Gen Z's Spiritual Awakening: Revival or Something New? with Rob Myallis | Episode 274

Welcome to Church in Maine, a podcast for people interested in the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. Well, we're sharing part two of my conversation with Lutheran Pastor Rob Maialis. Last week, we focused on what Rob calls the three-quarter life crisis. And that means people who are in their mid to late 70s, and they're kind of dealing with that change that you face in your 70s. and how that affects the life of the church. During that conversation, we also talked about how churches can offer care to our members at this stage in life, and how those who make it through this life crisis can become vital members of the congregation. Today, we're going to be looking at the other end of the spectrum, in this case we're looking at Gen Z. Now a few months back, I believe it was in January, Rob wrote a post on his blog with the title, Gen Z's religious revival likely escapes notice. Now there has been a lot of debate on whether or not there is a revival among Gen Z. Religious demographer and pastor Ryan Burge, believes that this type of a revival is not happening. Rob disagrees. He believes that we are looking at this through the wrong lens, and we'll get into that in this conversation. A little bit of a note, this interview takes place in two parts. The first half took place on the same day of our discussion on the three quarter life crisis. And we were having such a good time that Rob wanted to continue the conversation. So we came back a day later to talk a bit more. And Rob sort of turned the tables on me. He wanted to interview me, ask some questions of me regarding what happened here in Minneapolis in January and February with federal agents descending upon the city during Operation Metro surge, and what effects that had on Gen Z maybe coming back to church or not. So, I think that that's going to be an interesting part of the discussion. I hope that you will really want to hear that. And we just also just really talk about, again, what is the importance of this a revival, and is it even important that there is a revival? So, with all of that out of the way, let's get into this conversation with Pastor Rob Maialis, this time talking about a revival among Gen Z. Well one of the things that i also wanted to talk to you about because you wrote something on your own blog about revival especially among um kind of gen z gen alpha so we're kind of going now to the other end of the spectrum and that has been kind of interesting because it seems like there's always been a there are people are saying there's revival and then other people like no there's no revival and you're kind of on the the revival kind of side of that i kind of curious what has made you believe that there is some sort of a revival and what is that looking like, yeah uh i actually had to listen to my daughters. Uh okay so uh you know i grow up in the i'm in high school in the 90s uh you know the divorce rate surge rem comes out losing my religion it's like you just see the participation there's sort of a flock of people to evangelical churches but within 10 years even that wave is sort of cresting and then you just have the disdain about politics things like the da vinci code lack of institutional trust you know all these things that i think Chris Smith of Notre Dame has written about really well the reasons why the 90s really represented a breakdown, a sort of American mid-20th century kind of church and Christian and culture consensus. And we talked about that a little bit ago in terms of the boomers and sort of the need for them to be able to pass on faith and stuff. Well, what happened in my mind then is like, okay, well, nobody's going to be Christian anymore. So I kept telling my daughters like, oh, what's it like to be a Christian minority in your school? And they're like, I don't feel like a Christian minority, Dad. I'm like, yeah, you do. They're like, no, no, I really don't, Dad. So I finally decided that my teenage daughters in this case were right and that they knew better their religious experience than I did. But what was happening was that there is a huge ecosystem out there for young people that I have no access to. It turns out that when the algorithms spit out stuff for me they don't show me multicultural, 20-somethings or turning point usa 24-year-olds talking about the gospel right my uh social media feed is you know uh about how daughters drive their dads nuts um about maybe philly sports and then about why middle-aged runners are kind of crazy people, right? I'm not seeing all this stuff about Christianity and what's happening with young people. So I think what's happening is that there is a profound vibe shift. And whereas people, if you know somebody in their 50s who doesn't go to church, The chances that they start going to church are very, very, very low I know so few people in their 40s and 50s That had been out of church for say like Not just like they moved But I mean they stopped going to church That have returned to worship, Very, very few people once they're out in their 40s or 50s of Gen X And like once they're done, they're done. Um and i think they're just really cynical and jaded to it but like the gen z they're they didn't grow up seeing the institution fall apart they didn't grow up kind of with seeing the catholic church scandal they didn't grow up with all the stuff what they grew up with was a world in which they had anxiety about the climate information overload um and you know the COVID things, their whole experience has just been not the collapse of institutions, but just a lot of trauma and a lot of uncertainty. Fear here and what i think that means in the weird way in the end is that they are. Hey dennis sorry about that it said that i had a disconnected that's okay Okay. So just say that our generation has lots of cynicism. This young generation grows up, not watching the institution collapse, but just sort of in a permanent crisis of one problem after another. And they grow up in a world in which many of them are afraid of guns in school, in which they are overwhelmed by climate, in which they're overwhelmed by the COVID crisis, in which they sort of don't have a lot of trust in government, in which they probably hear echoes, depending on what chamber sort of they're in, of just sort of government sort of enforcing stuff on people. So like they're they're looking for hope. And and I think, you know, we're they're looking for roots. And so along comes this Christian tradition that says, hey, you know, we've been around for 2000 years. We stood the test of time. We're about hope and love and rituals of life that give you grounding. People are like, oh, that sounds really good. And so what I would say is that even if you do not see an increase in number of people in your congregation or in your ministry, just know that the average posture of a 20-year-old towards faith is going to be very different than the average posture of a 50-year-old towards faith. And there will be some 20-year-olds who are just as hardened to religion as anybody, but the average 20-something in America today is, I think, way more open to faith than the average 50-year-old. Now, does that look like they're going to church? Not necessarily. Does that look like they pray the Lord's Prayer? Not necessarily. Does it look like they're baptized? Not necessarily, because they didn't grow up in the church. Many of them have only been to church a handful of times in their life, if that. So the way that they connect with faith, though, may be, for instance, that they go to a Bible study with a friend. It may be that they just watch lots of reels online. mind. It may be that they put a cross on their Instagram profile, but it's unlikely that they're creedal Christians. It's unlikely that they are weekly attending worship. They may even have a statue of Buddha on their wall at their college dorm or in their room. They may actually, I think 31% of that generation will only date somebody if they have a compatible astrological sign. So they may consult their astrology app just as much as they consult their Bible app. So the way that I think about it is it's a revival of spiritual interest. And this generation is above all spiritual but not religious. They said that about our generation, Dennis, but spiritual but not religious in 1995 or 2005 just meant that you didn't want to be rude, but you thought that it was bunk. Spiritual but religious today actually means like you're actually spiritually hungry and like you'll you might have a mantra and you might go to yoga but at the same time you might actually like read uh the gospel of john because you're online part of some influence or challenge you read the gospel of john in the month of march leading up to easter like it's just a total kind of mishmash of everything and so if you're in a church you're used to looking at attendance buildings and cash Like this isn't this is just not going to be like a merge on your radar. But if you're just talking to people and listening to them, you're just going to find or if you were in 20 and had an algorithm of an average 20 year old, you would find that your world has far more Christianity than the average 45 to 50 year old. Young people, I've talked to people in business and they said 20 to 25 year olds who come into their private corporations, you know, Fortune 500 companies, they'll tell their bosses straight up that they're Christian. In a way that like 20 years ago, nobody who was 25 would have said that they were a Christian. And now they'll tell people, I'm a Christian. So in terms of identity, in terms of information, very open. In terms of like participation in the religious institution as we understood it, they're not even anti. They just don't have that framework. And so they never went to kids every Sunday to rebel against that. They just have never seen it done. So then what does that mean for the church? How does, I was going to ask how does a church reach them, but it's more, I think, how does a church meet them, which I think is a little bit different. Yeah, yeah. I do. So I do think that some of them will show up at our doors for worship. I don't think that's not going to happen. And many people in this generation still have some kind of Christian background. But, you know, given that on an average Sunday, only 6% of Americans go to worship anyway. Like, I just don't think we can expect that like, oh, like, you know, they're all going to come to see us because they're spiritually hungry. David Gardner- What I would say is. That i don't know because i was trained to run a restaurant not to uh serve a door dash buffet culture oh that's an interesting way of looking at it yeah no it's like the boomers built the restaurant the builder generation built the restaurant the boomers built one down the road that had more exciting music and a different vibe but it was kind of more or less the same food, our generation came along and said, eh, we don't like to eat out. And some of us chose to, our children, you know, the, the sort of the Gen Z, they came along and they were like, oh yeah, the food at like that restaurant is pretty good, but I'm just, again, I'm just going to door dash it. And I only want, and I want it like without mayo, but I want it with a sriracha and I don't want that. And I don't want that side. And I want that side instead, right? It's cost, everything is customizable in the world. So, so we're asking people to sort of think of we're trained again to sort of think about like this is what we do and now we're sort of people who are like expecting a fully customizable religious experience so at some level uh i don't think we know where this is going um it could be a flash in the pan i don't think so, um i think we do have to meet them i think we have to think about ways to. If we do have young people in our church or in our community, really asking them what they want. You know, again, that listening and it might actually require like real evangelism, which isn't just having a nice church service, but actually, you know, going to coffee shops, going to rec centers, going to pick up basketball games, going to running clubs. And really, again, like you said, meeting people where they are. Also doing stuff online, recognizing that there are going to be people who follow and like us, are paying attention online at that age, far earlier than they'd ever come to be in worship with us. So i'm not saying go digital but i'm actually saying we're just gonna have to think far more uh missionally or evangelically uh than simply like oh we just need to have like a really good pastor and really good music and then like 20 somethings will obviously start worshiping 3.4 times a month like that's just not that's not going to happen well i'm even wondering at times if, I mean, you talked a little bit about how we were kind of having to be. Not looking at things like a restaurant and DoorDash, of what does that mean for church and what are the expectations for church and for discipleship and all of that? Because it seems like it almost has to be very different in how we do it. And, you know, how do we maintain kind of the centrality of the gospel but also fit it for the times that we're in and for a generation that's very different. Because I think you're right that especially because we're both from the same generation, Generation X, it's kind of a more cynical kind of maybe ironic generation to a generation that just they don't have any history really of church in some ways. And so it's a different mindset. It totally is. I mean, if you were to try to watch The Goonies with kids today, they would tell you the kids are being really mean. And they'd say, how do the kids, like, how do the kids' parents not know where they are, right? I mean, it's totally, it's the same world, but it's a different world. Seinfeld would never work today. It would be way too dark and biting for the younger generation, right? Again, they- Not even the Simpsons would work. Yeah, because they're just, they daily, if they, you know, they watch, they're imbibing just as much, information via video as we are, in fact, not. And so they daily get dosed with toxicity of the news. And they're like, I need another narrative. So in some ways, what we're saying as Christians is we have a narrative that any human who's ever lived can fit into. Fundamentally, the most inclusive one, yet that acknowledges the fundamental brokenness of the human condition, but just says ultimately there's like this god of hope uh we have the narrative that they need we know how to do community um what will be different for us is how to do community that is probably lower on the programming side especially because people in their 20s are often moving right so you have 320 something like oh i'm going to start something and then like two of them move in the next three months. So it may be more relational, maybe more digital. It's likely not going to be totally outside of the church because young people love sanctuaries. I think there is a sense they want holiness. So I'm not saying, oh, everything the church is doing now is wrong. It's just going to be this different vibe of spiritual hunger, which is great. But they're bringing with it a mindset of customability, customizing, without any necessary knowledge of the creedal formation of the church. And because the dominant expression, if people are Christian and they're under 25, chances are they were going to an evangelical church where they were only probably, frankly, going once a month. And they were, even then, probably just going to the kids' zone and not even worship. We literally have a whole generation of people that just don't like the whole traditional versus contemporary worship. Like that's laughable to somebody in a 25. Like they, they don't even like that doesn't matter. That's such like, that doesn't like, they don't know what those words even mean. If they think of worship now, they're going to think if they've ever been to worship, it's probably a big mega church worship. So, so again, they just don't have the framework. So, So I think it's, I don't have all the answers. I'm thinking about this and I really want to start this conversation because I think most mainline churches don't have a lot of 20 somethings in their building right now and they're not picking up on it again. But there is a different spiritual vibe. I think it's going to be about a multi-pronged approach that emphasizes relationship as always. But it's not a totally outside of the church strategy either because then people want that holiness. Want to see people of a different generation. I don't think they're like, I only want to go to 20-somethings. I don't think that's what they're saying. So I think what we have, we have multi-generational communities that are found in weekly rituals with a central story and stories of meaning, hope, love, and brokenness and forgiveness. We have the goods. This is going to take a little bit to kind of connect. Yep. Well, Rob, I know that I want to talk to you about this more, but I know that you have a heart out, and I want to honor that. But I hope to have you back to talk about this a little bit more, because I think that this is an important discussion, especially for the church right now. Just because I think we're kind of stuck in a way of thinking about things and how the church has operated for the last 60, 70 years. And I think that we're really on a cusp of something different. And it's not that church, as you said, I mean, sanctuaries and worship and things are still important, but we're in a different era. And I think we haven't really realized that yet. No, no. Yeah. Well, as a church, we're blessed to be a multi-generational community. So on the one hand, we have people who are kind of have lived a beautiful life of faith and are not trying to figure out what that looks like when they're not valued for their productivity. On the other hand, we have all these people entering a world in which they are feeling so much pressure to be valued for their productivity. And they desperately want another narrative that like they have worth outside of what they achieve, that they're beloved, um, that there is hope. So both generations at the end and the beginning are struggling with, with product, you know, the, the meaning of life relative to productivity. They're struggling with what I have community when my life has changed in it. They're struggling with forgiveness. It's like, it's like the same kind of questions we are as humans. And again, if there is a way for us to be congregations where you can have these generations learning from each other and in conversation, I think that's when you get some really beautiful stuff happening. Yeah, I agree. Well, maybe we will talk back later. But for for now, I will say thank you. And definitely we'll have you back here again. Yeah. Well, thanks for thanks for letting me inviting me on. And I hope you have a really great rest of your day. All right. Hey dennis i want to thank you for being willing to kind of give up some more of your time here when i listen to your podcast what i notice is that you're really good at asking questions, but i wanted to actually ask you some questions and and i wanted to uh ask you um. Kind of a general question but then kind of a specific question and i'll give the general and then the specific at the same time and you can kind of answer how you want The one is, have you seen in your context more openness of people in Gen Z towards Christianity, towards walking with Jesus or sort of church participation? And the second is, given kind of the insanity that happened in Minnesota this winter, are you seeing on the other side of that young people who have just become totally like even more jaded about kind of church and politics and therefore want nothing to do? Or people who are kind of like, hey, the church actually here seemed to be a place of caring, if not even a break on some of the most kind of aggressive of the ICE policies. So I just because in general, and then are you seeing anything this winter where you're just noticing like sort of curiosity or more hostility and how that has played itself out there? That's a good question. I think part of it has been, and I've seen it mostly with kind of people who are, I would say, kind of at the edge of young millennial slash Gen Z. Like 30, 35, kind of. Yeah, 35, 36. Probably younger than that. I would say maybe around 30. Okay. So, you know, early, the late 20s, early 30s. Yeah, yeah. And what I've seen are people who are, and I know people who have been affiliated or kind of affiliated with the church, who either have... Maybe in some ways deconstructed, but they still are kind of a part of a community, even though they don't totally know if they believe everything, but they're still there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe people who don't maybe have a faith background, and in both cases, these are people who are married, come along, and they still see themselves as a part of the congregation. And one person in particular, they got there late on Sunday, this past Sunday, so they didn't hear the sermon, but they were interested in hearing the sermon. And so, you know, I told him I would send him an email with a link to the podcast and, you know, there is an interest there. It's not maybe the way, it's definitely not the way that I think I would have had expected years ago. That someone would come and may have some interest, but in some ways they either may have been turned off in some ways or maybe not have a background, but there is still an interest of some way. You bring up, so yesterday part of my time crunch was that I was actually, I ended up meeting a family for a baptism. And it was a woman who had grown up evangelical and a man who had grown up Catholic. And one of the things that I have just, and I'm curious if you have experienced this, people who grew up evangelical have done some deconstruction work, but they find that. They don't want to go back to an evangelical church. I mean, again, that can mean a lot of things. But they grew up such in this way of thinking that only evangelical churches were the true church that they almost can't deconstruct to anywhere else because they know they've rejected the evangelical church, but they were just ingrained to think that nothing else is real Christianity. And they kind of get paralyzed by that. I don't know if you've interacted with people like that in your own kind of circles or own journey that they have deconstructed, but they don't know how to put Humpty Dumpty back together in a meaningful way yet. I think that there is some truth to that. I mean, I think the stereotype with people who are, you know, the kind of what they call the ex-evangelical is that they just kind of leave the church entirely. But the reality is I don't think that they totally leave it. And they are, in some ways, maybe getting rid of things that they don't really believe anymore. But I think at some level, they think that some of this still matters. And so they end up sometimes at a church or in a community where they feel it's okay to not have all of the beliefs or the right beliefs or to have it all figured out. And I think obviously that's more common in mainline churches. And I think, and I'm probably as critical about this myself, that sometimes we can be a little bit wishy-washy about our faith, and that's true. But I think what is a positive is that we do at least allow for room for people to not have all their answers figured out and to allow them time to figure that out, to learn, to grow, to be in, to kind of be in community or how they, you know, talk about believe, belong, become is really to belong kind of before the belief part comes. Well yeah just to kind of build on what you're saying um so this family that i was interacting with to kind of you know case in point um they kind of have been struggling to find a church home and so they've been watching online at our church for like the last four years. Um but they um they were at some point going to a unitarian church but they decided that that wasn't there wasn't enough jesus so they want a church that um is not, tied to sort of political conservatism but they don't want a church that has just become the total foil of that where they're just going to hear like sort of religiously thin sort of politically heavy you know kind of commentary in the other direction so yeah that's it yeah so that is just fascinating the way in which you and I are talking about very different contexts, people who, They have like this hodgepodge of stuff from the past, some of which they're rebelling against. Maybe if they're married, one person has none. Maybe one has baggage. Part of it's online. Part of it's in person. But it's not, it's just, yeah, it's not like one size fits all. There's just going to be a little bit of a plug and play there for them. Yeah, I think the other thing that I would, I've been thinking about a lot when it comes to the whole, is there revival? is if there isn't a revival. It's funny, I was just listening to a podcast from Luther Seminary with Ryan Berge, the sociologist slash pastor, and he definitely comes down on that there isn't a revival. And of course, he has all the numbers that he brings in to that. And I think where I kind of come down on this is I don't know if that question matters as much of if there is a revival or isn't there a revival. The question is, how are we as church—. Creating space for people who do have questions. And I think that there is a lot of questioning in our society, especially among Gen Z, who probably have no idea what this is about. They don't even have, as I think he even says in the podcast, and I think, and you brought it up yesterday, they don't have any idea, any really negative view of the faith at all because they didn't grow up with it. I mean, they're not used to that. There's nothing to rebel against. They never went to church. They never went to church. Or so many of them, so many of them had so little church, it's not, they might've had a Christian that they don't like, but they're not rebelling against years of sitting in the pews that they didn't love. I mean, they're like, they went to church like two or three times a year at most, you know with grandma maybe maybe maybe exactly yeah and i think part of the thing is i just wonder sometimes if we're looking at a revival as a hope that you know we're going to get all these people in and and revivals don't they kind of happen when they happen because that's really when the spirit moves and i think that maybe the case for us right now is not to see if this as as a revival, as more of a. For lack of a better term, which also leads to talk of a revival, awakening, in that I think people are wanting to know more about faith. And I think especially in this age where people don't feel a whole lot of trust in institutions, they want something to hold on to. And so So that's really kind of the thing is that maybe this is not where the spirit is moving in a fire. It's more of like a trickle of water, but those trickles of water can make a big dent after a while. I know you're talking about water and spirit. We're getting somewhere, awakening, water, spirit, feeling it, feeling it, Dennis, feeling it. Yeah. Do you think, though, that there has, I mean, again, I want to kind of, I think there's a way in which I want to kind of bring together a previous discussion on kind of the three-quarter with this Gen Z. But I'm curious, do you feel it's too soon or have you observed anything going on with young people and kind of the way the church was involved in the whole stuff that's happened in Minnesota? It's kind of too soon I don't know yet I think that that will that will have an impact one way or the other and I think it really depends on. How people see things. I think, now again, this is from the inside here in Minnesota, but because I think people have, the church was very visible in many ways, that can have an impact of some way. I think that that could do something in the positive that helps people see a different way that it's not all in one way or acting in one way. Last week, I did an interview with a reporter from Christianity Today who was here, and she did a story about how, especially in evangelical churches, were stepping up, especially when it came to refugees that were being picked up by ICE. And i think people seeing that in communities whether it's you know, helping to feed people who are can't get out in their homes yeah um and i mean i remember hearing i think i can't remember if it was something recently that you know. There was a situation where I think it was mostly a group of mostly LGBT folk that were kind of helping out in the Muslim community. And they were just curious, well, what do you guys believe? And they were kind of wanting, because they were wanting to help these people. And what's all this about? And I think that things like that, when you start to kind of help people like that, that starts to bring up questions. And maybe when they start to see churches involved in things, those are planting seeds. I think it'll take a while to see how that grows into something. But I think that it can have an effect. Seeds uh yes most seeds take a long time for germination exactly and if if they're trees the bible talks a lot about tree you know fruit bearing trees we're talking three to four years before you start to get a harvest yeah you know maybe though to to kind of um maybe kind of tie this together uh this conversation started about kind of the three-quarter life crisis and people kind of trying to find meaning in retirement and especially kind of that second wave of retirement where physically things catch up with them. It's going to blow my nose, sorry. As soon as the weather got nice in the spring, man, my allergies went. But at the same time, the connection to Gen Z and how this comes together for me. So I wrote this article on my own page about the Gen Z. And I have a guy in my church who was a CEO. And if you're a pastor and you've ever had somebody who's a retired CEO, They will treat you like an employee and they will have that CEO mindset no matter what. Right. So you're you're you know, they're you're whatever they're managing director of church affairs. And he he read this and he wrote a five page memo for me on how we needed to conduct ourselves with young adult ministry. And i was like uh well that's a little in but we ended up having a really awesome conversation and finally in the end this uh you know again kind of boomer kind of approaching that stage was like you know maybe rather than plan for it we just need to kind of ride this, and it was really cool to see this person kind of who has such a clearly analytical mind and strategic and kind of how we vision resources metrics i mean you know this is the way the guy thinks he's like hey you know maybe this really is something we just kind of have to let be a bit more organic and just kind of see kind of how what the spirit is really calling us to so that was really cool that i saw this guy when we were talking about ministry to 20 somethings i actually was seeing kind of sanctification before my eyes where he was letting go of his initial response which was strategize, allocate, evaluate. And now it's like, hey, you know, what's what might the spirit be calling us to here? And he's just excited because he feels like he was part of the seeker sensitive movement of the 80s that in his mind really jettisoned a lot of kind of core theology to reach out to people. And he says, hey, if these young people are wanting like good theology, like we can do that. We can do that. So it's just, again, it's kind of cool that, again, there may be some fascinating interplays in the next 10 years as the boomer generation kind of really steps away from leadership in churches and the 20-somethings kind of begin to leave their mark and have a very different hope for and way of interacting with the institution. So kind of exciting. Well, and I also wonder, bringing back that three-quarter life crisis, is there a space for those people who are in their mid-70s to mentor people in their 20s who are starting to go through life and who also may be new to the faith or have questions about the faith? That that might be if those are people who in some ways that you talked earlier about trying to find people for your confirmation class that that could be something of having a 75 year old have a young adult class yeah that can help people deal with the questions of faith because usually and i think one of the reasons we talk a lot about gen z right now i mean part it is generational that they have not grown up with a faith. Two is that in their 20s is when you do have a lot of questions about your faith, and this generation probably more so than any. And so, it's a way of kind of putting these two groups together and, you know, I don't know, just something I've thought about in this conversation. Yeah, yeah, because we started, one of the 20-somethings in my church, I'm really envious of her faith. I remember when I was in my 20s, I was like, Lord, I will do what you want me to do. Now I'm like, Lord, I will do what you want me to do, but I have a marriage, and I have two kids, and they're at this stage of life, I have college to pay for, and there's a mortgage. But if you don't touch those things, then I'll do what you want me to do with my life. And I love that, just that freshness of somebody in the young saying, I have a zeal to do what God wants me to do and earnestly trying to search for what does the Lord ask of me in my life? And I'm like, oh, I remember when I had that passion. And now I'm just trying to balance all of these other kind of forces in life. But the other, we've also started, some of you call them the Faith and Lead Collective at our church. We're trying to bring together young adults around kind of their professional growth because for many of them, family isn't quite, you know, that they're not quite at that stage of life yet. And I'm trying to figure out how to have the boomers as part of the conversation because I know if I said I need boomers who want to mentor 20-somethings, I'd have a ratio of five boomers for every 120-something. So I've got to figure out how to kind of like do this. Mentor you have to do mentorship without calling it mentorship i'm gonna have to have them actually i'm gonna have to have boomers fill out an application on google and if they can cross that hurdle but you know like you know like you have to apply to become a mentor in this faith and lead collective um of why you would be a good listener to uh to people but yeah no we're really excited to see um this conversation kind of bringing these two strands together at the end is kind of giving me life to think about how can we help the people who are joyfully kind of, or struggling, but ultimately joyfully then gonna let go of leadership to equip the next generation that, frankly, is gonna have to inherit a fairly complex world. A very complex world, you know. Yeah. So, well, I just wanted to come back, Dennis, and finish up our conversation and kind of probe your thoughts a little bit more because I felt there was some more connective tissue. So thanks for indulging a second round here. No problem. And I'm glad we did it because I think that that also made me think a lot more about this and what does that mean or what does it look like? And I think for me, it's okay if it's not, quote unquote, a revival. I think what matters is to be open to the people that God puts in our lives, because I think that is happening. And part of that, I think, is generational. But it may not be a tidal wave. It may, as I said, come in as, you know, drops of water. But that's kind of how we got the Grand Canyon. So, you know. Oh, awesome. Awesome. Well thank you this was good i'm glad we were able to kind of kind of have finished this off, yeah okay well blessings and and we'll have to check in from time to time and see if uh the drips are adding up to something um or if they've unfortunately evaporate but i don't think so so we'll see kind of what canyons they're what canyons they're forging so have a wonderful blessed rest of your day all right take care. As usual, I will put a few things in the show notes regarding this interview. For one, I will put Rob's article in the show notes. Also, if you haven't, a link to the last episode. Good way of comparing and contrasting these two stages in life. If you have any questions or comments, always send me an email. Email, you can do that by sending it to churchinmain.substack.com. If you want to learn more about the podcast, listen to past episodes, donate, check me out at churchinmain.org. You can also visit churchinmain.substack.com to read related articles. Please consider subscribing to the podcast on your favorite podcast app and leave a review. And or reading that helps others find the podcast. A few quick notes. The first is, as I said last week, I am in the process of changing podcast hosts. Don't know where that will be yet, but it is coming in a few weeks. So if you are someone that subscribes via the Podbean app, you may want to consider either finding something like Apple Podcasts or other places, or you can wait to when I finally get the new podcast host, then I can tell you where that is, and then you can also subscribe there. But I want you to know that ahead of time. Also, want to let you know that there will be no podcasts on Friday, April 3rd. As many of you know, that is Good Friday. So, and that'll be in the midst of Holy Week. As a pastor, I'm pretty busy during that week. So decided that we won't have a podcast on Good Friday. But we will have a new episode coming up on Friday, April 10th. So just to let you know that ahead of time. Also, want to make a donation? There are links in the show notes. And there's also a link if you'd like to get the email delivered to your inbox. That is it for this episode of Church in Maine. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. Thank you again so much for listening. It does really mean a lot. Take care, everyone. Godspeed, and I will see you very soon.