Multi-Generational Church

Each Sunday morning I get up on the platform for my three and a half minutes of fame while I do the announcements. While I'm up there I look out across the crowd and I see faces. Each of those faces represent stories, and I know many of them. I see school students who are struggling to establish their identities while attempting to pass World History. I see young families who are feeling their way through young parenthood; afraid to make a mistake while gradually realizing that you can get away with a lot of mistakes because kids are so very resilient and forgiving. I see parents of high school students who are worried if their kids will make it through without getting pregnant or messed up on drugs even though they are in church each week. I see single moms who constantly stress over the shortness of the day which prohibits them from fulfilling the roles of both mother and provider as well as they would like. I see the middle aged who have finally acheived some financial margin in their lives at the same time they begin to have doubts that they are living a meaningful life. I see couples who have been together for years and although they are not nearly as good-looking as they once were, they are more dear to one another than ever because of a lifetime of shared experiences. Some of those couples are now in a place where one must totally care for the other and it is done without complaining. I see those whose spouse is now gone and yet they go on with the promise that they will be reunited in heaven.

I see all those faces and I thank God that I am part of a multi-generational church. Each generation needs something from the others and each generation has something to offer the others. And when it works that way the bond it forms is stronger than we can imagine.