Christian Education

CEWeb

Welcome to the Christian Education page of the American Baptist Churches of Wisconsin Website!

This online resource will serve as a forum to share ideas, get information and the like.

Please share the Web address for this site with Christian Education workers in your church. I would also invite you to offer suggestions of things which would make the site useful to you.

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The Young and the Not-So-Young: We Need Each Other
January 2006

We spend a good deal of time in our society with people in our own age grouping. That is clearly important some of the time. But perhaps we also need to stop and consider that we learn from each other and draw strength from one another. There are two reasons that I am convinced that our churches need to develop activities that put intergenerational groupings together.

The first can be illustrated by an older, but still reliable study in which the researchers learned some important things about educational programs in churches. The question asked was, "What things lead to maturity of faith?" There were many interesting findings, but the one I want to draw attention to here is, "Maturity of faith is strongly linked to age, increasing with each successive decade, and is most likely to be found among those over 70." The corresponding challenge identified is, "Those with the greatest faith maturity (ages 70 and over) are an underutilized resource." If that is true, how can we address this problem? Almost all of our churches have persons in the 70 and up category.

The second reason for forging links among generations grows out of my own experience. I was privileged to attend church as a young child with three generations of my own family. I know I learned a great many things as I sat with my parents and grandparents in church. Some of them were simple things like how to find things in my Bible and how to read the hymnal. Of course, there were other things I learned that I didn't even realize at that time.

Now I serve as a chaplain in a care facility. I learn first hand day by day of the wisdom of these elders among us. I also experience the wonderful things that happen when children and young people come to spend time with them. Both groups benefit. Let me give you a few examples.

A group of young people come every month to play board games with residents. There is talking and laughing as they play. There are some from each of those groups who will not miss the monthly event.

Last Halloween a day care center in our area came to "trick or treat" with our residents. The residents, many in costumes, sat in a large circle with tubs of candy. The children, all in costume, came around and received candy. There were smiles all around. I overheard one delightful conversation. A preschool girl looked at a resident dressed as a "princess" and said, "You are beautiful." Her smooth little hand took the wrinkled and twisted hand of the 90+ year old woman, whose reply was, "I love you." It took just a moment, but both remembered the exchange for a long time.

When I served as a Sunday school superintendent, I knew of a woman in our congregation who was a wonderful story teller. Her name was Mrs. Waterbury. She lost her vision and was not able to get out very often, but she did not lose her ability to tell stories. I asked if she would tell some stories to our kindergarten Sunday school class. She said she would love to and asked if we would bring them to her home on the next Sunday morning. She lived right next to the church so that was no problem. The children were shy as we arrived and sat at the edge of the room. She sat in her rocker and began to tell stories. She didn't finish even the first one until all of the children had moved to the floor so they could get closer and closer. She ended up with them sitting on her feet! She told Bible stories, stories of people from our church and things they had done, stories of missionaries and many other varieties. When others heard the children talking, they wanted a chance to go too!

If any of this prompts you to consider trying something to get these two groups together, here are a few suggestions. I am sure you can think of many more than will work in your context.

• Make arrangements to visit a care center. Try for a time other than Christmas or Easter because so many visitors come at that time. If you have a senior from your own congregation in a care center, that would make an especially good choice! You might have children plant a seed in a small pot, draw pictures, or make cards, or sing songs, etc. All of these things make an easy "ice breaker."
• Bring in a senior from your congregation to a Sunday school class. That person might read a story, tell a story, talk about ways they celebrated a specific holiday, etc. You may want to do that regularly so they meet many of the seniors.
• Have a senior from your congregation tell something about your church in days gone by. This could be a regular addition to a children's story time.
• Get some children who need help with homework together with some seniors who can help! It could be a regular after school event.
• Have youth go to the homes of seniors to help with yard work, house work, etc. Make sure there is time for some visiting!
• Invite some seniors to teach some children some skills they have acquired such as knitting, sewing, woodworking, cooking, etc.

The time spent is beneficial for all involved!

Maxine Ashley
Staff Associate in Christian Education
Christian.Education@abcofwi.org

Benson and Eklin. Effective Christian Education: A National Study of Protestant Congregations, Search Institute, March 1990.

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