I wonder about intergenerational community

By Rev Sandy Brodine

How can we develop mutuality in intergenerational relationships?

I’ve been enjoying reading ‘Church Together: An essential guide to All-Age Ministry’, a brand new book by Dave Csinos and Traci Smith as I prepare to interview them for an upcoming episode of the Thriving podcast.

This exciting book speaks my language! After exploring what the ‘posture’ of intergenerationality is, Traci and Dave give lots of examples of how we can grow genuinely intergenerational church.

As I read their first practice – that all ages contribute to the community reciprocally and mutually, I was struck by an incredible memory of the all-age “Messy Miners” community of teens and adults that we grew in the Banyule Network during COVID. The community grew out of a need to find ways to meet together online during lockdown, and to find ways to engage around the bible and in prayer. Many of the children and youth in the community were obsessed by Minecraft: and so we chose to gather and build bible stories together in Minecraft, and then to have a ‘micro-build’ prayer time together.

Now here is my confession: when we started with Messy Minecraft I literally knew NOTHING about how to build in the game. My then primary-aged daughter tried to teach me – but I really couldn’t get a hang of it. How then could I lead a community when I literally didn’t understand how to engage with the world we were building community in?

The answer is, that we did it together. Leadership was shared between people aged from 9-59. We all had to rely on each other to share our gifts so that the community could thrive together. There were many times when I’d say: “I wonder if we could build the story this way?” And the kids would laugh and chorus: “No Sandy! That won’t work!” And then they’d come up with a better way. Through these genuinely mutual engagements we had some deeply thoughtful engagements around scripture, and shared some intensely pastoral moments of prayer. None of this could have happened without all of us relying on one another and engaging with one another in a genuinely reciprocal posture.

In ‘Church Together’, Dave and Traci state that: “All-age ministry is about nothing less than the missio Dei, God’s mission of love and hope for all of creation.” We don’t do this work alone – it is the work that the Living God invites all of us into together – whatever our gifts and skills may be. And how wonderful it is to be able to rely on one another to create intergenerational community together, where all of our gifts and skills are needed and where we must rely on one another reciprocally, and mutually.

I wonder, how does your community embody mutual and reciprocal engagement and leadership between people of all ages? We’d love to hear your stories.