Friends,

You have probably heard the adage: the church is always one generation from extinction. We see and feel this — in statistics about young people staying home on Sundays or refusing to open their Bibles. We see it in the way kids are on social media and hearing conflicting messages every time they pick up their phones.

How do we get the stunningly good news of the gospel to a generation distracted by Instagram and TikTok?

We begin by listening. Nothing is so imperative today. God begins in the same place. In his classic book, Reversed Thunder,​ Eugene Peterson writes, “The world is a mob in which everyone is talking at once and no one is willing or able to listen. But God listens … When [this] happens we know that what we say and feel are immensely important. We acquire dignity.”

We show the next generation what God is like when we listen — without prejudice or agenda. We listen to young people’s hopes and fears, their anxieties and aspirations. This issue of The Relationships Journal​ is meant to tune our ears to hear what young people, or Gen Z, are hearing.

You may have noticed a new title and different feel for this magazine. We are still all about relationships. But we want to give you a closer view of kids today, what culture is telling them, and where we see Jesus in the midst of it. We want to get to ground level, with the intimacy and urgency of a journal.

We want to listen.

And if you’ve opened this magazine, you are someone who has already said, “I want to listen, too.” I hope you hear the words of young people today in these pages. Even more, I hope these pages drive you to an actual young person — whether son or granddaughter, your barista when you get your coffee, the car next to you playing music too loud. Young people are saying something.

Are we listening?

In Young Life, we often call listening part of “earning the right to be heard.” You are part of a movement of people earning that right, part of a movement of people listening. In doing so, we all are part of God’s movement of people ready to be heard — and share the stunningly good news of the gospel to young people desperate for it.

Let’s start by listening.