He laughed good-naturedly but then said something that has stuck with me for years: “I think you’ll actually find that the majority of people you will be working with are adults. About 30% of your time will be with other staff members, 30% of your time will be with parents and caregivers, and about 30% of your time will be with volunteers and teachers. So, do you think you can handle spending about 10% of your time with kids?”
At the time, I had no idea how meaningful my pastor’s words would become to me, but they were enough to persuade me to apply for and accept the position at my church. Since I had no formal training in children’s ministry, the first thing I did was attend a children’s ministry conference.
While there, I jumped in and out of breakout sessions and keynotes, trying to take in as much information as possible. But one breakout session stopped me in my tracks.
Deuteronomy 6:4–9 … [is] a charge for the whole community.
Faith Formation Across Generations
The presenter, Pastor Brian Haynes, shared insights from his recently published Shift, a book promoting the home as an intentional place of faith formation and championing parents and caregivers as the primary disciplers of their kids.[1] This concept has become widely accepted in churches today, but at the time, an approach to faith formation that connected church and home was new.
I was excited! I realized that this was the path I wanted to lead my ministry team and faith community down. So, I went back home, energized to share my newfound perspective with others. Imagine my surprise when, instead of being met with unchecked excitement, I encountered looks of incredulity, caution, and discomfort.
I went from excited to confused. I felt like the idea of equipping parents to disciple their own children made perfect sense. Why were parents and caregivers in my church so reluctant to join in?
Understanding the Hesitation
It took some time to understand why enthusiasm wasn’t the first reaction of the adults in our ministry. I realized there were several reasons for their hesitation.
- First, they lacked experience. I was using terminology and talking about behaviors that were new—they had never seen these modeled for them or been trained to practice themselves.
- Second, they lacked time. Parents assumed that “discipleship at home” meant they had more to do—more things to add to the checklist, more work to cram into an already packed schedule.
- And third, they lacked community. Most of the parents and caregivers in my church felt like they were on their own when it came to raising their kids. When they heard that faith formation should happen at home, they felt like the church was abandoning its responsibility to teach their kids about Jesus on Sunday.
I knew that what Brian Haynes had shared at the conference and in his book was right—parents and caregivers are the greatest influence on their child’s faith. Subsequent research has continued to reaffirm and uphold this truth.[2] But I couldn’t ignore the real concerns that my families were wrestling with. What piece was missing?
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Church and Home
The realization of what we needed came to me in a couple of ways.
- First, my small group at church read the book Sticky Faith together.[3] The book taught us how important a “sticky web” is for a child’s faith—about how critically important it is for all children to have five non-parental adults who are actively involved in their lives.
- Second, my Sunday school class of young, married couples and parents invited an older couple who had been married for years and had adult children to become mentors for the younger couples there.
- And third, I started to learn about this thing called intergenerational ministry. In 2012, Holly Catterton Allen and Christine Ross released their seminal work, Intergenerational Christian Formation: Bringing the Whole Church Together in Ministry, Community and Worship.[4] I read it, and a million light bulbs went off.
What my parents and caregivers were missing, what the children and youth were missing, what the empty nesters and seniors were missing was … each other! Turns out my pastor was right—I did need to be working with adults if I was going to be an effective minister for children and families! But the truth is, we all need to be working together at the task: our shared mission to disciple each other in the ways of the Lord.
Working Together
Deuteronomy 6:4–9, the flagship passage for discipleship at home—that commands the Israelites to impress the commands of the Lord on the hearts of children when they sit at home, walk along the road, lie down and rise up—suddenly took on a new meaning for me.
Because before the commands, before the references to home and to children, I saw something else: “Hear O Isreal!” This was not an address simply to parents. It was not “Hear O parents of Israel!” or even “Hear O pastors of Isreal!” No, it was: “Hear O Israel!”
If we look back just a few verses, we find out that the entire people of Israel was gathered. And those exhortations to impress the commandments of the Lord on the children wasn’t solely for parents or grandparents. It was a charge for the whole community.
The Whole Community
Everything shifted for me. If the church—the whole congregation—was committed discipling the next generations and supporting the family, the concerns of parents and caregivers would be alleviated. They would have mentors who could help them not just with parenting but also with spiritual formation.
They would have time to do the work of discipling because the community would be backing them up on everything from errands to dinners. And they wouldn’t be alone because the church would be supporting them, reinforcing the lessons of faith they shared at home.
And the church overall would benefit. As we see in Psalm 145, sharing the goodness of God has a rebounding effect. We are meant to share the goodness of God with each other, one generation to another. When the whole community takes seriously its role in impressing God’s commands and commending His goodness to each other, senior saints then have a place to share their wisdom, mature adults have a place to mentor young adults, teenagers have a place to serve and learn, and children have a place to belong and grow.
Growing Together
Over the next decade, I continued to learn about the importance of intergenerational connections, intergenerational discipleship, and opportunities for all ages and stages to worship, learn, and serve together. Along the way, I began writing about my experiences and my research. In time, that writing turned into a blog and that blog turned into a nonprofit ministry committed to helping churches connect generations in meaningful relationships for lifelong discipleship.
Today, I have the unique chance to see what these kinds of relationships look like in churches across the globe. I have watched churches begin to embrace opportunities for intergenerational worship and discipleship in a variety of ways but all leading to one thing—generations of lifelong disciples.
My own journey into intergenerational ministry has been one of discovery and experimentation. Having all ages and stages together goes against the flow, not just of our accepted church rhythms but of a larger society where we tend to live apart from one another in age-segregated silos.
But the benefits of being together, of truly building community across generations? They are worth the work it takes, not just for the kids—but for every age and every stage.
Discover More on Intergenerational Ministry
- Better Together: How Intergenerational Discipleship Changes All of Us
- Dream with Me: Getting Back to the Intergenerational Church
- The Intergenerational Church and Why It Matters
- Better Together: Why Intergenerational Ministry is Vital to Church Health
- What Is Intergenerational Ministry?
- Guideposts for Connecting Generations
[1] Brian Haynes, Shift: What it Takes to Finally Reach Families Today, Group Publishing, 2009.
[2] Jesse Smith and Jane Lankes Smith, “Passing the Torch: How faith moves across generations,” The Institute for Family Studies and Communio. 2026. p. 2.
[3] Kara E. Powell, and Chap Clark. Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011. [1, 2, 3]
[4] Holly C. Allen and Christine L. Ross, Intergenerational Christian Formation: Bringing the Whole Church Together in Ministry, Community and Worship, InterVarsity, 2012.
