Janine McNally wrote When You See Fireflies to effectively equip leaders and parents to serve Generation Alpha. Generation Alpha are those born between 2010 and 2025 and the first generation to be born only within the 21st century. With each generational cycle lasting around 15 years, Generation Alpha are those who make up our current nursery, children’s, and youth ministry through middle school. These are the kids we’re serving today!

There is a lot of really good info here, but I’m going to focus on two items: 

  1. Who is Generation Alpha?
  2. How do we effectively stay the course with sharing the gospel as the goal?

With full bibliography notations of research in the back of the book, this is the Generation Alpha we serve:

  • They are predicted to become the largest generation in the history of the world by 2025.
  • They will be more educated.
  • They will have increased wealth.
  • They will reflect increased racial diversity.
  • They will have a greater global influence for fashion, food, entertainment, and communication.
  • They will have a more mobile lifestyle resulting in more than 18 different jobs over the course of their lives.
  • They will be technology addicts and experts.
  • They will have shorter attention spans, delayed social development, and a greater lack of exercise.
  • They will have unlimited access to information they will not be able to process or emotionally handle. They will need guides from the side rather than sages from the stages.
  • Their parents are in their 20s, 30s, and 40s; including Tiger Parents (driving academic and social success of their children spending more than 10% of their annual household income on registration fees, travel, camps and equipment resulting in all-consuming busyness) and Helicopter Parents (driven by an all-consuming desire for their child’s safety and protection as well as protecting them from all pain and disappointment, and doing a lot of their kid’s homework).

This is how we respond for greater Christian education effectiveness:

  • Guide parents/caregivers to lead diligently (repeat, repeat, repeat) as commanded by Deuteronomy 6:4-9.
  • Don’t shy from reminding parents to make church attendance not only a top priority, but a non-negotiable. Weekly choices make for lifelong habits. The most amazing Jesus guys and gals we want speaking into our kid’s, and their parent’s, lives are in the local church. Ex: Elizabeth, Anna, Simeon. The best models are there!
  • Address the hard questions of culture from the pulpit and the adult/children’s small groups. Ex: When we teach littles about Moses’ rescue from the Nile River by the Pharoah’s daughter we indeed speak to the Pharoah’s horrible edict to kill babies. Killing babies is wrong.
  • Restore trust by purposing to live a life worth watching. Only Jesus is perfect, but we local church leaders can so purpose our lives to live in obedience to the scriptures to the best of our abilities, without compromise. Ex: Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Joseph purposed to live their lives in obedience to God’s commands and God blessed them with His presence. All who are in Christ, are charged to live honorably—holy and worthy of our calling before a watching world. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and King, we are no longer our own. My preferences and inclinations and feelings should no longer drive my decisions. The Holy Spirit is ON to change us through His sanctifying grace leading us to Biblical holiness.
  • “While Hollywood can capture their attention for a few moments, caring adults can engage them in a way that’s personal and meaningful.” (p 93) Relationships! Relationships! Relationships! Focus on intergenerational people interactions over programs.
  • Use visuals, experiential, active learning, not linear lecture in our teaching.
  • Keep the goal THE GOSPEL: keep it simple, keep it free, keep it clear, keep it concrete, keep it Biblical.

Janine has a slew of other books which are now part of my personal library especially as I design our local church’s Faith Milestones.

I encourage every Christian Educator to evaluate how we can serve the Generation Alpha families well in our contexts. I read When You See Fireflies from a hardcopy (seriously marked-up) and listened to it on Audible and I’m so glad I did both.

How are you best serving and sharing life with Generation Alpha?

“However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” Acts 20:24