Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Gen Z’s Spirituality. Finding an Older Mentor. Fear of Mortality - Highlight Episode 329

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Gen Z’s Spirituality. Finding an Older Mentor. Fear of Mortality - Highlight Episode 329 · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Speaker 1: We have an actual doctor with us today, dr Jeff Myers, the president of Summit Ministry.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Jeff, thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: I'm glad to be with you guys.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: For those of you who don't know, jeff, as I mentioned before, is the president of Summit Ministries.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: He's written 14 books, including Truth Changes Everything.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: He also hosts a podcast by that same name, truth Changes Everything with Dr Jeff Myers.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Today, we are talking about discipling the next generation.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Generation Z is the least religious generation in America Having trouble with the word generation.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I am struggling.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: They are known for being spiritual but not religious, but it would be a mistake to think that this is the atheism of 2001.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Gen Z is more likely to listen to Jordan Peterson than Richard Dawkins, which tells us they're asking different kinds of questions than the things that Richard Dawkins wrestled Gen Z.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: what age group?
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: 12 to 27.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: This is good news that they're asking these kinds of questions, because it means they're actually not opposed to faith.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: They are wrestling with it.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: We see the Gen Z are struggling with what is being called the loneliness epidemic, an increase in anxiety and depression, which also tells us that they are more self aware and that they need something greater.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: As the philosopher James KA Smith said in his book On the Road with Augustine, they are on the road looking for transcendence.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: They are in need of some sort of transcendent experience If secularism has succeeded in disenchanting our lives.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Anxiety, depression, loneliness are all hints, longings haunting for a re-enchantment.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: The audience for your show.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: Okay, the people who are listening right now 18 to 24, their heart's cry is how do I connect with an older person who I can really relate to, who doesn't feel like they have to just lecture me, who doesn't feel like they have to impose anything on me, but they just want to walk with me through life?
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: There are a couple of things you do.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: The first one is write out a list of your areas of need, not just biblical need, not just, oh, I need to understand the book of Leviticus.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I said why Write out?
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: I need to learn a foreign language to be able to do my job.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: I need to understand my budget so that I can live within my means.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: Write those things out and I will tell them write out 20 things, 20 things that you know you need to know but that you do not know to be successful in life.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Write them all out and then, once you've got your list, then you start asking God, will you show me the people who could mentor me in relation to this particular need?
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: You're not looking for somebody to attach yourself to every single week for one hour for the rest of your life.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: You're looking to meet these needs and you're all of a sudden seeing everybody around you as a potential resource, not someone to use, but someone to connect with.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: Do you know that in order for the timeline of the gospels to be true, where people were walking from one place to another, jesus went from this place to this place?
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: They had to have been walking for 13 months, every day, all day out of the three years of earthly ministry, walking with and asking questions.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: Right, isn't that fascinating?
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so good.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: I can do that.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I can do that.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Anybody can do that.
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: Well, listen, you're hitting it, because discipleship today, what we call discipleship, it looks a whole lot different than it happened in the first century.
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: Right Today, discipleship is when somebody asks hey, will you disciple me?
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: Great, let's go through a book together, and there's nothing obviously wrong with going through a book together.
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: But that is not biblical discipleship.
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: When we begin to think about it, discipleship is what happens in between the everyday happenings of life, and I wrote down a thing a while back and I'll read a little bit of it.
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: Discipleship happens in the spaces between teaching and living.
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: Jesus spent time walking, eating, laughing and working alongside his disciples.
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: It's not just about what you teach, but how you live, and it's challenging individuals to come alongside you through the everyday happenings of life.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: I'm going to this wedding.
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: I'm going to Costco hey, I need to work on my car, and you're able to just ask questions and answer questions.
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: Hey, how would you have handled that?
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: Or hey, I have a flat tire.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: Hey, I have a flat tire.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: Will you come and help me out?
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: I don't know how to fix a flat tire.
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: No, no, I'm going to call AAA and I want you to be there when Iions.
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: You're welcome to come over.
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: Hey, I'm going to watch a football game.
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: Come on over and they're able to see how you handle, how you interact, how you respond.
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: Hey, has anybody ever sat down with you and worked out your financials with you?
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: Do you know how to change the oil on a car?
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: Do any of these things?
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: So this is a bigger issue.
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: This is a Christ centric, bible at hand issue.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: We're just living life.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: Hey, I'm having this struggle.
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: Young one, how would you counsel through this?
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: What do you think scripture would say?
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: Who do I call, who do I talk?
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: What books do you recommend?
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: And then we're just kind of molding and I'll tell you that discipleship is a beautiful thing, the power of that, because what you're doing is you're incarnating.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Question for you is how has it changed?
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: You're talking to somebody in 19, whatever, 95, versus today.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like there's a difference?
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Are they asking different questions?
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Has the approach changed for you?
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: The approach hasn't changed.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: But I've found and I mentioned this before that COVID did the church an incredible favor because it pushed people who were not thinking about their mortality to think about their mortality.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, when you're 18, 17, 18, you don't think about your death.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Death is for old people and yet it's been ushered right to their forehead, this black tomb.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: They're going to die.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: So when I witness to people and I've said this before, but it's worth saying again one of the first questions I say is are you afraid of dying?
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: I did it this morning in a local college and most people say yeah, I'm terrified.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: And that's because Hebrews says they're haunted.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Amplified Bible, amplified, amplified.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: We quote the verse a little louder when we quote the Amplified Bible, but it says they're haunted by the fear of death all their lifetime.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Hebrews 2, 14 and 15.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: And so I know that they're haunted by this fear of death and I can see it by their facial expression.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: They're thinking how did this guy know I'm terrified of dying?
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I haven't told mom, dad, brother, sister, boyfriend, girlfriend, but I know because scripture tells me.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: And then I say and it's just, I'm like a recording, but it works every time.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Have you ever read the Bible?
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: No, Did you know the Old Testament?
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: In the Old Testament God promised he would destroy death and in the New Testament we're told how he did it and they go.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: I didn't know that and you can hear by their tone.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: It is the first time they've heard something like that.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: I said would you like to hear, and who's going to say no when it opens the door to the Gospels?
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: When Christians learn that you can circumnavigate that hostility by doing what Jesus did and addressing the conscience, it takes heat out of the whole thing.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: You don't have to be an expert in apologetics, you don't have to have an answer for every question they've got.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: All you have to do is show them their danger and that they need a Savior.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: And once they see their danger they'll say thank you.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: They don't see you as proselytizing.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: They see you as someone that loves them and wants to see them in heaven, not in hell.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: And they can hear by your tone.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: And so teach Christians to do that and to address the conscience, and we see more laborers being raised up and we get closer to seeing this world reached with a glorious gospel.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: And I think there are really three things that relate to discipleship.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: The first one is we help students take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: 2 Corinthians, 10, 5, that everything in the world is under the lordship of Jesus Christ, Everything, your economics class, your philosophy class, your engineering class, all of it.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: The second thing is to not be taken captive Colossians 2.8.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: There are bad ideas out there, false worldviews, counterfeits and you need to be able to identify those counterfeits so that you can stand against them.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, you can recognize a counterfeit bill if you're very familiar with real bills, but that doesn't tell you how to find the person who's making the counterfeit and stop them.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: It doesn't tell you how to find the person who's making the counterfeit and stop them.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: It doesn't tell you how to develop the justice system where that person can be prosecuted, the laws that need to be passed in order for the prosecution to take place, what kind of punishment is appropriate, all of those kinds of things.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: You realize, oh man, there's so much more than just identifying it.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: You have to really know that it's a counterfeit and then be able to turn more strongly toward the truth.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: And then the third one is to set the captives free.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: So don't be taking captive, or take every thought captive.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: Don't be taking captive.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: Set the captives free, which we already talked about.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: 2 Timothy 2, 24 to 26.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: If you take those three things at the heart of it, I think that's the kind of discipleship that really has a profound impact on people's lives forever and enabling them to turn around and be the ones who are evangelists for God's truth, revealed through Jesus Christ, in our culture.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast.
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: Friends, we value your time, so we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get equipped.
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: Without the jokes and fellowship.
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: Be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday where we dive deeper into the topic.
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: Until then, you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaterstv.