Building a Multigenerational Church Community

Many church growth strategies recognize that most people prefer to be part of an organization where the other members are just like them. This means churches that want to reach a specific demographic should cater to those people’s interests, needs, and preferences. A church that wants to reach college students and other young people will need to adopt a style of music, dress, and communication that appeals to those in that age range. A congregation that wishes to attract young families will want to invest in excellent childcare, convenient parking, and plentiful room for nursing and changing diapers. The logic is easy to understand: if I come to a church and see that it has carefully calibrated everything to my preferences and all the other people around me are the kinds of people I like to spend time with, I am much more likely to stay. 

However, the problem with that approach to church is that the Bible seems to assume that the community of God’s people will consist of people from multiple generations. Time and time again in Scripture, we see the church as a place where people who are not like one another will come together in Christ (e.g., Ephesians 2:11-22). And so we need multiple generations in our churches. After all, God’s plan to rescue a people for himself has played out over the centuries and millennia, and it does not seem that he intends to start from scratch in every age. No one can automatically inherit a relationship with the Lord from their parents (as the saying goes, God has no grandchildren); instead, God expects the church to pass down His knowledge and ways to the next generation. 

Passing Knowledge to the Next Generation

The Bible makes this point in many different places, but for the sake of brevity, let’s mention a few:

• In Psalm 145, David praises the Lord: “One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts” (Psalm 145:4).
•  In his letter to Titus, the apostle Paul instructs older women to train and instruct younger women: “Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled” (Titus 2:3-5).
• In another letter, Paul appeals to Timothy to remember those who taught him the Bible from his youth: “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (II Timothy 3:14–15).

The truth of the gospel and the Christian way of life do not magically transfer from generation to generation. Instead, older saints must teach them patiently and persistently to young believers. While this will happen in the context of the home (Ephesians 6:4), it is not work that can be limited to the family. After all, not every young person has believing parents who can teach them about the Lord, and no single family has the variety of spiritual gifts and gifted teachers that characterize the church. 

However, care and love in the church do not just flow from the older generations to the younger ones. In Acts 6, we see the church provided for the needs of widows; presumably, the working-age people made this possible by giving generously to care for vulnerable older women. And in 1 Timothy, Paul instructs a young man to treat older believers with respect and honor (1 Timothy 5:1-3). This means that churches should be multi-generational – with elderly people, middle-agers, young families, young singles, and children knowing one another, being involved in each other’s lives, providing for the needs of others, and gathering for worship together.    

Some challenges prevent many churches from realizing this goal, however. Our life patterns in the wider world do not bring us many opportunities to spend time with people who are significantly older or younger than us. Most children do not live with (or even near) their grandparents, and the pace of a typical school day means kids spend most of their time with their peers. To make matters worse, the media carefully sells itself to specific niche markets, encouraging older people to be suspicious of how the world is changing and tempting younger people to assume that older generations are hopelessly out of touch.

What Can a Pastor Do?

But there are things that pastors can do to encourage a multi-generational dynamic in their congregations. Here are a few suggestions:

• Think carefully about how to apply sermons to people in all different stages of life. If young people hear the pastor speaking about the challenges and difficulties of aging, they will be better able to understand and sympathize with the struggles of their elders.
• Create opportunities for generations to spend time together and communicate with one another. While it’s fine to have some classes and activities divided by life stage, make sure the normal rhythms of your congregation’s life (e.g., fellowship meals, small groups, prayer meetings, etc.) allow members to spend time with those different from them. In our church, we devote one Sunday evening a month to hearing from people in different situations (e.g., retirees, mothers of young children, teenagers, or those with chronic health problems). This allows us to know and understand brothers and sisters whose daily lives are unlike ours. It also allows us to pray and care for one another across the “generation gap.”
• Sing old and new songs in corporate worship. Perhaps nowhere in the church is the disconnect between the young and old felt more keenly than in the realm of music. Young people (it is said) prefer upbeat and contemporary songs, while older people want the old standard hymns. In our church, we try to ensure that we incorporate some of the wonderful new music being written while not neglecting the older hymns the church has cherished. This means that we occasionally sing songs that don’t particularly resonate with me, but it brings me joy to know these hymns are being taught to the next generation and that many of the older people in our congregation love to sing them.
• Finally, and perhaps most importantly, pastors can teach the people in their care that the church doesn’t exist primarily for them or their enjoyment. Christians shouldn’t just look for a church that meets their needs and indulge their preferences. Instead, Christians ought to come to church prepared to give themselves in sacrificial love to the people whom the Lord Jesus bought with his blood (I John 4:10-11). If your ministry philosophy encourages people to think everything is about them, it will be difficult to convince them that they should look out for the interests (Philippians 2:4) of people from different stages of life. 

©2023, 2024 Michael McKinley. Used with permission.