Earlier this year, Jenna Mindel wrote for Christianity Today about new research showing that for the first time in American history, men were more likely than women to be religiously affiliated. “In the wake of the #MeToo movement, feminism, and ‘Red Pill’ masculinity, Christian women are left with a lot of conflicting messages about what it means to be a woman,” wrote Jenna. “These are questions the church needs to be prepared to answer.”
Jenna spends a lot of time pondering Gen Z’s understanding of culture and faith. Last year, she published a piece about Gen Z turning online for spiritual guidance.
“I don’t have all the answers,” the 23-year-old said. “But rigidity is something I spend a lot of time resisting. I want to be a voice that is faithful and willing to sit in the nuance and complexity of tough situations.”
Thanks to Christianity Today’s Young Storytellers Fellowship (formerly, the NextGen Accelerator), Jenna is feeling more confident in staking out this ground. In 2024, CT launched the program, seeking to encourage and equip the creatives of the next generation. This now-annual fellowship gathered 15 young creatives to expand their storytelling gifts for the glory of God.
“Any young Christian who is discerning what it looks like to be unashamedly Christian and unashamedly an artist should apply for the program,” Jenna said. “It’s for anyone asking the question ‘What does it look like to re-enchant Christians toward faith when so many are disenchanted?’”
Currently an admissions counselor at Biola University, Jenna hails from Tacoma, Washington, where she grew up in a homeschooling household of seven, shaped by Adventures in Odyssey, VeggieTales—and Christianity Today. As a high schooler, she visited the Southern California Christian college and loved it. Even though it was a financial stretch for her family, her parents encouraged her to go.
Jenna had already begun pursuing journalism as a high school student when she interned at a local magazine. As a sophomore, she and a friend started a true-crime podcast that told the stories of killers in the Pacific Northwest.
At Biola, Jenna contributed to the school newspaper and magazine and served as editor in chief of the yearbook for two years. She also created a podcast for GRIT, an online resource that began as a blog discussing relevant issues for the school’s female students.
“Our GRIT boss would always say, ‘When it comes to feedback, 10 percent of those out there will be very conservative and 10 percent will be very progressive and those people are never going to be happy with anything that you post or produce,’” said Jenna.
This framing helped Jenna realize what she was getting into when she followed her curiosity.
“I was just really interested in figuring out ways to engage other people,” she said. Growing up, she noted that most of her family’s conversations centered on guns, politics, and criticizing politicians.
Jenna resonated with journalism because it allowed her to hear and engage other perspectives. As she was preparing to graduate last year, Jenna began looking for jobs at Christianity Today. “I definitely want to work at a Christian magazine, and CT is my favorite.”
“CT is really needed because we need a space for meaningful conversations about culture that aren’t just black and white and good and bad, but where we can seek nuance and complexity,” she said.
So when she saw applications open for the fellowship, she decided to apply and was accepted shortly after. “Post grad feels like you’re standing on a cliff and there’s like a foggy mass in front of you,” she reflected. “You don’t know what’s next. You’re trying to figure that out.”
Amid this uncertainty, entering the fellowship felt like a “soft place to land.” The program, which ran from last August to this January, included biweekly Zoom meetings and in-person gatherings in Washington, DC, and Chicago. Christianity Today editor in chief Russell Moore, author Karen Swallow Prior, and pastor Jon Tyson shared with the cohort.
Jenna appreciated hearing these perspectives as she began her work as an admissions counselor. She still wanted to pursue journalism and also felt the pressure of trying to keep up with the impressive LinkedIn updates she saw her peers posting.
“These sessions helped me realize, I’m on track. I’m still going. I can be a Christian creative and have a nine-to-five, and that’s valid,” she said.
By hearing words of advice from these Christian leaders and the fellowship flying the cohort in to spend time together, Jenna could feel that Christianity Today had her back.
“Through this program, CT affirmed that both my work is worth investing in and that I am worth investing in as both an artist and a storyteller.”
“You’ll get invited to a Christian workshop, but then you have to pay $120 or whatever,” she said. “I totally get that, but it was really sweet after so many unpaid internships and workshops to feel like I was being invested in. I felt like the program really changed the game for me in terms of how I view myself and my work.”
Jenna also appreciated that the cohort included people from varying circumstances—some working full-time and others unemployed, some working in creative jobs and others working traditional nine-to-fives.
“Sometimes it feels like in creative spaces that you’re either in a faith space that kind of reduces creativity, or you’re in a creative space that kind of reduces faith, and you can’t hold them both together,” she noted. “The NextGen Fellowship was amazing because it felt like everyone was really intentional about their creative practices and their faith.”
Jenna thinks frequently about how Gen Z is the least-religious generation, a reality that exists alongside “yearning for religion and faith and spirituality.”
“It’s really easy to be cynical about faith and about Gen Z when you’re looking at the numbers, but I think there’s an openness toward spirituality and mystery,” said Jenna.
She appreciates that Christianity Today engages culture beyond a paradigm of “secular and sacred.”
“I love Taylor Swift, and CT has published a lot of pieces about Taylor from a lot of different perspectives. But it hasn’t just been like, ‘She is not Christian and she is bad,’” she said. “Instead, it might take the angle that ‘This is not a Christian song, but here’s what we can learn from it.’”
Beyond familiar cultural reference points, Jenna also appreciates CT’s global coverage.
“It’s really important for Christians to engage outside of expressly Christian spaces and also for Americans to get out of thinking we’re the whole world,” she explained. “CT is great because it’s actually reporting on both heartbreaking but also encouraging things that are happening globally in the church.”
Gen Z isn’t looking for easy answers, says Jenna.
“CT, through things like the NextGen Fellowship, is cultivating meaningful conversations with Christian leaders who can sit with people in the hard things,” she observed. “We don’t need more information. We need presence. Obviously, that can be hard with occupying a digital space, but equipping people to be witnesses of Christ through presence, through those things, is important.”
During one fellowship session, Jon Tyson described his regular walks in New York City, where he intentionally focuses on the city’s beauty. This practice stood out to Jenna as a practical tool for meaningfully engaging with the world amid larger feelings of despair, anxiety, and stress.
“The true, good, and beautiful isn’t just limited to Christians. Every image bearer holds beauty and can create beautiful things,” she said. “A lot of Gen Z Christians are yearning for an acknowledgement of that.”
