Reflecting on Values: Intergenerational Relationships

“Intergenerational Relationships,” by Dan Landry

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My Dad has a phrase he used to describe my brothers and me when we were impulsive.  We’d get excited and start something without thinking it through and he’d say, “Ready, Fire, Aim!”   It is his way of pointing out how much more effective the “Firing” part can be if you do the “Aiming” part first.

We at Faith, are excited about starting on our next chapter of community involvement.  Pastor Ray is patiently and diligently making sure we Aim first.

As part of the Aiming process, we are spending time to identify our values and really get clarity on what they are and what they mean.

One of the values that we identified, back on June 9^th, was Intergenerational Relationships.  We were urged not to choose values that sounded nice, or that we aspired to, but to identify values that we could back up with evidence from our actions. Evidence for the Intergenerational nature of our approach to worship was easy to find:

• Our weekly service focuses not just on children with their parents, but younger and older families together.  We don’t have separate “traditional” and “youth” services.
• Our Sunday school is structured with the older kids teaching the younger ones.  The adult class has young couples and old – and occasionally some older kids.
• Coffee Fellowship, Work Days, and various Bible studies all have an intergenerational nature to them.

Intergenerational Relationships are more than just children with adults, though it certainly is that.  It is twenty-somethings, fifty-somethings, and other-somethings all interacting together.  It is young children, tweeners, and teenagers all together.  It is children interacting with adults at every stage of life, not just the parent-age adults that they’re used to.  Also, it is adults, long past the baby stage of life, having the chance to enjoy the youthful glow and beauty and optimism of children.

There is a Biblical basis for such an approach:

• Psalm 145:4 “One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts”
• Joel 1:3 states, “Tell your sons about it, and let your sons tell their sons, and their sons the next generation”
• Joel 2:16-17 states, “Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and the nursing infants.”
• In Acts 20:7 we had a youth falling out of a window when Paul got a little long-winded.
• In the New Testament, there are references to “whole households” being saved; Lydia’s household and the jailer’s household in Acts, and the royal official’s household in John.  Now, we know that in Biblical times, households were intergenerational.

The fundamental Biblical basis for Intergenerational Relationships is the Triune God Himself–Father, Son and Holy Spirit, relationally communing together.  God is community and we are made in His image.  “We are made in His image,” I always assumed that was on, sort of, an individual basis.  Maybe it is bigger than that, maybe “we are made in His image” doesn’t just mean that God is losing his hair, but that “We” are made in God’s ‘community’ image, relationally communing together.

So, I think we can agree that it is God’s plan that we, His people, relate inter-generationally.  He created the seasons of life.  He structured our families (and our Tribes) in His image.  He wants us all together – relationally communing together.  So, how well are we doing that?  How well is the community that we are trying to reach, doing that?

If you think about the idea of intergenerational relationships over the past several centuries, you quickly see a recent and accelerating trend.  In Biblical times, living intergenerationally was how you survived, whether you were Jew, Christian, or neither.  Earth and man were created in such a way that “intergenerationally” was the only way to survive.  That lasted a very long time.  In some parts of the world, it is still lasting a very long time.  But, in this part of the world (over the last hundred and something years), several developments have restructured the household and isolated the generations.  The twentieth century saw the birth of:

• A middle class with “disposable income.”
• The family car
• Interstate highway system
• Mass media
• The Entertainment Industry
• Computers, the internet, texting, twitter…

The “intergenerational household” got some money in their pockets, they drove away from each other, they disagreed about what ‘good music’ was, they stared at different TV screens, and then they stared at tiny TV screens, texting in code that no one else could understand.

So, we invented affluence.  With affluence, living inter-generationally is no longer the only way to survive.  The generations are living more separately and each is being courted by a different segment of society and the message that, “your generation is the only one that matters.”

Now, I am not suggesting a return to the Walton’s household structure.  I am not rejecting affluence; in fact, I hope someday it will stop rejecting me.  I am trying to make the point that, when our activities include intergenerational relationships, it is good and it can be Godly.  I am suggesting that the things that bring us together, generationally, are more aligned with God’s plan, and that the things that tend to divide us, generationally, are things of the world.

Here is an example.  This example reveals a personal bias.  Some of you know that we are a swim family; our boys have spent a lot of years on swim teams.  They have been in other sports, too.  I happen to think there is something special about swim kids.  I think part of it is that swim team is an intergenerational sport, kid-wise.  Kids from 4 to 18 are all on the same team.  By spending enough time together (and with activities structured for the purpose) that they interact.  The little buddies have their big buddies to show them the ropes and cheer them on.  The big buddies get to mentor and support their little buddies.  The junior coaches work with the little ones and relationships are made, wonderful relationships.

If it’s true that God made us to relate inter-generationally, then there is, in us, a yearning for that type of relationship.  And, if we can address that yearning in whatever we offer in our outreach to the community, so much the better for all.

Intergenerational relationships is one of the values we, as a congregation, share.  There are others.  You’ll be hearing more in the coming weeks.  This value suggests that, when we evaluate a potential path into our community, as we try to draw this community to ourselves, we should, also, try to draw them to each other.

So, those are some thoughts on intergenerational relationships.  Please add your thoughts and keep them in mind as we, collectively, aim to engage our community in meaningful ways.