It is the responsibility of seasoned Christian leaders to recruit and prepare new generations to guide the church into the future, said Jeffrey Haggray, executive director of the American Baptist Home Mission Societies and Judson Press.
That requires older members of the faith to intentionally seek out younger people to succeed them, Haggray said during the official launch of Engaging Intergenerational Faith: Creating Space for Grace, a collection of essays focused on bridging intergenerational gaps in the church.
“It is about putting people in spaces where they might hear God’s call or even consider the notion that God might call them,” he said during the Sept. 25 livestreamed presentation.
But that work must not include pushing younger people into expressions of church and denominational leadership identical to those of veteran ministers, he added. Rather, they must be left to imagine and grow into their own approaches to ministry.
“Older adults will have dreams, and they will remember the former times and where they have been, and they will tell the stories. But the younger person will have prophetic visions and insights about the future, about what’s possible, and that’s a generational cycle that has to be cultivated.”
Engaging Intergenerational Faith reflects some of the topics discussed during the ABHMS 2024 Space for Grace and Spiritual Caregivers Conference at the organization’s headquarters in King of Prussia, Pa.
The volume presents the views of numerous writers who delve into cross-generational and cultural listening with the goal of exploring ways to revitalize aging and struggling congregations. The book was edited by Judson Press Publisher Cheryl Price, Associate Publisher Rachael Lawrence and Haggray, each of whom contributed a chapter to the project.
“If we’re not intentional about sowing the seeds for a new generation of faith leaders, there won’t be a new generation of faith leaders.”
The ministry of raising new faith leaders cannot be left to chance, Haggray explained. “If we’re not intentional about sowing the seeds for a new generation of faith leaders, there won’t be a new generation of faith leaders.”
The process may require a willingness to finance as well as mentor up-and-coming leaders, he added. “We have to fund them. We have to set money aside. We have to pay their way. We give them holy handshakes by leaving some money in their hands when we see them.”
The tradition of passing on faith and leadership also demands conscious dedication to the effort because it is the core of intergenerational faith, Haggray said.
“Part of the reason I’m in the ministry today is because the older saints at church who, when I was a child at church … would say to my mother, ‘That boy is gonna preach.’ And it was because I was encompassed by older people at church who shared their stories and who called me to the ministry that prompted me to really grapple with whether there was indeed a call on me to preach.”
Aidsand Wright-Riggins
Event co-host and ABHMS Executive Director Emeritus Aidsand F. Wright-Riggins III said he, too, owes his career in ministry to the generations who came before him.
It was those elders “investing in me and laying hands on me, inspiring me and encouraging me” who helped him explore his calling. “And I think that’s part of what this book is really all about, inspiring all of us to receive and give.”
Effective intergenerational ministry is not about “putting fresh paint on the old stuff” and claiming it to be something creative, said contributor Willard Ashley, author, psychoanalyst and a retired professor and former dean of New Brunswick Theological Seminary in New Jersey.
Willard Ashley
Instead, it demands creativity, competence in helping people and the ability to connect across age groups, he said. “Knowledge isn’t enough. You can teach the theories. You know what they are, inside and out. But people don’t come to learn about your theory. They come to get help. They come for healing.”
Lawrence noted the publication of Engaging Intergenerational Faith coincides with the 200th anniversary of Judson Press, which has been reaching across generational lines since its founding.
Rachael Lawrence
“As we’re at a kind of a crossroads today, as people’s reading habits are changing, as people’s media consumption is changing, Judson Press also needs to look today at how we keep the wheels of faith rolling,” she said.
Connections between older and younger generations necessitates an openness to “whole body listening,” said contributor Michael Koppel, professor of pastoral theology and congregational care at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., and keynote speaker at the 2024 ABHMS Space for Grace conference.
“Churches provide a context where bodies of all generations can come together and extend hospitality to one another,” he said. “And it’s in and through that listening that faith grows and emerges, and we experience something of God’s blessing and wonder and are also called forth in our time to do the work toward justice for the healing of the world.”
Those committed to cultivating international faith must have experienced profound inner transformations to be effective in the work, said contributor Patricia Murphy, a board-certified health care chaplain and ecclesiastical endorser and director of spiritual caregivers for ABHMS.
“Older generations, they carry the wisdom, but when the faith and when these shared relationships or shared experiences are coming to synergy with one another, it becomes more of a living dialogue than a static one,” she said. “So, when the churches can begin to understand that young people’s voices and their language may be different, they are still yearning to experience the same God.”