Intergenerational Church

As members of our Congregational Check-Up Task Force have been reading survey results, processes congregational conversations, and planning for steps forward, there are several trends that continue to rise to the surface of our conversations.  One that has really begun to take hold in recent days comes out of conversations and survey comments regarding doing things "together" and being a church where "all ages come together."  I would even go so far as to say that folks in our congregation would grieve a church segmented into age groups.

What the congregation is identifying can also be described in terms of "intergenerational relationships."  For members of our church, the notion that senior adults and children can interact and learn with and from each other is a gift, it is actually a sign of being a faithful community who proclaims Christ as Lord (and I seem to remember something about Jesus integrating children into his ministry and the apostle Paul exhorting us to remember that all members of the body are essential to its health and growth).

In the fall I read the book Tribal Church by the Rev. Carol Howard Merritt, a Presbyterian pastor in the Washington, D.C. area who has spent much of her ministry thinking about young adults and the church.  Recently I also watched an interview with her on ChurchNext where she and the host talked about challenges the church faces today in the world and how we respond.

One of Merritt's major themes is the church as a community of intergeneratioanl relationships.  She discusses in her book and her interview how our society is segmented by age groups more now than we have possibly ever been.  Reasons for this include families living farther from each other, so children are not naturally exposed to grandparents and technological divides between older generations who watch the nightly news each evening and younger people who find New York Times online columns posted on their Facebook walls.  Television, music, movies, and many other marketing campaigns try to organze their content around a "target audience," thus choosing to exclude certain demographics, so we see ourselves as "specialized" by our age category.

Merritt writes, "Church growth trends that market specifically to younger generations while ignoring the elderly, and congregations who care for older members while neglecting young adults, exacerbate the schisms in our society.  The church is one place where we can still have multi-generational interaction, and it is crucial for the fabric of our society to preserve, maintain, and enhance this connection.  In our increasingly segregated culture, older generations, young families, and single people can learn to listen and care for each other.  Mainline denominational congregations can increase intergenerational hospitality through visible signs so growth can flourish and we can expand our biodiversity" (Tribal Church, 21).

I can remember in my own life growing up in the church how each year when it came time for the school coupon book sale, I would pull out the church directory and if I recognized your face, I called you on the phone.  I brough every school fundraiser to church and felt no shame asking the older members to contribute to the cause.

In middle school, an older couple in our congregation took a special interest in one of my friends and me, inviting us to play golf with them and hiding gifts in the church building that we would have to find in the time between Sunday school and worship.

Dozens of church family members would attend my high school plays and concerts, and these same people, who had been present since my baptism, gathered in the sanctuary when Rebecca and I were married, and came forward to lay hands on me on my ordination day.

I strongly believe that I am in the Church today, that I am dedicated to the mission of Christ in the world, because of those intergenerational relationships I had with my church family growing up.

As we recognize the importance of intergenerational relationships in our congregation, let us begin to ask what "visible signs" of hospitality we are displaying to the world about how we try to foster these relationships.  We can think about scheduling of our events and if they are hospitable for those who work or have weekend family obligations.  We can think about the content of our activities and if they are something elementary schoolers and senior adults can participate in and grow from.  We can think about our congregational care and how we might support our children in their plays, concerts, and athletic events and how our children and youth might help with homebound visitation or writing cards to our senior adults.

In a more and more stratified society, I believe the Church needs to be a voice for real community that crosses age barriers.  I think the health and success of our society at large really depends on our ability to relate to people different from ourselves and to recognize that we have something to learn from those both older and younger than us.  I am excited to begin to explore how we can more intentionally pursue these goals as a congregation and witness to the world what a full "body of Christ" can look like!