Generation Z (aged 9 to 24) is the least religious, most post-Christian generation. Even many of them who have a religious affiliation report that they are not committed to it. Yet this does not mean a lack of interest in faith and spirituality. According to some UK surveys, they are more open and positive about faith than older generations, though spiritually illiterate. They are living in a different world, with different pressures and different rules. It is a confused generation growing up in secular age, a rapidly changing culture where what matters most is the individual and their feelings. What matters to this generation are authenticity, diversity, fluidity, inclusion and activism – how do we reach them with the truth? How are we to train our children not just to survive but to serve their generation?

Generation Z have grown up with the internet in their pocket, saturated with information but starving for truth. As a generation, they seem to want to be protected and insulated from ideas that make them uncomfortable or “unsafe”. There are real challenges in raising children in a generation that seems completely disconnected from Christian truth and values, as well as difficulty in reaching that very generation. We need to prepare young people for the world around them rather than a world that no longer exists. They need more than mere church attendance, they need to know what they should believe and why.  It can be intensely hard to be “the only one” who stands apart amid such trends.

We have to take seriously what it means to pass on the faith, fully and intact to the rising generation. The key sphere for this is one that many young people in Gen Z profess to value a huge positive influence. They value relationships, not just with friends but also with their family. In a 2017 Youth for Christ Survey, 82% of young people said that making their family proud was their number one priority, and 73% who believed in God said their family was the main influence on their faith. In a generation that knows the fragility of families and pressures on them more than ever, they need families where living and believing the faith are central.

The beginning of Psalm 78 speaks of the need to pass the faith from one generation to another. God has given us His Word for this purpose (v1 and 4). There may be ancient things that are mysterious in it and foreign to contemporary thinking (v2), yet we are to know, understand it as well as to praise God for it (v3-4). He has given it to us to believe and obey (v5-6), we are also to show the next generation how to do this (v7) and avoid all examples of disobedience and backsliding (v8). This is shown from the example of Israel (using the name of Ephraim, the most mighty and numerous tribe). They were deserted by God in battle because their confidence was in their own resources and strength rather than believing in God. They disregarded the covenant they had entered into with God, disobeyed His commands and did not make use of the works He had done (v9-11). The resources they depended on could become useless to them; God could take away their wisdom, courage, strength, and success in chastising them. In the following updated extract, David Dickson shows what it means to pass on the faith to another generation.

We Must Give Them Scripture Truth

Those are worthy of the name of fathers in the Church who transmit to posterity the truth of God contained in Scripture, such as is here prescribed in this Psalm. This is the only infallible sort of tradition, which delivers to posterity what God delivered to the prophets or their predecessors by Scripture.

The godly in every age ought to have the same care to transmit the Word of truth to their posterity, which their ancestors had to transmit it to them. Thought ought to pay the debt they owe to their faithful ancestors to succeeding generations; they will not hide them from their children.

The Word of the Lord has true antiquity; divine doctrine is no new doctrine, it is “of old.” And for this reason should we hear it attentively and believingly. Although the Word of the Lord is a mystery and “dark sayings” to the unbelieving multitude of the world, yet it is understood, received and believed by the true members of the Church from age to age. The prophet, speaking of himself and the godly in his time, says that their parables and dark sayings are those “which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.” Although the Word of the Lord is plain to the attentive believer, to the inattentive unbeliever it is a hidden mystery. For this reason, we need to hear attentively and believingly.

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