“Intergenerational ministry is not just a fad and it’s not
just a good idea.”
As you read that, you might not even know what it’s
referring to. But if you’ve been a part of church life for anything more than
ten years, you will know that many churches don’t have a good mix of
generations. Some churches seem to have been caught in a time warp and now have
people who are all of the same generation. Other churches seem to do a bit
better, but still seem to have only two
Some churches do have different age groups, but aren’t
really intergenerational. These churches just have different age groups meeting
in roughly the same place. And this thought has captured my attention.
Last week I took the chance to attend a training gathering
on the issue of intergenerational ministry. It wasn’t a big crowd in
attendance, and there was nothing unusual about that. What was unusual was the
age of some of those attending. These women were the age of grandmothers, yet
they wanted to know and learn about intergenerational ministry. It was like
they were crying out that they don’t want the church to be a comfortable place
for the over 70’s if it means it isn’t a comfortable place for the under 20’s
and the under 10’s. God bless these women and their tribe.
At this training event, I learned the difference between
being a multi-age congregation and a congregation that does intergenerational
ministry. Put simply, a multi-age congregation has different ages involved or
connected to the church, but those generations aren’t really involved or
connected to each other. Is this really what a church family is supposed to be
like? Or have we just swallowed western individualism without seriously
thinking about the impact on the church? Have we even considered the impact
this would have on the generations that will follow?
If you know me and my view of church life, you will know
that I value intergenerational ministry and intergenerational worship. I have
been challenged to see beyond the Sunday morning worship hour and instead
consider the whole of church life. You see, as I have been thinking about how
to rescue the church from separating the generations I have perhaps put too
much focus on keeping everyone together on Sunday morning rather than sending
young people away from the sermon. I still believe we should make that change,
but that doesn’t do enough.
How can I help to make such a change? I’m still thinking
about that. But I have been encouraged to meet with a group of people from
other church denominations who also recognise that separating the generations
hasn’t been the great solution we first believed it would be. To help get some
things moving in my mind, and perhaps in yours, this site is worth looking at
here2stay.org.au – not just because it’s Australian, but because of this:
This is a discipleship issue.
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