Departmental Ministry in an Intergenerational Church

I really enjoyed this week’s topic and found it quite relevant to the areas that I volunteer in. We talked about responding to and catering to the needs of specific key demographics in church communities. For me, serving in ESL ministry meets a real need in Sydney – those who come from an English as a 2^nd language, whether they are new migrants or students. The students come from different countries and age groups, but their common need is to improve their English. This might seem obvious on the surface, but there is a deeper underlying need beyond improving their English. It is community. They are longing for friendship and a place to belong. Coming to an English speaking country when you don’t speak the language is lonely and isolating, as it limits your opportunities to interact with people due to your language proficiency. Hence part of our mission is to create community, and to give our students a safe place where they can make friends and work on their English at the same time. Not only do we connect them with other ESL learners, we also work closely with the cultural communities within church so they can be connected to people from their own country or those who speak their language. This cry for community is succinctly put in a quote from this week’s reading:

“listen carefully, [we] will hear the muffled cry and sigh for community today.... Many people, Christians as well as nonbelievers, long for more intimate and meaningful relationships with other persons. (Snyder 1983,112 as cited in Harkness, 2006)

On a separate note, I had a conversation yesterday with my dad’s pastor about becoming a more intergenerational church. He leads a small evangelical free church in Singapore that holds weekly Mandarin services. I usually attend the services with my dad whenever I am back in Singapore. Pastor Low was telling me that he wanted more young people to attend his church, but it was challenging as the service seems more catered to the elder generation. Moreover, it is conducted in Mandarin and most young people in Singapore prefer English speaking services and congregations.

I definitely agree with him that he needs more generations in his church. We need demographic integration because it reflects the biblical faith community as a family, and it aids our spiritual formation when we interact with people of different ages and demographics(Harkness, 2006). Personally, though, coming from a Pentecostal church background like Hillsong and New Creation Church in Singapore, I can also see why it would be challenging for him to attract youths and young people. This reminded me of the lecture where we talked about how churches from non-Pentecostal backgrounds were losing young people. Daryl mentioned how some of the elderly were resistant to change such as changing the worship songs, and he told them that is the reason why their grandchildren are not coming to church. I think this goes both ways. For many young Christians who were the first in their family to convert, their desire would be for their parents and grandparents to also get saved. However, would they want to attend a church with a hip, young pastor and a loud band? I know from my personal experience that the answer is not really... One of the reasons my aunt stopped coming to church with me is because the music was too loud. 

How do we create a space where people from all ages would want to attend, and belong to the church? Are we happy with our youth attending different services as long as their spiritual needs are met, or do we want different generations in church where parents can attend with willing teenagers who truly want to be there? Having more conversations about this and increasing awareness of the need of an intergenerational church would be a good first step.

References

Harkness, Allan G. “Intergenerational Education for Intergenerational Church?” Religious Education 93, vol.4, (1998): 431-447