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Gen Z Wants to Be Your Friend

As a teenager in the 2010s, Olivia Voegtle had a youth group experience that she describes as “a bizarre fusion of a hyper-fixation on women’s bodies and the ‘threat’ we posed to our male counterparts, combined with an aversion (and often fear) of topics like intimacy and sexuality.” Now, as a young professional living in New York City, Voegtle hopes that older Christians will engage her generation in conversations about sexuality that are defined by wisdom and vulnerability rather than fear.
Fellow Gen Z member Elijah O’Dell is similarly eager for cross-generational Christian relationships that honor the “spiritual siblinghood” all believers share.
“An effective but often overlooked way to respect someone is to consider them worthy of friendship,” writes O’Dell. “Often, older Christians want to ‘disciple’ younger believers without any kind of preexisting relationship.” Rather than skipping the getting-to-know-you stage, O’Dell encourages his older spiritual siblings to invite their younger brothers and sisters into mutually enriching friendships.
Voegtle, O’Dell, and fellow young people shed further light in a recent CT article titled “How Can Older Believers Better Support Gen Z?” No matter the decades between us, may we receive their insight as the gift it is, and may we pray for opportunities to grow in our faith alongside this rising generation.