The Multi Generational Church

I wrote this article quite awhile ago. Most people seemed to misunderstand it or to say, "that sounds nice, but it is impossible to do." This article was received with skepticism by some, just as my own decision to home school was received with both curiosity and even condemnation, in the early 80's. I'm republishing it here to see if there are any of like mind on the subject of the multi-generational church.

We seem to understand the necessity of the multi-generational family, especially in regards to educating our children. We understand it when it comes to authority and when it comes to influence. We understand it when creating a family business. We know we need the young and the old to work together. Youth needs the benefit of the wisdom and sound judgement of the old, and the old need the vitality and ideas of the youth.

As the home school movement increases, churches are beginning to understand the importance of having families worship together rather than split people up into age groups or taking the children to children's worship.

This article will show you why I think that churches should encourage multi-generational attendance and belonging. It will show you how defeating it is when young people that the congregation and the families have invested in spiritually, and sometimes other ways, leave to go "somewhere better,", with programs that suit them, or to a place where there are mostly other people their age. It will show you that a church will stay alive and healthy when there are multi-aged groups involved in it.

The Multi-Generational Church

Parents and grown, married children and grandchildren, can benefit greatly by attending the same church. They need each other. The multi-generational lifestyle that includes the grandparents, children and grandchildren, is a great testimony of Christ's word, to the church and the world.

My husband recently preached a sermon to encourage the young people to put the church first, and to stay in the congregation where they had worshipped with their parents, to help the work of the Lord, rather than going somewhere else when they became adults. It is sad to see parents work so hard raising their children to become faithful, productive citizens in the Kingdom, only to see them leave the little congregation where they grew up, and go somewhere else, when in three-fourths of cases, with some effort, they could stay and contribute a lot to the church they grew up in.

One church in a certain town was known to complain that after all the time and effort they spent on helping their children grow up in the Lord, that the young people left the local church and went to a bigger place, leaving the church to become an old-folks congregation, without the help they needed. They felt the least they could have done is stay and pay their parents back, by helping keep the work alive. While this may sound like an unusual idea in this day and age of independent thinking, it is something worth serious consideration.

The New Testament mandates the older teaching the younger, in the local church, but if we separate churches into younger groups and older groups, it is very difficult to obey these scriptures. It is harder to teach the younger women if the younger women aren't there. Older people thrive on encouraging younger people, and if there aren't any, they remain silent, and do not use their skills and knowledge as they should. Many older women, for example, would love to teach the younger women, but there are none available in their congregation. When young people remove themselves from the local church, they remove the opportunity to interact together with multi-age groups, the way we were intended to function..

Now a grandmother, I look across the rows of people and see so many couples who used to have children sitting next to them, and wonder where their children are. Visitors who come may not realize that it was once a thriving church, full of people of all ages, working in harmony, and see only old people there. Without our grown children, and their children sitting in the congregation, no one sees the fruits of our labors in teaching the Christian life to our children in the home. No one sees the testimony of our lives in Christ, living through the next generation. Not realizing the opportunities that come with having old people in a church, young people move on where there are more younger couples to worship with.

Youth and age were meant to interact together. Without young couples in the church, old people do not function as well. Just as young people get discouraged when there aren't other young people around, old people feel sad, lonely, and hopeless without the presence of the young. I often look out over the assembly and see the old people that once had children sitting next to them, and wonder what happened to their grown children and grandchildren. They are never present except for the obligatgory Mothers Day or Fathers Day. This is a shame.

Often the younger congregations struggle from lack of sound leadership and counsel, and even financial strain, while the older groups have spiritual peace, sound teaching, and financial security. God designed young people to benefit from the stability of the older people, and that the older people could benefit from the vitalilty of the younger, in the church. When we separate into age groups, we all lose. The older and younger need to work together in the same congregation, to keep the Lord's work healthy and growing.

One church we worked for in a foreign country, was very small. The social climate of the particular country we lived in at the time, was very hostile to the gospel. The church had very little success in that country. They had great difficulty reaching the lost in that area, but they stayed faithful, and each family raised their children up to love the local church. Being a young couple ourselves, we grew discouraged, and moved somewhere else, but we kept in touch with these people. Now, over 30 years later, when we read their church bulletins, we have discovered something wonderful: they kept their children. And grandchildren. And great grandchildren. They could not seem to grow from without, so they grew from within.

The people we originally worshipped with were now great grandparents. They taught their children to marry other members of the church. It was so interesting to read the surnames of the people who were marrying or having babies. The children of the people in this little congregation, that so struggled to maintain its existence in a hostile country, had preferred to marry each other, and then raise their children in the Lord. When we lived there, we never thought the work would really grow and amount to much, and now, all these years later, there are so many of them, they have to have two services each Sunday morning. These strong, multi-generational families became evangelistic and won many souls to Christ in that area. They bring the new Christians into this varied congregation that is not separated according to age, and everyone benefits.

Married 33 years to a preacher, I've lived in many different places. Although I found the brethren kind, generous and loving, there was always something missing. I watched other families enjoy the blessings of the fellowship of their grandparents, great-grandparents, or children and grandchildren, all in the same congregation. I saw the strength that it gave these families, and the benefits it gave the rest of the church. When someone in the family, or a relative of theirs was baptised, they had good teachers they felt comfortable with, in the congregation, helping them to be faithful. There is less adjustment for them than for another new Christian who doesn't have relatives in the church. Seeing their grandparents and parents there, gives them a stability and reinforcement they need. New Christians who have no one in the church, often have many adjustment problems, but the ones who experienced the multi-generational church, have the comfort and encouragement of their own people.

In 1993, we moved to the congregation where my husband's parents, in failing health, still served. It didn't take us long to understand that we should have done it years ago. We thought we were needed elsewhere, or that we should have a better salary, or get away from from our home and achieve success in the church somewhere else. We came to realize that the greatest success for us was the triumph of seeing several generations of the same family converted to Christ and serving faithfully, upholding and encouraging each other. Our family immediately felt like we belonged. There was no breaking into the congregation--we were everyone's children, because this is where we had come from.

I particularly noticed how happy my own children were. Being around their grandparents daily was their joy, but they also thrived in the church, where we all attended together. Because it was a small group, and we were so needed, every single one of our children had a job to fulfill, and a place to serve. Our sons had to learn to teach, preach, and evangelize, and our daughter became proficient at teaching young girls, and showing hospitality. As teenagers, they were always available to help the local church.

Because of our children, the grandparents seemed to get a little more life and enthusiasm, and maybe this improved their mood, affecting their health, and extended their years. It had always been their dream that their children would locate in the same congregation, and raise their own children here, worshipping in the same pew with them and teaching the gospel together as a family team. There were many Sundays when our sons were leading singing or teaching, and my daughter and I were hosting someone after church in our home. When we were younger, we would have thought this was not progress, but we were made to see that the multi-generational church is the best progress.

I thought of the years and years of my husband's parents pleading and hoping that we would come home, and help them with the work of the Lord, even if we just built the attendance by the addition of 5 more people. Grandma always delighted in counting the attendance. She even counted the babies, in order to be able to put up a higher head count on the board. Having us attending the same congregation, was a source of great happiness for her. While she was alive, she watched the baptism of a young man who would eventually marry her granddaughter, in the same meeting house where she and her husband, my father in law, had worked for almost 30 years. My children have all told me how much their faith was helped by their attendance in the same place as their own parents and grandparents. It would be the realization of my own dream, to have my children, their spouses, and my grandchildren, all sitting together at worship services someday.

We noticed that our multi-generational family attracted other people, who wanted to duplicate this in their own lives. People were won to Christ from the world, partly because they were impressed with the strong family we represented. They, in turn, converted their own parents, or children. The family atmosphere in the church was very appealing.

In the many years we have been in Oregon, we have often been contacted by parents and grandparents from churches across the nation, to visit their children who moved, through job transfers, college, or marriage, to this area, and encourage them to be faithful to the assembly. In almost 100% of these cases, the relatives we visited, were very reluctant to attend, and not interested in the church at all. Yet, when they went back home on visits, the parents and grandparents reported that they attended church with them, as they always did. I'm not excusing neglect, but there is something to be said about the comfort of attending your home congregation.

Without the family (and I'm not just speaking of the nuclear family here: father, mother and children, but of the extended family), we are like coals taken out of the fire. We may burn for awhile, but not as hot. My husband and I spent a few years in foreign countries as missionaries. Even though we considered the church members our brothers and sisters, we've often remarked that we would have had a stronger feeling of confidence and well-being, if we had had the daily fellowship of our own parents, as well as the church.

When grandchildren see their grandparents in the same church, they understand better the importance of being faithful. They know there is stability in the Christian life, as they see the example of the older people. People outside of Christ will also see this living testimony of Christian lives of all ages.

In reality, there will always be members of families who must leave to other places to find work, or to spread the gospel. I am in no way suggesting that every single member of the family should stay in the church where they grew up, but I do think it is possible for more to stay, than now do. It would be nice if there was a better balance of young people staying.

Eventually I hope the church will catch up to the home school families and realize the benefits and strength of the multi-generational church.