‘Does our style of church services put young people off?’: Dan Blythe on the challenge of reaching Generation Z

The Barna group carried out an enormous survey (the largest in its history) when it listened to 25,000 teenagers across 26 different countries, all aged between 13 to 17. They called it the ‘Open Generation’, because one thing that they noticed from this generation, Generation Z*, is that they are very open to listen and to learn from different cultures and contexts

The challenge I always ask myself and church leaders is, if they’re the open generation, are we the closed church? And when I say closed, I don’t mean closed in theology, because I think your theology is your theology. I’m not saying you need to be open in that way. But just in terms of our approach: are we open in our conversation?

I always encourage church leaders to think more about circles than rows, and to think more about listening to young people, rather than just speaking to them.