Intergenerational Christian Formation

Bringing the Whole Church Together in Ministry, Community and Worship

Holly Catterton Allen, Christine Lawton

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780830839810
• eBook ISBN: 9780830863464
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

"One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts." —Psalm 145: 4Most churches and faith communities segment their ministries by age and generation. The kids go to children's church, the teens go to youth group. Worship services are geared toward different generational preferences, and small groups gather people at the same life stage, whether singles, young marrieds, parents, or empty nesters. In some congregations, people may never interact with those of other ages.But it was not always so. Throughout biblical tradition and the majority of history, communities of faith included people of all ages together in corporate worship, education, and ministry. The church was not just multigenerational; it was intergenerational, with the whole church together as one family and people of all ages learning from one another in common life.In this comprehensive text, Holly Allen and Christine Lawton offer a complete framework for intentional intergenerational Christian formation. They provide the theoretical foundations for intergenerationality, showing how learning and spiritual formation are better accomplished through intergenerational contexts. It is not just elders teaching youth; learning also takes place when adults discover fresh insights from children. Then the authors give concrete guidance for intergenerational praxis on how worship, learning, community, and service can all be achieved intergenerationally. Case studies of intergenerational congregations provide models for how a culture of intergenerationality can be created in local churches.This volume serves as an essential guide for all preparing for and involved in congregational ministry and formation. Discover the riches of intergenerational ministry, and let all generations commend the works of God to one another.

Part One

Generational Realities

1

What Is the Problem?

Life in modern society is often divided into three parts: children and youth spend much of their time in daycare and school, adults make up the workforce, and older persons are expected to live a retired life of leisure.

Dagmar Grefe, “Combating Ageism with Narrative and Intergroup Contact”

The church is the only agency in Western civilization which has all the members of the family as part of its clientele . . . through the complete life cycle from birth to death.

Margaret Sawin, Family Enrichment with Family Clusters

In a recent undergraduate course on ministry across the life span, the class was contrasting ministry for seniors of the Silent generation (those currently about 65-85 years old) with the anticipated ministry changes for the next generation, the Boomers, as they age. Initially the students chatted through a discussion about Boomers—their active lifestyles, their workaholism, their amusing refusal to admit that they are growing old—and how ministry to this age cohort might look different from recent approaches to senior ministry. Then Holly asked these students what the senior adult ministry in their home congregations looked like. A few activities were mentioned—potlucks, game night in the church activity center, shuttle service to the building on Sundays. There was a pause in the discussion, then another student offered hesitantly: “Well, I think it’s important to say that . . . I don’t know; I don’t have any idea what they do. I was in the youth group; I don’t know what happened with the seniors in my church.”

This young man was acknowledging to the class the dawning realization that his unawareness of the seniors of his home church was a perfect illustration of a problem we had alluded to regularly throughout the semester—that ministering by age cohorts can yield unintended consequences: generational fragmentation, silo mentality[1] and an involuntary ignorance of all others not in one’s own age group. His verbalized realization was a keen aha moment for the class.

The Problem of Age Segregation

During the last hundred years, steady changes have occurred in society that have separated families and segregated age groups, not only in educational settings but in life in general. “There are less regular and structured interactions between old and young . . . than ever before. Not only families but also other institutions in modern society have reduced the chance for old and young to share activities in meaningful ways.”[2] Examples of this pervasive age segregation include the ubiquity of age-graded public education, the geographical mobility of families, the movement from extended to nuclear family, the rise of divorce and single-parent families, and the prevalence of retirement and nursing homes for older persons and preschools for the young.

Faith communities are perhaps the only places where families, singles, couples, children, teens, grandparents—all generations—come together on a regular interacting basis. Yet the societal trend toward generational fragmentation has moved into churches also. Though church leaders endorse intergenerationality in general whenever they cite biblical metaphors such as “the body of Christ” or “the family of God,” in practice American mainline and evangelical churches generally conduct many of their services and activities (worship, Sunday school, fellowship, outreach, service, etc.) in age-segregated settings. Consequently, in the second decade of twenty-first-century America, all generations of the faith community—babies through nonagenarians—are seldom together.

Holly experienced firsthand this sea change in the way churches do business. Her family moved from Texas to California in 2000 and observed there a phenomenon they had not yet experienced in Texas. They found that some churches, besides having age-specific children’s and teen worship services, were offering Gen X worship services as well as traditional worship services at 8:00 or 8:30 and contemporary worship services at 10:30 or 11:00, thus in effect dividing the church into five generations. Those who grew up in these church settings could experience the community of Christ as age-segregated silos their whole lives; it would be possible, even probable, for a whole cohort to know only those their own age, never experiencing opportunities to worship with, minister with or even know those older and younger.[3]

Separating the generations may seem efficacious, practical and desirable, especially when excellent age- or stage-focused programs exist. Perhaps one might ask, what would be wrong with persons experiencing life in the body of Christ as an age-specific journey? What indeed? While the chief purpose of this book is to offer biblical, theological, developmental, empirical, sociological and practical support for intergenerationality, along the way the intrinsic limitations of a pervasively, perennially age-segregated Christianity will emerge.

One of Holly’s colleagues attended the funeral of a much-loved, elderly matriarch of her church. She noticed a college student at the funeral and afterward spoke with the young woman: “I didn’t know you knew Mrs. Ellison.”

“Oh, I don’t. I just wanted to come to a funeral. I’ve never been to one before. I’ve been coming to this church for a few months, and they have been praying for Mrs. Ellison ever since I’ve been coming, so I wanted to come.”

“We’re glad you came.”

“You know, I’ve never been part of a church where there are old people who die. It changes the way you see life.”

Reconsidering Age Segregation

Singles’ ministers, youth ministers, children’s ministers and others who have played a part in separating the generations are beginning to have second thoughts about age segregation. Joseph Hellerman says: “I spent the first 15 years of vocational Christian service involved in specialized ministry to single adults. Now I find myself with increasing reservations about the wisdom of compartmentalizing God’s family into separate fellowship groups according to life stages.”[4]

After a couple of decades as a youth minister, Mark DeVries recognized that youth ministry was failing in its goal to foster spiritual growth and mature faith in teens. His diagnosis of the problem was that in typical youth ministries, teens had been systematically separated from adults, isolating them “from the very relationships that are most likely to lead them to maturity.”[5]

Ivy Beckwith, a longtime children’s minister, claims in Postmodern Children’s Ministry that children’s ministry is broken. She came to see that the systematic separation of children from all other cohorts of the church was detrimental to them. Beckwith advocates regular opportunities for children to worship with the full body of Christ, to be received and welcomed fully as contributing participants in faith community. Beckwith says, “A church program can’t spiritually form a child, but a family living in an intergenerational community of faith can.”[6]

A Christian leader tells a story of parents who were talking together about the church being the family of God. Their young son, Abe, overhearing the conversation, asked, “If our church is a family, how come we don’t do more things together?”[7] Perhaps the time has come to reconsider the pervasive age segregation that has characterized faith communities over the past few decades. This book joins a growing body of literature that advocates just such a shift.

Faith Communities as Older and Younger Siblings in a Family

Christine’s understanding of the family of God was formed through visual and auditory catechesis. After an infant baptism in her church, the pastor presented the child to the congregation by holding her for the whole congregation to see her face and by walking her down the aisle so that everyone could greet her directly with these words: “We welcome you into the Lord’s family. We receive you as a fellow member of the body of Christ, and a child of the same heavenly Father, to work with us in his kingdom.”[8] The pastor’s actions and the congregation’s words made the family of God very real to Christine. As she looked around and saw the gentle and joyous expressions on the usually rough and weathered faces of her agrarian “faith family,” she realized how even an infant has a God-given role to play within his family.

When Holly was four and five, she spent two summers with her grandmother while her mother completed her college degree. She has vivid memories of those weeks, “helping” her grandmother wash clothes in the wringer washer, hanging heavy, wet clothes on the line outside, feeding the chickens, gathering the eggs, packing an enormous lunch for her grandfather to take into the cotton fields, and weeding the big vegetable garden. She also has layered memories of worshiping in the small rural church with all ages together. She remembers particularly the quaint way her grandmother referred to the men and women of the church: “Sister Markham’s been ill—we’ll take her some soup,” or “We’ll just take some of these apples over to the McFaddens—you know Brother McFadden has lost his job.” Holly found this practice of addressing everyone at church as “Sister” or “Brother” quite curious—though she doesn’t recall asking her grandmother about it.

Holly has thought only occasionally about this practice over the last few decades. Yet last year when one of the preteens at church was baptized, Holly hugged her afterward and whispered in her ear, “Now you are my sister too.” The girl looked at Holly with wonder in her eyes, not sure how to respond, but she was clearly intrigued.

Joseph Hellerman offers an in-depth and fascinating description of the first-century family culture as a way of understanding the richness of Paul’s analogy of church as family—especially the relationships as brothers and sisters among Christians.[9] Hellerman’s book assumes an intergenerational church, where the older, wiser sisters and brothers know their younger siblings well, and advise, guide and accompany them on their journeys, while the younger siblings work with, care for and join their older siblings on their journeys. It is a powerful, inviting image, reflective of Paul’s admonitions in 1 Timothy 5:1-2 regarding cross-generational relationships in the early church.

Why have churches in North America moved past this image, this picture of familial intergenerationality that so characterized first-century faith communities? Why did twentieth-century churches embrace so wholeheartedly an age-segregated version of life in Christ? What cultural, ecclesial, developmental, theological, philosophical or practical rationales have been used to support such a fundamental departure from the historical practices of the communal body of Christ through the ages? Chapter two addresses these questions.

2

How Did We Get Here?

Why Churches Tended to Separate the Generations

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.

1 Corinthians 1:10

The easiest thing to do in the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Venturing into Intergenerationality
• Introduction
• Part One: Generational Realities
• Part Two: Biblical, Theological and Theoretical Support
• Part Three: Support from the Social Sciences
• Part Four: Intergenerational Christian Formation Practices
• Conclusion
• Appendix A: Forty Intergenerational Ideas
• Appendix B: Intergenerational Ministry Resources
• Appendix C: Biblical Passages That Reflect an Intergenerational Outlook
• Bibliography
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• Scripture Index
• Notes
• Praise for Intergenerational Christian Formation
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press