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Shane Pruitt, national next gen director for the North American Mission Board, is a Texan and former staffer at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. His most recent book, co-authored with Shelly Melia, is called Reaching Generation Alpha: A Ministry Guide for Discipling the Church Beyond the Screen. Pruitt recently spoke with the Texan as he prepares to serve as one of two keynote speaker options at the annual SBTC Equip Conference.
What about younger generations tends to surprise church leaders once they start investing in them?
Shane Pruitt: I think one thing would be that there is a hunger for truth. There is a love for doctrine and theology, a heart for the ancient. They want to know how to defend their faith. Even among spiritually lost students, there’s an openness right now. I’ll touch on this at Equip, but youth ministry is in a unique season because you’re really ministering to two distinct generations. You got your older high school Gen Z students, and then you’ve got your freshmen or even middle school Gen Alpha students. But one thing that’s true about both is there’s this openness to wanting to hear about Jesus. There was a statistic I saw not too long ago that said among Gen Z—and not just Christian Gen Zers, but all of them—81% said they’re curious about the Bible. That’s incredible.
Another thing is, they really don’t care how old you are. Young people aren’t looking for cool young leaders to follow. They’re looking for real and authentic leaders. If you’re a 72-year-old who is real and authentic and loves young people and wants to disciple them and teach them the Bible, you’ll be seen as a hero by those younger generations. Young people love the kind of people who are just themselves, not trying to be cool or act cool or wear cool things, because that just feels inauthentic to them. If you’re just yourself, it doesn’t matter how old you are.
You and others have often said the next generation is not the future of the church, but the “now” of the church. How is that being put into practice by the churches that embrace that reality?
SP: When I think about this, I can’t help but think of Ephesians 4:12, which talks about equipping the saints for the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ. If you’ve been bought by the blood of Jesus, then you’ve got the Holy Spirit of God. That means in our churches, we’ve got 8-year-old saints and 10-year-old saints and 15-year-old saints and 20-year-old saints—and all saints are called to ministry in some way.
Here’s a diagnostic question I always ask church leaders: What in your church is off limits to people under 18? I ask them to make a list. There will be some things in our churches that are off-limits to younger people. Maybe you need a 25-year-old to drive the van for insurance purposes, or you might need an 18-year-old to work in certain protective spaces. But what I’ve found is that it’s typically a pretty short list. That means everything else not on that list is wide open for young people to get involved in and serve in. I think that’s the difference maker—get young people serving. We’ve found that’s one of the main ways to keep students from falling off along the way. Get them serving not just in the youth ministry, but in the whole life of the church.
Some of my favorite churches to preach in are the ones where you go in on a Sunday and see a 15-year-old and an 80-year-old greeting together or on the stage together or serving in the coffee bar. That’s where we’re seeing younger generations equipped to be the church right now. Will it be a little awkward sometimes? Yes. Will they be nervous at first? Yes. Will they make mistakes? Yes. But that’s what the journey of discipleship is all about—giving them opportunities to be shaped.
What are some specific challenges churches might face in ministering to and reaching the next generation?
SP: I think a lot of it is on the relational side of things. They’ve grown up immersed in social media, and social media was supposed to connect everybody, but stats consistently show that it actually makes us more lonely. And then you see things like artificial intelligence that offer quick, easy answers to things—it almost seems to hinder things like Titus 2 that teaches the model of the older men teaching the younger men and the older women teaching the younger women. When you and I were younger, we had to go to our parents or our grandparents or someone older to get information. Now these generations can just go around all that and go right to artificial intelligence. So I feel like one opportunity is [teaching younger generations how to interact] well again. How do you have a conversation? How do you bear one another’s burdens, love your neighbors, serve people? They’ve got it figured out when it comes to doing these things online, but I think that’s an area we’re really going to have to lean in to—the in-person and the physical.
What is God putting on your heart that you want to communicate at this year’s Equip Conference?
SP: I think the main goal is [to talk about approaching the next generation] like a missionary would approach a people group. If a missionary goes to Tokyo, he or she would want to learn all about that people group: the pain points, the needs, the fears so they can truly love those people and interject the gospel into their lives. It’s the same thing [with younger generations]. We need to understand the needs of a generation, the hurts of a generation, the pain points of a generation, the fears of a generation, the way they see the world, how to practically reach them with the gospel, and also how to disciple them. We need to let them be the church right now, not just the future of the church.
