The next generation doesn’t want to pay their dues.
Practice 4
To Ground and Motivate an Ambitious Generation, Train for Vocational Discipleship
Vocational discipleship means knowing and living God’s calling, especially in the arena of work, and right-sizing our ambitions to God’s purposes.
Charles Roven, producer of Wonder Woman, The Dark Knight, and American Hustle (to name a few), once attended a wedding at which Mark was the officiant. Dax Matlock, Mark’s son, had recently completed a summer internship at Chuck’s production company in Hollywood, and Mark wanted to thank Chuck for contributing to his son’s development. It had been a good prevocational experience, something Dax would never forget.
As Chuck and Mark chatted, they began to talk about the next generation. Mark was fascinated by Chuck’s perspective, especially in light of all the generational and vocational research taking place at Barna. Chuck considers himself an adherent to the values of old-school Hollywood, even though he’s producing some of the films most appreciated by the next generation. He goes way back. (Chuck got his start as a stunt surfer on the original Hawaii 5-0 during a gap year before starting college.) He believes people should pay their dues when they come into the industry and typically promotes only from within his company—a pretty amazing thing to know when one is starting as an intern. Dax’s experience is a perfect example. As an intern, he began by making coffee and making copies. But eventually, he also got to read scripts and see how they are evaluated for production.
In many ways, Chuck’s view on paying dues is boilerplate Boomer philosophy that many apply to every arena of life, whether they are talking business or leadership, income or happiness, marriage or church. If you are new, you work harder than anyone else doing the things no one else wants to do, and you work your way up from there. If you are young, you can’t possibly deserve anything other than an entry-level position, and the only thing that moves you up the ladder is time served. Chuck and his generation see this way of doing things as an opportunity for people to acquire knowledge from experience, knowledge they can’t acquire any other way—some might call it wisdom.
Mark recently shared Chuck’s sentiment about paying dues and working your way up from the bottom with a roomful of Boomer executives, and they all nodded wildly, like bobbleheads on the dashboard of a car on an unpaved back road. They also agreed with the following statements:
Not long after, relaxing over Labor Day weekend with Dax and his film student buddies—each of them balancing on the edge between Millennial and Gen Z—Mark asked them to talk about the view of these executives from their vantage point. Most had just finished internships and had experienced for themselves the “old-school” way of thinking. How did they feel about putting in their time, waiting in the queue, and paying their dues?
“The old school is dead,” said one, shrugging with indifference. “Maybe not today or even in five years, but eventually . . .” He trailed off and then said, “The rules are different now.”
Cue the clash of generations in the workplace.
Here we glimpse the fourth domain of resilient discipleship: the world of work—how we think about and plan for what we do with our lives, discover our callings, find meaning, climb the ladder, achieve our ambitions, and become successful. Our work lives become the crucible in which much of our faith is tested and refined. In the arena of work and calling, we live our identity, deploy discernment, generate relationships, and pursue significance in the world. Thus, the fourth way to build resilience in digital Babylon is through vocational discipleship.
You’ve probably been nodding along during previous chapters of this book. Experience Jesus? Check. Cultural discernment? Right. Meaningful relationships? Makes sense. But vocational discipleship? What the blazes is that? Let’s define it this way:
Vocational discipleship means knowing and living God’s calling—understanding what we are made to do—especially in the arena of work, and right-sizing our ambitions to God’s purposes.
This may not be a concept you’ve encountered before. That’s because Barna researchers invented the phrase based on the last decade of studying what works in discipleship. Even if it’s a new concept, though, we’re guessing you’re already doing some of what we mean by it. And whether or not you’ve heard of it, it’s vitally important.
The church desperately needs a richer theology of faith and faithfulness in life’s complex callings, and we need to unite generations’ seemingly disparate ways of understanding vocation. Vocational discipleship is crucial as we seek to raise Millennials and Gen Z disciples—but it is essential to build robust faith in older generations as well. How can we facilitate vocational discipleship within our church communities when the generations that need one another are coming from such wildly different places?
Let’s explore what the research shows about eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds who embody resilient discipleship (see tables 10 and 11).
A friend of ours has a son, Keaton, who created a PowerPoint life plan at the age of eight that we think is the most awesome thing in the world.1 David told Keaton’s dad he has a standing job offer. Keaton, that is. Not his dad.
Keaton has ten life goals. Here they are, in his words:
He was eight!
On the next slide, Keaton listed possible careers: engineer, architect, hockey player, or Lego designer at Legoland in California or Florida.
Maybe you’re wondering where we’re going with this. What does an eight-year-old’s vocational wish list have to do with discipleship?
Because we’re trying to be more like Jesus, we’ll answer your question with a few questions of our own.
If this family showed up at your church, would Keaton, aspiring to be an engineer, an architect, or a Lego designer, find a place he could be mentored and developed into the kind of person he is meant to be? Or would that kind of mentoring happen only by accident? How old does Keaton have to be before your church community “cares” about what he is made to do? About his work? About his perspectives on service and generosity? About integrity in the workplace?
We are convinced, based on mountains of data, that most churches ignore these topics among the young. It’s a huge blind spot. Too often church leaders pay attention to vocation only when it relates to how already-successful people can serve the church. We need to back up the train all the way to the station. Every person in the church, even and especially those under eighteen, is designed by God to do his work in the world. Shouldn’t their Christian community help them discern and live out that calling? Of course!
This is one of the key opportunities presented to the twenty-first-century church: to infuse the vocational imaginations of this new generation with the purposes of God; to help them understand that God has made them for something; to learn from and emulate the integrated faith-work profile that resilient disciples display.
An Ambitious Generation
Fame has become something of a North Star for many young people. One of the random facts the Barna team discovered is that 26 percent of teenagers think they will definitely or probably be famous by the time they turn twenty-five.2 This is a side effect of life in digital Babylon, and the allure of “making it” on YouTube is strong. (We can laugh at the improbabilities of fame and fortune, but the truth is that some in this generation will become rich and/or famous. There are twentysomethings in Mark’s church who are already millionaires. As Dax and his friends intuit, the world is changing and the rules are being rewritten. We will come back to this idea of fame and success in a bit when we talk about the right-sizing of ambition.)
Success is of central importance to this generation. Most teens tell us their top goals are to complete their education and to land a “great-paying job” where they “can make a difference.” Make no mistake, vocation is more important to Millennials and Gen Z than popular generational myths might lead us to believe. The world of work, business, (self-)employment, and earning is taking primacy of place, in part because young adults are pushing back the demographic markers of adulthood. Twentysomethings are marrying and having children later, giving them more of their twenties and thirties to focus on work and making the workplace their primary social hub.
The world of work is changing for the next generation. It’s actually changing for all of us, but the youngest feel these shifts most potently. They’re more engaged in the gig economy, making a little money here and a little money there, often as self-employed entrepreneurs—testing many waters and spending more time evaluating what aspects of their calling are important to them. They tend to engage less in the traditional workforce, so they’re more concerned about creating a personal brand to take with them wherever they go. They are children of the Great Recession, so they’re sensitive to what a downturn in the economy might mean for their careers.
They want to succeed in a job or a business that brings meaning to their lives. They would rather be their own boss. They want to avoid positions that lead to the kinds of financial disasters their parents experienced.
This generation is ambitious, and it also turns out that the goals their Christian parents have for them are mostly indistinguishable from the goals non-Christian parents have for their children.3 Teens’ and young adults’ ambitions for career, success, good grades, performance, and so on come from somewhere. With regard to educational and vocational hopes and dreams for their children, there is very little to differentiate Christians from non-Christians.
Those of us who are spiritual guides for the next generation must take a good, long look in the mirror to see how we are making faith more difficult for growing disciples. Are our goals for the next generation more about how our kids make us feel than about what God is calling them to do and be? In order to raise resilient young disciples, we must become resilient older disciples. If our aspirations for our children and grandchildren do not reflect godly ambition, living out God’s purposes in their lives is harder for them than it has to be.
All these factors combine with the consumerism and get-aheadism of digital Babylon to create a generation of ambitious, success-oriented go-getters. If we don’t invest in them as vocational disciples, we’re going to lose their hearts. We’re going to lose their minds. We’re going to lose their irreplaceable contribution to the Christian community.
But if we can engage them vocationally and equip them for a life of kingdom-centered work, we will see them bless and change the culture of their workplaces and, ultimately, the world. What an incredible responsibility. What an amazing opportunity.
What Vocational Discipleship Is Not
Before we go too much further, let’s lock something down. Vocational discipleship is not preaching success. It’s not offering career advice to help young people land lucrative jobs, get wealthy and comfortable, buy nice things, and retire early with all the toys in the world. They are already ambitious; they don’t need us throwing (unbiblical) gas on the fire. Something they do need is preparation for the seasons when they aren’t as successful as they expect to be. When they don’t get that promotion. When they have a conflict at work. When they fail—which they definitely will, at one time or another—and have to begin again.
As we’ve mentioned, the Kinnamans are really into Ecclesiastes. They are a driven family. Whether talking about grades or sports or any other activity, the Kinnamans are in it to win it. Reading a chapter of Ecclesiastes at dinner, being reminded that much of what we do on earth is fleeting, pushes reset. It’s like putting on glasses that bring into focus how dysfunctional ambition can become.
This is one part of right-sizing ambition, a phrase included in our definition of vocational discipleship. The next generation of Christians (and the rest of us) needs grounding in what Jesus says about success: seek first the kingdom of God and all the rest will be added to you (Matt. 6:33).
What’s My Calling?
At Barna, we’ve been thinking about and asking questions concerning vocation for almost fifteen years. Even early on, we thought discipling people around their calling presented the church with an opportunity, and we’ve only become more convinced as the years have passed.
More recently, as we zeroed in on this idea of what it takes to form resilient disciples, we asked Millennials, “What do you want to do in life?” We categorized their answers into different buckets, and what we found surprised us.
In the first big bucket, we placed our entrepreneurs. Nearly one half of all respondents are interested in careers related to entrepreneurship. They want to be marketers, business leaders, finance experts, and business owners. They want to start their own nonprofit organizations, be their own boss, and operate outside of traditional employment structures.
In the second bucket are the science minded, those interested in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Nearly half of all young people express interest in this realm of work.
Finally, a third of respondents are interested in creative careers such as design, filmmaking, journalism, literature, fine arts, and performance arts. (Responders could pick more than one vocational aspiration, which is why the totals add up to more than 100 percent.)
Skye Jethani, a friend who has written quite a bit about vocation, says that he believes God designed work for three primary reasons. “This is exciting,” Skye said when he saw how we’d broken down young people’s aspirations, “because those buckets correspond to the three things work is designed for: to create beauty, to cultivate abundance, and to generate order.”
This is one way to envision how God has wired human calling: to create beauty (creative careers), to cultivate abundance (entrepreneurial careers), or to generate order (STEM careers). Shouldn’t we as the church be first in line to mentor young people as they walk into these kinds of God-dained callings?
There’s a distinctly Christian way to think about vocation and work, and it isn’t only for the next generation! It’s for all of us. Christian vocation is about discovering what God is calling us to do and learning how to contribute to the work he is already doing and wants to do—including his work in our workplaces. Christians should be the ones in every workplace who resolve conflict, help their coworkers deal with grief and loss, and shine a gentle light of truth on our brokenness as coworkers, bosses, and employees.
Young Christians are hungry to think spiritually about the issues of our day. They long to find out what it means to follow Jesus in the workplace. This reawakening of the vocational imagination is deeply spiritual work. Awakening it in young disciples will propel more and more of them toward resilience.
The Power of Vocation and Calling
Most children, by the time they reach the age of nine or ten (and often earlier), exhibit quite an imagination when it comes to possible occupations. (For example, David was fairly certain that by his mid-40s he would already have retired from a successful career in the NBA—plans that would have come to fruition if athletic ability weren’t a prerequisite.) Ask any child what they want to be when they grow up, and you’ll get practical answers (doctor, lawyer, teacher), statistical anomalies (astronaut, professional athlete), and the downright fanciful (unicorn tamer, time traveler, superhero, owner of a butterfly store). There’s something in each of us, even early on, that causes us to dream about what we’ll do with our lives.
What’s the church connection? We have an opportunity to connect with the next generations when they are young to help shape their godly imagination for what they might accomplish. Again, what an incredible opportunity!
Imagine if we could awaken in all God’s children what resilient disciples say about their own lives.
A worthy goal for our churches is for every young person to grow up able to say, “I know who God has created me to be and how my purpose fits with his plans for the world.” What can we do to influence each and every young person in our faith communities to be able to say that with complete confidence?
It’s rare to find a church that fully integrates vocational discipleship into its vision of making disciples. (So if this concept is new to you, you’re not alone.) However, we are seeing more churches move into this arena, offering clear and tangible guidance on calling, career, and vocation. More youth and college leaders than ever are talking about issues of science, entrepreneurship, and creative careers. Youth and young adult church leaders are inviting professionals in to talk about their work and to form mentoring groups. The idea that purpose should be connected to a person’s faith journey isn’t quite as rare as it was even a decade ago. Still, there is much work to do.
For their part, a majority of resilient disciples report four outcomes of their engagement with church: (1) they better understand their purpose in life; (2) they view their gifts and passions as part of God’s calling; (3) they have learned how the Bible applies to their field or interest area; and (4) they are better able to live out their faith in the workplace (see table 12). (Again, we can’t be sure from this research alone if resilient disciples receive these benefits from their churches because they are somehow unique or because their churches have been intentional in this area; it’s probably a bit of both.)
Less common outcomes among resilient disciples include receiving a scholarship for college through their church, leadership training for their job through their church, or guidance concerning what school or college to attend. Interestingly, these outcomes are some of the few instances in which resilient disciples are not much different from habitual churchgoers. In other words, the practical sides of education and job training are missing in action from many churches’ thinking about vocational discipleship.
Here are some ways churches can develop the next generation vocationally.
Host a Vocation Bible School
Churches around the world put on Vacation Bible School. They set aside a week in the summer (or maybe spring break), invite all the neighbor kids, and engage them with Bible stories and life lessons they will remember for a long time to come.
What if we put on a Vocation Bible School?
We could plan talks and activities for children, youth, and young adults that challenge how they think about making a living, that introduce biblical ideas about vocation, and that set them on a path toward meaningful work. Could we help them experience both the spiritual vitality that comes from following Jesus and the vibrancy of discovering what he created them to do?
Young people today are children of Shark Tank. They are full of new ideas and fabulous concepts that are so far outside our box we can’t even see them. Of course, not every Millennial or Gen Z teen is interested in entrepreneurship—but a huge portion of them are, so let’s help them work that muscle. Let’s invite them to create organizations and businesses and products that extend and strengthen God’s kingdom.
A Vocation Bible School could be something that appeals to people at various stages, from elementary school to junior high, high school, and college. And many adults could use a Vocation Bible School to talk about why it is they do what they do.
Vocation must become something we talk about more. And we’re not talking about small-talk questions like “What do you do?” but intentionally dialoguing about faithfulness in all of life’s complex callings.
That’s a good definition of vocation. It’s not just the work we do. It’s not just a career, a job, or a profession. Vocation is being faithful in life’s complex callings.
Invest Real Resources into Building Young Leaders
The pipeline of young leaders who are ready, willing, and able to direct churches, Christian nonprofits, and ministry organizations is shrinking. Ten to twenty years down the line, who will lead the institutions that shape and serve the Christian community, including media, publishing, education, relief and development, and more?
We must develop a more robust pipeline of young leaders. Terry Stokesbary and Steve Moore have been doing this in the Pacific Northwest for many years and are great models for the rest of us. They developed a program called Vision & Call that trains hundreds of Christian college students in a two-year internship program. These students work in various Christian organizations and come together for training and development. Some of the richest times David has had as a teacher have been with these young leaders, answering their eager, honest, hopeful questions.
One commitment we can make to vocationally disciple the next generation is to provide financial means for them to study and experience the world, helping young leaders find their place beyond high school youth group. David’s wife, Jill, received a multiyear scholarship from her church to attend a college affiliated with her church’s denomination. Her scholarship increased every year, so she had an incentive to stay in the same school and finish her degree. Much of who she is today, as a Christian and as a leader, came from the investment her church made in her as a future leader.
We must renew our commitment and make similar investments in the future.
Don’t Count Out Christian Education
One of the most important features of the vocational landscape is educational institutions. These include schools, colleges, universities, training programs, online courses, and so on, as well as the people who inhabit them—teachers and students, the learned and the learning, educators and apprentices. In the best institutions, the line between the latter and the former (those instructing and those receiving instruction) is not impermeable.
We have become big advocates of the special role Christian education can play in shaping young hearts and minds. Public schools can be a rich proving ground for faithful Christians, and there are millions of public school educators whose faithful presence is a shining example of following Jesus. David’s good friends LaDonna and Eddie Ramos are such people; they pour out blood, sweat, and tears for students in Oxnard, California. So don’t get us wrong: public schools are not the enemy.
However, remember the tables you’ve seen in this book that show how many hours youth take in spiritual content and how many hours of other content they consume per year? Public schools offer no way to increase the number of hours students are trained to think Christianly. Christian schools offer much greater exposure to deeper, sturdier Christian formation. Learning cultural discernment and teaching vocational discipleship—along with the other practices—come a bit more naturally in a Christian educational environment.
Get a Mentor, Be a Mentor
Mark was being headhunted by a couple of ministry organizations. That was flattering and all, but he found himself asking, “Why are you looking at somebody like me who’s almost fifty when you really need someone in their thirties?”
The reason? Experience. Gravitas. Wisdom. Wisdom that somebody in their mid- to late forties has more of just because they have logged more hours on the time card, regardless of inherent talent or formal education. One of our definitions of wisdom is “pattern recognition.” Someone who’s been working for fifteen, twenty, thirty-five years simply has a deeper well of patterns to reference and recognize.
Many young exiles have incredible ideas and drive, but they lack pattern recognition. How can older generations help those who want to move higher more quickly than they’re actually able? Is making them put in their time or pay their dues the only or best way?
There is a human, church-driven approach to helping people discover their God-given purpose and wisely answering their vocational questions: mentoring. In mentoring, wisdom—pattern recognition—s passed on and provoked through meaningful intergenerational relationships. (Hey, we’ve seen those before!)
We feel so strongly about the discipleship potential of mentoring that we included a special section on the topic at the end of this chapter. Here, in this section, we dig into the mentoring mind-set, the whys of mentoring; there you’ll find the whats.
Resilient disciples, as we’ve seen, are much more likely than their peers to see and to seek wisdom—including positive criticism and input on difficult decisions—from older adults. Of course, as in other areas, they have room to grow. But in addition to expressing a general desire to receive wisdom from older generations, they are also more likely than others to report both having and being a mentor (see table 13).
Intergenerational relationships have to be more than “Oh, it’s so nice when the young people and the old folks get together.” Mentoring is not about being cute. It’s about getting wise. Gandalf is not cute. Yoda is not cute. (Well, yes. He is. But he’s also mystically spooky and can kick Sith butt when he needs to. Plus, he’s got nine hundred years of pattern recognition under his tiny belt.) We’ve got to wade beyond shallow, heartwarming intergenerational fellowship into a deep well of intentional mentoring.
Classic hero stories can be of help to us here.
A mentor from the old school, such as producer Chuck Roven, might start with the question How can I help this kid learn the ropes and pay their dues? And look, that’s a perfectly reasonable question. But it’s not big enough. It’s not heroic.
In a classic hero’s journey, a wise mentor arrives to help once the hero has committed to the quest but doesn’t yet have what they need to accomplish it. A hero’s mentor starts with the question How can I help this hero become who they are meant to be?
Think of Luke Skywalker. He wants to battle the dark side and defeat the Empire—but that kid couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag. His real shortcoming, though, is that he doesn’t know his limitations. He’s committed to the quest and has some obvious talent, but he needs more. He needs humility. Not humiliation, but humility—and it takes a wise mentor to know the difference. Before Yoda can teach Luke all he knows about using the force, Luke has to become humble. As Yoda explains, “Anger, fear, aggression . . . the dark side of the force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you, it will.”4
Yoda’s first task is to help Luke become humble so that he can grow into the hero he is meant to be without getting sidetracked by his darker instincts.
The second question the hero’s mentor asks is What do I have to give?
Every mentor has a sacred relic or secret knowledge that can radically change the hero’s life. Obi-Wan Kenobi has kept Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber and gives it to Luke. Father Christmas in Narnia has a gift for each of the Pevensie kids, without which they can’t win the coming battle against the White Witch. Doc Hudson gives Lightning McQueen the secret to turning on dirt. Fairy Godmother gives Cinderella glass slippers and an unforgettable night on the town.
And so on.
What do you have to give?
You have insights, ideas, tools, and meaningful objects that might not even seem important to you anymore. But for someone just starting out on their journey, these gifts could be life changing. Passing them on is what mentoring is all about.
Vocation in Action
One of David’s favorite Christian events is Jubilee, a large conference for college students that takes place in Pittsburgh every February. (They could have picked a better time of year for the wintery climes of western Pennsylvania, just saying.) Despite the bitter cold outside, the presentations, workshops, and booksellers par excellence are, as the kids say, lit. The entire dramatic arc of the event is designed to take students through the creation-fall-redemption-restoration story line of Christianity, with talks and thematic elements helping to build cultural discernment as students progress from Friday’s opening session to Sunday’s closing bell.
The conference features content from Christian professionals in a variety of fields, literally scores of speakers all sharing with students how to think in a Christian way and how to be a Christian in their particular vocations. It is something to see Christian college students emerging inspired from the sessions, loaded down with books in their arms, talking intently about deep issues of calling and purpose and faith.
When Emily was a junior in high school, David took her to Jubilee. One of her favorite sessions, on physics and faith, was taught by Catherine Crouch, a college professor. In fact, Catherine became a vocational mentor to David’s science-minded daughter. Several years later, Emily still consults Catherine about questions surrounding her career plans, aspirations, and concerns and about following Jesus as a disciple called to generate order—a scientist.
Vocational discipleship is a real thing, and we believe that through it the church can be revived. When we read about past revivals, they aren’t about society turning to Jesus. They are about the church becoming more faithful to Jesus and more Spirit-led within society.
Churches that are serious about vocational discipleship can help young people answer these deep-seated questions:
As a result, the body of Christ will be renewed and revived in digital Babylon.
If the church has a discipleship problem, then we’ve got to look for ways to try new things. We see clear evidence that the most resilient young Christians are stronger when we connect discipleship and vocation. They live more integrated lives and understand at a deeper, more essential level that God cares about what they do with their lives. That he has made them to be a masterpiece.
It’s a privilege—and a calling in itself—to pay close attention to the sparks of calling in people’s lives, especially the lives of those growing up around us.
David’s son Zack once asked, “Does God have so much money because he has sold so many Bibles?” A budding entrepreneur, for sure!
Our friend Bill Denzel has taken his son Zion through a number of career and calling assessments during his final years of high school, coaching him along the way to see the bigger picture of God’s purposes for his life.
More than just making an ambitions wish list, more than mere competitiveness in the career marketplace, we can help form the next generation of resilient disciples by helping them integrate faith, work, and calling.