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God has a lot more in mind for our churches today than different generations feeling misunderstood, unappreciated, and ignored. Instead of living in the beauty of intergenerational ministry that God created us for, many churches experience the feeling of an “us” and a “them”. Keep reading if you’re ready to close the gap between generations and build bridges instead! We will be going over:
- How curiosity and compassion might be the two things you need most.
- How to help everyone embrace the gifts and values of different generations.
- How to foster intergenerational relationships without adding more programs.
- 3 steps to start closing the generational gaps in your church today.
- Plus some creative ideas you can implement with no cost and little planning.
Experiencing Intergenerational Ministry
When people of different age groups come together in churches, people often do not experience the beauty of intergenerational ministry. Whether it’s glaring or subtle, there’s often judgment, division, and misunderstanding between various generations. There’s almost an unspoken understanding that your generation is better than the next generation. In fact, I often hear some common struggles in churches or all sizes like, young people don’t value tradition anymore or older people may get angry when children run in the hallway or when teenagers come to church with ripped jeans or leggings.
It’s understandable to wish that everyone would get along, but it’s so much deeper than that! There’s so much depth, beauty, and fullness of relationships that are waiting for us if we can bridge these generational gaps! Deep down, the underlying value behind this struggle is our longing as humans to be loved, understood, supported, and valued. This longing is fulfilled in relationships that are honest and vulnerable.
What Does Bridging The Gap Look Like?
I believe that God gave us intergenerational family systems on purpose. Whether biological, adoptive, or based on proxemics, it’s a family! Beautiful things happen when we recognize the value of others and lean into seeking out how we all contribute to each other’s growth and even our understanding of God. The truth is, we weren’t meant to do life in segmented demographics and age groups all the time. We were meant to do life together.
When talking about intergenerational ministry, the church community often thinks of mentoring programs. This is amazing! I think the concept that everyone should have a mentor and a mentee is a beautiful idea, but I think intergenerational ministry offers much more than a systemized mentoring program.
We benefit and learn from each other, and that is the beauty of the body of Christ. I encourage you to think about the people in your church, or society, who are sometimes marginalized. In our secular world, there’s a lot of division between people who perceivably have more value, like leaders or influencers. But in God’s world, each human has a place. Each person has immense value, gifts, and contributions. We all influence each other, and no one is marginalized. We are on this planet to love and learn together.
Why Doesn’t Intergenerational Ministry Just Happen?
Regarding intergenerational ministry, our selfishness, pride, and perspective are what get in the way of our ability to all benefit from one another. The first two, selfishness and pride, are topics for another blog post, but our perspective is something that we can tackle right now. Our perspective matters a lot when it comes to relating to people of all ages. We’ve been culturized. That being said, each of us grew up with different influences.
Unfortunately, most of us are so used to segmented age groups and gatherings with similar people, that we’ve lost the natural feeling of mixed ages and people groups. Sometimes we feel out of place with people who aren’t our age. After spending decades in school with our same age groups, and joining clubs and hobby groups with people who are more similar to us, it’s not normal to do anything different. It’s all we know.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with any of that, and some of it can be very good! However, it might also leave us a little short-sighted when it comes to having relationships across the generations. After being separated for a decade or two as children and youth, we wonder why we are struggling to engage young adults in the life of the church.
If you want to build a bridge across a chasm that exists between the older and younger generations at your local church, let’s go over a few common challenges, how to overcome them, and a few practical ideas that you can try to further the connection across the generations.
Stereotypes And Labels Attached To Intergenerational Ministry
In our modern-day culture, it’s common for older generations to be labeled as critical, not open to new ideas or church leaders, resistant to change, or even judgemental. The common stereotype is that the younger people want change and the older people want to do it the way it’s always been. We know that these assumptions and labels are stereotypes. They are broad-reaching generalizations that aren’t true for all individuals. If you look at some of the workplace studies and psychology-based research, you’ll find that some of the stereotypes currently buzzing around have little to no evidence to back them up. You will also find that generational stereotypes are more incorrect than they are true.
Whether the stereotypes are accurate or not, many of these sweeping statements still take root in our thinking and our attitudes. The thoughts and beliefs about the differences we have with generations can cause more division and separation than our actual experiences. Instead of exploring where these beliefs come from, how often they’re true, or why we think our generation is more correct than others, the more productive question might be how to bridge the gap between the distanced generations.
What Bridges The Gap?
The easy answer is relationships. Once there’s a relationship, the bridge is built. The gap is diminished. However, when people see themselves as different, no matter what type of relationship they have, there will always be a gap. The more we see our likeness, our shared humanity, and our value in Christ, the gaps between us start to get smaller. It’s similar to the concept of the saint and the sinner. There’s a big division between a saint and a sinner until we realize that we are all saints and sinners. We have more in common than we do apart! This is the Gospel message. Jesus Christ died for all of us, and no one is righteous, not one.
What we really need to do is start recognizing and highlighting our similarities instead of focusing on our differences. This also happens across generations, but it takes intentionality. We are fighting broad-sweeping stereotypes. Of course, we don’t share the same energy levels or the same depth of wisdom and maturity, but what do we share that spans the generations?
Curiosity And Compassion Within Intergenerational Ministry
These two words have meant a lot to me in the past few years. I’ve grown a lot in curiosity and compassion lately, and I honestly think it has caused more transformation in me than I would have ever imagined. These are the building blocks for impactful intergenerational ministry.
Curiosity
Curiosity seems like a simple thing. A lot of people are curious about things. However, knowledge is the one thing that blocks curiosity. If you already know something, there’s nothing to be curious about. We have convinced ourselves that we know everything there is to know about people, but we don’t. We need to grow in humility and understand that we really don’t know all there is to know about the people in our church.
If you think you have them all figured out, there’s no room for curiosity. There’s an important level of humility here. We need to admit that we don’t really know everything about that person or that people group. The whole church can build curiosity across generations and demographics through program choices, activities, discussions, teaching, hot seat panels, and so much more!
Compassion
If someone behaves in a way that we don’t like or don’t understand, we often create separation and judgment. However, if we develop compassion, we can stop the definitive labeling and consider the humanity of the person instead. Typically, a person’s negative behavior is based on their own unhappiness. There is often a deep hurt or trauma that that person is dealing with.
Compassion is more than feeling sorry for someone, or recognizing that someone is hurting. The word compassion actually means “suffer with” or “suffer together.” If you look at the root words, ‘com’ means together or with. The second part of the word ‘passion’ is related to pathos, and even the word patient. So compassion is suffering together and sharing emotions. Therefore, if we travel from curiosity to compassion, we are moving toward commonality, toward our shared humanity.
Tips To Encourage Cross-Generational Relationships
When prioritizing intergenerational ministry, it’s really important to set up safe spaces to share, as well as great systems and opportunities to foster these relationships. You may be changing a culture, so there’s a mix of teaching and programming that needs to happen. Here is a process if you want to foster healthy relationships across the ages, plus some actionable ideas that are all about successful baby steps leading to deeper relationships!
Step 1: Start By Growing Awareness And Appreciation
Begin a meaningful conversation. Highlight different generations. Recognize, honor, and show value across the ages. Here are a few ideas to get you started!
Church Family Timeline
Set up a timeline. It would even be fun if it was life-size, on a wall! Get some simple butcher paper and highlight decades going back 60-80 or even 100 years. Encourage people to add their timeline of stories. Have stickers, a bulletin board, or even colored pins. Encourage people to put pins in a timeline.
For example: When they came to know Jesus, tragedies, marriages, deaths, graduations, births, and baptisms. Encourage pictures!
Church Written Devotional
You could choose a theme and even ask for submissions. Keep it simple. Add a story and a scripture verse. Maybe put the hardest day or season, and what God taught them or what verses get submissions from all generations. Make sure you have different generations included. Ask the Sunday school teacher or parents to help their kids write a contribution. Ask parents too! I think you’ll be surprised and delighted with who shares and how much you learn about the people in your church.
Modern Day Recipe Book Of Favorite Comfort Foods
You could include a “when I’m sick, bring me…” portion. Include a story of the first time you had the dish, what memories it brings, or what you love about it. You can share all your favorite recipes! If you have a care team, keep the recipe book on hand. It would be a fantastic ministry tool.
Do Small Groups, Training, And Offer Classes
Educate your people on the truth about generational stereotypes, and why we all need each other.
Step 2: Make Connections
Hot Seat Panel Or Panel Interview
If you have an adult Sunday morning class, consider having the youth sit in on a panel, or consider having a panel of adults sit in for the youth. Run it like a talk show! The goal is curiosity and compassion, not judgment. Get intentional questions together ahead of time, and set it up well with the class or group! You can add fun questions too, but it’s important to develop some that are centered around compassion and empathy.
Intentionally Create Service Opportunities In Your Ministry Area For People Of Different Generations
Certain ministry areas often attract certain age groups. Consider ways you can mix it up and have fun with it. Maybe you could include grandpas in Sunday school projects, or have the younger children help in prayer ministry?
Interview/Highlight Different Church Members
You could include different generations’ interviews in the newsletter, or even put it on a bulletin board in the hallway. Instead of just thanking someone, consider including fun bits about their life, what their most challenging decade was, or something that no one knows about them!
Prayer Partners
When I’ve done this for youth mission trips, this is how I set it up. Remember the ‘making connections’ part of step 1? We are taking it a step further. We aren’t making people get together to pray, we are focusing on connections. By building curiosity and compassion, and asking the kinds of questions that make a huge difference, we are fostering true, genuine connections.
Step 3: Foster Conversations
It’s not about doing more things, but rather, getting more from what you’re already doing.
Be Intentional About Relational Connection At Church Events
When you’re gathered together, intentionally think of what you can do at the event to help bridge the generations. Maybe have a ‘Name That Tune’ sound-off with different songs of different generations! You could even involve people of different generations in choosing the songs, and maybe allow some sharing of what song was played at proms, or someone’s wedding, or even a graduation song.
One Final Reminder And A Word of Caution
One really important thing that you can do on your own, is change your speech. Don’t allow the sweeping statements of judgments or stereotypes to hang in your presence. Speak up for what you know to be true! This isn’t a time to be timid, meek, or to let things go. If you are in charge of a ministry area, make it your mission to bridge the gaps you see, and help others move toward curiosity and compassion.
I want to caution you. When you’re mixing generations, please be careful to help people feel safe. Be intentional about offering opportunities rather than forcing them. There are happy people and nice people in every generation. However, there are also angry people and scary people in every generation. Please don’t ever send a child/teen to talk to older adults alone.
So, whether you are ready to launch an all-out campaign to increase the amazing intergenerational ministry in your church, or you’re simply ready to challenge your own stereotype that you have held on to, just do something. Set your intention to make a change!
Read More:
How To Host A Care Basket Party
Keep Your Senior Adults Connected And Engaged In Church
Reaching More People With Less Effort – Small Church Ministry
