost will always attract a percentage of society, including young people in the faith space.
The “Nostalgia” Trend
The “Post-Church” Trend
Drawn to 90s-style Bible studies & camps.
Wary of “Institutional” religion & politics.
Seeking “Third Spaces” and analogue life.
Values cultural engagement and social advocacy.
Resurgence of traditional structures.
Lack of appeal to the “Christian Subculture.”
Formation vs. Indoctrination
Gen Z’s backdrop is one of the most culturally and politically divided times in our country’s history. One of the areas where this division wreaks havoc the most is in the area of education, an area demonized by particular streams of faith in America. This is unfortunate because secular education is the space where the majority of young people in our country spend the majority of their time.
While I don’t deny that there can be valid concerns about forms of indoctrination in public education, those concerns have too often been coupled with a fear of exposure to ideas and critical thinking altogether. This fear keeps our culture war raging. It has become so absurd that even Biola University, a notoriously conservative Christian college, has come under attack by some ultra-conservative circles for being too “liberal.”
In the implied view of these critics, education in a Christian university is meant to be a direct transfer of truths and worldview from teachers and administrators to students. There is hardly any room in this view to enlarge their exposure or expressions. The claim is that Biola has gone too “woke,” even though I know multiple former professors who left the institution claiming the exact opposite.
These controversies and the ensuing battles do not seem concerned with appropriate young adult development — the need to experience the world guided by trustworthy adults and teachers while trying things out and making mistakes. Instead, it sounds as though we must protect, control, and win arguments around truth, ensuring that young people receive the version we find the purest.
I do believe in 2 Timothy 1:14 and the charge to “guard the good deposit,” entrusting it to trustworthy people who will entrust it to other trustworthy people (2 Tim 2:2). But there is a difference between training up Bible teachers, theologians, and seminarians who are called to do just that and controlling the process of faith development for emerging young adults. We can’t reduce human development, which includes spiritual development, to a simple input-and-output process.
The truth for young people, whether educated in a secular or Christian environment is this:
If you can’t question Christianity, you can’t become a Christian. If you cannot explore what a faithful response is, you cannot have a response that comes from faith.
If you don’t have the freedom to engage books that question or even challenge the Bible and see if they have any merit, then you can’t willingly choose the word of God and find it to be a lamp unto your feet. If you cannot encounter a Christian who expresses their faith differently from you, then you cannot discern a faithful response. No one is born a Christian believer or inducted into it. Neither is any new convert immediately a person of discernment.
The Spirit opens our eyes, enlivens our hearts, and allows us to see the truth of Jesus amidst the falsehoods of the world, including the Christian subculture. This does not come by strict avoidance of the whole world to make a Christian. Jesus is not afraid to go to Samaria or send his disciples to the Gentiles, so why are we so narrow and suspicious in our practices? Jesus demonstrates that he can both adhere to the truth of who God is and go to places that do not fully understand it.
This means my daughter can go to college in the Northwest with the foundation she received from us and begin to expand her horizons. Christ is there. This means students at a Christian university can comfortably expand their horizons as well. Every exploration does not have equal merit, but it does not require us to belittle and fret about exploration all together.
Letting Them Drive
There are obvious forms of control and groupthink that require submission because “we said so.” There are also more subtle forms of control that most of us dance around within our day-to-day lives. As a parent, it’s easier to set strict parameters and information sources so my maturing kid has no choice but to align with my standards.
My husband will tell you that in his years as a college pastor at a church, the families who took the hardest line had the kids who secretly had no alignment with the parents. But I confess, it’s hard not to employ these tactics even subtly. I have the power to manipulate, infuse fear, and create narratives to gain more submission from my kids to my ideals. I’ve been tempted, and at times I have succumbed.
As a child, I had an unusual arrangement: I rode the public school bus to my private faith-based K-8 school. This required first stopping at the local public elementary school, where almost everyone got off the bus. Then 2-3 of us headed to our own private drop-off.
“The public-school kids” had foul mouths, with expressions I had never heard. To my young mind, they represented bad things and bad kids. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking can become a deeply entrenched form of othering. It’s easy to live in a bubble rather than engage the world with the love of Christ. It can nurture hostility toward people outside the bubble, exchanging a faithful, loving, mission for our sense of group safety.
There’s no right answer here, but this is why we chose to put our kids in public schools. However, I admit that after having my daughter in an arts high school outside LA post-COVID, I felt like we’re living at the bottom of a cultural cesspool. I deeply regretted our choice for a season, but only because we were midway in a longer trajectory of her life. Some things came at us out of nowhere, with little time to prepare, especially given the fracture of moving from middle school remote learning to engaging with new peers at a new age and stage.
The truth is, you must get out of the driver’s seat altogether and let your emerging adult drive if you want them to become a capable driver. Faith formation is like driver’s ed. They must begin by learning the rules of the road, practice with you and other teachers, and then, ultimately, drive alone. Eventually, they will be a full-fledged adult with a car, title, and insurance.
Kids need a lot of formation at a young age, and it’s right that we work hard at it. But you can’t feed them Cheerios or Sunday School lessons forever. Adults must experience the world and find that Jesus is still the best news in it.
The more we fear that process, the more our fear brings about bad news for the culture and this generation. I’m excited that Gen Z kids in Manhattan Beach want to talk about the Bible like it’s 1999 all over again, but I am not going back to 1999. I also have to hold space for kids in the Pacific Northwest who want to study what is out there and engage in complex conversations, because they are living in a new space where the Spirit is doing a new thing (even if they don’t know it yet).
The Holy Spirit, I’m convinced, does both a new thing and brings us back to ancient, forever true things. Renewal is the meeting of the new and the old, the future and the past. It’s not making the past the future. It’s not making all new things. It’s renewing all things. A perfect ring of continuity of the One Truth.
The worst thing we can do is create a false equivalency that being a faith-filled person requires adherence to a certain bygone era or political reality. Gen Z has lived through more change and trauma in their formative years than some generations in a lifetime. Some of them will find comfort in something that feels old and traditional. Others will go on a journey to a new place.
Jesus welcomes their questions, has mercy for their mistakes, engages their curious minds, and loves them wholeheartedly.
I celebrate the resurgence of faith for some, while still waiting for the new thing the Spirit is doing, so that those on the outside can know Jesus. In the end, I believe we will see it as two points of one circle, where faith is renewed by God in every generation and time.
I left this story hanging in July, right before things began to take off. You may remember that all I had was a picture of a tunnel with some light at the end. Step by step, I hoped I might get out of the darkness and into the light.
A few weeks after I posted that story, everything changed.
Within two days, I had a 501(c)(3), a firstborn to launch, and I picked up a contract. I had to laugh, but I wanted to cry. I felt frustrated by everything happening simultaneously instead of bit by bit when I had ample time.
Thus began the project of building the plane in the air.
First, let me back up.
Shortly after I sensed that I needed to take steps toward the light, I met with a small team of friends who were praying for my next steps. At that point, it was clear to me that turning in resumes for jobs as a method of discernment was not working.
My heart knew what I needed to do. I just really wanted to find someone to pay me to do it.
The discernment team asked me if I felt ready to start my own ministry organization. With reluctant clarity, I said yes. I was hesitant because I still did not like the idea. I was clear because I had to admit the fruitlessness of the four months prior. The best I could do was to take one step at a time and see if there was confirmation down this road.
Slowly but surely, there was. It would be hard to recall all the steps in detail now. In short, I spent early 2024 consulting with a few churches, leading local prayer groups for parents, speaking at retreats, and gradually filling out paperwork for a non-profit in the cheapest way possible. (Because the nearly $1000 of upfront costs to start the ministry were $1000 I did not have at the time.)
Still, I felt unsure of precisely what I was building. Was it a prayer movement for the next generation? Was it a consulting ministry for healthy churches? (Why would churches pay me to help make them healthy?) Was it a ministry to families? Would I be speaking and teaching? As it turns out, it’s a little of all those things. I am trying to find all the appropriate words to describe this succinctly on a forthcoming website. That feels vulnerable too.
It seems obvious, but I had no idea that following Jesus’ call to ministry in a renewed sense of vulnerable dependence would require building every piece like I got a new Lego set with a step-by-step manual. In other words, none of the who, how, or what would come primarily from my strategic gifts, which I had relied on my whole career. Instead, it would be a process of following directions, even being willing to experiment with ministry ahead of knowing everything I wanted to do.
So many of the concerns I had been expressing in my prior senior ministry management role were obsolete when I considered created something new. The choice was mine to do ministry more organically and trust the Lord to provide.
I have a big vision for this little airplane called All Gen Movement. We are living in a time when one could easily say that God’s promises do not seem to be true for our kids, the Church, or the future. But I believe the Spirit has been doing a work of renewal before the crumbling even began. Like the twelve getting sent out with the bare minimum, I feel like I am on a journey to share Jesus’s healing ministry.
This healing is what we need.
Falling off a cliff with no one to catch me was painful. Getting scraped off the pavement was not much better.
But as these stories go, the longer the time passes, eventually, we get a broader perspective of why it had to be this way.
My work requires freedom to operate away from systems that do harm.
Outside the constraints of a management job.
I am used to being a loyal employee who tries to bring up concerns in the context of values.
Now, I am creating with the Creator.
Being an employee was much easier.
But right now, for me, this feels much more sacred.
And, yes, on most days, the whole process feels a bit insane too.
Photo taken after speaking at my last work conference, flying home into the unknown.
