Worship Weblog

Bellflower Book Group – First meeting

Posted by cicw

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Book Groups

We invited 34 book groups across the U.S. and Canada to meet and discuss The Church of All Ages and its implications for their worship, and to share their notes here.
Learn more

11 participants, including:
* 7 ministers/ministry associates, 1 music/worship director, 1 children’s ministries coordinator, 1 elder/multimedia coordinator, 1 college-age ministry intern.

Questions for discussion:

What interests you most about the idea of intergenerational worship?

I’m a young pastor, but I love hymns!
I want to learn to meet the needs of all ages.
My heart aches when I see youth graduate and leave to find their own church; ages 18-29 are the missing segment in our church.
I lead a small church, and am always looking for ideas to include the children.
I lead a choir that includes kids and adults.
I’m trying to revitalize a dying church; the music needed life.
Young adults are shopping for churches.
This is a critical issue – we’re concerned about kids graduating and leaving church. We’re making some tough strategic decisions about how to do church intergenerationally; change is scary!
I’ve seen a lot of approaches, but am most concerned about the 14-18 year olds.

Recall some of the attempts your congregation has made to be more intergenerational. What were they? Do you consider them to have been well thought through? Were they helpful?

In our Latin-American church, we first sang only in Spanish, which was aimed at first-generation immigrants. Then we added English, and then children and young people started to come. It also brought hope to the congregation because change was happening.

We did our VBS in an intergenerational style, for a week of evenings. We started with dinner, and then assigned kids and adults to tribes. It was successful but not easy. The real focus was on kids, but we included adults. People liked it, but it wasn’t easy – the songs were more adult-oriented (we don’t use the terms “adult songs” and “kids songs.”)

We also offer Summer Family Nights, which includes classes for all ages. In worship we sing “children’s songs” with much movement, even dance, and both adults and kids get involved.

Several years ago our youth ministry was almost para-church, so we tried putting youth on church committees but they felt intimidated so it didn’t last (except for a college student on worship planning). Now we’ve started a family-based youth ministry which includes a quarterly service with parents and other adults. We also started offering all-church-family events, such as a camping trip that included 100 people. We want kids to make connection with other adults and kids.

We have several high school and college kids on our praise team and band.

Which insights on intergenerational worship cited in the first or second chapters are most helpful to you? Why or how?

I found the Alban Institute data on tenure of membership (page 6) to be an interesting way to look at the make-up of a congregation especially with regard to change. We sometimes expect it to be more closely tied to ages rather than length of time in a church (long-tenured, mid-tenured, and short-tenured).

Some of our older folks are more open to change than the younger.

In our experience, the people in their 40’s and 50’s were most resistant to changes such as getting rid of the pews, putting up a screen for powerpoint, etc. We also notice a big difference in cultural groups in terms of their preferences in music and worship – the Nigerians, the Hispanics, the Filipinos, the Anglos may generally have different expectations – it’s tough to please everyone so you try to find a “sweet spot.”

We notice that different segments have varied needs or issues. I’m not as concerned about young adults wanting to find their “own” church; it’s more problematic when they leave the church entirely.

As a young adult, what I am looking for is not a worship style or program, but a sense of community and individuals reaching out to us – like an older guy who wants to talk with me or a family who asks me over for lunch. We can tell if a congregation really wants young people or not.

One of our youth asked me to be his facebook friend; now the pressure is on for me as pastor to connect with him. Social network on facebook, twitter, texting – that’s a community thing for youth and young adults. We can’t ignore it.

See page 11 re: the definition of intergenerational worship in which people of every age are understood to be equally important. That means I have to come out of the “8-track” into the “I-Pod” world. We say we want to hear young people, but we don’t always listen. As an African-American youth, I didn’t always fit the mold of the dominant culture. I learned that people need to come out of their own world in order to relate to others, rather than the other way around. We really need to ask “How can we embrace children” Youth? People of other cultures? Change?
In Hispanic culture, there are 20 different subgroups (Ex: people from Venezuela, Peru, Cuba, Columbia, Equador, etc., not just Mexico). When we talk about being inclusive, we have to think about the various kinds of music, food, educational styles, that will help us connect (not one culture can have the throne).

We also have to remember that the senior members often feel marginalized, not listened to. When we sing songs or play the organ, seniors come to life. We all are still on a journey, and must continue valuing each group.

We made a change by asking our choir members to come early on Sunday morning and intentionally go talk and mingle with people as they come in. We’ve changed the atmosphere – it’s not quiet and reverent anymore

See page 10-11 re: niche programming. We’re going against the culture by trying to combine all the different groups; the blended service has the greatest potential of being intergenerational. It makes sense that God wants us to all be together, but we’re swimming upstream against culture!

So many high school and young adults at our church feel connected and welcome, and I think it’s because people take an interest in their lives; they feel loved here. We have a Disciples Bible Study composed of 5 young and 5 elderly women. The seniors talk about growing up on the farm, and the young women love to hear their stories. In order to do intergenerational ministry it make take some stretching.

As a young adult, I observe that half of the people don’t look like they even want to be in church. The churches doing well are active and spiritually vibrant – a program or song can’t save a church if the people aren’t committed. I appreciate working side by side with older Christian in food distribution, or by being part of a small group in which people truly care about each other.

When older and younger Christian work together outside of worship, they carry that relationship into worship.

Tags: bgbellflower, book group, Book Groups 2009, intergenerational