Axis Conversations

Three Big Conversations: Teens are birdwatching - 13:12 Posting on Snapchat - 26:50 Learning to slow down from John Mark Comer - 41:34 Song of the Week: "drop dead" by Olivia Rodrigo - 2:08 → Click here to read the lyrics (language). → Click here to watch The Conversation Starter on Offline Hobbies. In other news: - 58:36 Young people are speedrunning their Bachelor's or Master's degrees, finishing them in as quickly as three months, as less traditional forms of University attendance become more popular. Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is the newest game in Nintendo's oddest series, which plays as a mix between The Sims and Animal Crossing, and its brand of social engineering makes for a lot of internet hilarity. Coachella continued into its second weekend, highlighted by Justin Bieber inviting Billie Eilish on stage, Madonna joining Sabrina Carpenter, and Karol G as the first Latina artist to headline. Some trendspotters are calling rainbow flip-flops the "shoe of the summer," as young people continue to reclaim 90s fashion. The meteoric rise of the band Geese has led some to wonder if there's some conspiracy behind their popularity. To be fair, social media marketing can sometimes feel more CIA than Don Draper, and streaming numbers are often manipulated. 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Teens are birdwatching, posting on Snapchat, and learning to slow down from John Mark Comer. Song of the Week: "drop dead" by Olivia Rodrigo → Click here to hear the song. → Click here to read the lyrics (language). In other news: Young people are speedrunning their Bachelor's or Master's degrees, finishing them in as quickly as three months, as less traditional forms of University attendance become more popular. Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is the newest game in Nintendo's oddest series, which plays as a mix between The Sims and Animal Crossing, and its brand of social engineering makes for a lot of internet hilarity. Coachella continued into its second weekend, highlighted by Justin Bieber inviting Billie Eilish on stage, Madonna joining Sabrina Carpenter, and Karol G as the first Latina artist to headline. Some trendspotters are calling rainbow flip-flops the "shoe of the summer," as young people continue to reclaim 90s fashion. The meteoric rise of the band Geese has led some to wonder if there's some conspiracy behind their popularity. To be fair, social media marketing can sometimes feel more CIA than Don Draper, and streaming numbers are often manipulated. 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

This week, we're taking a break from the Axis Conversations podcast—including the Roundtable, Ask Axis, and our interview series. We are meeting with members of our Axis community to dream and pray together about this upcoming year and beyond. We appreciate your support, and we're excited to see you back here next Thursday and Friday, when our regular schedule will resume—including the CT Audio Podcast and the Culture Translator Roundtable! See you then! - The Axis Team 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

People are paying to talk to an AI avatar of Jesus, texts from teens make perfect emo songs, and Justin Bieber reminds everyone of why he became a pop star in the first place. But first: Resource of the Week - Parent Guide to Gen Alpha In Other News: In a strange TikTok trend (as opposed to a normal one), young men are seeing how far they can run into Scientology centers for social media clout as they film themselves dodging security and sprinting deep into the buildings of the secretive pseudoreligion. The Drama, starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, is on track to become the fifth A24 title to cross the $100 million mark, according to IMDB. Sunrise on the Reaping, the latest Hunger Games movie installment, just dropped its official trailer. The film will be released on November 20, 2026. Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord, a new Star Wars animated series on Disney+, appears to be resonating with viewers. The show's four episodes have already earned a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes—better, even, than the finale of the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi. For several of the Artemis II astronauts, outer space was a religious experience. Pilot Victor Glover emphasized how special life on Earth really is in an Easter message sent from the craft, saying, "In all of this emptiness — this is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe — you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist (in) together." 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Amy Amy Adamczykis Professor of Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Programs of Doctoral Study in Sociology and Criminal Justice at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Trained as a sociologist of religion, her research focuses on how different contexts (such as nations, counties, friendship groups), and personal religious beliefs shape people's deviant, moral, and health-related attitudes and behaviors. We'll be talking today primarily about the findings from her book Handing Down the Faith. 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Three Big Conversations: Night We Metwearing pimple patchesSuper Mario Galaxy Slang of the Week - "Clipped" - 1:58 In Other News: - 41:34 A squishy stress-relieving toy has taken over the internet, and they are sold out everywhere. It's safe to say that teens and tweens are obsessed. Olivia Rodrigo announced her first single from the album is called "drop dead" and will be out on April 17. Anticipation is building for I Have Proof, a new horror movie that will be recording on old VHS tapes. The filmmaker purchased 30 tapes from eBay and recorded the movie over people's old home movies—feel old yet? RAYE's new album, "THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE." is all about how faith in God pulled the singer out of darkness. The show might be over, but the movie is still ahead of us. The Summer I Turned Pretty will begin filming in Wilmington on April 27. 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

The Night We Met is BookTok's latest darling, teenagers are wearing pimple patches in public, and Super Mario Galaxy brought tweens to the box office on Easter weekend. Slang of the Week - "Clipped" In Other News: A squishy stress-relieving toy has taken over the internet, and they are sold out everywhere. It's safe to say that teens and tweens are obsessed. Olivia Rodrigo announced her first single from the album is called "drop dead" and will be out on April 17. Anticipation is building for I Have Proof, a new horror movie that will be recording on old VHS tapes. The filmmaker purchased 30 tapes from eBay and recorded the movie over people's old home movies—feel old yet? RAYE's new album, "THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE." is all about how faith in God pulled the singer out of darkness. The show might be over, but the movie is still ahead of us. The Summer I Turned Pretty will begin filming in Wilmington on April 27. 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

"Thanks for your awesome content. As a father of 3 girls in a hybrid homeschool setting (they are in a classroom two days a week), we are fairly sheltered from outside influences/influencers. I would love practical advice on how and when to guide my girls in developing good judgement and discernment regarding which influences to embrace and which to ignore." - Matthew 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Three Big Conversations: fashion in Love Storymaxxingbaskets and plastic grass Song of the Week - "Babydoll" by Dominic Fike - 02:50 → Click here for the lyrics In Other News: - 54:16 If you thought the popularity of KPop Demon Hunters wouldn't survive into 2026, look no further than your local McDonald's, which has Huntr/x and Saja Boys themed meals (and a Derpy the Tiger McFlurry). With the Artemis II mission, NASA is sending astronauts to the moon for the first time since the Apollo missions (over 50 years ago!). The four astronauts won't land on Luna, just journey around it, but it's an exciting moment, as the prep, launch, and journey are all livestreamed and accessible for those curious. An AI fruit-themed take on reality shows like Love Island has surged in popularity in the last few weeks, with videos getting tens of millions of views on TikTok. Teens are "mallmaxxing" as young people are driving an in-person shopping comeback, including, yes, malls. YouTube is rolling out a survey asking users if what they watched felt like "AI slop." It could be a way for YouTube to enforce its own AI policy, or, as some have hypothesized, it could be a way for Google to train its own AI video models for free. 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Teens are inspired by the fashion in Love Story, everybody, everywhere, is maxxing, and the meaning of Easter might feel lost somewhere in the baskets and plastic grass. Song of the Week - "Babydoll" by Dominic Fike In Other News: If you thought the popularity of KPop Demon Hunters wouldn't survive into 2026, look no further than your local McDonald's, which has Huntr/x and Saja Boys themed meals (and a Derpy the Tiger McFlurry). With the Artemis II mission, NASA is sending astronauts to the moon for the first time since the Apollo missions (over 50 years ago!). The four astronauts won't land on Luna, just journey around it, but it's an exciting moment, as the prep, launch, and journey are all livestreamed and accessible for those curious. An AI fruit-themed take on reality shows like Love Island has surged in popularity in the last few weeks, with videos getting tens of millions of views on TikTok. Teens are "mallmaxxing" as young people are driving an in-person shopping comeback, including, yes, malls. YouTube is rolling out a survey asking users if what they watched felt like "AI slop." It could be a way for YouTube to enforce its own AI policy, or, as some have hypothesized, it could be a way for Google to train its own AI video models for free. 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

CJ Fant is one of our own team members at Axis. As basically our resident gaming aficionado, I wanted to bring CJ on to talk about how parents can understand this medium a little better and enter into some intentional conversation around video games with the next generation. 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Three Big Conversations: 1,000 employeesplatypusfirst album Resource of the Week - The Pour Over - 02:21 In Other News: - 55:50 It's sequel season for Kirsten Dunst. The actress just signed on for the untitled Minecraft movie sequel and The Housemaid 2 alongside Sydney Sweeney. The actress said in an interview with Town and Country that she just wants to make a "pile of cash." A new Chappell Roan drama is trending after a claim that her security guard yelled at Jude Law's 11-year-old daughter at a hotel in Brazil. Roan says the guard wasn't with her team and that she never even saw what happened, but the internet has already turned it into a round of who's to blame. Sora, OpenAI's video app, is on the chopping block. The company is shutting it down, and Disney has walked away from its billion-dollar plan to put its characters in Sora clips after months of pushback over deepfakes, consent, and AI slop in entertainment. Chuck Norris, the martial arts star behind Walker, Texas Ranger, has died at 86. His family says he passed away on March 19 in Hawaii after a medical emergency. People are saying goodbye by bringing the classic "Chuck Norris facts" jokes as a way to honor the icon who inspired them. ABC has pulled Taylor Frankie Paul's upcoming season of The Bachelorette,, and Hulu has paused filming on the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, after a domestic violence video involving Paul and her ex, Dakota Mortensen, resurfaced. 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Epic Games lays off 1,000 employees, Gen Z is posing like a platypus, and BTS releases their first album since 2020. Resource of the Week - The Pour Over In Other News: It's sequel season for Kirsten Dunst. The actress just signed on for the untitled Minecraft movie sequel and The Housemaid 2 alongside Sydney Sweeney. The actress said in an interview with Town and Country that she just wants to make a "pile of cash." A new Chappell Roan drama is trending after a claim that her security guard yelled at Jude Law's 11-year-old daughter at a hotel in Brazil. Roan says the guard wasn't with her team and that she never even saw what happened, but the internet has already turned it into a round of who's to blame. Sora, OpenAI's video app, is on the chopping block. The company is shutting it down, and Disney has walked away from its billion-dollar plan to put its characters in Sora clips after months of pushback over deepfakes, consent, and AI slop in entertainment. Chuck Norris, the martial arts star behind Walker, Texas Ranger, has died at 86. His family says he passed away on March 19 in Hawaii after a medical emergency. People are saying goodbye by bringing the classic "Chuck Norris facts" jokes as a way to honor the icon who inspired them. ABC has pulled Taylor Frankie Paul's upcoming season of The Bachelorette,, and Hulu has paused filming on the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, after a domestic violence video involving Paul and her ex, Dakota Mortensen, resurfaced. 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

"My kids go to church because that is what we do as a family. They know God is good and Jesus is the Messiah because of what they have been taught and how my husband and I center our lives on Jesus. But how can I encourage them to seek a personal relationship with the Lord that isn't built on what they've done all their lives and been told? To instead, build it out of an independent, self-driven desire to know the God of all creation? How can I help them from deconstructing their faith in the future when they are out on their own and encounter questions set out to attack their belief?" - Tana Kara is the Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute, the founder of the TENx10 Collaboration, and the Chief of Leadership Formation at Fuller Theological Seminary. Her team has been doing some groundbreaking research on who Gen Alpha is and how faith formation looks different for this new rising generation. → Listen to Kara's Interview Episode → Check out Fuller's Research and Resources 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Three Big Conversations: mimic ChatGPTsenior prank goes wrongProject Hail Mary Song of the Week - "Choosin' Texas" by Ella Langley - 01:58 → Click here to read the lyrics → Click here for reviews of Project Hail Mary In Other News: - 44:30 The Oscars happened. Ryan Coogler was the second Black screenwriter to win Best Original Screenplay. Plus, for the seventh time in the history of the award show, there was a tie. youraislopbores.me is a new website where users can role-play as AI, with users playing the human or AI role. People are posting screenshots of the humorous human responses and bonding over their shared dislike for AI slop. It's time to make your brackets, because March Madness is here! The annual college basketball tournaments will be dominating TV screens until the national championship game in early April. NVIDIA announced a new feature that uses AI to make games look "better." Backlash ensued, with some users calling it a "slop" AI filter for games."Noah Kahan: Out of Body," a documentary following the singer-songwriter's mental health journey on tour, will be out in April. 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

The latest TikTok trend involves sounding like a brainless sycophant to mimic ChatGPT, a senior prank goes wrong in Georgia, and Project Hail Mary packs art, science, and Ryan Gosling into a family-friendly movie. Song of the Week - "Choosin' Texas" by Ella Langley → Click here to read the lyrics In Other News: The Oscars happened. Ryan Coogler was the second Black screenwriter to win Best Original Screenplay. Plus, for the seventh time in the history of the award show, there was a tie. youraislopbores.me is a new website where users can role-play as AI, with users playing the human or AI role. People are posting screenshots of the humorous human responses and bonding over their shared dislike for AI slop. It's time to make your brackets, because March Madness is here! The annual college basketball tournaments will be dominating TV screens until the national championship game in early April. NVIDIA announced a new feature that uses AI to make games look "better." Backlash ensued, with some users calling it a "slop" AI filter for games."Noah Kahan: Out of Body," a documentary following the singer-songwriter's mental health journey on tour, will be out in April. 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Dr. Kara Powell is the Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute, the founder of the TENx10 Collaboration, and the Chief of Leadership Formation at Fuller Theological Seminary. We'll be talking today about some of the Fuller Youth Institute's new research on Gen Alpha—including how exactly they're different from previous generations of teens (including Gen Z), and what faith formation looks like for the world's youngest generation. → Check out Fuller's Research and Resources 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Three Big Conversations: angers opera singers and ballerinas debuts to middling reviewsinternet's favorite distraction Slang of the Week: "Big Chungus Life" - 01:34 In Other News: - 45:45 Miami Heat player Bam Adebayo scored 83 points in a game this week, passing Kobe Bryant's 81 points for the second-most points in a single game in NBA history. (Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game from 1962 still stands as the #1 record.) According to the Wall Street Journal (paywall), Gen Z is driving a resurgence in mall shopping, with many malls redesigning public spaces to be more "photogenic" and social-media friendly, as well as popular online stores like Edikted opening brick-and-mortar locations. For some middle schoolers, the word "burger" is now funny, thanks to a clip from Disney+'s show Just Beyond going viral, alongside absurd TikTok edits like this one. The controversial AI-generated "actress" Tilly Norwood was featured in a new music video, in which she was made to sing verses like "AI's not the enemy, it's the key." According to an article from Fortune (paywall), Gen Z is becoming more skeptical of TikTok, with 53 percent saying TikTok feels more commercial than it did a year ago, and 72 percent agreeing that content now feels more staged and performative. 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Timothée Chalamet angers opera singers and ballerinas, Harry Styles' new album debuts to middling reviews, and Donna Kelce's home renovation becomes the internet's favorite distraction. Slang of the Week: "Big Chungus Life" In Other News: Miami Heat player Bam Adebayo scored 83 points in a game this week, passing Kobe Bryant's 81 points for the second-most points in a single game in NBA history. (Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game from 1962 still stands as the #1 record.) According to the Wall Street Journal (paywall), Gen Z is driving a resurgence in mall shopping, with many malls redesigning public spaces to be more "photogenic" and social-media friendly, as well as popular online stores like Edikted opening brick-and-mortar locations. For some middle schoolers, the word "burger" is now funny, thanks to a clip from Disney+'s show Just Beyond going viral, alongside absurd TikTok edits like this one. The controversial AI-generated "actress" Tilly Norwood was featured in a new music video, in which she was made to sing verses like "AI's not the enemy, it's the key." According to an article from Fortune (paywall), Gen Z is becoming more skeptical of TikTok, with 53 percent saying TikTok feels more commercial than it did a year ago, and 72 percent agreeing that content now feels more staged and performative. 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

"How do we talk to a skeptical generation about discipleship, and the reality of the spiritual world?" This month, we're spotlighting the work of discipleship that parents, youth pastors, and other adults do in the lives of the next generation. We've got an upcoming podcast conversation with Dr. Kara Powell about faith formation in Gen Alpha, a new episode of our YouTube show about how Gen Alpha processes life and faith, and another on the philosophical and theological question of why does God allow pain and suffering; we're promoting a new video Conversation Kit on the topic of miracles and what God's involvement in the world looks like today. Resources → A Parent's Guide to Discipling Teens A Conversation Kit on Miracles 🎧 Listen / Follow / Connect → Become a monthly donor today, join the Table. → Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel! → Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org. → For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.