Being an Intergenerational Church: Practices to Bring the Generations Back Together

By Suzi Farrant and Darren Philip

There is a growing realisation across mainstream churches that age-segregated models of connecting with children, young people and families are not working. Drawing on their extensive experience, Suzi Farrant and Darren Philip set out a vision for bringing the generations back together to become the intergenerational church we are designed to be. In conversation with the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, they develop a theological rationale for intentional intergenerational relationships of mutuality lived out within the core activities of the church. Through an exploration of the Christian practices of humility, hospitality, participation, discipleship, joy, worship, discernment and testimony, they call the church to re-discover its DNA as an all-age community of transformation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Saint Andrew Press
• Release date: Aug 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781800830387

Book preview

Being an Intergenerational Church

Being an Intergenerational Church

There has been much discussion about the need for intergenerational forms of ministry and ecclesiology.But amongst all the discussion there have been few books that have given this task the practical and theological depth it deserves. Until now.Being an Intergenerational Church provides pastors, parents, children’s ministers and youth workers with rich discussions and many practical handles on what it means, and even looks like, to be intergenerational. This book is timely and needed.

Dr Andrew Root

The Carrie Olson Baalson Professor of Youth and Family Ministry, Luther Seminary, USA

Resisting the current narrative heralding the demise of the church, Farrant and Philip winningly invite their readers into a new story, into a world of intergenerational church-communities where adults, youth and children are not only with one another again, but now are able to be for one another again.

Farrant and Philip support their intergenerational message with poignant stories, biblical insights and powerful connections with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s work. In the end, we come back to a basic truth: that God has designed us to be together as we mutually influence each other on our spiritual journeys. This beautiful book adds new weight to the growing library of books on intergenerational ministry.

Dr Holly Catterton Allen

Founder of the InterGenerate Conference, USA

Casting a compelling vision for a truly intergenerational church, Being an Intergenerational Church is an exciting addition to the growing canon of foundational intergenerational texts. With its call to be led by the Spirit into becoming more fully the church we theologically understand ourselves to be, with the counter-cultural challenge to pay more attention to our being the church rather than our doing of church, and with its confidence in the centrality of intergenerational relationships to our life together in ministry and mission, Being an Intergenerational Church has the potential to radically transform the experience of church for all ages.

Chris Barnett

Executive General Manager, Intergen, Australia

This splendid book provides a compelling hope-filled vision of becoming an intergenerational church established upon divine action and our becoming the people we have been called to be in Christ. Darren and Suzi invite us to dialogue with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to accept an invitation to participate in God’s story of church, and be disciples bound to one another by the love of Jesus Christ and led by the Holy Spirit to practice ministry and mission. We are encouraged to enter into a new narrative informed by the grace and power of God that is filled by faith, hope and love. I commend it wholeheartedly.

Revd Dr Ken Jeffrey

Senior Lecturer Modern Church History, Aberdeen University, Scotland

Australian theologian Alison Sampson said, ‘Our children and youth rarely leave the church because we never actually let them become part of the church. What they leave are the groups we corral them into.’ Church was never meant to separate the generations, but it feels as though we no longer know how to be a community of all ages. Farrant and Philip help us explore how the church can have a new story bringing generations together in life and worship, drawing on the work already ongoing in this area. Rooted in theology, grounded in reality and lived out in hospitality and welcome, Being an Intergenerational Church will help those starting the journey as well as those who are already travelling along the way.

Revd Mary Hawes

Children and Youth Ministry Specialist, England

Being an Intergenerational Church

Practices to Bring the Generations Back Together

Suzi Farrant and Darren Philip

SAP.jpg

First published in 2023 by

SAINT ANDREW PRESS

121 George Street

Edinburgh EH2 4YN

Copyright © Suzi Farrant and Darren Philip 2023

ISBN 978-1-80083-036-3

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent.

The right of Suzi Farrant and Darren Philip to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

It is the publisher’s policy to only use papers that are natural and recyclable and that have been manufactured from timber grown in renewable, properly managed forests. All of the manufacturing processes of the papers are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

Typeset by Regent Typesetting

Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword: Hope for the Church

Introduction: Preparing to Set Out

Part 1: Intentionality: From ‘Adults’ and ‘Children’ to Intergenerational Church-community

1. Church-community

2. Humility

3. Hospitality

Part 2: Mutuality: From ‘Teachers’ and ‘Learners’ to Intergenerational Disciples

4. Place-sharing and the Place of Power

5. Participation

6. Discipleship

Part 3: Core Church Activities: From ‘Worship’ and ‘Learning’ to Intergenerational Life Together

7. Life Together

8. Joy

9. Worship

Part 4: Living it Out: From ‘Tradition’ Versus ‘Innovation’ to Intergenerational Transformation

10. Transformation

11. Discernment

12. Testimony

Epilogue

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

This book has its roots in research we each undertook at the University of Aberdeen under the supervision of Revd Dr Ken Jeffrey, without whose encouragement that we had something worth publishing we would never have embarked on this project. Thanks must also go to our Team Leaders, Lesley Hamilton-Messer and Pauline Wilson, who provided more support than we could have ever hoped for and created the time and space for us to research and write, and to Christine Smith and her team at Saint Andrew Press who guided these two rookie authors through the publication process.

We are grateful to Michelle Brown, Sue Brown, Revd Fiona Fidgin, Very Revd Dr Lorna Hood, Revd Dr Ken Jeffrey, Rosy Nixon and John Weir, who read each chapter as it was written and offered their wise counsel. The text has been much improved by their suggestions, and any deficiencies that remain are entirely ours.

Finally, we would like to place on record our thanks to the great cloud of witnesses who make up the congregations, colleagues and companions with whom we have worshipped and wondered throughout our lives. Thank you for being our place-sharers.

Foreword: Hope for the Church

The Christian faith is filled with stories. From the very first verse of Genesis, our Scriptures are packed with the stories of God and God’s people. Jesus proclaimed his kingdom by telling stories. The first Christian communities were founded because stories were shared among people. Lives are still transformed today when people share their stories. Stories matter. Stories help us to understand ourselves, the world and our place in it. More than a means of conveying ideas or history, stories are things of great power, for the stories we tell ourselves ultimately shape who we become.

This book is concerned with the story today’s church tells itself. All too easily, the church falls into telling itself a story of scarcity and decline. Shrinking numbers of worshippers, decreasing finances, ageing membership, few people coming forward for ordination, and seemingly endless rounds of denominational restructuring feed this narrative. There is no denying that the church is in a really difficult place right now: one trauma is hard enough for a congregation or denomination to deal with and work through, never mind cumulative traumas which can feel paralysing. Added to this, the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 exacerbated the decline and left individuals, congregations and denominations sapped of what little energy and resilience they had left. That these things have become the church’s story is understandable, but this story of scarcity does not tally with the God of abundance whom we follow.

As ancient Israel learned the story of a God who provided water from rock, manna and quails in the desert and a fiery pillar to guide during the darkest of nights, so the church today can affirm its belief in a God who brings us through suffering into joy; a God of life, not death; a God of hope, not despair; a God of power and grace. Recognising a God of love who longs to lead the people of God, the Body of Christ, the church, into the new heavens and new earth, leads us to see that God is calling the church into a new story: a story focused on and filled with faith, hope and love. This book is an invitation into that new story, an opportunity to shake off all that hinders and to be no longer beholden to the narrative of decline. To journey into a new story takes courage and boldness, but we do not need to fear for we undertake the journey together, in prayer, through the power of God.

The Church’s New Story

We believe that God is calling us to be an intergenerational church; a church that ‘intentionally brings the generations together in mutual serving, sharing or learning within [their] core activities … in order to live out being the Body of Christ to each other and the greater community’.¹ Being intergenerational is part of the core of what it is to be church: it is in the DNA of the church. (When activities are segregated according to age, the church becomes other than God designed it to be and we end up with a genetically modified church!) The church’s new story is a recovery of that DNA and lies in rediscovering what it means to be an intergenerational church sharing life together. But what could this new intergenerational church story look like?

We believe that God is calling us to be a church led by the Spirit; a church that is not fixated on saving the institution, but is focused on transformation. Saving the institution leads to an over-reliance on innovation and change – not bad things in and of themselves, but which emphasise human-led actions. As people of God, we should be focused on divine action in our lives and the world, for it is only God that can transform us. We have a part to play in that transformation through our choices and actions, but our eyes should be fixed on God rather than ourselves. When we humble ourselves and focus on God’s action, we become expectant to see God transform lives and communities, we pay more attention to being the church rather than needing to save it, and we become less inclined to limit the tasks of ministry to a select group of people. There is no ‘junior’ Holy Spirit, or a specified age at which the Holy Spirit becomes available or known to us. There are no exams we need to pass in order for the Spirit to work in and through us, rather the Spirit is freely, graciously and abundantly given. In the church’s new story, everyone – no matter their age – is empowered and led by the Spirit and so people and communities are transformed by the love of God. It’s an exciting story, filled with faith, hope and love.

We believe that God is calling us to be a church in unity; a church based on our theological understanding of who we are in Christ, rather than on institutional heritage and the things that divide us. Since the Reformation, the tendency has been that disagreements in how to ‘do’ church result in groups splitting, resulting in the vast array of denominations and expressions of church in existence across the world. Such divisions are also evident within congregations where, in a bid to make everyone happy, we have created numerous different programmes, all for slightly different groups of people. Inevitably, hierarchy has been established such that some groups and the people they are designed for are seen as more important than others; some are in the centre of church life, while others, often including children and youth ministry, exist on the edges and are marginalised. It must break God’s heart to see the body torn into so many parts, with some seen as more important and worthier than others. Rethinking its story offers the church the opportunity to reconcile, to come together, to focus on what makes us whole rather than on our differences, recognising that unity does not mean uniformity. The church’s new story is one of unique individuals united in Christ, where difference is celebrated and embraced for the new insights it brings us of God. In this new story, children and young people are loved and included for who they are, placed firmly at the centre not relegated to the margins.

We believe that God is calling us to be a church of disciples; a church where everyone, particularly children and young people, is embraced as both disciple and disciple-maker. In this new story, children and young people are not seen only as being the church of the future, but are embraced as the church of today. Being a disciple involves an intricate web of being discipled oneself while also discipling others, so the potential for children and young people to be teachers as well as learners needs to be realised. Recognising that no matter our age we are co-disciples, intergenerational worship and discipleship should be the default within church life, rather than reserved for special occasions. As a church of disciples, we should yearn to be together as much as possible, recognising the unique gifts, talents, and insights brought by each of us, and that we are weaker when some people are excluded. No longer will we put all our efforts into making sure our children and young people learn how to be the church we want them to be in the future, rather we will listen to their prophetic voice and enable them to play their part in leading us into the new story to which God calls.

We believe that God is calling us to be a relational church; a church where the focus is on enabling and curating relationships, especially across the generations, rather than running a series of programmes. Christ is found in the midst of relationships as we give of ourselves, as we love one another as Christ has loved us. Programmes can play a part in bringing people together in the first place, but they are merely tools for doing so – the church should place its emphasis on the deepening of these relationships rather than on the programmes themselves. Simply having a time for tea and coffee after a service is not enough to forge the deep relationships that God calls us into. Moreover, being relational is not just about forging relationships with peers, or with people who have the same interests – relationships should also be built across difference and, in particular, across the generations. It is in relationship (with one another and with God) that we are formed, that we become more like Jesus. Those relationships need to be self-giving rather than self-serving. In the church’s new story, relationships will never be used as means to an end, as a way to influence people, but recognised as revelatory, as a place where Christ is encountered. In this new story, relationships are intentionally curated across difference and throughout the week, so that everyone, no matter their age, encounters Christ through being in communion with each other.

We believe that God is calling us to be an experiential church; a church where the emphasis for those of all ages is on encountering God rather than learning about God. For too long activities have been separated so that children and young people learn about faith while adults worship. Everyone has been missing out on something: children and young people have been missing out on worship, while adults have been missing out on learning. Even then, worship has been heavily reliant on the model of being minister-led, such that the congregation are passive recipients in the pews. Everyone is called to participate in Christ; we are called to live out being the priesthood of all believers through engaging in Christian practices including humility, hospitality, prayer, engaging with Scripture, joy, worship, discernment and testimony. In the church’s new story, everyone, children and young people included, will be equipped with the tools to read and wrestle with Scripture for themselves, recognising that all (not just those with theological training) have wisdom and insight to share. No longer will people be excluded from participating in certain aspects of church life because of their age, but rather are wholeheartedly included, especially when it comes to celebrating the sacrament of Holy Communion. This new story involves engaging together in ancient Christian practices in fresh ways, so that all ages are able to encounter and experience God.

We believe that God is calling us to be a prophetic church; a church where all ages speak truth to power, act to bring about God’s kingdom on earth, and share God’s Word with the world. There is no denying that our world needs God, that our communities need God, that we need God. Our world is full of suffering and injustice – poverty, war, racism, gender-based violence, abuse, bullying, food scarcity, homelessness, disease, effects of climate change, drug and alcohol addictions, crime, and homophobia, to name but a few. Into this world and empowered by the Spirit, the church has a message of hope to share, the hope of the gospel. This means knowing God’s heart, calling out injustice, speaking truth to power, challenging structures, speaking out on behalf of those who are unable to, and actively working to bring about God’s kingdom here on earth. This is a task not just for a few but for the whole church and that means it is something for all generations to be involved in together. The church’s new story is to live together in a way that makes no sense without the gospel: refusing to sit idly by watching as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, not being content to think we are powerless to change our political landscape or the structures that enable injustice to continue, heeding the cries of our young people for action around climate change and tolerance for all. The church’s story needs to be authentic to the call of God on our lives, working to usher in God’s kingdom here and now, speaking and acting together in the power of the Spirit.

We believe that God is calling us to be a missional church; a church discerning and participating in God’s mission in the local community and the world. Focusing beyond the walls of the church will lead to engagement with culture in fresh ways so that everyone of every age has an opportunity to encounter Jesus through the words and actions of the church. In this new story, the church will not expect people to come to it and to fit in with established ways of being, but will be incarnational and engage with people where they are, allowing expressions of church to be shaped together in the process. No longer will adults expect children and young people to invite their friends to church activities without modelling how they are sharing faith with others too. The church’s new story requires a culture of sharing faith with each other across the generations, and with those in our communities. This means no longer seeing ministry with children and young people as a church growth strategy, or being missional as simply a way to extend the life of the institution. Rather, ministry and mission will be seen as theological tasks to be undertaken because we are called to them by God. The church’s new story perhaps isn’t that new after all: to love the world as Christ has first loved us, to share our faith and enable our communities to encounter Jesus.

We believe this new intergenerational church story is exciting and filled with faith, hope and love. We do not need to be afraid as we enter into it, for we will be led by God and enabled through the power of the Spirit. It will, however, take courage and sacrifice and