In November, we tried an inter-generational Sunday school approach. All people from high school to the oldest person in the church were randomly assigned to a class. Each class was made up of people from different age groups. The goal was to promote unity between the generations and help the various age groups to gain insight into the others. I don't think it worked very well. Not that it wasn't a good idea, it just didn't work. The classes were uncomfortable--discussion of the lesson was stale and sparse. In a formalized setting like Sunday school it didn't work. I think in another time of setting--small groups, fellowship time--it would work much better. Maybe others have tried it with better success. If so, I would be curious to know it was pulled off.

My wife could respond to this much more adequately than I can. I believe that intergenerational worship is ideal model of worship. Good worship should be involving all age levels. What better way for our children to learn to worship than to see it modeled by their parent and by the larger community of faith? I don't think it is done much because it is much more difficult to do. You have to really think hard about how you are going to give everyone involved an opportunity to truly worship. It is not about keeping everyone entertained, which most worship services try to do, it's about allowing everyone to have an opportunity to offer worship to God and to experience God through worship. I can't imagine how frustrating traditional worship services must be for artists who want to worship by doing something other than singing and sitting. Also, so I'm clear, worship isn't the songs that are sung at the beginning of the "worship service", it's the whole experience, entering into worship, hearing the word, responding to the word and hopefully receiving a benediction to leave to serve. I love this stuff!
Mike,
I hope this doesn't offend you, it is not my intentions, but I think inter-generational Sunday School is a bad idea. The Sunday School system is inherently life-stage or age specific. Trying to teach the same lesson to different age groups would be trying at best in that setting. Worship, on the other hand is not intended to teach a message, rather it an opportunity that should be given to anyone to express there gratitude to God for who he is. They are two different animals. I think what happened at your church was a courageous, but flawed attempt at reconciling age groups and it should be commended for the effort. Again I hope you don't think I am trying to say anything bad about your church.

Brad,
You knew that I wouldn't be able to resist this one didn't you. As you were posting it you knew that I would be drawn like a former member of Christ Community to a good fourfold pattern worship gathering. Let's get together and talk sometime soon.

Not at all. I agree with you that the inter-generational Sunday School class was a bad idea. I'm one of the teachers for our normal young married class. In that setting, where everyone is within ten years age-wise of everyone else and where many in the class are good friends outside of church, it's hard enough getting people involved in the lesson to the point where they fell comfortable participating in discussion. I think the inter-generational class was just an idea they thought to try to see if it had merit. I think they learned from it and we won't be doing it again, at least not in that format.

Worship in our church is kind of a fine line for the leadership to walk. We belong to a Mennonite church where close to half of the attendance is made up of people 60 and older. Those people are very traditional and take a dim view of changes to the traditional worship structure. The youth pastor is 28 and has different ideas of what worship truly is. In the two and half years we've been at the church, he has been working on changing the gray hairs' perception of worship, but it's a slow process.

Thanks, guys, for your input. Dave, I would love to get together sometime soon and chat about some of this stuff and life in general.

I find myself falling into the habit of calling the music at church "worship," as if worship doesn't take place anywhere else. Sad. I also think it's sad that we decide to do so many things out of convenience, which I agree is the case with the lack of intergenerational opportunities in the church.

Mike, thanks for the case study from your church, too. I'm just very interested in this topic right now, so I appreciate all your input.

What about a system of mentorship. A system of spiritual fathers and mothers where each individual has someone to look up to and learn from and receive sound spiritual guidance from. The parents should naturally do this. But lets be honest there are many children whose parents don't and won't (not to mention orphans) and many singles who could. This may not be practical for our current system of "Sunday School", but is there room for such a system in the Church?

Just for a little added reading, there is an article on this topic in the new issue of Holiness Today. You can read it here:
http://www.nph.com/nphweb/html/h2ol/articleDisplay.jsp?mediaId=2377297&nid=artt

My boys (ages 5,3, and 8 months) don't know anything but "intergenerational worship." Obviously we are in a different setting than you are, but we are learning as we go about how to include them in our gatherings. It's an issue we are really dealing with right now as a family.