Examining the Generational Divide: Ani Interview (Preteen-Teen Demographic)

**PLEASE READ DESCRIPTION**

This episode starts off a series that I plan to slowly work through dedicated to analyzing the potential for division in the church that runs along age lines.

While I don't see any wild amount of disunity between the different age groups currently, there are differences in experience, thought, understanding, and preferred methodology that could quickly turn into division if we're not aware of them.

We should all be looking around at the members of our congregations and asking ourselves, "How can I better serve them?" The first step to this, in my opinion, is understanding them. By building relationships built on a desire to understand and succeed together, we mitigate the human tendencies to assume poor motives, to write people off, or to forge ahead alone believing ourselves to be the only correct thinkers. 

In this episode, I was privileged to talk to my good friend, Ani who spoke for herself but did her best to represent how she saw the mindsets of those in her age group. Ani is a regular listener of this podcast and was excited to participate but nervous, particularly about saying anything that reflected negative views of others.

The primary points that Ani brings out in this episode that I hope those of other age demographics will take note of are:

-YOUNG Christians desire to be interacted with as GROWING Christians. They don't know everything but many of them are eager to understand and are capable of more than surface level learning.

-Young Christians have some level of fear of expressing doubts and questions for fear of how they might be perceived. Other generations working to create a Church where vulnerability is allowed and encouraged out of an evident love for those who need to express it would go a LONG way.

-Young Christians face issues that you might believe you understand by virtue of living in the same world as them. However, while you're an adult living in this time period, you've never been a kid in this time period. Listening to them with respect first will produce an incredible amount of trust for you to be able to share your advice. If you attempt to share the advice first without building that trust, it won't create the lasting relationship that they desperately need from you.

 

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Logo: Matt Hernandez

Music: Acoustic Indie Folk Years By MarkJuly