Mobilizing Gen Z for Kingdom Mission

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Welcome to Grace at the Fray, a podcast that explores the many dimensions of God’s grace that we find at the frayed edges of life. Come explore how God’s grace works to renew your life and send you on mission in His kingdom.

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0:00:22.2 Jim Lovelady: Hello, beloved. Welcome to Grace at the Fray, a podcast from Serge, where we lean into the messy, beautiful places where God’s grace meets our weakness. I’m your host, Jim Lovelady, and today we’re stepping into a conversation that feels a little like standing on the edge of great possibility, great potential. And I’ll tell you right now, this episode is dripping with gospel hope. Today I’m joined with Michelle Hopping, the director of Serge’s mobilization department, our folks who walk alongside people of all ages who are discerning a call to the mission field. This season, I’ve been hanging out a lot with Serge’s mobilization team because they’re on the front lines engaging with Gen Z as they wrestle with God’s call to participate with him in his Kingdom work. So in this episode, we’re going to explore the trends that Michelle and her team are seeing with Gen Z, how her team is responding to the challenges and opportunities that they’re discovering, and what she sees as Serge’s responsibility toward Gen Z to, in her words, carry the sacredness of their stories. She sees their diversity, their curiosity, their hunger to be known and their struggles, their mental illness battles, the weight of a world that feels out of control in a hyper individualistic digital age. But she also sees how they’re uniquely built to be a blessing for this moment. Serge’s heartbeat is all about gospel transformation. Not just for the people out there that we’re ministering to, but the very ones who go and Gen Z, well, they’re image bearers carrying sacred stories, poised to bring grace to a frayed world. So today we’re asking, what does it look like to welcome this generation into missions? Not to wrestle them down, but to walk with them as they wrestle with Jesus. How do we uproot idols of power or approval, control or comfort, and plant something deeper? The love of a resurrected king who’s making all things new. It’s a conversation about hope, about challenge, about stepping into the fray and finding grace on the other side. If you’re part of Gen Z, a parent or someone involved in shaping their life, or if you’re just looking to experience a good dose of gospel hope, this one’s for you. 

0:02:55.0 Jim Lovelady: Michelle Hopping, welcome to Grace at the Fray.

0:02:57.9 Michelle Hopping: Thanks, Jim.

0:02:58.7 Jim Lovelady: I think it might be a Grace at the Fray bingo card for me to bring on guests who are into CrossFit, because I’m well into this.

0:03:09.4 Michelle Hopping: You’re an expert. You’ve had more than one.

0:03:12.0 Jim Lovelady: Maybe I’m an expert in having guests on who do CrossFit. I’m not a CrossFit person. How long have you been doing CrossFit? 

0:03:20.2 Michelle Hopping: It’ll be three years this month. 

0:03:22.1 Jim Lovelady: You and your husband Dave, both, right? 

0:03:24.0 Michelle Hopping: Yes. He’s a long timer. 

0:03:26.5 Jim Lovelady: Oh. 

0:03:27.4 Michelle Hopping: And I pretty much said, I’m never going to do that.

0:03:30.2 Jim Lovelady: Oh, really? 

0:03:30.8 Michelle Hopping: Yeah. 

0:03:31.8 Jim Lovelady: Okay. Was the first time he dragged you in, like… 

0:03:34.8 Michelle Hopping: No, I mean… 

0:03:36.2 Jim Lovelady: Come on, you’ll love it. 

0:03:36.7 Michelle Hopping: No. We tussled about whether that made sense for me to come. I had a lot of pride. It was actually a pretty significant sonship story for me. 

0:03:47.4 Jim Lovelady: Really? 

0:03:47.5 Michelle Hopping: Yes. I had been doing garage workouts during COVID and just weight training and accountability became an issue. No surprise. You’re on your own for months and months. And so I thought, I’ll go with him and give it a try. But it was really this journey of not wanting to be seen as incompetent in that space and feeling new and feeling the rub of wanting to show myself worthy in some way. Not that I was. I was new, but it made me realize how prideful I was. And so we had a lot of conversations about that. I was like, do not look at me. We’re not working out together. We are not partnering. 

0:04:31.1 Jim Lovelady: to Dave? 

0:04:31.5 Michelle Hopping: Oh, yeah. It was a great marriage story, but, yeah, no, it’s been a really good experience for the last three years after I got over myself. 

0:04:38.9 Jim Lovelady: Oh, man. Yeah. The first time. Well, the first and only time I ever stepped foot into a CrossFit gym and I did the workout, it destroyed me. I was a collegiate athlete. I was humiliated. 

0:04:51.5 Michelle Hopping: I’m sorry, Jim. 

0:04:52.4 Jim Lovelady: It was. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to have more guests on who… 

0:04:57.0 Michelle Hopping: You just need to scale the workout appropriately. 

0:05:00.3 Jim Lovelady: That’s what everyone says. 

0:05:00.4 Michelle Hopping: Right. And let the record show that Jim brought up CrossFit. I did not bring it up. 

0:05:04.9 Jim Lovelady: That’s right. 

0:05:06.3 Michelle Hopping: Which is the other stereotype. 

0:05:07.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Oh, that’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. How do you know? How do you know someone does CrossFit? Just wait. They’ll tell you that. That whole thing. 

0:05:15.4 Michelle Hopping: Exactly. 

0:05:15.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Well, so last season, Irwyn Ince came on the podcast, and I was going to challenge him to an arm wrestling match. And then I realized, oh, you do CrossFit. Never mind. So I was going to challenge you to an arm wrestling match, but I thought better of it. 

0:05:34.9 Michelle Hopping: You know what, first of all, Irwyn’s no joke. He is no joke. He’s a great workout visionary type person. I watch his stuff on Instagram. 

0:05:43.5 Jim Lovelady: Oh, yeah, he’s inspiring. 

0:05:44.5 Michelle Hopping: Yeah, he’s inspiring. And second of all, I do have an arm wrestling story. Believe it or not. 

0:05:49.6 Jim Lovelady: Proof of why I shouldn’t be asking. 

0:05:50.6 Michelle Hopping: It may not be on your bingo card. Now you can put it on your bingo card. Do you want to hear it?

0:05:55.2 Jim Lovelady: Yes. 

0:05:55.8 Michelle Hopping: So a couple years back, we were at a conference, couple colleagues, we were in LA, so not my area of expertise. Only one or two colleagues were more familiar with that area. And so it was the Asian American Leadership Conference. So our friends Sunny and Joe, who are colleagues as well, kind of set up a dinner, they picked this amazing Korean restaurant where we could go. And Sunny, who’s Korean, was able to select all the right foods. I mean, treated us to a really special menu. And little did we know though, the night we were there, there was an arm wrestling competition up for grabs in the restaurant. And so they came around with clipboards and were essentially recruiting people to participate from whatever table. And so Joe raises his hand, puts his name down, and I raise my hand and the guy, the waiter, whoever, he was like, no, no, no. I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But I just had to wait for the ladies clipboard to come around. 

0:06:57.6 Michelle Hopping: So Joe and I, for whatever reason were feeling it to sign up for this. 

0:07:03.4 Jim Lovelady: It was the soju.

0:07:05.4 Michelle Hopping: No soju was imbibed at that point. So it was more of the leaping into the unknown and just being willing, right? So we didn’t know who the competition would be either. Just names on a clipboard. So the guys go first. Joe goes up against a 20 something buff dude convincingly wins against this guy. 

0:07:28.2 Jim Lovelady: He beats the 20 something guy. 

0:07:29.6 Michelle Hopping: I love it. They’re incredulous. The young guys are incredulous. Like, how old are you? You know, I can’t believe it. He’s like, I’m over 50. Yes. And then the second round, he convincingly lost. But we were all excited for him anyway to have participated. Then the ladies were up and it was only two of us that had signed up. So there’s going to be a winner and there’s going to be a loser. 

0:07:52.7 Jim Lovelady: That’s right.

0:07:53.6 Michelle Hopping: And went into it… 

0:07:55.7 Jim Lovelady: Was the first person in a last place person. 

0:07:56.6 Michelle Hopping: That’s what you would think. But wait for the story to end. 

0:08:00.0 Jim Lovelady: Okay. Okay.

0:08:00.0 Michelle Hopping: So in my prideful judgment, I look at this woman who’s my opponent, and I think, oh, I, I could take her. I could totally take her. And we started off. I’ve never arm wrestled before, and they had arm wrestling tables, which I did not like. 

0:08:18.5 Jim Lovelady: With the thing that you hold onto. 

0:08:19.7 Michelle Hopping: Yeah. But I didn’t know that. And so this is me justifying the end here of the story. So they had the table. 

0:08:26.4 Jim Lovelady: Right. 

0:08:27.8 Michelle Hopping: Hold that thought. There’s a countdown. The match begins, and we quickly hit a stalemate. We are locked. And this woman is, I would say maybe 10 years my senior, more petite than I am, but what a dark horse coming out of nowhere. We are locked. And then they finally just said, all right, we’re done. We’re just people were cheering. It was a great environment. But I was like, dang. 

0:09:00.9 Jim Lovelady: Both of you were like… 

0:09:01.3 Michelle Hopping: I really… 

0:09:01.3 Jim Lovelady: Eyes, sweat beads beating down…

0:09:04.9 Michelle Hopping: And you know, it was really fun to participate in that. And I walked back to the table and my friend Sunny goes, oh, yeah, man. She had ahjumma strength.

0:09:12.5 Jim Lovelady: Ahjumma strength. 

0:09:13.9 Michelle Hopping: Ajumma strength’s like middle aged woman strength. Like, look out. You don’t know it’s there, but it’s there. And so, yeah, it was just a really fun memory to be able to do that with colleagues and just not be afraid to step into something where I could have been completely humiliated. And maybe I was. Maybe I was looking back. 

0:09:31.7 Jim Lovelady: Hey, a tie is a tie. Yeah. And who knows how long she would have lasted. 

0:09:36.9 Michelle Hopping: Yeah. Just give us a little more time. 

0:09:39.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, the endurance. I love it. Well, okay, so you’re actually here because you head up the mobilization team, and I’ve wanted to get your perspective on what it’s looked like to be recruiting and mobilizing missionaries to go all over the world and what that looks like for Serge as we, as we’re kind of thinking about the future of our organization, this 40 year old organization, you’re at this place where you’re bringing people in and sending them out, figuring out, okay, is the Lord calling you? And I know that y’all have been doing a lot of studies and focus groups and a lot of research with what it looks like to mobilize Gen Z. All right, ready? What are you seeing? 

0:10:28.6 Michelle Hopping: Yeah, I mean, things are shifting and I can talk about that a little bit. I will say we are earnestly also seeking out and bringing on millennials, Gen X, depending on what the needs are in the teams and the level of experience, whether in life, in ministry or in a certain vocational specialty. We are very eager to be walking alongside other generations as well.

0:10:55.9 Jim Lovelady: Right. And some boomers even came on.

0:10:57.8 Michelle Hopping: Yeah.

0:10:58.4 Jim Lovelady: A couple times ago where.

0:11:01.1 Michelle Hopping: Right. We’ve had specific stints of time available for people that may be able to fit something into their phase of life if they’re on a retirement sort of schedule of life. But, yeah, I mean, I think where we’re seeing a need to shift is really around young adults coming up in Gen Z just because of the way that their lives have been shaped and changed by their own circumstances that have then caused them to look at the world differently or cause them to look at missions differently or cause them to be in relationship with the Lord, maybe differently than what you and I may have experienced as like elder millennials or Gen X. So we’re paying attention to those things. There’s a lot of studies out there. There’s a lot of trend information. You’ve probably heard some of it. So thinking about themes, things that they have been shaped by milestones in their life. So thinking about, for example, the Great Recession in 2008, were they directly affected by that as individuals? Maybe, maybe not. But their parents probably were. The climate around economics, around stability, parents who worked in big companies that were supposedly stable, the best places to work, the most prestigious places to work, all of that came crashing down. And so there were a lot of questions at that point of, well, what is stable? Should I just work for myself? And I was in a different space working in career management at that point and thinking about, how does this shape different industries? How does this shape the direction of what people are interested in pursuing? And so as young people, seeing their parents go through that, affecting their families, that was potentially huge for a number of them. Then you hit 2010-2011, the rise of the smartphone was preeminently just everywhere. What did that lead to? A lot of studies now on this, I would commend a couple books to you, one of them being 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘯𝘹𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 by Jonathan Haidt. But just thinking about not only the overwhelm of information that’s accessible and were we designed to hold that, right? So, like the feeling of anxiety that comes with that, but also the isolation that comes with that in terms of being able to sit in your room, sit in one spot, and just try to create a social life digitally, maybe it works for a while, but there’s been some negative effects, if you will, around what that has actually amounted to for a number of people in Gen Z. And then COVID, right? So formative years growing up in elementary, junior high, high school and having this experience where there’s a lot of fear, the world kind of shuts down for a while. Social connectivity levels vary widely or really get shifted down in time periods in life where you’re trying to figure out who am I, who are my people, what matters, what’s again, sort of safe. That word has come up quite a bit, I know, in some of your other interviews as well. So those are three major milestones that have shaped the way that Gen Z looks at not only their own selves, but the world and missions. And so layer that on with trends of mental health. Questions around mental health, or in the best light, transparency around talking about mental health. That’s a huge asset and we could talk about that soon too. Financial stability being a little bit more of a concern. Not surprisingly, given what we just talked about. The idea of being more of an individualist or an individual lens that you’re making decisions through versus a collective lens. Everything’s bespoke, right? I can order my own personal pizza the way that I want it. I can create my own playlist for each moment of my day, for each phase of the month or the year that I’m in. 

0:14:58.5 Jim Lovelady: The end of the year. Spotify will tell you. 

0:15:00.5 Michelle Hopping: Yeah, everything is so customized and individual that there’s an expectation that that’s kind of how things work. But on the plus side, I think there’s a lot of emphasis on entrepreneurialism, curiosity. They’re the most diverse generation that we’ve seen and there’s just a comfort level with difference and wow, like stepping into a place where everyone’s not like me. And that is a huge asset for thinking about reaching the nations. So yeah, those are just some things that we’ve started to look at as we’ve looked at secular trend data and then done some missions oriented focus groups as well. 

0:15:43.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, that’s fascinating because I mean, you just lambasted me with all these things that are just like, oh my gosh, that is overwhelming. 

0:15:50.2 Michelle Hopping: Each of them could be its own, right? 

0:15:52.3 Jim Lovelady: Each one its own overwhelming thing. But you just compile the whole, all of that together. But then, I appreciate that you’re like, but on the bright side, yeah, look at these opportunities. 

0:16:04.5 Michelle Hopping: Oh, absolutely. 

0:16:05.9 Jim Lovelady: So, yeah, so I think that there’s a bright hope on the horizon that’s actually brighter than what we realize.

0:16:12.8 Michelle Hopping: Right. If we start to see young adults and students who are curious about missions or even just fervently following Jesus, we’re calling them the remnant, right? It’s sort of like who is left after all of the destruction and these terrible times. Okay. It’s in biblical language. It’s a remnant. And so when we see teenagers, young adults, following Jesus and opting into missions, that’s already proving an element of countercultural willingness. Like they are going against. They’re going upstream, right? Swimming upstream already. And so we want to encourage those students and young adults to continue to pursue this because they’re already opting into something that’s out of their comfort zone.

0:17:00.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. So anybody who has the courage to respond to the question, whom shall I send and who will go for us? You have someone who says, here I am, I send me. It’s like, look at… Way to… Wow. 

0:17:12.3 Michelle Hopping: Yeah. Right, right. And one of the differences though is we’re seeing a little bit of a change in what does commitment look like? 

0:17:19.9 Jim Lovelady: Oh, interesting. 

0:17:21.0 Michelle Hopping: So maybe 30, 40 years ago, the call of the missions community of churches who were sending was sort of like, come and die with us. Bring your coffin. We’re going, we’re never coming back. I did not experience, I was not there during that time. But that’s what I’ve heard and read about now. The call is not different in the sense that we are all called. We are commanded into the Great Commission, go and make disciples. But the method and the language has shifted a little bit. And so…

0:17:56.8 Jim Lovelady: The metaphors are different.

0:17:58.2 Michelle Hopping: The metaphors are different. 

0:18:00.2 Jim Lovelady: Bring your coffin is not the metaphor. 

0:18:00.4 Michelle Hopping: Exactly. So we’re thinking a little more about what do various types of on ramps look like? How do we give people an experience or an opportunity that then leads to another experience, another opportunity. So you’re not signing on a dotted line for 30 years, but you’re saying, you know what, I’ll do a summer, I’ll do eight weeks or I’ll go for a week. I’m not sure about that. I’m going to go for a week, I’m going to go for then a summer and so we have these ways that we can incrementally welcome people into more depths of experience. Not starting with a 30 year commitment, because that’s just not the way that we’re seeing the tide sort of moving right now. 

0:18:43.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, that’s fascinating to think about how. Go for a week, go for eight weeks or whatever, go for this short amount of time and then just expect that the Lord is going to make that time really dense with meaning and significance and the Lord is going to do some really amazing things. So what are some of the other, what are some of the other things that y’all are doing as you’re. It’s not a response to these things because it’s not like, oh, shoot, what do we do about this? It’s more of like, there’s the bright hope on the horizon. How can we harness that? How can we run to that? So what are some of the things y’all are doing as you see these opportunities? 

0:19:18.7 Michelle Hopping: Yeah, we’ve been thinking a lot and talking a lot about welcome. And what does welcome mean? How do people from all walks of life, all backgrounds, all socioeconomic, all ethnic groups feel like they have a place at Serge or they can explore with us? And so welcome is a priority and that’s one way we’re trying to make our opportunities feel accessible is how do we talk about things openly in light of where we are as a company, where we need to be as a company, where we’re going. So welcoming is a big theme. We’ve talked a lot with people around, what are the strengths of Gen Z as a young adult or an intern coming in and carrying their story?  Stories are huge with this generation. And look, almost every generation maybe, but I think there’s even more emphasis on peer to peer weight of acceptance of, you’re my peer, you’re telling me something. I’m going to put a lot of weight in that, on that versus sort of a top down. This is an expert. I’m going to listen to this person because of their credentials or their experience. So stories create this level playing field of I believe this person and what they’re telling me because I see myself in them or they’re two years ahead of me and I want to see myself following in their footsteps. So we’re starting to collect and then also project these stories as we think about welcoming other people. So we’re taking our former interns and having them become student mobilizers and helpers for us in their communities, on campuses, because they have a voice that means so much more than me going to a campus and saying, hey, come explore with us. 

0:21:16.4 Jim Lovelady: Hey, this is great. 

0:21:17.0 Michelle Hopping: They don’t know who I am. And so thinking about what is the peer to peer weight of the message and the story, that’s one way that we’re starting to really explore shifting some of our methods too. 

0:21:29.9 Jim Lovelady: So what are the ways that you’re seeing transformation through that? 

0:21:36.2 Michelle Hopping: I think there’s a difference between institutional trust and personal rapport with somebody. And institutions or organizations that are doing this really well are leading with the person. And there’s probably a lot of examples to point to where things have gone wrong in the sense of, yeah, well, there’s a reason why we’re not trusting this institution or this company. And so there’s a reason why the atmosphere feels like a little more scrutiny. But what we want to do is continue to lead with the relational value that we have as a company and lean on that and say, look, you may not know our entire organization. You’re going to get to know me and I’m going to help you get to know others. We’re going to help you get to know our field workers or your future team leaders. And so you can understand more about are we actually who we say we are on paper or on our website? And so there’s that need to lead with the personal in order to represent the institution. 

0:22:49.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, grace becomes this leveling of a playing field where your experience of grace and my experience of grace and how we communicate those things and how we tell those stories become incredibly welcoming to someone who has certain. The average person has the expectation that this is a missions agency, leftover, colonialistic, imperialistic kind of. I mean, I was on Reddit earlier today and I just typed in Christian missions and there’s not one good thing. 

0:23:21.9 Michelle Hopping: Sure. 

0:23:22.5 Jim Lovelady: That was spoken about in lots of really funny memes that are. 

0:23:26.7 Michelle Hopping: I bet.

0:23:27.9 Jim Lovelady: That hurts. 

0:23:28.6 Michelle Hopping: A little too close for… 

0:23:29.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, that’s. Oh, and it makes me sad. 

0:23:32.2 Michelle Hopping: Right. 

0:23:32.7 Jim Lovelady: But it’s there. I mean, it’s something that we lament and something that we repent of a history of participating with colonialism and imperialism. And there’s so much of the critique is well founded, but here we come along and we’re like, hey, look, I just had this experience of God’s grace and here’s the story. And then there’s these people over here in this other country that I’m fascinated with and I can’t help but be fascinated by. And so here’s that story. And it seems like that’s. There’s a ripple effect of that kind of communication. 

0:24:08.2 Michelle Hopping: Yeah. And we don’t want to sweep things under the rug to say, oh, no, we don’t do it that way. We want to acknowledge, here’s why we do it the way we do, here’s why we prioritize coming alongside national partners and having people who are from the community we’re working in be the face of this church plant or whatever the ministry looks like. There’s reasons why we have things set up to be sustainable and in partnership, but at the same time, we don’t want to say, oh, we never did anything wrong. It’s all these other companies or organizations. I’m sure there are things that we could bring up that we could repent of and we’re committed to thinking about how do we do it better and in partnership. And I think that’s important to young adults. I mean, I think there’s a lot of. There’s questions about mission ethics. How are you guys doing this well? How are you doing it differently than the places that aren’t doing it so well?

0:25:06.3 Jim Lovelady: Super important question.

0:25:07.2 Michelle Hopping: Want to welcome that. Want to welcome that question because it is valid and it is important. And I would encourage church leaders and disciplers and parents and people coming alongside young adults to welcome the hard questions. There’s something really validating to a young adult about saying, like, oh, yeah, they’re going to want to talk about this. They’re not going to shut me down. Look, I don’t have all the answers, but I want to be representing a place where we welcome that. 

0:25:37.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, we want to be up for the conversation.

0:25:39.0 Michelle Hopping: Right.

0:25:39.4 Jim Lovelady: You know, it’s. Yeah. That kind of conversation cannot be shoved under the rug. 

0:25:46.0 Jim Lovelady: I want to pause this conversation and invite you to join us in prayer for the Serge field workers that we here at the headquarters in Philadelphia are praying for each week. We meet on Tuesday and Friday mornings to pray, and this week we’re praying for our teams in the UK. We have a lot of teams in the UK and so we’re spreading it out. I’m not going to tell you which one, just that it’s a team in the UK. We’re also praying for support raising folks who are getting ready to go on the field. So would you pray with me? Lord, we pray that you would bless these folks, give them joy in their work in your Kingdom, and the pleasure of your joy as they follow you. Give them wisdom and let your grace abound in their relationships with one another, with family members and children, and with the people they serve. Heal all sicknesses, liberate the enslaved, protect them from the powers and principalities of darkness, restore to them the joy of your salvation and let your Kingdom come and your will be done in these places, just as it is in heaven. We pray in your name. Amen. Now back to the conversation. 

0:26:54.4 Jim Lovelady: What are you seeing as you’re walking with people who are grappling with the idea of going on missions like whom shall I send and who will go for us? You know, the hand that kind of wants to go up. 

0:27:08.0 Michelle Hopping: Yeah. I mean, every relationship that we develop with people as we’re walking with them feels unique because we’re trying to get to know them as an individual. We want them to get to know us. And so we carry that sacred space really, intentionally. But I will say we’ve been talking a lot in our team and a couple other colleagues here with a couple other colleagues about the concept of what we call root idols. I think Tim Keller may have coined it, or at least he’s credited with thinking a lot more about it. So root idols, or… 

0:27:40.6 Jim Lovelady: We give it credit just in case we give it to Keller. 

0:27:45.9 Michelle Hopping: Root idols are also sometimes called source idols. But it’s this idea of, like, at the very core of whatever sin is bubbling up, there are probably one of these four things. Okay… 

0:27:57.3 Jim Lovelady: Give it to me. 

0:28:00.0 Michelle Hopping: So power, control, comfort, and approval. 

0:28:04.8 Jim Lovelady: Power, control, comfort, and approval.

0:28:07.2 Michelle Hopping: Right? So as we’ve been talking about these things, we’ve been talking about, okay, what is the definition of each of these? But then how does that apply to thinking about mission and holding people back from mission? So power would be and they’re all longings, right? Longing for influence, for recognition, for some kind of authority. Okay, so then control. Wanting certainty, Wanting to be able to dictate an outcome, right? Feeling like everything’s happening the way I want it to happen. Comfort, not surprisingly, longing for pleasure or lack of stress or even privacy. Like, don’t bother me in my bubble kind of thing. 

0:28:56.6 Jim Lovelady: Give me my peace.

0:28:57.8 Michelle Hopping: Yeah, I deserve a little bit of my own thing. And then approval. Being really wanting. Affirmation. Desiring to be loved, desiring to be accepted. And so if we think about those things in relation to mission, gosh, we could all list. 

0:29:16.1 Jim Lovelady: Absolutely. 

0:29:16.5 Michelle Hopping: I mean, right? Like, pull up the bio. Here we go. Like, I think there are a lot of ways that these manifest, but if we just took one example of how this might play out. So talking about the overwhelming flow of information that’s happening right now for all of us, but especially digital natives who know the world through the lens of their phone or through other devices, just the amount of anxiety that comes from feeling out of control. So, okay, so I don’t have control. There is no way for me to get my hands around this. It makes me feel anxious and alone and hopeless. So then my gut and my heart go to comfort.

0:30:03.2 Jim Lovelady: Right? 

0:30:03.6 Michelle Hopping: Okay. So if I can’t control the situation, I’m going to find my sturdiness in feeling whatever comfort looks like, right? I’m going to figure out my own little thing to make me feel better, and that’s where I’m going to kind of park and unpack my bag lunch and sit there and… 

0:30:24.2 Jim Lovelady: It’s way better than the other one. For a noun. 

0:30:27.5 Michelle Hopping: Right, right. And so and the way Keller talks about this, too, is like, if you uproot one of these idols, but you don’t replace it with something of Jesus, and you’re just leaving room for one of the other idols to come in and take its place. 

0:30:42.1 Jim Lovelady: I heard a pastor say. I heard a pastor say it this way. It wasn’t Keller. 

0:30:45.7 Michelle Hopping: There you go. Buried up. Buried up. 

0:30:48.3 Jim Lovelady: I heard a pastor say if you have. If you put two sins in the ring to duke it out. To wrestle it out. To wrestle it out. You put power and you put comfort and control. Those two sins, you put those two in the ring to duke it out. A sin is going to win, and sin has won. You have to duke it out with Jesus. You have to let Jesus come and rescue you from power, come and rescue you from comfort, from control, from approval. Jesus is powerful and can defeat those, but you don’t run to the opposite. You don’t run to, I’m afraid. So I’m going to go try and double down on control. You are going to remain enslaved to these idols that promise but never fulfill. 

0:31:45.8 Michelle Hopping: Right. And we’re talking about this a little bit in light of people who are grappling with whether I go to mission. 

0:31:52.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. 

0:31:52.8 Michelle Hopping: I would say this applies to parents. As I think about my own kids. What do I want? I have made a plan for their life. 

0:32:01.9 Jim Lovelady: Right? 

0:32:02.4 Michelle Hopping: Yeah. Yeah. And it does not include moving far, far away from me. 

0:32:08.6 Jim Lovelady: Right. 

0:32:09.1 Michelle Hopping: Okay, let’s find. What child is that? 1, 2, 3, or 4. Or maybe it’s multiple. But thinking about as a parent or as as a church leader, these are my best people. I don’t want them to go. They’re so critical in my congregation. Okay, let’s again reset and think about, where is Jesus in that? What might Jesus be doing there? Because root idols are. 

0:32:35.9 Jim Lovelady: So… It’s paying attention to whenever your heart goes, no, no, no, don’t. I don’t want you to go over there. I don’t want you to join that mission field over there. Or, oh, there’s so many good reasons for me to not do this. 

0:32:48.3 Michelle Hopping: And there always will be reasons to not do it. You could come up with an equal pro con list with the same amount of things, but it doesn’t mean the weight of each of those items is the same, right? You could have 10 things on each side of that list, but they’re not equally weighted. So. And I say this. I grapple with this in my own heart. 

0:33:11.2 Jim Lovelady: Oh, yeah. 

0:33:11.7 Michelle Hopping: For my kids. 

0:33:12.4 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. When you said as a parent, I was like, oh, shoot, I’m a parent. My oldest is getting ready to leave the house unless I can do something to keep her there.

0:33:23.6 Michelle Hopping: Sure, sure. Yeah. And that’s a real thing. I don’t want to make light of it because we are all, many of us in that space, but it is a challenge to really put ourselves on that table and say, all right, Lord, you going to operate here? Because I can’t operate on myself. I need you to operate on me. 

0:33:42.2 Jim Lovelady: Are you in a lot of conversations with parents as well? 

0:33:44.2 Michelle Hopping: I would say we have more conversations with parents now than we have had in the past. It’s not a high volume. I do think that parents are more influential than they have been in these decisions, whether or not we get the call. 

0:33:58.4 Jim Lovelady: Oh, interesting. 

0:34:00.2 Michelle Hopping: You know, I think that they’re a strong voice with students and their kids. 

0:34:03.4 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. It’s very convicting. Whenever there’s this energy, Lord, whom shall we send and who will go for us? Here am I, send me. Whenever that voice comes in, there’s the equal voice of like, yeah, but you should stay because of blah, blah, blah, or yeah, you should always consider blah, blah, blah. And well, don’t forget about the this or that. So the blah, blah, blah, this or that. 

0:34:26.5 Michelle Hopping: That there’s dang, blah, blah, blah. 

0:34:30.5 Jim Lovelady: So there’s always something, well, why would you go if you have student loan debt? And why would you go if you have an internship waiting for you that can make you six figures? And why would you go if blah, blah, blah? And it’s like, well, I don’t know. I can’t get that out of my imagination. 

0:34:48.0 Michelle Hopping: Right. 

0:34:48.3 Jim Lovelady: I can’t get those people in that country or that situation in that country. 

0:34:53.8 Michelle Hopping: Right. 

0:34:54.3 Jim Lovelady: That maybe I am an engineer. I never thought about how as an engineer I could go. 

0:35:00.2 Michelle Hopping: Right. Yeah, we’ve talked about that with a couple case studies even in the mobilization team of helping people think through those crossroads and people saying the blah, blah, blahs and the this is or thats. 

0:35:14.1 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:35:14.3 Michelle Hopping: Like, this is the reason. This is why I can’t. And yes, some of those things are very valid and they’re realities. But how are you viewing that in light of the call to be involved in mission in some way? And so there was this great example of a woman who one of our mobilizers is walking with who brought up the idea of safety. It’s a country that Christians are being persecuted. There are a lot of underground sort of house churches. You can’t be a missionary overtly in this country. And so she started getting pressure from family. Like, it’s not safe. It’s not safe.

0:35:54.4 Michelle Hopping: And yeah, first of all, what is safety? Let’s define that. That’s a whole other conversation. But, okay, so it’s not safe. But where is your heart? This is what you were saying, right? The call of, I can’t stop thinking about these people or this country or the culture here. The Spirit is leading me in a way that feels like it would be impossible to stay. So instead of saying, here’s all the reasons why it’s impossible to go or why it doesn’t make sense, because, yeah, it doesn’t make sense. In the world’s eyes. It doesn’t make sense. 

0:36:29.3 Jim Lovelady: Right. 

0:36:29.7 Michelle Hopping: Why would you trade off your financial stability? Why would you go to a place where you can’t be openly Christian person? Why would, right? Make the list? It doesn’t make sense. But if your heart burns in such a way where it’s impossible to stay, that means it’s from the Spirit you’re being called, right? So it just makes for a very interesting dialogue with people because we are in that, what I think is a really sacred space. We’re holding their story. We’re experiencing their story with them as they’re grappling with conversations with loved ones, realities of next steps in the process and what that actually means. 

0:37:09.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, it makes me think about your… The way you’ve talked about feeling a responsibility toward the people that you’re recruiting, and responsibility in particular with this conversation toward Gen Z and young millennials. So talk more about how you feel that sense of responsibility. 

0:37:28.1 Michelle Hopping: So much of it is about the idea of image bearers. So we are image bearers. The people that we are walking with, coaching into exploring this kind of global work. They are image bearers. The people they are going to serve and live among are image bearers. The people in this category of Gen Z, because of all the things we’ve already talked about, are uniquely positioned and gifted and experienced in ways that are meant to sync up with what these communities need. I really believe that it’s not a flaw in the design that these things have happened to these people here and they are gifted and talented in ways that also equip them. We also talk a lot about our values at Serge and specifically around ministry from weakness and the idea that your story is, if it’s full of brokenness, welcome to the club. You have a place here. And that is going to be something very powerful as a connecting tool. 

0:38:41.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Broken people are not disqualified. 

0:38:43.9 Michelle Hopping: That’s right. It puts you in a position where you can walk with people who feel safe to talk to you. 

0:38:51.3 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. 

0:38:52.1 Michelle Hopping: And that is not. If you think about all the things we talked about, institutional trust, and do you really know who I am? I want to belong. If someone who walked through terrible things, has had mental health struggles, has been crushed by anxiety, can walk into a situation where they can be that safe space for someone else who’s grappling with those things. Wow, that is powerful. That’s more powerful than them reading a book on their own or hearing a sermon. It’s a person in front of them who has walked. And guess who that reminds us of, right? Jesus walking through the things that we are now walking through.

0:39:33.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. As a pastor, I think about someone like this who is sensing the calling of God and is really wrestling with, very openly admitting things like, I love my comfort. I love the opportunities that I have. I am very content with these kinds of things. But there’s this nag as a pastor, I look at someone like that and I go, yeah, God loves you way too much to let you settle for the life that you seem to be tempted to settle for. And so pay attention to the way that the Spirit is calling you. Pay attention to the way you’re not satisfied. There’s something about this at some existential level that makes it where you’re just not satisfied with whatever the suburban life or whatever it may be that the suburban American dream, whatever that means, and whatever we can’t afford houses anymore.

0:40:40.7 Michelle Hopping: Right. 

0:40:41.0 Jim Lovelady: So what are we talking about? 

0:40:42.2 Michelle Hopping: What dream are we actually chasing? 

0:40:44.0 Jim Lovelady: Exactly? What dream is this? So people that are starting to wake up to, oh, maybe that bright hope that people are talking about is something that’s for me as well. And I can’t get rid of that. So it’s not so much. As a pastor, I’m not thinking we need you to go on the field. It’s more like you need the field. You need to go explore what mission work looks like because you’re going to experience God in some ways that you never could have imagined. It’s not so much that God needs you. You know, that’s. Maybe that’s a trite phrase. God doesn’t need you to go on missions. It’s no, something about this is going to be a part of your salvation as the Lord is making you more like himself. 

0:41:36.5 Michelle Hopping: He invites us. He invites us to be front row participants in that. And even as we’ve talked over weeks, it’s like, what does the Lord want to do in you? Right. Like there is something you’re contributing to in the community. He’s making all things new, right? We get to participate in that. But there’s also this element of renewal in our own hearts. And maybe that’s a big. And when interns come back after their eight weeks and we get around them and hear from them and pray for them and our big conference room here, that is what bubbles up out of them from the summer is the relationships they’ve developed with people in the community and asking for prayer for those people. And then there’s also this piece equally as sound, which is, I did not even fathom what I would learn, how the Lord would meet me, how I would see Him differently. Like, that transformation might not have been why they signed up, but that’s what they got. And that is actually a longer lasting impact as they go back to their communities on campus or in their church or whatever work, whatever they’re doing, they’re bringing that transformation with them. 

0:43:08.3 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. A few episodes ago, when I hung out with Joy Benton, she talked about how she would go with her team on Leap week and it would change them, and then they would come back and it would begin to change the context that they left. When they returned, they came back different. And it happens every single time. 

0:43:28.5 Michelle Hopping: There’s something about getting out of your own space that makes you see things differently, even for a week. Like, I think when Joy was talking with you, the example that she started with there was around prayer walks.

0:43:43.1 Jim Lovelady: Right. 

0:43:43.6 Michelle Hopping: And I would encourage people to watch that or listen to that episode. It’s so good. But the idea of a prayer walk, is it a groundbreaking, brand new idea? No. But if you haven’t seen it modeled and you haven’t been shepherded through that, it just may not be on your radar. 

0:44:02.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. 

0:44:02.4 Michelle Hopping: And it’s such a great example of. Oh, yeah, I’m inspired to do that because I’ve been invited to participate in this other culture. 

0:44:12.2 Jim Lovelady: It all hinges on the reality that we have been transformed by the death and resurrection of Jesus, who is with us everywhere we go. I’m talking about the gospel, right? The resurrection power is the fuel for all of this. So how do you see that as you’re talking with folks, how do you see that as you’re coaching them? How do you see that as they’re going, how do you see that? You know, the whole process? How are you seeing that as this overarching, this overarching reality? 

0:44:45.0 Michelle Hopping: Yeah. I love the passage in Revelation about Jesus making all things new. It just speaks to so much of the work around reaching, renewing and restoring communities and believers around the world. So I think about Jesus as the one who is resurrected and therefore the one who’s on the throne. So if we tie this all the way back to the beginning of our conversation and how people are saddled with feeling out of control, feeling anxious, feeling like they need to be seeking approval and recognition. No, someone else is on the throne. And how do we actually first of all believe that? That’s a test of our own faith and hearts, right? Believe that He is ruling and reigning, believe that He is resurrected and therefore we have the ability to step into this. Gosh, we are all fools if He is not resurrected, right? So that is a foundational truth that drives us outward. Yeah. I’m not sure where to go with it, but I feel like that’s such a, to me, that’s an under examined, at least in my own heart and maybe in the way that we talk about it in mobilization here, there’s a lot of possibility there as we encourage and inspire people to think about this. Like if Jesus is resurrected, if he’s ruling and reigning, so what does that mean for this? What does that mean for us being able to go and being invited to go? 

0:46:14.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, I said earlier, broken people are not disqualified and why? Well, it’s because Jesus, the resurrected Savior, rules and reigns and we have a faith that sees that and is just inspired by that reality and then actually legitimately, genuinely transformed. So someone says, yeah, my, I think my brokenness disqualifies me. And it’s like, oh, I, I really appreciate you sharing. And then they’ll say, yeah, my temptations for power, comfort, control and approval are just too overwhelming. And it’s like, no, not for someone who’s willing to follow Jesus and He wants to liberate people from those things. And it just may be that the way that He wants to liberate you is, is by sending you on the mission field. 

0:47:08.2 Michelle Hopping: Right.

0:47:09.2 Jim Lovelady: Not by getting all your stuff together first and then going on the mission field. Wrong. That is never how it happens. No one has ever gone on the mission field because they’ve gotten it all together. They’ve gone on the mission field because they thought they had it all together. And then when they got to the mission field, then they learned that they were broken, then they were overwhelmed and it destroys so many people who go on the mission field thinking that they got it all together. So the people that feel like they’re too broken, man, those are the people that I love to talk with and say, yeah, but do you feel like you would love to go? Yeah, but I just don’t think I’m qualified. Let’s keep talking. Because the power of God to bring salvation in a daily experience of his grace for you right there may just happen when you go to that country over there or go to those people over there, you know? 

0:48:03.2 Michelle Hopping: Yeah. It makes you… If you think about the power of human connection and how important that is in missions, that kind of experience of your own history, your own troubles, your own walk with the Lord in the highs and lows, that’s what makes you human and relatable and a connector. 

0:48:21.5 Jim Lovelady: Right. 

0:48:22.5 Michelle Hopping: I don’t want a robot coming to tell me all about perfect, you know? And that’s where I think there’s a history or a former trend of missionaries being put on pedestals where it felt unachievable for the masses to consider. Could I do that? And so if we shift the expectation, the call is the same, right? The call is the same. The expectation is not perfection, but it’s growth on the way that just invites so much more conversation about what’s possible. 

0:49:00.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, yeah. All right. I’m going to talk about my takeaway, and then I’m going to ask you about your takeaway. Here’s my takeaway from this conversation. The arm wrestling analogy is perfect for this. Because if I have the courage to raise my hand and say, here I am, send me. In spite of all of the brokenness, all the fear and trepidation, I’ve basically agreed to a wrestling match with Jesus that’s kind of like Jacob wrestling with the angel. And I love it because in that passage, there’s this, who’s going to win? We don’t know. It’s a tie, you know? And like, that’s the passage, is that there’s this tie of this is what I want. And Jesus goes, but this is what I want for you. But this is what I want. This is what I want for you. Back and forth, back and forth, until it seems like no one’s going to win. And then the angel of the Lord taps Jacob on the hip, and whatever breaks his hip or whatever he’s, he walks with a limp for the rest of his life, which, that’s just the recognition of brokenness. I’m a broken person who needs salvation. 

0:50:07.2 Jim Lovelady: But from then on, Jacob goes, but I’m not going to let go of you until you bless me and then, but the blessing is, okay, I’m going to call you Israel. Your name is Israel because you wrestle with God. So the blessing is you get to be the person that wrestles with God. You get to be the person that’s intimately grappling with the divine. Wherever you go, you’re going to do that over there and you’re going to show people that the Lord loves you so much that he’s willing to wrestle with you. You know, that the Lord loves you so much that he’s not willing to let you stay the way you are and succumb to the idols that have enslaved you. But you get to be called the one who wrestles with the Lord. And so it seems like y’all are in the business of inviting people to just wrestle with these things. Am I called, I don’t know, wrestle with Jesus about it.

0:51:04.2 Michelle Hopping: That’s right. 

0:51:04.7 Jim Lovelady: You know, so that’s my tip.

0:51:06.4 Michelle Hopping: Yeah. And what other God invites that kind of push and pull and messiness of bring all the crap, bring your doubt, bring your fear. I mean, that just makes him all the more amazing to be a welcomer in that way too. So my takeaway is I think about hope and challenge being the two keywords. As I’ve thought about Gen Z and thought about missions and the intersection of those two things and the way Serge is thinking about it. Look, I think there’s a lot of hope because of the ways we’ve already seen Gen Z be equipped in their experience and their story and their desire to be genuine. There’s a lot of stories that point to Gen Z saying, look, I don’t want smoke and lights. I don’t want a big show. I just want to crack open my Bible and get to know Jesus. That is amazing as a tool for stepping into walking with the Lord and sharing with others what it means to walk with the Lord. You don’t need smoke and lights, thank goodness, right? But that’s the pure desire. I think there’s so much hope in that. 

0:52:22.5 Jim Lovelady: I just want to know this God. 

0:52:24.4 Michelle Hopping: Yes. And the peer to peer connection there is so meaningful in that. And the challenge, really the challenge for all of us, whether we’re considering going or considering sending or considering, even if you’re mentoring somebody or discipling somebody who’s looking at this. 

0:52:41.9 Jim Lovelady: A pastor of a church.

0:52:43.4 Michelle Hopping: Pastor of a church, right.

0:52:45.4 Jim Lovelady: Missions committees. 

0:52:46.6 Michelle Hopping: What does it look like to follow the call of mission? We’re all involved in some way. What is your part in that? What if Jesus is writing a story that you are not writing? If I step into a wrestling match, proverbial or actual, I want to know the outcome before I say yes to stepping into that. I thought I had it with that lady. I thought I was going to win that thing. So I said yes, but no. We have to be able to step in not knowing the outcome and trusting that we just do the right one next step, the one next thing. So, yeah, the challenge is that people who go to mission and stay in mission are usually people that have been shepherded and mentored by someone older than them into that process. So let’s be involved in it.

0:53:38.3 Jim Lovelady: I love it. It’s a beautiful calling to see that when the Lord says, who shall be my mobilizer and who will mobilize for us? You know that Serge has a team that goes, here we are, Send us. You know, and that when you have a church that says, who will be a sending church for me, a church that raises its hand and says, here we are, send us. And it’s just these concentric circles of there’s so many people, so many things involved with the way the Lord is building his Kingdom. So it’s really encouraging to see just a little snapshot of how y’all and how we fit into that. It’s really beautiful. So thanks for sharing.

0:54:23.0 Michelle Hopping: Yeah, thanks for having me, Jim. 

0:54:30.3 Jim Lovelady: This conversation makes me think of two stories in the Bible. I’m still mulling over the story of Jacob in Genesis 32, grappling in the darkness with the mysterious stranger that he can’t name. It’s raw, intensely physical, uncertain. Jacob’s hip knocked out of place. He doesn’t yet know it’s the angel of the Lord until the dust settles and he’s left limping, renamed, renewed and blessed. And it reminds me of the story in Luke 24, where the disciples are shuffling back to Emmaus, defeated, shoulders slumped, spilling their grief to a traveler that they don’t recognize is actually the Lord. We had hoped that Jesus would be the one to rescue us. And hopes dashed, it’s not until He breaks the bread that their eyes snap open and they gasp. Were not our hearts burning within us, realizing that they had been contending with the divine? They didn’t realize it, but Jesus had been walking with them, making their story into something sacred. And in Christ’s revealing, everything changes and their hope is renewed. And that’s my hope for you today, as you grapple with your own brokenness, as you set about your day, wondering where God is in the midst of it all, as you focus on what Christ might be up to in the lives of the folks around you and how you can let his grace propel you on mission. And if you recognize that you need a guide for your journey, a trainer in your corner, if you will, go to serge.org/nextsteps to Start a conversation with one of our recruiters who would love to help you wrestle with Jesus about His calling on your life. And if you feel beat up, discouraged, lacking in hope, limping wherever you are, we want to be there for you too. Go to serge.org/renewal and sign up for the Mentored Sonship course. It will change your life. And if you’re curious about what life on mission might look like and how gospel renewal fuels Kingdom mission, we have all sorts of resources serge.org but I want to recommend to you this mighty little book called 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯-𝘊𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 by Bethany Ferguson. And if you found this episode to be encouraging, please leave a rating on your podcast platform and share this episode with someone. And as you go, I pray that your heart is filled with hope burning within you, because the world is longing for a real hope and you get to reveal it to them. So go with the blessing of God to be a blessing. May the Lord bless you and keep you.  May the Lord make His face to smile down on you. May the Lord be gracious to you, turn His bright eyes to you and give you his peace. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, life everlasting. Amen.

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