When the kids’ table became one table
I grew up eating at the “kids’ table” in the 80s and 90s … or the 1900s, as my kids remind me.
A lot of us grew up with two tables—the kids’ table and the adults’ table. The adults ate in the dining room with special cutlery and talked about things that mattered. The kids ate on a card table, often with plastic silverware.
Somewhere along the way, the two tables became one. In many homes today, including my own, there is one table where the youngest person has a literal seat at the table. They listen in and, more importantly, they contribute to the conversations about everything, from sports to politics to the latest “tea” on celebrities.
The youngest generational cohort, called Alphas (born after 2010), grew up with a seat at the adults’ table and expect their voice to carry weight.
Alphas were raised by millennial parents. And one of the characteristic values of the millennial cohort, born between ~1981 and 1996 (Dimock 2019), is a preference for flat hierarchies, systems that value collaboration, accessibility, and teamwork above formal positions of authority and title. This mindset has shaped how millennials have raised their Alpha kids, giving them a vote on everything from where to eat and what to eat to whether their parents should change jobs. In other words, Alphas hold decision-making power.
The question behind the research
I did not expect to be a generational researcher. I was simply trying to answer a pastoral question:
How do Christian Schools help young people genuinely know, follow, and grow in their relationships with Jesus?
It started with a listening tour. In 2022, I asked Valley Christian High School alumni to tell us the truth about their spiritual formation. Their answers were sobering. Over and over, they told us that students had little input on the things that mattered most.
So, our school spent the next three years trying to do less ministry to or for students and more with them (what we called co-creation). My doctoral research asked what students actually experienced along the way. I interviewed 20 current students and recent graduates and then compared what they said with our spiritual life surveys.
Co-creation embedded into our humanity, not just theology or pedagogy
At a Christian school, it was important to start from a theology of “co-creation.” Scripture is filled with stories of humanity’s partnership with God. It began in the garden, continued through the prophets, and was modeled in the life of Jesus and the disciples.
Learning co-creation from Jesus and the twelve disciples
The clearest picture of this partnership is Jesus with the Twelve. My research proposed four movements in how Jesus formed and sent the disciples:
- Intentional relationship. Jesus appointed the Twelve “that they might be with him” (Mark 3:14). Presence came before any assignment.
- Dialogue and reflection. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus walked, asked questions, and opened the Scriptures until their hearts burned (Luke 24:27, 32).
- Empowered authority. Jesus sent the disciples out with real authority before they were fully ready, and in pairs, so no one learned alone (Luke 9–10).
- Embodied mission. The point was never only learning about the kingdom; it was being sent into it (Matt 28:18–20).
What students told us
“Students still want and need trusted adults to speak into their lives!”
Students affect other students. When I asked what grew their faith, most students didn’t name a program. They named friends. Lauren (pseudonyms used) watched a classmate speak in chapel and thought, “I know him, and he’s being bold and confident, so why would I not do that too?” One graduate described the change on campus: “Freshman year, I felt a lot of hiding, and going to chapel felt like a secret movement. Now it’s like, hey [worship], it’s outside; it’s poppin’!”
Student voice changes the room. Julius shared his story in chapel during his senior year: “I didn’t think I did anything crazy, but it was really cool that God could use my story to speak to other people.” When students saw a peer on stage, “the atmosphere shifted.”
We missed them in the message. “So many messages feel like, ‘Jesus loves you,'” Lauren said. “That’s true, but it also feels repetitive. We need something like conviction.”
Caring adults earn trust. Nearly every student named a teacher, coach, or staff member who mattered. Lauren remembered an athletic trainer during a hard year: “We would sit in the golf cart and just talk. She would listen without judgment.”
Relationships do what tech can’t. Arbol, a student chaplain, put it best: “Apps and ChatGPT help with information, but you miss the wisdom of someone who has actually lived out their faith in real life.”
One more thing encouraged me. Students from later classes reported far more voice than those from the early years. Over the same stretch, the share of students who called themselves followers of Jesus went up in our data.
Co-creation has limits
At my doctoral defense, a reader asked the question every educator should ask: how do you make sure co-creation is formative and not malformative?
It is a fair worry. Our students already live inside a version of co-creation. TikTok, Roblox, and YouTube invite kids to create, then the companies monetize what their users make. These engagements form performers and influencers, not biblical disciples.
Our students, too, saw the risks of our co-creation experiment. Arbol didn’t want to tell people she was a student chaplain: “It feels like a hierarchy.” Bryce was skeptical of feedback that went nowhere: “We have surveys, but students feel like nothing happens from them.” And Holly said, “We need both students and teachers to have a voice and not just one or the other.”
The continued involvement of faculty and staff is the guardrail. The answer to malformation isn’t taking the pen away from students but instead making sure they write alongside mature adults, inside a story God is authoring. The encouraging news from my research is that students still want and need trusted adults to speak into their lives!
Start here
Here is where my research suggests we begin:
Listen, then close the loop. Ask students what’s forming them, then tell them what you did with what they said. Arbol’s suggestion was simple: “If you showed a screenshot of feedback and then the change, like more student speakers, that would help students believe their voice matters.”
Experiment, and be okay with the mess. We cannot teach others to cook and not expect a mess in the kitchen. Not every co-creation initiative will be perfectly polished or successful.
Start with piloting something inside the structures you already have. For us at Valley Christian, we replaced a traditional chapel once a quarter with VC Live, a talk-show format that created space for students to share their stories. Though less polished than a traditional chapel, students engaged more.
Pass the mic and share authority. Our student chaplains began by opening chapel in prayer. Over time they became a prayer team for their peers and helped plan retreats. And don’t lean on the same five talented students. Invite voices that sound different.
Celebrate progress. What we celebrate shapes us. Tell the stories of students who stepped up and the decisions their voices changed.
One table
Marketing firms should not know more about how to reach our kids than Christian schools do. The platforms have figured out how to capitalize on a generation who wants to participate. The church has actually known of this desire for two thousand years: God has been making room at his table since the garden.
Generation Alpha is not asking us to hand them the keys without any driver’s training. They’re asking for a seat at the table with adults beside them. Such power sharing is not a threat to Christian education. It may be one of the best invitations we in the Christian community have received in a long time.
References
Dang, Steven T. (2026). “Co-Creating Faith: A Spiritual Formation Model for Generation Alpha in Christian Secondary Education.” Christian Education Journal: Research on Educational Ministry. https://doi.org/10.1177/07398913261491376.
Dimock, Michael. (2019, January 17). “Defining Generations: Where Millennials End and Generation Z Begins.” Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/.
Gilmour, Helenor. (2023, May 4). “Raising Gen Alpha: How Millennial Parenting Is Impacting the Next Generation.” Research World. https://researchworld.com/articles/raising-gen-alpha-how-millennial-parenting-is-impacting-the-next-generation.
Scripture quotations are from the New International Version (NIV).
