I just finished reading a great article by Carol Howard Merritt (Read her book!) where she talks about her experience pastoring a church of people who she believes she would naturally be friends with if – let’s say – she met them on the street. In that article she also talks about a previous pastoral appointment where she was nearly 30 years younger than everyone at the church. The dynamics that she described in that portion of her piece are very familiar to me.
For I share that testimony today that I am as pastor more than 30 years younger than the next person in leadership at the church that I serve. I’m a young husband and new father with endless energy and wide eyes for the future who has never known a world without modern technology. However, most in leadership at the church I serve are 60 or older, retired – or about to retire, extensive travelers, and technological neophytes. (Some of them don’t own a computer and don’t want one!)
So these past 16 months have been a time of great exploration, joy, discovery, and frustration. In most cases, these are not people who I would naturally walk up on the street and befriend. The same could probably be said from their perspective looking at me. In many of their eyes, I would imagine I’m the “boy pastor” who is closer in age to their grandchildren.
No doubt there have been times of friction as we struggle to speak each other’s language and understand each other’s worldview. I’ve moved some times at such a pace that it’s caused some of those in the congregation to stumble along and fall by the wayside. And sometimes the cantankerous nature of some of the “seasoned saints” has pushed me to wonder how people who’ve walked with Jesus for so long can be so mean.
That notwithstanding, I’ve enjoyed the journey of building this relationship and while we have much more walking together to do, I’m encouraged by the example of Jesus who was one who tended to attract people who wouldn’t naturally share space – bringing together revolutionary zealots and tax collectors, pharisees and prostitutes, the convicted and the convinced. The Gospel of Jesus Christ isn’t a story of homogeneity. It’s a story of radical diversity within community.
In a day where it’s common for churches to follow the pattern of the world and segment their congregations based on age, there’s a different kind of blessing emerging at our church – the blessing of being together and humbly learning from each other. I believe that this blessing is an important one to experience in this time where congregations across the United States are experiencing a disconnect between elders and young adults and youth.
We’re about to start some intergenerational small groups at our church focused around a book that I received over this past weekend and have not been able to put down. It’s called The Leadership Jump: Building Partnerships Between Existing and Emerging Christian Leaders by Jimmy Long. I’ll probably also be prayerful about sermonic presentations that would support the forging of relationships, partnerships, and creation of a culture of holistic hospitality.
As we’re going through this journey at our church, I’d be interested to hear what’s going on where you are in terms of intergenerational experiences.
Stay tuned…I sense some amazing chapters ahead.
Related posts:
- Never Ever Go To Church Again I was blessed to be invited to present a workshop...
- Live From Revival In The Bible Belt: Night 5 Back at the homefront hoping that revival continues in me....
- An Open Letter To Youth at Urban Reload: A Youth Ministry Conference This past Saturday, I was invited to be the keynote...
- Mt. Olive Freewill Baptist Church rebuilding after devastating blaze About a year ago, I received calls at work on...
- Why America Needs the Uncensored Prophetic Voice of the Black Church (by Adam Taylor) Hat Tip: God’s Politics The media frenzy over the remarks...
Thank you for this post. I can join with you around the experience of age. As I become more involved in my church I notice the age difference in leadership and the younger church members and there is a huge communication issue. Generation Xers and Baby Boomers speak a different language than those who are younger. We constantly have an issue of being told what to do or what one should do instead of having a guide we get enforcers and it doesn't work.
Older generations are going to have reconcile the fact that they are an important part of the church, but the church is moving in a new and different direction and that young people are not there to take over, but to update the church experience, because the youth and the young are the future of the church and without the youth/young THERE IS NO CHURCH PERIOD.