As the Executive Pastor of Discipleship at Grace Community Church in Portland, Oregon, for over two decades, I sat comfortably in the seat of the critic. I was convinced that the Western church was sliding into irrelevance because of "kids these days." I treated my theology degree like a badge of superiority rather than a tool for service. This came to a head on a rainy Tuesday at a Stumptown Coffee on Division Street, sitting across from a 23-year-old congregant named Marcus. As Marcus detailed his "deconstructed" faith - citing inconsistencies he found on TikTok and his reliance on discord servers for spiritual community - I felt a physical recoil. My instinct, honed by years of sermon prep, was to lecture him. I wanted to dismantle his arguments with apologetics and tell him that his fluid identity was confusion and his digital validation was hollow. I was acting as a "Cultural Archivist," hoarding the artifacts of 1990s evangelicalism while sneering at his reality. But in that moment, the Holy Spirit checked me. I realized my attitude was constructing a "gilded cage" of nostalgia. I felt righteous, sure, but I was utterly ineffective as a shepherd. I had to face a hard truth: my judgment was a defensive moat protecting my own comfort, not a tool for the Kingdom. God wasn't calling me to be the angry guardian of tradition, but a seasoned guide. To do that, I had to stop viewing Marcus’s questions as threats to my authority and start viewing them as an invitation to his soul. I realized that if I wanted to transition from a curmudgeon to a sage, I had to admit that the friction I felt wasn't a signal to withdraw - it was a divine summons to engage.
The Methodology of the Listening Chair
Bridging this chasm required me to radically dismantle my pastoral pride and alter my discipleship methodology. You cannot download wisdom into a younger mind if you haven't established the bandwidth of a relationship first. I shifted from the "Lecture Podium" - where I felt safe - to what I now call the "Listening Chair." In my professional experience mentoring young adults through their quarter-life crises, I have found that Strategic Curiosity is the only mechanism that unlocks a defensive heart. It wasn't about trapping them in their theological inconsistencies; it was about understanding the anxiety driving their doubt. I abandoned my standard three-point lecture and implemented a specific framework of diagnostic questions designed to foster trust rather than debate. Instead of telling them what to think, I began asking:
- "What is the heaviest pressure you feel this week that you think a Pastor wouldn't understand?" (This validates their unique context and admits my own blind spots).
- "When you scroll through your feed late at night, what specific post makes you feel the most insecure?" (This addresses their digital reality as a spiritual battleground without mocking the medium).
- "If you were the Lead Pastor for a day, what is the first thing you would change about how we operate?" (This grants them agency and ownership).
This practice of "Platform Surrender" was excruciating for my ego. It meant leveraging my resources and influence not to amplify my voice, but to hand the microphone to them. I learned that when I acted as a sounding board rather than a demolition crew, my advice was actually sought after. By validating Marcus's struggles rather than dismissing them as trivial "snowflake" behavior, I earned the relational equity to speak truth into his life later.
Spiritual Mothers and Fathers: The Legacy of Presence
This transition from critic to sage has become the most vital Kingdom work I perform in my ministry today. We are suffering a severe deficit of spiritual mothers and fathers, not because the younger generation rejects wisdom, but because the older generation is often too busy judging to show up. I had to move from complaining about Gen Z to engaging in "Intercessory Warfare" for them. I recall a specific night praying for a mentee named David who was lost in a cycle of opioid addiction; I realized I didn't know how to pray for his specific world, so I asked him to teach me what he was up against. That vulnerability bridged the gap between my pulpit and his pain. I learned that my role is to embody the faithfulness of God - to show them that a life of obedience holds together when everything else, including their parents' marriages or their career prospects, falls apart. My grey hair became a crown of splendor only when it served as a beacon of hope, not a badge of superiority. Today, I don't want my legacy to be a blog post of complaints about modern culture or a sermon series on "the good old days." I want it to be the testimony of young men and women like Marcus - who is now serving on our worship team - saying, "He listened, he understood, and he walked with me." We must ensure that when we finish our race, the baton is firmly placed in the hands of a generation we took the time to know, love, and equip.
