For five years I was the Collegiate Ministries Pastor at Elmbrook Church. In my work area (affectionately known as the West Wing) also resided the Middle School Pastor and the Senior High Pastor. Across the building, there was the 20-Somethings Pastor and the Children’s Pastor. We also had a 30-Somethings ministry for awhile, not to mention the Seniors Ministry Pastor and those who gave attention to Middle Adults.
Dividing up people into age segments is natural and helpful in a lot of ways. It has become the standard way to focus in on the specific needs of certain groups of people, while also insuring that the entire group is taken care of.
Large churches are not the only churches to do this sort of thing. Smaller churches tend to do the same thing, although they have less staff power behind more specific endeavors.
However, in recent years, there has been a lot of questioning of this age segmentation within the church. The word ‘intergenerational’ has become a popular buzz-word in ministry settings, particularly in student or youth ministry settings. The reaction to age segmented ministry has arisen in large part due to recent studies that show that many students simply abandon their faith during their college years and never come back, not even when they have kids. You can see this sort of research from the Barna Group, as well as in the work of sociologists of religion like Christian Smith in his book Soul Searching and the National Study of Youth and Religion.
Leadership interviewed Kara Powell, a researcher on these topics, in their most recent issue and you can read the interview online here. I appreciated this article because Powell does not offer trite answers on this topic, but does dig deep into how this should impact church structures, student ministry, senior pastoral leadership, as well as the family and parents’ role in the discipleship of children and students.
With 50 to 70% of students who were actively involved in church student ministries leaving the faith in their early twenties, we need to give careful attention to what we are doing as a whole church to develop a family of faith.
Discover more from Matthew Erickson
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Matthew Erickson 
I think this questioning is a good thing. In Africa we say ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ – everybody has a roll to play regardless of age, context or gender.
Children must know that are connected to an family identity and cultural fabric that is bigger than they are. This is reassuring for the younger generation.
Adults must know that the children will take on this fabric and change it to suit themselves, their times and their context. This is fulfilling for the older generation.
Steve, thank you for the thoughtful cross-cultural perspective on this. While we will give tacit agreement to such a statement in the States, we often would rather find specialists – whether teachers, youth pastors, or seniors ministry pastors – to focus on people in other areas of life.
I particularly like your statements that children must know they are connected to something bigger (reassuring for them) and adults give space for the development of the children (fulfilling for them).
How can a church community best give shape to this in a culture that has largely lost its sense of family and community?
Titus 2:1-9 speaks pretty plainly about the relationship between older women and younger women. I think we often lose sight of the wisdom the various generations bring to the whole body of the church.
Good point, Scott. I agree that we often lose sight of the value of one generation working with another. Paul seemed to get that in his pastoral writings, both to Titus and to Timothy.
“The Connecting Church” by Randy Frazee really informed our former church’s small group ministry – we formed groups geographically instead of demographically, and the relationships in our group in particular were so much richer for it. I hate the programmed pigeon-holing so prevalent in most churches – I’m more than a 30something/young parent, and I want to meet people who can encourage me from further down the path, not just alongside me on the journey.
That’s a great book, Heidi! I really enjoyed both “The Connecting Church” and Randy’s follow-up book, “Making Room for Life.”
Entire churches are often segmented by age as well. I recently attended a traditional church where the average age was probably 60, with very few young people. I’m currently participating in a church plant focusing on 20 and 30 somethings, and grey hairs are hard to come by.
I think members of both congregations would greatly benefit from dialogue with the other, but there are many preconceived ideas and prejudices that need to be overcome for that to happen.
That’s an interesting situation, Kevin.
It’s been fun for me to switch from working only with college students to working in a multi-generational setting. Yesterday I had coffee with a twenty-something and then visited a retired gentleman in the hospital.
I completely agree that there are “many preconceived ideas and prejudices that need to be overcome” for dialogue to happen. That can be in different churches – as with your situation – or within the same church setting.
The question I think we need to continue to wrestle with is how we can even get to the table to begin and continue the conversation.
When I was at Elmbrook, I was impressed with some from our twenty-something group (sort of like a church within a church) who regularly met with our seniors over lunch for prayer. It was a glimmer of hope for me in a highly age-segmented setting.
I think intergenerational is the ideal – the best benefits are on this side.
My pragmatic side often conflicts with ideals however, and this issue is case and point. Forming and developing relationships is difficult enough in western culture that most are looking for inherited ties to work off of – an assumed connection based on demographic similarity.
Long-haul commitments could do a lot with intergenerational ministries, but I think we destined to fall back on segmentation.
Brian,
I understand your conflict between the ideal and the pragmatic. Because of our transience and relational deficiencies in the the States, people look for the natural points of connection. For an example of the sociological reality of this, see my earlier post “Close Friends”: http://wp.me/pf93W-87.
I think my point of internal conflict is at this point: when do we decide to drop the pragmatic for the ideal because of a longer-term and larger-impact value?
Are we sacrificing something long-term for our lives and as God’s “family” – the church – by giving in to short-term, pragmatic gains?
I do not know the answer to these questions, but continue to wrestle with them.