I remember sitting in the cafeteria during my senior year in high school, learning about this new app called “Instagram.” Back then, it was a novel idea to post a single picture to your feed. I took a picture of the chocolate milk I was drinking, and shared it with my single-digit followers. Then I moved on with my day.
Things have changed since 2012, including my own relationship with Instagram. I confess that social media often leads me down paths of comparison, envy, and poor time management. As a former youth pastor, I know this battle is even more intense for today’s teenagers. They are growing up in a digital world in which their online identity cannot be divorced from their sense of self.
Kyle Richter and Patrick Miller’s recent TGC article “Five Reasons Why Gen Z is Primed for Spiritual Renewal” represents the best summary I’ve read of Gen Z’s social situation. They write, “Gen Z spent years of their lives projecting curated, filtered versions of themselves to the watching world… They’re deeply hungry for friendships where it’s OK not to look perfect, sound perfect, and be perfect.”
Gone are the days of snapping a picture of your chocolate milk just because. Instead, teenagers are handling the full-time job of online identity formation, working to project a curated self to a watching online world.
Youth pastors, there is no better time than now to invite your students into a space where they can drop the exhausting online facade and engage in true, connected friendships. Most importantly, there is no better time to introduce them to the person of Jesus, the one who sees their imperfect offline selves and still relates to them with compassion and tenderness. Only he can offer weary teenagers rest from their relentless search for identity and significance.
As you minister to a spiritually hungry, media-crazed generation that is longing for what Richter and Miller call “real-life, nonjudgmental sincerity,” consider the following three encouragements:
Make Youth Group a Place Where Teenagers’ Value Comes Not from Their Likes and Shares, but from Who They Are in Christ
The online world propagates the lie that a teenager finds his or her worth in the number of likes received, group texts they belong to, or snapchats opened. It’s no wonder students feel so exhausted. When students come to youth group, we want them to know that we love and value them based on who they are in Christ, not because of their online personas.
Youth pastors have a unique opportunity to offer a place where a teenager’s worth is not tied to his or her online performance, a place free from the “currency of likes and shares.” In a culture defined by the gospel, students are freed to base their identity in something external: the righteousness of Christ given to them through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. When youth pastors relate to a teenager as a real person with a real body, real soul, and real hurts, not just as a person behind a screen, youth pastors extend the presence of Jesus to that hurting teenager.
Students will begin to see the beauty of an identity that will not change based on a meaningless number of likes and comments. Students will feel the freedom of resting in whom Christ has made them to be, rather than in the filtered selves they present to the online world.
When Your Students Show You Their Real Selves, Embrace Them With Kindness, Gentleness, and Compassion
Remember the woman at the well in John 4? Just like teenagers today, she felt exhausted from keeping her real self hidden from the world. But before they even exchanged words, Jesus knew her. He knew her messy story and the shame she carried as a result. Jesus didn’t recoil at the woman’s past. He wanted to know more about her, asking her intentional questions and listening without judgment. He didn’t want to relate to a curated image of her, he wanted to meet her as she really was.
If youth pastors are serious about creating environments of genuine offline community, they must be willing to embrace all that comes with students’ unfiltered selves. Students turn to the internet because of its apparent “safety.” The average teenager fears that if someone saw her real self, that person would recoil in disgust or judgment. So she hides her acne with a filter, cover up troubles at home with a happy caption, or mask deep insecurity with provocative pictures.
Like Christ with this isolated and insecure Samaritan woman, youth pastors can be curious about their students’ stories. When those stories involve shameful or difficult circumstances, youth pastors can assure their students that the messiness of their lives cannot stop you from loving them. Most importantly, remind them that nothing in all creation can ever separate them from the love God has for them in Christ Jesus.
Students desperately need to see that Christ knows them to the deepest parts of their being. As much as online “friends” might make them feel seen and loved, only Christ sticks around after the filter has faded. He does not recoil in shame or disgust. Rather, he runs toward and redeems the parts of them they would never dream of sharing online.
Remind Them That They Perform for an Audience of One, an Audience That Looks on Them With Delight and Favor
When I made that first instagram post of my chocolate milk, I wasn’t thinking about who would see it. I simply wanted to preserve the memory. Now, when students post, typically they don’t do so for the joy of capturing a moment. Instead, they do so to appease and perform for the watching online world. They curate images in hopes that these images will resonate with followers.
Whether they know it or not, students live in front of an “imaginary audience:” a nebulous watching world whom they are desperate to appease. They feel the pressure to perform for this audience and will go to great lengths to ensure that the spectators remain pleased with them.
Gen Z desperately needs the reminder that they live in front of an audience of one: God himself. And unlike the online world, there is never any uncertainly about how he will respond. As their Heavenly Father looks upon our students with delight, favor, and love. Students who have trusted in Jesus can rest in the knowledge that God the Father extends favor and blessing on the basis of Jesus’ perfect life, not their own imperfect ones (Rom. 8:1-4; 2 Cor. 5:21). Youth pastors, remind your students that they have the approval of the the God of the universe, who is the only audience that matters. They can cease from their striving and rest in his approval of them, won for them in Jesus.
An Invitation From Jesus
Only in Jesus can students truly find the “real-life nonjudgmental sincerity” (Richter and Miller’s phrase) they so desperately crave. He alone is able to satisfy their deepest desires for intimacy, connection, and acceptance. Youth pastors can point their students away from the online rat race and toward the face of Jesus. When their online identity formation protects become too exhausting, encourage your students to take up the easy and light burden of Jesus (Matt 11:28-30).
It’s easy to become discouraged by this social media-saturated generation. And yet, youth pastors have a ripe opportunity to introduce lonely and longing students to Jesus, the one who desires to relate to them with the connection they so deeply crave.
Rooted offers mentoring cohorts for youth ministers and family ministers looking for more encouragement and equipping. Consider joining our next round of groups starting in January 2024.
