Introduction
Some of our team recently returned from the Intergenerate Conference in Wilmore, Kentucky. We loved this gathering of scholars and practitioners who care deeply about helping the church reclaim the value of all-ages participation in worship and the life of the church. The conversation around intergenerational ministry is fairly young, and that’s because it’s a corrective to modern cultural influences that have led to increasing age-segregation in the church. While developmental psychology and educational frameworks are extremely helpful and beneficial to understanding how people grow, change, and learn, the people of God have always been a people of all ages. The Intergenerational movement seeks to reclaim this value in the church today. At the Center for Faith and Children, we want to elevate and incorporate the voices, perspectives, and needs of children in this conversation and explore the value of intergenerationality from the lens of children’s spirituality.
What does Intergenerational Worship Generally Mean?
- Intergenerational worship looks different in different contexts.
- Intergenerational congregations typically have a high priority for people of all ages worshipping, learning, and serving together, at least some of the time.
- At the Intergenerate Conference, Christian Educator John Roberto suggests intergenerational community may be one of the most profound gifts the church in the USA has to offer today.
Proponents of Intergenerational ministry often highlight the importance of people of multiple ages engaging in “mutual serving, sharing, or learning within the core practices of the church in order to live out being the body of Christ…” (Allen and Ross 2023, 18). Intergenerational ministry is not a program but a value that shapes how a church worships, learns, and serves together. As such, it looks different in different congregations depending on geographic, socioeconomic, and denominational context. Similarities between these congregations do exist, however, and at the most recent conference, longtime Christian Educator John Roberto suggested that intergenerationality may be one of the greatest gifts the church has to give to modern American society today. Our team was inspired as John Roberto shared his vision for how the church’s willingness to engage across generational divides could be a testimony to the love of God and a healing experience for many today.
CFC’s vision for Intergenerational Worship
- CFC believes that intergenerational worship is most powerful when it creates space for children to make meaningful contributions to the church’s life together.
- Churches must carefully consider how to listen to children’s voices in a way that honors them and also protects their dignity and agency.
At the Center for Faith and Children, while our value for Intergenerational Worship is deep, we strongly believe that every church will contextualize this value differently. Churches must make space to provide for and accommodate the developmental strengths and needs of children while also creating space for children to worship alongside and make authentic contributions to the life of the community. Having the opportunity to engage in the practices of the church and the experience of belonging among the people of God are crucial to early faith formation. Because we believe that children are whole people with something to offer the church, we believe that everyone benefits when a church makes room to worship with children. These values are rooted in the belief that God’s kingdom belongs to children and that children have something to offer the church by their very nature and way of being, and that we cannot become like children unless we spend time with children. This value of children, their way of being in the world, and a deep commitment to honor and uphold children’s dignity means that we want to equip and encourage churches to engage in intergenerational worship in a way that is aware of children’s developmental needs, protects their dignity and agency.
Why Maintaining the Child’s Perspective in Intergenerational Worship Matters
- Churches with different worship styles and cultures will express their value of children and intergenerationality differently.
- Leadership beyond children’s ministers must consider what honoring children and their contributions looks like in their specific context.
Such a value of intergenerational worship, tempered by the realistic contextual concerns of worshiping in our world today, helps a church to embrace and honor children while also making room for them in our corporate worship times. This value does not result in a specific model of ministry, but will result in ministries that affirm the value, dignity, and contribution of children. Children are different from adults, and they do need different things for their faith to grow. They also contribute different things to the life of a congregation that are missing when they are not there. Churches that wish to engage and include children in intergenerational worship, learning, or service must be places where children are able to share their perspective and voice, make meaningful contributions to the church’s life together, and remain safe as they do so. Adults in these contexts must become educated on how children experience the world, how they grow spiritually, and they must commit to creating spaces where children can discover, use, and grow their God-given gifts, whatever they may be, in service of God’s kingdom.
Embracing Children in Intergenerational Worship
We are thrilled about the conversations around intergenerational worship, and we want to continue to encourage that they uphold and uplift children as important contributors to the life of the church, but we want to caution that children’s special ways of relating to God are not flattened or marginalized. One main reason for intergenerationality is that we value and believe God has a purpose in creating people with differences. The impulse to flatten our differences and make everything for everyone is not the same as voluntarily choosing to embrace differences and give up some of our preferences for the sake of the other, and be formed by that experience. Again, this will look different in every church context, but the invitation is there to be genuinely formed and shaped by interacting with people across whatever societal barriers exist in your congregation. If you’d like to read more about the various forms of worship that honor and include all ages, you can check out our series on engaging kids in worship!