I’m now a mom to two Gen Alpha boys! Whew! In fact, because of the newest Gen Alpha in our family, I may be a little sleep deprived. As he is just newly arrived 10 weeks ago. But he has gotten me thinking and praying…how will his generation be different than generation z. There is always some “generation bleed” (As I call it) when one person who traditionally fits into a birth year of a generation, but due to circumstances with how old their parents are or siblings, they ACT more like a generation before or after them in certain moments.

Gen Z is the generation we have in our student ministries currently. Give or take a few years…the oldest you will see Gen Z characteristics is at about the age of 22. I started noticing Gen z for the first time when my now graduating seniors were juniors. I was grieved that I didn’t notice the switch between millennial to Gen z until then. I don’t want to be caught off guard this time.

While I am currently enjoying discovering more and more about equipping Generation z, I can’t help but be intrigued by Gen Alpha since I am literally immersed in it as a mom to a 5 year old and 10 week old.

Current research trends are saying Gen Alpha’s arrived on the scene with the iPad in 2010. That would put us seeing them arriving in our ministries in about 5 years.

So what would happen if we as the church began praying IN ADVANCE for a generation coming into our student ministries? What if we were preparing for them?

I have been encouraged lately by some other friends who are new parents of a get alpher, to begin to literally pray from head to toe over the gen alpher’s we have in our homes.

Some things you could pray for already for this generation:

“They are the most materially endowed and technologically literate generation to ever grace the planet!”-Mccrindle.com.au

While with Generation z I’m praying for them to understand Lordship of Christ and the ability to surrender their life to Him…I wonder if with Gen Alpha with just a continued thrust of digital connectedness that they will struggle with understanding how to walk spiritually in a relationship with Christ. I’m just spitballing here, but that is shaping some of what I am praying for my Gen Alpha’s. In fact, Skylar is the name of our youngest. Skylar comes from the etymology of “Scholar”. We want him to be knowledgeable of who Christ is and a scholar of the bible…and his middle name is JUDE. I pray for him to contend for the faith as stated in Jude 3.

““Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.”

And my heart is that this generation will contend for the faith IN LOVE.

I believe that this upcoming generation will need to be taught COMMUNITY and how to express the LOVE of Christ in and through community. I think they will be longing for that. We are already seeing authentic community eroding from the margins of the lives of Generation z. So how can we continue to provide, and equip this next generation to experience biblical community and experience real relationship with Christ?

So while I don’t have a lot of “research” to dispense on Gen Alpha as yet, perhaps the greatest gift I can give today is to remind us that they are present and in five years we will be ministering to them. So let’s begin praying now!