Reaching Gen Alpha

Reaching Gen Alpha

Host: Dr. Isaac Crockett

Guest: Shane Pruitt

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 8/7/26. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Isaac Crockett:

All right. Well, welcome to the program. I’m so thankful that you’ve tuned in today. And I also want to shout out and thank the station managers of the radio stations who carry our program. Without listeners and without station managers that play this, we wouldn’t have this ministry. And maybe you’re not even listening on radio. Maybe you’re listening on a podcast platform or streaming. I’m really thankful for that too, and for our producers behind the scenes and those of you who give so generously to make that possible. But especially thank you for listening. Whether you’re tuning in or streaming in or listening to an archive of this, we’re really thankful that you’re listening. And I hope that you will share this with others because today we have a really special return guest. It’s been a few years since he’s been on, but somebody who is at the tip of the spear of cultural worldview and of biblical worldview and really ministering and seeing souls saved.

And so with that, I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett. And today it is my pleasure to introduce Dr. Shane Pruitt, who’s back with us after several years of a hiatus. Shane, thank you so much for taking the time to be on our program today.

Shane Pruitt:

Hey, thanks for having me, Isaac. Like you said, I’ve been on many times, but it’s been a little bit since I’ve been back. So man, it’s an honor to be back. Thanks for having me.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, you’re a very busy person in the ministry and it’s one of those things you and I have stayed in contact and we haven’t been able to work it out. And I’m so thankful that it works out today because you’re speaking to hundreds of thousands of people, especially young people. You’re writing books, you’re a father. You’ve worn all the hats, pastor, church planter, a speaker, evangelist, father, author, student, a little bit of everything. And God has used that and has used your ministry in so many ways. But today I especially want to talk about kind of a new generation, the Generation Alpha. And you actually wrote a book, co-authored it, Reaching Generation Alpha: A Ministry Guide for Discipling the Church Beyond the Screen. And the screen and all of that is so important with this generation. So I’d love to just get a little bit of a 30,000 foot view here.

Who is Generation Alpha? Maybe you could kind of give us some of the different generations that we’re looking at. And then why did you and Shelly feel the need that the church really needs a book that’s dedicated as a ministry guide for reaching this Generation Alpha?

Shane Pruitt:

Yeah, that’s a great question, Isaac. And I did. Yeah. I co-wrote it with a friend of mine, Dr. Shelly Milia, who is a professor at Dallas Baptist University, just a research guru, just really an expert on next gen ministries, children’s ministries. And so we co-wrote this together, co-authored it together, and then worked with our friends at B&H Publishing, Robin & Holdman, which I’ve done multiple projects with them and a book that just came out and we’ve already been blown away by the response. So that’s a great question. Who is Generation Alpha? According to definitions, Generation Alpha are all those that are born between the ages of 2010 to 2024. So at the time of this conversation, think of those between the ages of two and 16. So if you look at it as like a church, it’s all those in children’s ministry, middle school ministry, and lower high school ministry.

And as fast as time goes now, I feel like the older I get, the faster the world turns. But before we blink too long, they will be in the college and young adult ministry. So it’s a massive generation. Over 50 million of them live in the United States. So that is really where we’re at right now with next gen ministries, and it will be the future of our next gen ministries for the next 15 years. And the reason we wanted to write this book is because in past, when it came to generational studies, you think of baby boomers and then just the generation right below them are Gen Xers. And then the generation right below them are millennials. And then you had Gen Z. There’s been a lot of things talked about by Gen Z, but they’re now the oldest of Gen Z is approaching 30.

So Gen Alpha is the current young people. And you look at that, and in the past, honestly, Isaac, I felt like, for lack of a better term, the secular space would start putting out a lot of books or a lot of research on generational studies. And then unfortunately, the Christian space would always be about seven to eigt years behind. I kind of joke and people go, “Well, we need to reach those millennials.” And that’s true, but they’re in their 40s now. And so yes, we do need to reach them, but we also need to be more proactive instead of reactive and really start going after young people. And we’re really excited because I feel like one of the first times when it comes to generational studies, the Christian space is being proactive. Because if you look in the secular space, there might be some articles on Generation Alpha or some podcasts or some interviews, but there hasn’t been a book Make a Big Splash.

And so we wanted to be proactive. Man, we got the first book out there and we talk about it all. I know we’ll talk about some of those things coming up in our conversation here, but we talk about every topic and we intentionally wrote it broad enough that it’s a relevant resource for, yes, ministry leaders, but also parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, coaches. Basically anybody pouring in and impacting the next generation, this book is for them.

Isaac Crockett:

Shane, you’re a parent of children. You have some children I think that are in this generation. I have children in this generation and one in Gen Z. You speak to young people regularly. I mean, over a hundred thousand a year. You’re the next gen director for the North American Mission Board in AMB, NAM. So this is kind of like your forte right here. But what do you see as for this generation, Gen Alpha, their worldview formation? We just have a moment here before the break, but how is it different from some of the older generations?

Shane Pruitt:

Yeah, you’re right. So we have six kids, five year on earth, one that is with the Lord. And our oldest is 20. And then we have a 15 year old, a 12 year old, a 10 year old and a nine year old. So I’d say we have a children’s ministry, a youth ministry, and a college and young adult ministry in our family. We got a big family. And yeah, I would say the major difference between kind of really Gen Z, which are older, high school, college, young adults, early marriage. The major difference between Gen Z and this alpha generation coming up is Gen Z was impacted by social media, impacted by technology. We’ve seen that, that stuff came to the forefront in their formative years. So Gen Z was impacted by technology and social media and screens. Gen Alpha has been formed by technology

Social media screens, meaning they don’t know a world without it. And so what this has done is it’s really shaped the way they think, the way they feel, the way they live. And it really comes down to discipleship. Used to we’d say, okay, how many young people are being discipled? And we’d always try to raise that number. But today we got to look at Gen Alpha differently and to go, is Gen Alpha being discipled? They are. How many of them? 100% of them. They’re all being discipled. So the question isn’t, are they being discipled? They are. The question is who or what is discipling them? It’s almost like discipleship horse because many of Gen Alpha are being discipled by algorithms. They’re being discipled by social media. They’re being discipled by TikTok or their favorite entertainer or cultural agendas. And we have to step in as parents, grandparents, churches, because if we don’t disciple young people, the world is more than happy to do it for us.

And we don’t want that to happen.

Isaac Crockett:

This is so important that we need to disciple them and we need to be involved younger rather than waiting till older. And we have a lot more to say about that. We talk about that a lot here when we talk about biblical worldview, but really focusing in on this generation and making sure that we are handing down a biblical worldview to them. So important. We want to come back and talk more with Shane Pruitt and look at this identity of this generation in a digital age. And you may have thought about that, how it’s so different, what they’re being raised in, not just impacted, but expected. A lot more to talk about when we come back.

Well, welcome back to the program. Again, I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett, and we are speaking with Shane Pruitt. He is the author, co-author of Reaching Generation Alpha: A Ministry Guide for Discipling the Church Beyond the Screen. And this is not only the best book I’ve seen on Generation Alpha, but I haven’t seen any other book like this about discipling this generation. So important for us to be discipling young people. As Shane mentioned in our first segment, every young person is being discipled, but are they being discipled with a biblical worldview? Like D.L. Moody talked about one time he said he had two and a half conversions and somebody thought he meant two adults and a child. He said, no, the full conversions were the children because they have their whole lives in front of them. The adult who was saved is only a half a convert.

And so Shane, we’re looking at how do we disciple this young generation elementary school through 16 years old right now? And you as a father of many kids in that generation and as somebody who speaks to hundreds of thousands of young people and have written a lot about it, you have come up with very biblical ideas, very biblical solutions. And when we look at this generation that we have to understand the signs of the time. And what are some of the things you talk about even in the title of your book, Beyond the Screen, and when you were defining this generation versus previous generations, you said really the screen time is such a key factor. Could you talk to us a little bit about how this generation has been defined in many ways by screens?

Shane Pruitt:

Yeah, exactly. There’s a chapter in a book that we wrote. It’s called Gen Alpha and Their Security Blanket. And what we meant by that is, if you remember the cartoon, Charlie Brown, Snoopy, there was also a character on there named Linus. And Linus had this blue blanket that was always with him. And that’s even where the term security blanket came from. And we all had those as kids, whether it was a stuffed animal or a football or a blanket. Generation Alpha, the whole generation, their security blanket is screens, meaning they’ve had screens in their hands the vast majority of their life. When we were doing research for the book, we found this out that nearly half of all Generation Alpha had a tablet before the age of six. The majority has a smartphone by the age of 13. Our youngest daughter, she’s nine. She was in third grade last school year.

And at her school, she was the only one in her grade that didn’t have a smartphone already. So what this does is not only does those screens disciple kids into how they think, how they feel, how they live, their worldviews, but it also hinders how they interact with people in person. Young people are confident on a screen, comfortable on a screen, but the moment they get with people in the real world, in real life, it gets awkward real quick. And I think all parents who are listening to this probably understand what I’m talking about. Grandparents understand what I’m talking about. Again, they’re articulate on a screen, confident on a screen, but how many times do we run into young people now and they can’t even look you in the eye? They certainly can’t have a conversation. They don’t know how to interact with people. Even some of their best friends, they know how to talk on FaceTime, but they don’t know how to actually talk to somebody’s face in real life.

It gets real awkward. I think of my own kids sometimes and they’ve been around people their whole life. They’ve traveled with me by the time they can walk, but sometimes they’re scared to death they even ask for a refill at a restaurant. So what does that mean for us as adults, parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches? How can we help here? Well, often when you go to a conference and they’re talking about next gen ministries and they talk about the future of ministry, a lot of times they’re talking about artificial intelligence or they’re talking about digital ministry. And yes, all those things are important. But I really think the future of ministry for next gen when it comes to being effective and cutting through the noise of culture is how do we help young people and disciple them to have real relationships with real people in the real world and have real conversations?

A lot of times we’re talking about technology. Well, young people will teach us about technology. They got technology figured out. But what they don’t know how to do is to live in the real world. And really, I think that could be one of the greatest tragedies of Generation Alpha is they’re going to miss out on the beauty that God has provided in the real world with authentic relationships, authentic conversations, and know how to live real life because they’re obsessed with a fake one on a screen. And so I think that is really where we can help. When I was growing up, if you wanted to gain knowledge, you had to go to your parents or your grandparents. They were the keeper of the knowledge. They were the adults in the community or the pastors of the community. They were like the keepers of the knowledge.

Or you had to go to Encyclopedia Britannica, if you remember that. But now young people, they can go right around their parents, right around their grandparents, and then go to AI or then go to Google to get the answers to their questions. So a lot of young people today, they know a little bit about everything, but they don’t actually know how to do anything. So they have a little bit of knowledge, but they have no wisdom. So that’s where adults have to step in. Parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches, ministers, leaders, church volunteers step in and go, “Hey, young people don’t have wisdom and you can bring that.” Even James chapter one, to not only be a hearer of the word, but be a doer of the word. And young people don’t know how to do that. And that’s where adults can step in and be a true help.

Isaac Crockett:

And one of the things I appreciate about your book, and I’ve been reading it, is that you give biblical wisdom steps for everybody dealing with this generation. And anyone listening right now who’s dealt with this age, I want to call them kids, but this generation, many of them are children, they relate to what you’re talking about, Shane. They know exactly what you mean by this. And we talk about it. And understanding them and understanding where they’re coming from, but then understanding the Bible. And this is such a great resource. Reaching Generation Alpha. You can Google it, you can go on Amazon, Walmart, Target. I think anywhere they sell books, Reaching Generation Alpha: A Ministry Guide for Discipling the Church Beyond the Screen. So as we look at this generation, their identity really goes hand in hand with the screens that have been changing their lives, that have been showing them all this information, even though they lack relationships and wisdom, as you’ve talked about.

What are some of the cultural messages about our identity that Gen Alpha is exposed to? Maybe they’re exposed to some of these messages much earlier than previous generations because as you said, they’re on the screens and screens can take them pretty much anywhere.

Shane Pruitt:

Yeah, absolutely. You may think of your own kids or if you’re a grandparent, you think of your grandkids and go, “Well, they’re super young.” Even when they’re on the screens, the only thing they’re watching are cartoons or kids shows. And we know even cultural agendas are being pushed through kids’ shows on Netflix or any of the streaming services, all kind of cultural agendas. And it really has created a lot of confusion with Generation Alpha already on their views of sexuality, their views of gender. And they’re labeling themselves as things super early and not even really realizing what they’re talking about. Isaac is sobering as it is. Man, just a few months ago, I was preaching at a church, a large church, multiple services. And in between two of the services, a young man comes up to me and he goes, “Hey, you talked a lot about God’s love and those types of things.” I was like, “Yeah, that’s right.” And he goes, “So do you think God loves me?” And I was like, “Of course he does.

God loved you so much. He sent his only son for John 3:16.” He goes, “Well, even though I’m bisexual,” and I could tell he was young. And I said, “How old are you?” And he goes, “I’m nine, almost 10.” And I’m like, “Who told you that?” Someone told him that, an unhealthy adult or he saw it on a show or on social media. And here he is labeling himself as something at nine years old that you and I didn’t hear about these things until we became young adults. When I was nine years old, I was collecting football cards and playing with GI Joe. You know what I mean? And so here he is extremely confused. Well, here’s the problem with that, is culture screams about these things. And if the church remains silent, then a whole generation only hears one worldview and they grow up believing these things and we don’t like it.

But here’s the thing is we also have been a part of the conversation. So as church leaders, as parents, adults, grandparents, teachers, coaches who love Jesus, we got to step into these conversations. And I say this all the time, silence is no longer an option. We speak where the Bible speaks. And here’s what I found is that, and of course we do it age appropriately, but here’s what I found is whenever I’m very clear and very bold and very direct about what the Bible says, young people appreciate that. They’re like, thank you so much for telling me. Thank you so much for teaching that. Thank you so much for not shying away from that. Because I found young people want to talk about these things. It’s usually us parents and adults who are scared to talk about it. But friends, again, if we don’t talk about it, the world has plenty to say.

And I’d much rather young people be discipled by the gospels than the Grammys.

Isaac Crockett:

And you’re so right. And you and other people, I remember Josh McDowell and George Barna and a number of other men that I know have taught me that the world is discipling our kids at a younger and younger, younger rate. So we need to be talking about all of these things and showing what the Bible says. We just have a couple of minutes here before we go to our next break. But I’m curious, with your on the ground, I mean, you’re in many different churches, many different places with young people, Christian young people and others. And then even in your own family. And I’m wondering, as you interact with Generation Alpha and you see these young people up close, what are some of the things that are giving you hope about them and the hope that we have that they’ll still be able to embrace biblical views and biblical identity?

Shane Pruitt:

Yeah, I love it. So two things. One of the positive aspects of them being exposed to so much so early is what they’ve realized at a much earlier age than probably my generation and previous generations is they’re realizing at a much earlier age that the world is broken and they’re broken. So what it’s causing them to do at a very early age is now they’re looking for hope. They’re looking for answers. They’re looking for truth. And when they don’t find those things in the world because they’re not, then guess what happens? Anxiety rates go up, depression rates go up, suicide attempts go up, all the things we are seeing. But here’s a great opportunity with the church through the great commission to step into those conversations and go, “Hey, you’re looking for hope. You’re looking for answers, you’re looking for truth. You’re actually looking for someone because hope has a name.

The answer has a name. Truth has a name. It’s a name above every name, Jesus Christ.” And this is true, Isaac. I’ve seen more young people, teenagers, college students, young adults make professions of faith that Jesus Christ as Lord and save their life in the last five years of ministry than the previous 20 years of ministry combined. God is moving amongst Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

Isaac Crockett:

Amen. God is moving. And Shane, you have a lot of resources about that even on your website. If you look up Shane Pruitt, we’re going to talk about this in so much more. We’re going to take a quick break. Well, welcome back to the program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and I’m talking with Shane Pruitt. Dr. Pruitt has worn just about every hat you can think of in ministry relations, pastor and church planter and youth pastor and teacher, father, a husband, student, teacher, all these different things. He’s a speaker. He serves as the national next gen director for the North American Mission Board. And with that, he gets to preach all over to young people, college age students and younger teens and children. And he has six children, five. They’re here on earth, one that’s in heaven with the Lord. But he’s just a very effective communicator, speaks to hundreds of thousands of mostly young people, but also has written a lot of books and has written a lot to help everybody else, all the older generations to help the younger generations.

And so if you go to shanepruitt.net, that’s Shane Pruitt with two Ts, P-R-U-I-T-T.net. You can see more about him, more about his ministry, and you can see some of his books. I use several of his books on a regular basis. I like all of his books. Not just saying that because he’s on our program, but I think that if you haven’t seen his Not My Jesus or nine common lies that Christians believe, so helpful. He’s got other ones calling out the called and Revival Generation one that I think you’d also be very, very interested in. But today we’re looking at Gen Alpha and what he has written. He has co-authored a book about this generation, Reaching Generation Alpha: A Ministry Guide for Discipling the Church Beyond the Screen. And so if you enjoy this program, if you’ve been listening, I would encourage you to listen to this and share it with others.

If you’re just tuning in, listen to the whole program and share it with others. You can go to our Stand in the Gap app. It’s on most of the platforms. Stand in the Gap app or you can go to Stand in the Gap. You can just Google us or look us up. Go to our website, Facebook, Twitter. But you can get this and we have it on archives. It’s on pretty much every platform like Spotify and Apple Music and things like that. You can listen to it again or share it with somebody. You can even share the transcript if there’s somebody that likes to read things. But I hope that you will use this. And then I hope that you’ll go to shanepruit.net and use those resources that our guest today has already done. Well, Shane, I want to go back to what you were doing.

You were talking about some of the hopefulness that you have as a father, as a preacher, as somebody who deals with this generation on a daily basis. And you mentioned that this generation, they see and they understand brokenness in this world. They don’t have some of the illusions that maybe sometimes children grew up with because of all the information pushed on them. They see that and they’re looking for hope. And I’d love to have you go back and talk about that. And then there was, I think, another point that you were going to make about this generation as well.

Shane Pruitt:

Yeah, absolutely. So again, we’re seeing vast scores of young people come to know Jesus as one savior. And I know a lot of people have probably seen those things of what’s happening on college campuses. And it’s amazing. I tell you, I can’t remember an event since 2020. And I think that was the shift. I can’t remember an event with young people where I preached the gospel, gave an invitation, and young people didn’t respond. They’re responding every time in words. And that has nothing to do with me. That’s just God moving. And I think a generation that’s desperate for truth. Another interesting thing that we found in doing research for the book is when Generation Alpha was asked what they believed the most important thing in life was, the number one answer by far was helping people. So that means there’s already kind of this inherent feeling within Generation Alpha where they want to help people, where they want to make a difference.

Others have called that generation a cause-oriented generation, that they want to be for a cause. They want to be for something bigger than themselves. And so if they’re a cause-oriented generation, that’s a great opportunity for us as believers and for the church to say, listen, the greatest cause there is, is the great commission of Christ. And if you really want to help somebody, point them to Jesus. Share the gospel with them, make disciples. That’s how you truly help people. And I’m telling you, another thing with Gen Alpha in that is once they are truly saved and bought by the blood of Jesus and have the Holy Spirit of God, they’re some of the most radical people for Jesus. Some of the best evangelists I know are young people. Some of the people doing some of the most awesome things for the kingdom that I know about are young people.

And there’s also this hunger with them for truth because I think they realize so much in the world is fake. They know a lot of news they hear sometimes is fake. There’s a lot of cultural agendas. There’s a lot of cultural narratives. Even artificial intelligence, AI has made them question every video, every photo. I tell you, Isaac, I always feel old when I show my kids a video that I think is cool. And they’re like, “Dad, that’s AI.” And it makes me feel real dumb and real old, real quick. But they can spot it. They know. So they’re hungry for the real. They’re hungry for truth. And so I always say with that, that means preach the Bible, preach truth, teach the scriptures. In fact, here’s what I’ve seen with young people is the days of youth ministry, and it should have never been this way, Isaac, but unfortunately it was in some areas, is the days of youth ministry where you stand up, open a Bible in front of a crowd of students, and you read some Bible verse out of context.

Then you set your Bible down and then tell a bunch of goofy and emotional stories for 30 minutes. Those days are over. Nobody will reject that faster in young people. My 15-year-old cannot stand that stuff. My 12-year-old can’t stand that. My 20-year-old can’t stand it. They’re like, “Preach the Bible. They are hungry for doctrine and theology.” And they’ll also say, “Here’s a positive thing for all ages. Whether you’re listening to this and you’re in your teens, 20s, or maybe you’re in your 40s, 60s, maybe you’re in your 80s, is that young people want real and authentic. And so I would just say, be you. If you’re a grandparent and you feel like there’s nothing you have in common with the next generation, and you don’t understand their language, you don’t understand their music and how they dress, just know this. Just be you. Just be real.

Just be authentic. Be who God created you to be and love them. Here’s what I found is young people don’t need adults who act like kids to connect with young people. What they need is adults who act like adults, but also love young people. So just be you. They’re not looking for cool leaders to follow. They’re just looking for real and authentic ones. And in fact, I tell leaders this all the time. In fact, if you try to dress a certain way or talk a certain way or act a certain way to connect with young people, that comes off cringey to them. That comes off inauthentic. That comes off as though you’re trying too hard. So I would say just be you because that’s real. That’s authentic. And something that’s real and authentic to young people, that’s refreshing to them because they feel like everything around them is fake already.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, Shane, it’s refreshing talking to you about this because what you’re saying is so exciting and it’s actually simple. I’m not saying that it’s easy to do, but it’s simple and it’s biblical and it’s not a bunch of hoops we have to jump through. Just be authentic. Just be you and be a discipler of whoever God puts in your life. Teaching Generation Alpha, a ministry guide for discipling the church beyond the screen. If you don’t have a copy of this, I think you need to get a copy no matter what generation you are, whether you’re a teenager yourself and you’re listening, this would be great for you. Or whether you’re a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, a friend of somebody younger, if you’re involved at church, even if you’re not involved at church, but you should be, or somebody in your church needs it, get this book and use it.

Shane, we have just a little bit of time left in this segment that we’re in. I want to ask you, we’re talking about screens, we’re talking about this digital connection. How does being the most digitally connected generation, how does it affect their emotions and their social development maybe differently than some of the other generations?

Shane Pruitt:

Yeah. Great question, Isaiah. And it really goes back to a little bit of what we talked about while ago. My co-author says it like this. We put it in a book, but it’s an original quote from her. She said, “Just like social media didn’t make us more social, artificial intelligence isn’t going to make us more intelligent.” Think about social media. It was supposed to be the thing to connect the world together. And on some levels it does, but it also made people more lonely. The more we’re on a screen, the more lonely we become. Same thing with artificial intelligence. It used to, if you were going to write a research paper, it wasn’t just producing the paper that was the goal, but it was everything you learn through the research, everything you learn through writing. Well, now AI can pull out a lot of that process.

So it may cause young people to have the answer, but they don’t have the wisdom and they didn’t really grow and mature through that maturation process. And so a lot of times now you got lonely. You also got high levels of mental illness. Another thing we found and put in the book is that there’s a direct correlation between levels of screen time and levels of anxiety. Almost like the greatest cure for anxiety is to turn that phone off or turn that tablet off, go outside, touch some grass, get some sunlight, go be around people, go play with people. And again, I think young people aren’t going to do those things on their own. So that’s where we need adults who are encouraging them and pushing them to do that. Parents, grandparents, industry leaders. But I would also just challenge parents and grandparents who are listening to this is we can’t just harp on our kids about getting off screens and we’re sitting there on our own devices doom scrolling.

Sometimes you’ll go to restaurants and you’ll see kids interacting with each other, but the parents and grandparents are on their phone the whole time. So it’s Let me set the example. So it doesn’t have to be rocket science. One of the things that my wife and I just put in place not too long ago is screen free meals. So anytime we’re having lunch together, dinner together, whether it’s at home, restaurant, no devices out, including mom and dad, including grandparents at their event and their devices are away and we’re having real conversations again. And it’s amazing what you feel like you learn about with your own kids in their own days and what they learn about you. We had our kids ask Casey and I how we met the other day. They’ve never asked us that before. And it was just putting the screens away, face to face, looking at each other and I and having real conversations.

Isaac Crockett:

It’s so relieving talking to you about these things, Shane. So fun talking about this because what you’re talking about is stuff that many of us used to find normal. And sometimes it’s not normal anymore. And it’s not necessarily that it’s our kids pushing it on us, but we’ve kind of adopted this busy, hurry, hurry, rat race kind of life and we need to maybe slow down ourselves to be able to see what’s going on with our kids or with other kids in our church community or community. So this is so helpful, so practical. We’re going to take a quick break. We’re going to hear from some more of our partners and we’re going to come back on Stand in the Gap and finish up as we look at reaching Generation Alpha. Shane Pruitt, thank you for the work you’re doing. Thank you for the resources you’ve provided and for these answers right here.

And just so exciting to hear this.

Welcome back to the program. We are just about to wrap things up, but don’t forget to take a little time to find this program maybe online and share it with somebody. Maybe it’s a young person in your life that needs to hear some of what we’ve been hearing from Dr. Shane Pruitt today. Maybe it’s a pastor or a youth pastor or a student’s ministry pastor, teachers, Christian school teacher, public school teacher that needs to hear this and needs to hear about this book. We’re talking about reaching younger generation. Generation Alpha and Generation Beta are the youngest generations younger than Gen Z. And today we’ve been talking with Shane Pruitt, co-author of Reaching Generation Alpha: A Ministry Guide for Discipling the Church Beyond the Screen. And that’s really been a very important part of our conversation. And so Shane, as we wrap things up here, I want to give you some opportunity to kind of give some final thoughts and final challenges to us.

But we’re talking so much about discipleship and discipleship is really a role for the New Testament church, but the church, not just the church leaders, but every individual member of the church. We are the church. We are the body of Christ. And so maybe talk to us what that means as individual families, as parents, and even as individuals who ourselves have a sphere of influence on young people, including those in Gen Alpha.

Shane Pruitt:

Yeah, absolutely. Isaac, I love that. And just one thing I want to encourage you, if you’re listening to this and you’re a ministry leader or you’re a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, if you’re a teacher, coach, somebody who’s impacting the next generation, is I think a lot of times we go, “Man, do I have anything to offer the next generation?” And I want to say this, if you’ve been bought by the blood of Jesus and you have the spirit of the living God living inside of you, know this, that you have the greatest next gen leader there is living inside of you. It’s the spirit of the living God himself. He’s been reaching generations for a long time. He knows what he’s doing, so just be led by the spirit. Even as parents and grandparents, your kids and grandkids don’t need you to be perfect because no one is perfect besides Jesus.

They don’t need you to be perfect. They just need you to follow the one who is perfect and disciple them out of the overflow of your own worship of Jesus. Also want to say, hey, the other thing they need is a Bible. The word of God is always relevant. So if you have a Bible and you can teach the Bible, that’s helpful. And then the gospel, just share the gospel. The same gospel that’s been saving young people for 2000 years still works today. So I say, if you know Jesus, you have a Bible and you can share the gospel, you have exactly what the next generation needs. So just invest and disciple the next generation to be the right now church. And then the second thing I want to say for churches, I think where we step in as churches is a lot of times, here’s what’s being said at conferences.

I’ve said it before. It always sounds good from a stage at a conference or a church or even social media, but we’ll say things like this. Parents, as ministry leaders, we’re not your kid’s primary discipler. You are. We’ll say, parents, you are the primary discipler. And that’s true, but we also got to move beyond just saying it to actually equipping and empowering and discipling parents and grandparents to do that. Because what we see today a lot of times is Generation Alpha are being discipled by parents who have never been discipled themselves. And so when we say parents, you need to disciple your own kids. They’re like, yeah, I know that, but I don’t know what to do. So that’s the question I have for churches and ministry leaders that think through. How are we actually empowering and equipping and discipling parents to do the calling of God on their life, which is to disciple their own kids?

How are we discipling and parent and empowering grandparents to disciple their own grandkids? So we got to move beyond just saying it to actually doing it. So what is the plan? What are we doing? And I think every church needs to think through that.

Isaac Crockett:

I like what you’re saying there about planning this out, being intentional. This is something that Jesus was and that the apostles were in the New Testament. And even as you were explaining, Shane, that as we can see, we calculate that the level of screen time when that goes up, we see then that levels of anxiety go up. And yet we know that Christ has answers to this. We know that the word of God has answers to this. And so you were talking about, and you’ve written in the book that the greatest need for this generation is real truth or eternal truth. I’m just wondering, these things that you’re talking about, do you have any way, you said we’ll open our Bibles and share it with them. Are there any tricks of the trade, so to speak, or any special ways of how we can make truth known in a way that will be understood by this generation?

I think sometimes there’s a fear of talking to a younger generation that just like the younger generation sometimes has a fear of talking to the older generation. I think sometimes we in the older generation have a fear of trying to talk to them that we won’t know how to talk to them. How do we do that? And how do we share the truth of the word of God?

Shane Pruitt:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of times, Isaac, we do that. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves as adults and we overthink it going, “All right, to teach the Bible to my kids, that means each night we got to gather around the fireplace and I change my shoes like Mr. Rogers did. And my kids sit there and then we read through the book of Leviticus together.” And man, if you can do that and you have opportunity to do that, yes and amen. But I know our house can be chaos with how many kids we have and on the move and they all have practices and ball games and homework and all that. So I would say pray with your kids often, pray with your grandkids often, share scripture. If you can read the Bible together, that’s awesome. But another thing we’ve done is just share eternal truth in everyday conversations.

We’ll do this a lot. If we go watch a movie together, then on the way home, I’ll ask the question, “Hey, what are some things in that movie that are against what we believe as Christians? Or what are some things in that movie that doesn’t line up with the core values of our family? Or what are some things in that movie that does line up with core values in our family?” Or, “Hey, something happened at school today. Oh, well, you can point to trusting in God.” Our daughter right now, she’s going through tryouts for tennis. She plays high school tennis, going through tryouts. And we talk about, yeah, give it your best, but trust the Lord in that. Remember, this is a mission field. Your greatest role is not where you land on the team, but to live on mission there. So it’s just infusing eternal truths in everyday conversations.

Isaac Crockett:

I like that. Infusing those truths in everyday conversations. So having those conversations, doing life like that, but taking opportunities that come your way. I think sometimes we’re so scared that we don’t take the opportunities to do those little things or seemingly little things. We just have a little over a minute left, Shane. If you were talking and you could get the ear of every youth ministry person listening or every parent or grandparent, people who are doing discipling with this Generation Alpha, what would be maybe one thing that if they could start doing it today or tomorrow, one thing that you would encourage them to make sure they’re doing right now so that they could have the biggest impact on Gen Alpha?

Shane Pruitt:

Yeah, absolutely. Number one, pray. A mentor in my life used to say, we should never talk to people about God till we talk to God about people. So pray, pray, pray some more. If it’s young people that don’t know Jesus, point them to Jesus. If it’s young people who do know Jesus, then start seeing them and empowering them to be the church right now. We always tell them they’re the future of the church. And I know what we mean by that, but according to the New Testament, if they’ve been bought by the blood of Jesus, they have the Holy Spirit of God. They’re not the future of the church. They are the church right now. So how do we empower them now? They’re called to the great commission now. They’re called to know Jesus and make Jesus known now.

Isaac Crockett:

That is so helpful. And if you want to read more about this, you could look up Shane Pruitt or you can go to shanepruitt.net. Again, that’s Shane Pruitt, P-R-U-I-T-T. And you can go there for his resources at shanepruitt.net. You could go on Amazon or just Google his book and it’s Reaching Generation Alpha: A Ministry Guide for Discipling the Church Beyond the Screen. If you just Google Reaching Generation Alpha Book or Shane Pruitt, Reaching Generation Alpha, these things will come up. And just so helpful what you’ve talked to us about today and so helpful what you’re doing, Shane, by writing books that you’re helping us. You’re on the frontline tip of the spear as you’re preaching and speaking to these young people and you’re learning things and you’re in the word and you’re praying. And as these things are developing, I love how you’re putting this together in ways that are practical and helpful for all of us, not just this book, but several other really helpful books as well.

And in the meantime though, reminding ourselves, go to our knees. Go to battle on our knees in prayer and then point these young people to Jesus and remember that they are the church. We are the church and we have opportunities. Inside of the church building, outside the church building, we have opportunities to stand in the gap for truth wherever we are. Thank you so much, Shane, for being on with us. Thank you very much for tuning in, for listening to this program. I hope you’ll share it. Until next time, I pray that you will stand in the gap for truth wherever you are today.