This is a ministry conversation geared towards the idea of multi-generational church. I want to define what this idea represents and add some thoughts to the conversation.
A multi-generational church is one that facilitates discipleship and evangelism for a wide range of ages or generations.
Many and most churches across the United States and around the World are by this definition multi-generational churches, the question is not do they exist or how can we make them exist. The question is how do we facilitate multi-generational growth within the local church?
I have visited a number of churches and have friends who work all over the country in different churches, and there are as many approaches to this idea as there are churches. The beauty of the local church is that it is not a formula and it is not reproduced through a cloning philosophy. Each congregation is full of individual people, with diverse backgrounds, DNA’s, races, passions, styles, ages, and all of these things play into how a church or congregation structures their approach to ministry.
There is one thing I have noticed in many of the churches I have visited and have relationship with that worries me. It is a trend that I believe we have to reverse if we are going to see sustained growth across generational lines.
The trend is that each generation tends to stick to itself with limited interaction with the others represented.
Somehow we have created a mentality that allows us to pass off our responsibility to invest in one another.
“Oh I don’t need to serve in Junior High ministry, they have a cool, hip, young pastor, and I am too old, not cool, a parent, etc.”
“Oh the college ministry doesn’t need me. They have their own service and they don’t want to spend time with me…”
“Oh I don’t need to go to weekend services, it is for older people, they won’t accept me…”
There isn’t a generation that gets off the hook except for maybe those under the age of 12. I see it in every age I interact with.
Our response to discipleship has become “We will hire a Pastor/Director/Leader to do that” and then silently we wash our hands of a generation and go back to interacting with our own age group, because lets be honest it is “easier.”
I am about to say something that is challenging and my heart is one of love behind it:
Most people discipling the younger generations are young.
What we are saying is that our greatest answer, our best solution to raising up young people to love Jesus and endure through difficulties as local churches is to find someone a few years down the road, maybe a degree, maybe internship experience and let them be the only discipleship our young people get maybe an hour or two a week. If we want a church full of every generation that is going to create life-long disciples, we have got to reevaluate our approach! It requires parents, grandparents, pastors, aunts, uncles, and friends all working together to disciple one another on a daily basis!
The 40 yr. old youth pastors are missing in America. The 50 year old children’s pastors are missing. The 65 yr old youth small group leaders are missing.
I love my job. I have friends who are young who love their jobs, and are amazing at them. But we as the local church must engage with each generation, our young people (15-50) need to see old people who love Jesus and who have walked with him for a lifetime. They need to know they can make it and stay faithful to Jesus for 60, 70, 80 years. Our Old people (50-80) need to be challenged to rethink how we do church in order to reach the current generation.
We need each other. Our solution to the multigenerational church has got to be one that brings every age to the table and allows and encourages each generation to learn from, lead, and invest into one another.
It is messy. It is essential.
-JD Small
“How do you engage and minister to a multi-generational church?"
A multi-generational church is not a foreign concept. It isn’t a new, novel idea and it isn't impossible.
Looking through the gospels, we see Jesus spending time with business people, teenagers, children, parents, elderly, babies, and just about every other person and age imaginable.
Ministry is a public overflow of our private lives.
In order for us to engage and minister to multi-generations in public, we must be engaging and living with multi-generations in private. We constantly talk about having a multi-generational church, while our lives are lived primarily with people around our same age.
Often times we assume that by having cool lights, great sound systems, and innovative ideas, that we’ll "reach the generations". Lights, sound, and ideas aren’t what will attract people of different ages. A life lived with Jesus and with generations reaches generations.
If you aren’t living in close community with people of different generations, don’t expect to have a congregation filled with different generations. You ought to have a good friend 10 years younger than you and 10 years older than you.
Ministry is no more complicated than a private life made public. Once we commit to living a private life multi-generationally, we will have a public ministry that is multi-generational.
-Zach Spector
“What does multi-generational church look like to you?”
I think a multi-generational church looks like 4 generations of believers celebrating the Kingdom of God together.
I know that there’s a necessity for children’s church. And as a youth pastor I see a huge value for teenage specific ministry. But having a multi-generational church is having a system and a value for all the generations (toddler to senior citizens) adding value to each other.
It’s important that the 50’s+ connection group still gets to build community together with people in the same stage of life, but the thing I love most is when I see grandparents volunteering with the children (this week I saw a grandpa be a group leader at VBS and he rocked-it).
A good multi-generational church champions those types of situations.
The youth ministry doesn’t just need college aged “older brothers/sisters” to lead them—they also need parents and grandparents (they say, “it takes a village”).
Similarly, the children aren’t incapable of pouring into others. Jesus talks about how we have to receive the Kingdom of God like a child (Luke 18:7). It’s awesome when the children pray over the adults. We’ve seen God move a number of times when children pray at our healing rooms.
I think it’s this type of “everyone adds value” mentality. And it’s less of the division and segregation that comes from traditional age-specific ministries.
I believe that God is doing a new thing and that churches are called to break down the “ministry silo’s” and help the young learn from the wise, and the passion of the young ignite the hearts of the old.
- Andrew Nemeth
“What does multi-generational church look like to you?”
Let's first identify the problem. The trend of a lot of churches for the past twenty years has been to cater to certain demographics offering a traditional service and a contemporary service. Some churches offer an even greater smorgasbord of services aimed at reaching anyone and everyone.
I have yet to hear of a success story of this model actually working, most of what I hear is trial and failure.
So if the problem is segregation, then the answer is integration.
Would it surprise to know that Millenials want a more traditional, quieter, and relaxed service according to a recent Barna study? What do your older generations want from your services? Perhaps more traditional and I know they're always asking someone to, "turn the sound down." So that leaves you with intentionality.
Are your services geared towards you? Are you trying to sell youth like modern advertising?Are you trying to sell cool? Are you just catering to a younger generation and telling the older generations to just deal with it?
There is a better way.
A friend of mine, Ross Parsley, wrote a book called, "Messy Church." In it he describes the importance of the family worship table. When it comes to dinner we don't create an old person table, a young married table, and a youth table. All sit at the table together and there's mess involved.
The older generations are there to teach, share, uphold the traditional tenants of faith, and be energized. The younger generations are there to share their energy, learn, and challenge the status quo.
All of which causes tension, conflict, excitement, messiness, and growth. Thus we must be intentional to integrate by giving and taking from each generation and finding the appropriate balance that works in your community.
Pride says we don't need each other, humility asks us to be patiently committed to learning from one-another.
- Justin Steinhart
Multi-generational ministry is hard. It is not impossible, but it is not easy either.
In order to have a ministry that is multi-generational you must have a strong, clear vision that can be articulated to each generation. Multi-generational ministry is not about having a music style or service experience that appeals to each and every generation.
It is about having a vision that appeals to each and every generation.
In any group of people that spans generations, someone, if not everyone, has to let go of their personal preferences. People will be willing to let go of their personal preferences if they understand why they need to do so, which only happens through vision.
Churches and ministries put so much effort into "what we want to look like, what we want to do, what is working in other places” instead of "who we want to reach”. Let’s begin with who we want to reach and then build the church around that community, city, neighborhood or people group. Once we are focussed on who we want to reach and we are able to articulate how we are going to do that, Then we can cast that vision to any generation.