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Discussion Board Initial Post – Josh Cougle
Years ago, I was called to pastor in a church that had experienced significant decline due to building neglect, pastoral failures and congregational struggles related to music and differing ages of our membership. The congregation and leadership knew that change was needed but because of a long list of failures in the past few years, most seemed content to leave things as they were rather than risk the division change may cause. After meeting after meeting, it became apparent to me that most of our struggles were simply due to the varying opinions across different age groups and each group feeling that if they didn’t hold their ground, the other groups would “take over”.
I began to speak to leadership about the dangers of continuing our church in a manner that would neglect the other age groups. For instance, I would speak to older congregants about the blessings that younger families brought to our church, and suggest that without them, the church would feel as if it had no life or future. I spoke to younger members about the wisdom and tradition the older members brought and that without them, our church may be energetic, but would have no history. I began to preach on this topic and mention this weekly.
Eventually, with the right buy in, I encouraged leadership to adopt a multi-generational approach from a perspective that each generation can’t do without the other. We even incorporated the generational approach into the tag line for our church, “A Church for Generations”. We would sing a hymn each week, not because the older group wanted them, but because we loved the older group and didn’t want to do church without them. We would sing a brand new song each week, not because the younger group demanded it, but because we wanted the younger group in our church and didn’t want them to feel like they couldn’t worship freely.
This approach was really successful and began to create a new sense of willingly making space in other areas for those who used to fight for space. Love became the reason to change and learn, not fear.