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Ministers discuss challenges for Gen Z
Campus for Christ conference equips college ministers for the new semester.
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DENTON, TEXAS — Campus missionary Casey Coston sat among the crowd of campus ministers and college students listening to keynote speaker David Fraze, youth ministry program chair at Lubbock Christian University.
Coston, board president of Campus for Christ, was one of 115 attendees — representing 42 churches — at the 68th Campus for Christ conference.
David Fraze speaks to attendees at the Campus for Christ conference in the Baptist Student Ministry center at the University of North Texas.
Campus ministers gather at the annual meeting, which is supported by Churches of Christ, to encourage one another and exchange ideas for their ministries before the school year.
“Campus ministers tend to be pretty isolated,” said Coston, who works with Blue Hens for Christ in Delaware, a ministry of the Newark Church of Christ. “We can have partnerships with other folks on campus, but this is just a sweet reunion every year to remind us we’re not alone.”
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The recent conference was held at the University of North Texas in Denton. This year’s theme, “Say So,” referenced the 1968 International Campus Evangelism Seminar. Dylan Kirkland, REACH campus minister at the University Church of Christ in Tuscaloosa, Ala., spoke about the 1968 conference and the evangelism it inspired among students.
He explored this question: After 57 years, what similarities and differences do ministers see between the college students in 1968 and 2025?
Identity, idols and isolation
One similarity is that college students in both generations focus on their identity.
Fraze told attendees that students want to answer three big questions: Who am I? Where do I belong? What’s my purpose?
Beau and Jill Davis lead a session on trauma-informed college ministry at the Campus for Christ conference.
“Those questions … stay the same,” added Amy Kendall, The Well campus minister at the University of Arizona. “Emerging adulthood has the same concerns no matter what generation you’re in.”
Kirkland said students today are also faced with temptations like partying, drinking, sex and money. These “campus idols,” as he calls them, are common across regions and generations.
“Loneliness can breed even more isolation in people because they start to feel uncomfortable among other people, and they shut themselves off more and more. I worry about that for students on campus.”
But now students also struggle with isolation and loneliness, more prominent challenges for Generation Z students than previous generations.
“Loneliness can breed even more isolation in people because they start to feel uncomfortable among other people, and they shut themselves off more and more,” Kendall said. “I worry about that for students on campus. I worry about isolation and the darkness that comes with that.”
Brandon Bell, campus missions director for Christian Campus Community in Denton, speaks at the Campus for Christ Conference.
Kirkland said isolation among students at the University of Alabama has increased since COVID-19. Prior to the pandemic, he said, a lot of students would show up to REACH events when the ministry announced it on Instagram. Post-pandemic, the number of attendees at events is smaller.
Part of this may be due to technology, which Kirkland believes has increased anxiety and depression and caused students to become less social.
“Instead of hoping through social media that they show up, instead of hoping that they walk up to a table, we’ve got to go seek out the lost.”
“Instead of hoping through social media that they show up, instead of hoping that they walk up to a table, we’ve got to go seek out the lost,” Kirkland said. “Our people are walking around campus, and we’re striking up conversations and saying, ‘Hey, you need to come to this event.’”
Kendall said she addresses the challenge of isolation by providing a place for students to build community. Coston has a similar approach by hosting events that students are interested in. He said he relies on his student apprentices to know what types of activities students want — including game nights, movies and anything with food.
Alexa Laws, an apprentice for The Well Campus Ministry at the University of Arizona, prays during a Campus for Christ conference in Denton, Texas.
These activities — the attractional part of ministry — change with every generation, or even every few years as trends shift. Then when students start attending regularly, campus ministers begin to focus on discipleship.
“The discipling part of ministry doesn’t change,” Coston said. “I’m always trying to meet students for spiritual, biblical conversations.”
“That looks like one-on-one reading a Gospel with someone, introducing them to who Jesus is,” Kendall added. “That is not changing.”
‘The greatest evangelism outburst’
But despite the challenges, college students are still becoming Christians.
The Christian Chronicle reported on a recent Pew Research study that showed the decline of Christianity had slowed. Data from this study found young adults, age 18 to 24, are less religious than older generations.
Despite this data, the Gospel is spreading on college campuses.
Attendees at the Campus for Christ event worship together.
Kirkland and Matt Chandler, who spoke at the conference, discussed the UniteUS movement at campuses across the nation. Since UniteUS began in 2023, each event has been held at a public university, where thousands of students gathered to worship. Hundreds of students were baptized at each event, including 250 baptisms at the University of Alabama, Kirkland said.
Other keynote speakers and class teachers at the Campus for Christ conference discussed these baptisms, stories of other students becoming Christians and ideas for how to share the Gospel with more students on their campuses.
“What if it’s a great opportunity?” Fraze asked the crowd. “What if this could be the greatest evangelism outburst ever, starting with this age group, 18-25? I believe so.”
KENZIE JAMES, a senior multimedia journalism major at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., is a Christian Chronicle intern working in the main office in Oklahoma City. James grew up in Tallahassee, Fla., where she attended the Timberlane Church of Christ.
