Reflection from the Intergenerate 2023
Six Messy Church representatives attended the Intergenerate conference at Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN last week. It was a great week reconnecting with other intergenerational ministry leaders and meeting new ones. Dr. Jillian Mayer, Director of Christian Education and Faith Formation at St. Paul UCC in Waterloo, IL and a Messy Church ambassador shares her reflections on the conference below.
Worship Together by Dr. Jillian Mayer
I whole-heartedly believe that churches are called to find ways to worship together as a community, regardless of age. Indeed, this is why my church embarked on its messy church journey over 5 years ago.
My passion for intergenerational faith formation continues to grow which is why I was so excited to return to Intergenerate last week. After attending previously, I’d returned from the conference previously with a renewed conviction of the importance of intergenerationality and a slew of ideas for ways that I can continue to grow and evolve the intergenerational programming at my church, St. Paul UCC- Waterloo.
This year’s conference was, again, well-organized and informative and I arrived home with a notebook full of action items and an extensive to-read list.
During my time at Intergenerate, I was inspired by the stories of other churches that are successfully showing hospitality and ministering to people of all ages. I am excited to take what I learned back to my own church and begin to implement some of these ideas.
Key takeaways from the conference
- Intergenerational worship is about creating a welcoming environment where people of all ages can worship together. In order to do so, we should embrace the idea of gathering (metaphorically and/or literally) around a roundtable, where there is no difference in status between all those sitting together.
- Music that Makes Community demonstrated the power of music. Indeed, music can be a powerful tool for engaging people of all ages in celebration – something many Messy Churches might already be familiar with.
- It is important to be intentional about building relationships across generations. These relationships can often be fostered when we use generational theory to better understand what our church family members need from us and how we can best communicate to them.
- The challenges of intergenerational worship can be overcome with creativity (sound familiar?) and intentionality. When faced with challenges, it can help to remind ourselves that we are called to choose Christ over comfort.
Messy Church Values
Finally, one of my very favorite parts of Intergenerate is the other attendees. The conversations I had with others working to make their own churches more intergenerational were both informative and reassuring. I know that the connections I made with others who are passionate about intergenerational worship will help to sustain me when I am met with challenges in the future.
