Gen Z Is Watching. What Are We Teaching Them?
Friends,
Last week I spoke with a college student who was 8 years old during the 2016 election. She remembered hearing conversations about immigration and desperately wanting clarity. She even started a notebook, scribbling down immigration definitions to make sense of it all. I was in 6th grade at the time, and I remember how discussions about the border wall dominated conversations even at the middle school level.
When people look at immigration policy in America, many can remember a time when things felt different. Many can remember times when Christians led the charge in loving the foreigner and welcoming the refugee.
Not all of us can, however.
Young people in America are growing up with a very different picture of Christian hospitality than our elders. Some have embraced this new picture, others have felt its consequences firsthand, and others have watched on in dismay.
I was a “watch in dismay”-er during my senior year at Wheaton College. As Operation Midway Blitz unfolded across Chicagoland, I watched in horror, unsure how to respond or what loving my neighbor required of me. This sense of helplessness affects both young and old, but young people are growing up increasingly isolated, immersed in online discourse, and without clear examples of what faithful action looks like.
And yet, young people are eager to lead. They want to step away from their feeds and make a tangible difference in their communities.
1 Timothy 4 reads, “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by the prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.”
Paul clearly gives youth a commission to lead in their communities. I love how he charges them to set examples in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. How countercultural would it be for Christian youth to lead like that?
Paul described how the gift of leadership was given through prophecy by the council of elders. For young people to lead, or to take that first step of action, they often need the prophetic counsel of older people who help them envision acting and advocating for the vulnerable. They need people to pour into them, challenge them, and call them to leadership.
For that reason, I am so grateful for the National Immigration Forum’s newest initiative, Students of Welcome. It is such a privilege to help lead a nonpartisan, national group of Christian students devoted to learning about the immigration system, serving their immigrant neighbors, and advocating locally and nationally for firm, fair, and compassionate reforms to our immigration system.
Every week, I get to meet with students across the country who say the same thing: “I have been praying for something like this. This is exactly what I needed.” Through God’s grace, our program is growing quickly. If you know a student who may want to be involved, you can direct them to our website or Instagram. I’d love to talk with them.
The antidote to despair, anxiety, and helplessness is prayerful and intentional action. This is what we aim to call students into.
As we continue to build this initiative, please pray for:
- Hope. That God would shepherd students into a posture of creative hope and agency. We know that despair is a trademark of Gen Z, and is also difficult to avoid in contemporary immigration advocacy. We know that our God is not a God of despair, and so we pray for hope.
- Growth. That God would bring us the right students, connect us to the right campuses, and call up the next generation of immigration advocates.
- Faithfulness. That God would preserve us from polarization and those who seek to derail us from our call to love our neighbors well, that we may engage as “examples in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.”
- Mentorship. That older generations would encourage and mentor youth in Christian advocacy, modeling servant leadership that bridges partisan divides.
Thank you for joining us in prayer!
In Christ,
Clara Steffan
Students of Welcome, Administrator for the Evangelical Immigration Table
