Generation Z transforming the classroom and chapel

Generation Z is entering our places of worship and teaching with a different understanding and grip on their beliefs.

Dr. Randall Holm teaches several different Bible and spirituality courses at Providence University College but, along with those teaching duties, is entrusted with the spiritual formation of the community at Providence.

Since assuming the role, Holm has changed how the weekly Wednesday Community Chapels are experienced: "I brought about a number of very specific changes...

"One of the first things I did was take the worship bands - who are excellent and doing a great job - and I moved them off the stage and I put them off to the side and on the floor," says Holm.

In his Introduction to the Christian Spiritual Formation class, Holm had a student remark in one of her papers that she couldn't watch the band in chapels anymore, only to later realize in the paper, "Maybe that was the point".

Holm has made decisions like this one - along with having prayers spoken from the middle of the room rather than the platform - in hopes of intentionally change how Providence's students, the majority born after 2000, experience the service.

"I don't preach that often here [at Providence]," says Holm. But when he does preach and teach: "For this generation, I have found it effective - at least for me - I am very narrative in my preaching. I want to draw people into the text.

"I don't hold up a mirror, usually and say, 'Do you look like the person that is sitting there?' I hope that people find themselves in that particular Biblical text. So it's far more ambiguous perhaps, I don't even necessarily know what the conclusion is, any more than it is spelled out in the Bible itself."

Holm is a proponent of adapting one's delivery of a message in favour of reaching their audience: "We always have to think of our audience - our audience is absolutely key."

Inspiration form other teachers have shown Holm that this generation is no longer, "I think, therefore I am," but rather: "I am what I love," as what we love connects us and draws us in.

"That's the transformative angle you have to use," says Holm, " Getting them to see what they love, sometimes you have to allow them to see and to think about those things that they love, and then ask, 'Are they happy with that?'"

This new class of Gen Z students are visibly different to Holm than his classes in the past.

"I have fewer students that arrive clutching their bibles, saying, 'I'm not going to allow this college to change me. I'm going to guard it absolutely'," says Holm.

Holm sees himself in a position to not let these students lose their faith, but see it change and grow.

"Growth is healthy, but I'm finding I've had more resistance in years gone by," says Holm. "They are a little more open and malleable today then they were in times past."

Holm has seen this openness scare people, but he has seen this as a more transformative way of believing in this generation.