Jordan Whitmer is the founder and CEO of the How to Life movement, a global Gen Z-led missions and evangelism ministry. He is passionate about mobilizing student leaders around the world to impact their generation for Christ.

PEER: Can you share who you are and what the How to Life Movement is?

JORDAN WHITMER: My name’s Jordan Whitmer. I recently just turned 26 years old. I am the founder and global director or CEO of the How to Life Movement ministry. How to Life is an all Gen Z-oriented Christian evangelism and missions’ organization. We’re going on our 10^th year now, from when this started when I was 16. Over the course of 10 years, we have worked with a passion and a desire to help young people with their faith and their journey to impact their peers. We believe in the importance of helping teenagers and young people with life issues and ultimately to pursue a relationship with Jesus as their Savior.

It started in Arkansas, where I grew up, when I was 16. We wanted to organize an all youth-led outreach event in our community and organized a team where it was all students doing the speaking and the organizing. Then, over the course of time, we were able to see just some really unique things happen and culminate in my junior year of high school at an event with over 750 people who came to it in my county, in my area, in Arkansas. It was a really fruitful time, and our event consisted of students singing worship songs and a lot of young people sharing their testimonies, as we say, just about the stories that they have about the difference that following Christ has made in their life.

That’s what’s been unique about this—that it’s all teenagers who are up there onstage sharing their stories and looking to reach out to their friends. Over the last 10 years, this has become a growing organization with young people all throughout the U.S. Now across 29 states, and then 11 countries around the world on four continents, there have been students stepping up with the vision of wanting to impact their communities. We meet a lot of young people who say, “I am passionate about my faith. I want to make a difference for God in my world, but I just don’t know what exactly that looks like and I don’t know how to get started.” Then we often meet some of those young people and are like, “Well, would you want to consider maybe the idea of organizing something in your community?” Then through that, we’ve got a process of helping them potentially start a chapter in their area or join an existing chapter or event team. Now we’ve had this happen about 174 times throughout all those places. It’s become a really unique 21st century youth organization for Christ to help young people do some of what they feel led and called to pursue. It’s been an amazing journey, and I am thrilled that this is part of what God has had for me in my life to be able to serve others in this way.

P: What does a typical day in the life look like for you?

JW: A day in the life for me often involves some meetings and Zoom calls with some of our global team of young people that are around the world, our global leadership team that helps work with young people around the world, that has people from different countries, different continents. We have people from the UK, South Africa and Kenya working alongside people from the United States, Canada and Mexico. It’s this really unique global team and community that we have. So, with that team that we have, we meet a lot and are trying to be in touch and working on ongoing projects. This time of year, it’s a big time for the summer. It’s not an off season for our work, but since we are built more around the school year with young people when they’re in high school or university, college classes, we do build around having a little less activity in the summer and use this time as planning time.

We’re currently in this season of inviting people to get involved in different places and opening up applications. A day in life for me involves calls and a lot of travel. I travel a lot. Sometimes people are like, “Jordan, you seem like you’re all over the world.” I often am but the world does feel smaller than ever in some ways just because of the Internet and ways to connect with people now across the continents. But often, I do hop on planes and go and help build up our teams around the world as well as others in our movement. So, sometimes I’m home and I’m working, sometimes I’m at one of our places—we work out of an office area. I’m based in the metro New York area now, currently in New Jersey; just moved out here a couple months ago, and born out here originally, but grew up in Arkansas. It’s a very unique life that I live and that many of the people involved within our organization have for sure.

P: What is your favorite part of your work?

JW: I’d say a favorite part of my work is seeing young leaders be trained and developed. There are a lot of young people in Generation Z who often want to make a difference in their world. Maybe they just don’t know how or where to get started with that or what that might look like for them in particular. How to Life Movement does a lot to help serve young people like that. I’m thrilled when I see people operating in just some of the ways that God has made them.

I believe young people have so many gifts that are often just underused and they’re not empowered necessarily to use those gifts in some cases, in their world and where they’re at. I love seeing young people just working within the gifts in a way that they’ve been stewarded with and given and that they have. Just seeing people step up and grow as people and as individuals and as Christians in different ways. It’s thrilling to see just so much hope that young people have and to see people encounter the Lord in different ways and in their lives is so fulfilling to see.

P: Is part of the training working to be an evangelist?

JW: Yes. We would call ourselves an evangelistic and missional organization. Again, we’re passionate about just who Jesus is in people’s lives and for people to have a chance to share that story. There are a lot of Christian young people around the world who are stepping out with a desire to want to make a difference and make an impact. We do have training and are trying to help the young leaders that we’re working with to grow with working in the way that God has for them and to be bold about what they believe, but also to have the hard conversations because there’s a lot of very real issues and dynamics in our world today that have to be handled very delicately and intentionally. So really trying to create a culture of a new era in a way of helping young people step out in a unique way.

P: What inspired you to start How to Life? What do you hope to accomplish with it in the next 5-10 years?

JW: What inspired me originally definitely was just having a heart for my community and a heart for wanting people to just have a chance to really encounter God in their life and in a way, and to have a chance to come together for something unique. There are, again, so many young people that are going through so much brokenness, pain and hurt in America and in the world. There’s a lot of questions and conversations and we want to be able to pursue that and approach that. A lot of my early heart was, “What if we could organize a campaign for our community to bring people together, organized by local young people, and then invite lots of young people to come?” The heart of so much of it has been students. We say it’s students reaching students and impacting other students. We believe so much in the leadership potential that a young person has and want to see young people know that they don’t have to wait for adults necessarily to give them permission to step up, but rather to give them, in essence, more of a green light and be like, “Hey, you can do this.” All the while trying to help establish connections where adults can mentor and encourage and pour into young people in a way that they so need.

P: Your website mentions using digital media ministry for outreach. Can you share a little bit about what that entails and how do you use it to support your mission?

JW: More of our digital media outreach is just through social media and the existing channels plus YouTube. We’ve created some resources and are looking to make more. A lot of the outreach is just through word of mouth, through Instagram and people sending DMs to our page inquiring about opportunities and how to get involved and how to make an impact. We’re trying to help young people in that sort of vein and lane to have opportunities. Obviously, the Internet and online is so important to have an active presence on there in order to impact people.

P: What part of your journey with How to Life has been the most transformative for you so far?

JW: I’d say just this journey, especially the more global we’ve gone and working with young people around the world. It’s been a front row seat to get to connect with youth in different countries and places. You get to learn a lot about the differences for sure. There’s a lot of differences between the USA and places all over the world. But the more that I travel as well, the more that I feel like young people really do have a lot in common with each other. A lot of people talk about the concept of a global youth culture, and I definitely concur with that reality. They’re growing up with TikTok and YouTube and some of the same voices in their lives throughout the continents and throughout the miles and kilometers. There’s a lot though that young people do share, shared culture, shared things, shared opportunities, and so with that, the world does feel a bit small, but also there’s so many distinct dynamics with it too.

Traveling has been huge. Meeting youth in different areas, getting to learn about dynamics and cultures and countries and seeing how we can help serve young people in different countries and places has been amazing. We’ve worked in the suburbs of America. We’ve worked in small towns in the middle of nowhere in the U.S., and then we’ve worked in cities and more urban contexts. You get a chance to meet a lot of people and it’s been obviously so world-enlarging and I think huge because I believe very much in how God has a huge heart for the world. There are so many verses in the Bible about the world and one of my favorite Bible verses is Revelation 7:9, which talks about every tribe, people, nation and language before the Lord. I think that’s inspiring to think about that one day there will be people from all over the world, different countries, places, contexts who are worshiping God together. Worshiping Jesus for eternity. It’s inspiring to think about and to think what if today, rather than having so much division in our world, if we could have more of a global art in any sphere that we’re in, whether we’re in any part of the world that we’re working in.

P: You grew up in a multi-generational ministry family. In what ways has this influenced you in your path and how does your family support your work?

JW: I have grown up in a multi-generational family. My grandfather’s name is Ron Hutchcraft. He’s been a Christian ministry leader for many years originally in the Chicago area. Then he was in metro New York and New Jersey for a long time himself before basing out of Arkansas and this latter chapter of his life that he is been in. But growing up in a family with people who have a passion for Christian work has been huge. It’s inspired me to want to do more and sometimes young people in that context are like, “Oh, I’m not interested in what my family’s doing. I want to just do my totally own thing.” But other times though, you soak it in and it’s like, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else with my life then the family business, I guess. But although in the case of my family, our family business is really trying to be about God’s business and trying to live for Him, serve Him, and make an impact for Him. I grew up with a lot of that and therefore tried to live my life accordingly. That inspired me to jump into this cause feet first, headfirst into very unique life work for sure.

P: How do you work to inspire this generation, Gen Z as a member of this generation?

JW: For most of my life though, I’ve been the young guy on the younger end of things. I know what that’s like. With that, I have wanted to see if there could be ways to help other young people who are young because I remember what that was like and Gen Z is that young generation right now and soon to be Gen Alpha. In general, there will always be teenagers and young 20-somethings in the world. I have a heart for that age. It’s an age that people are making decisions, an age when people are figuring out what they’re going to do with their life. Everyone’s asked, “What are you going to do when you grow up?” Everyone is like, “I don’t know.” When they’re seven, it’s like, “I’m going to be an astronaut.” Then when they’re 17, it’s like, “I have not the slightest idea.” As people grow up, it’s just a matter of “How do you help people?” Obviously, I believe that one of the highest callings possible is to serve God and work in His work. That doesn’t always mean, oh, become a missionary or an evangelist or something like that. It can look like anything. It’s just like, how can you make an impact in your world and serve others? I believe it should be connected to mission for the Lord, but that can be through the marketplace. It can be through business, it can be through whatever we are wired with, whatever we’re drawn to, I think being excellent in that space and making a difference is huge in our life journey.

P: Outside of How to Life, how do you live out your faith in daily life?

JW: It’s interesting because as you are living out your faith, it’s so important to prioritize just seeking the Lord. I know for me, it’s just growing in a relationship with Jesus. For me, it’s not just a religion thing. Like, oh, I go to church on Sunday to check some box, but it’s more like, I believe that God is very real, and Jesus is real and living, and then I want to be able to live for Him. But to live for Him, you need to know Him. Every morning, I read my Bible and pray and write what I view God speaking to me and sharing with me in a journal. That’s behind closed doors that I believe anybody who’s involved in Christian work or anyone in life needs to prioritize in order to be operating from a more full cup. There’s a lot of people who are just crashing because they didn’t build balance into their life. I’m very intentional about balance and both spiritually and mentally and health-wise, I try to be active and walk a lot to keep fit. There are ways to try to be intentional in that way.

I also try to be on mission in life and be open to have conversations because there are a lot of people out and about that you’ll run into that do have questions. I try to be able to represent my faith well and try to point people to consider questions of who Jesus to you is and are you interested in learning more and talk to people who have questions. Everyone has to figure out what that looks like for them.

P: How do you practice self-care?

JW: Like basic things, getting enough sleep, eating healthy, some form of exercise. It’s so basic. Everyone’s like, “Oh yeah, I know I’m supposed to do that.” But do you do that? Just having good, healthy habits, I think are huge for anybody, especially if you’re trying to be in it for the long haul with whatever the long haul looks like for you. It is huge to prioritize things and to be always learning, never to think you have it all figured out. Be open to learn from people and travel the world if you can. Try not to burn out while doing it, but learn and explore, find opportunities to grow as a person and with people and in life.

P: What are you currently listening to?

JW: I’ll often go hiking and doing fun stuff like that. That’s when I’ll often pop on the audiobooks. I love learning about things with the Christian faith, like Christian history. I love studying history and learning about the people who have come before. So even with things like Salvation Army, there’s just such a cool history there. That’s all part of learning and growing.

P: What’s a Bible verse that’s been on your heart recently?

JW: I mentioned the one earlier: Revelation 7:9. That’s obviously a really a big one for sure. But I’ll share another one from the book of Acts that I really am passionate about: Acts 2:17. This is Simon Peter, during his Pentecost sermon is quoting the prophet Joel from the Old Testament who is quoting God, God talking about in the last days.

“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams” (Acts 2:17, NIV). It’s inspiring because it talks about the idea of young people making an impact for the Lord, for God, for Jesus, and stepping out and being bold and we try to take that to heart. But also, old men dreaming dreams. There’s a need for the older generations. This is not just, oh, let’s turn it over to the young people, but it’s also very much not, let’s just have the older people run everything forever either. It’s that careful, unique balance of an intergenerational partnership. I think that’s how the Lord is working, and I take that verse to heart, and I like that one a lot and share it pretty often.