Don't Fall Into the Gap

by T. Scott Daniels

For several decades, the church has followed the cultural norm in segregating generations for small groups, Sunday School, and ministry. This goes along with the cultural trend in education, media, and economics to become age specific. Not only schools, but also television programming, films, advertising, and stores are targeted at specific audiences-with younger generations usually viewed as more valuable than the older segment of the population. Following the culture's lead, the church has increasingly "marketed" itself in generation-specific ways.

The development of specialized children's and youth ministries has meant that most families in medium to large sized churches leave each other as soon as they walk through the church doors. Children and youth go to their specialized area of the church while the parents and grandparents head off to their age-focused Sunday school classes. Besides being found in the church, this generation gap is starting to separate one church from another.

The church growth movement that has brought many valuable tools to ministry has also brought the "homogenous principle," which says churches grow fastest if they are "marketed" or "targeted" toward a specific audience with a shared identity and common interests. It is a sociological rule, the church growth movement says, that like attracts like. Now, we see churches that focus on one generation. Church leadership seminars sometimes encourage leaders to place an "age cap" of 35 or 40 years old on church greeters and to limit the age of worship team members to those between 20 and 30. (I have even attended seminars that encouraged leaders to include in leadership only people with a specific, culturally attractive body-type.)

However, other church analysts and church leaders are seriously questioning age-specific ministries in at least two ways. First, rising evidence shows that ministries that are not intergenerational may not be as pragmatically valuable as they first seem. Recent studies by George Barna and Mark DeVries argue that the short-term gains received through age-specific ministries are not consistent over the long haul. Their separate studies indicate that young people raised in age-specific ministries often don't remain in the church after they become adults. Likewise, people who attend age-specific congregations tend to stop attending church altogether when they "outgrow" their current church.

On the other hand, those raised in intergenerational churches not only tend to stay in the church for life, but also tend to find leadership roles in the Body more quickly. Generation-specific ministries are also questionable from a biblical point of view. The apostle Paul declared, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). If those great boundaries are erased in Christ, shouldn't the boundary between the old and young also be eradicated? Are we really the Church only when we are with those who are already like us? Isn't the Church the place where people from diverse backgrounds learn to love each other in the Spirit's power? For these reasons, and several others, a rebirth is occurring with the idea of intergenerational or multigenerational ministries. Some denominations have created offices and curriculum designed specifically for intergenerational ministries.

From my office this week I saw John (85) coming to serve as a greeter, friend, and mentor to the children and their families in the kids' department. Mary (16) attends a weekly women's group with her table leader, Arlene (70), where the agenda this week was to help a single mother (24) with a crib, diapers, clothing, and love as she struggles to make it with her new baby. Karen (60) and Jerry (68) came to help Matt (27) learn to budget his finances. Danae (38) joins Willis (89) to spend time with some hospitalized and homebound members of the Body. For the first time in U.S. history, non-nuclear households outnumber nuclear families. All over the world, children and young adults need parents and grandparents in Christ. Intergenerational ministry isn't always easy. And going against cultural norms is difficult. But we are the Church, and we really do need each other.

T. Scott Daniels is senior pastor of Pasadena First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena, California.

Holiness Today, January/February 2007

 

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