跨代事工的5Rs

Introduction

In the West, the ideas and practices of intergenerational (IG) ministry have been promoted one after another. However, if a church does not understand the concept of IG ministry, it may make IG ministry a ministry that offends every generation. Ortberg, for example, has said that when one does not understand the meaning of IG worship, one defines it as follows: “Intergenerational worship would be a congregation of diverse ages sitting through a service of mixed styles that displeases everyone equally.”

In view of this, this article attempts to propose the 5Rs, namely Reformation, Reaffirmation, Restoration, Recollection and Reimagination,  in the hope that Chinese Churches will have a further understanding on IG ministry.

Reformation

Intentional Intergenerational Ministry (IIM)  is a movement in the West, carried out in churches, neighborhoods, communities, corporations, and organizations which addresses problems of dysfunctional families and the indifference of society in the postmodern era. Its goal is to “start a movement to bring Christ’s intergenerational message of unconditional love to an aging society suffering from generational isolation, separation and neglect.” Nowadays, Chinese and Western churches also suffer from generational isolation and separation due to their “over-reliance” on age-specific ministries. This results in many of the next generation’s lack of belongingness to the church, which is one of the reasons why they leave the church.   Faced with the high turnover rate, Western Christian scholars have returned to the Bible to re-explore God's intentions for passing on the faith down the generations, and IG ministry should be a crucial factor to bring back the next generation.

However, in the society defined by “age-segregation”, people of all ages in the church are generally accustomed to staying in their comfort zone of “age-stratified” meetings. Therefore, intergenerationality is not considered to be the mindset that the church should have, or the core value that needs to be emphasized;  it is even viewed as counter-cultural.  Fortunately, after nearly half a century of exploration in the field of IG ministry, Western Christian churches have begun to flourish in recent years. This can be evidenced by the diverse and creative intergenerational teaching materials published by different publishers. However, in Chinese churches, IG ministry has generally not received the attention it deserves. This is due to many reasons, with the major ones being the misunderstanding of children (childhood) and the lack of understanding of the rationale for intergenerationality.

Reaffirmation

In general, churches see only two aspects of children: they are sinners like adults, and they are developing creatures in need of instruction and guidance of adults. This makes the possibility of children's participation often overlooked when the church develops various ministries. A. L. Allen laments, “children face the marginalization and oppression of a modern church that does not take them seriously as co-participants in its ministry.”

With the development of childhood studies in Christian academic fields, the one-sided and narrow views above have been questioned by scholars. In fact, exploring from biblical and theological perspectives, it is not difficult to find that there are many more aspects to the nature of children (childhood), some even contradictory to the general views above. It is briefly described as follows:

•Childhood’s eternal value

In view of childhood’s eternal significance, Christians should commit themselves to recognize, and cherish the presence of children in the church.

•Children as holy gifts, blessings and sources of joy

The church that embraces and welcomes children will be blessed.

•Children as fully human and young fellow disciples

Children deserve to be treated like adults and to enjoy the wholistic church life, including service. Church adults need to put children “in” ministry and serve “with” them.

•Children’s vulnerability

The church should be a place where vulnerable children are protected and cared for, their basic needs are met, and justice for them is advocated.

•Children’s spiritual insight/ability

Children’s voices need to be heard and respected.

•Children as spiritual role models

The church should recognize that children can have a positive impact on the faith community and enrich the moral and spiritual life of adults.

•Children as sinners in need of salvation

The church needs to confront children's sinful nature. They need God's forgiving grace like adults.

•Children as developing creatures in need of instruction and guidance

The church should work together with parents to bear the responsibility of nurturing the spiritual life of children.

It is hoped that the discussions above on the nature of children (childhood) will encourage the church to reconnect with children, view them as an integral part of the church, and provide them with the same wholistic church life as adults. God calls the church to keep children in her mind when developing ministries, and IG ministry is a visionary and promising approach.

Restoration

Not understanding the foundation of intergenerationality is another major reason that causes Chinese churches to ignore IG ministry. Intergenerationality is in fact, deeply embedded in Scripture and theology. Firstly, there are multiple passages in the Bible that support the IG approach, including:

•Intergenerational gatherings: For example, the Feast of Tabernacles (Deut. 31:12-13), and the occasions when Jesus taught (Matt. 18:1-5; Mark 9:33-37; Luke 9:46-48).

•Generations passing on the faith: For example, Psalm 145:4 says, “One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts.”

•A covenant community as an all-age community: For example, Genesis 17:7 states that God's covenant community is not just Abraham's generation, but also his descendants.

It can be seen that IG ministry has long existed in Bible times; how to restore such practices is a topic for the church today to ponder.

Secondly, theology also provides crucial foundations for intergenerationality. Banks observes that two basic images used in the NT for the faith community are the family and the body.

Church as a family

The NT delineates church members as the family of God; the head of the family is God the father (Gal. 4:6). Christians are not only children of God but also parents and children or brothers and sisters in Christ. For example, Paul views Onesimus as his child (Phlm 10), Phoebe as his sister (Rom 16:1) and Rufus’ mother as his mother (Rom 16:13). The same perspective of viewing the faith community as family is also found in Jesus’ teaching. Upon being told that his mother and brothers have arrived, Jesus says, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers’? Then, Jesus defines family, ‘Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother’ (Mark 3:33-35). Here, Jesus expands the meaning of family, i.e., the church needs to be a community that is characterized by family-type relationships, and a typical family is made up of different generations.

God calls his children to build the church and make the church a big family of God, but age-stratified gatherings keep people of different ages isolated on different islands, unable to establish family-like relationships. How can we build bridges between isolated islands through IG ministry, so that people from different generations can be reconnected to build up the big family of God? This is a tremendous challenge facing the contemporary church.

Church as a body

Another basic metaphor used in the NT to represent the Christian community is the body.

Paul speaks of the brothers and sisters of the church as the body of Christ, and each one of them is a part of it (1 Cor. 12:27). Paul then encourages all Christians to respect and value each member (1 Cor. 12:21-23). He describes every Christian as a certain part of the body, for example, eyes, hands, and feet. Every part is important to the whole body, and once a part is neglected, the body suffers. It can be seen that every brother and sister in the church is important and needs due respect, especially the relatively vulnerable members, such as children and the elderly.

In Ephesians 4:15-16 Paul further emphasizes this metaphor of the body of Christ and describes Christ as the head of this body. From Christ the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. But the church generally ignores Paul's teaching and separates the members of different generations, especially the vulnerable members, such as children and teenagers. The body of Christ is broken and cannot fully perform the function of mutual help and love. It is no wonder that the majority of second-generation believers will leave the church when they grow up. This is the painful lesson of the contemporary church. How can we stop this cycle? The church should put Paul's teaching into practice, reconnecting all generations and rebuilding the body of Christ through IG ministry.

Recollection

In June 2019, NYCCC adopted “intergenerationality” as one of the core values of the church. Soon after, our church successfully organized an IG ministry team and promoted IG interest groups, IG family small groups, and milestone celebrations (blessing our church's graduates and gifting our church's own painted, pastor-signed stones). In March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the IG family small group shifted to online gatherings. Although intergenerational gatherings experienced considerable limitations due to the online format, the pandemic could not stop the growth of IG family small groups. In mid-2021, when the pandemic situation improved, the group not only resumed physical gatherings, but also launched joint IG family fellowship with Fidelity (English Youth Fellowship) once a month. In the summer of 2022, the IG family small group hosted an intergenerational BBQ Night with English congregations from various age groups. The IG small group also hosted a Friends’ Night in 2022 Christmas season, inviting non-Christians to celebrate Jesus’ birthday.

There was an IG family small group gathering on the theme “Family as a Great Team.” Considering the fact that family members who are close to each other every day will inevitably hurt each other, this gathering included a meditation session to think about the forgiving grace of the Lord Jesus. After closing their eyes, listening to and meditating on the song “Precious Cross”, each group member needed to write a short letter asking for forgiveness from a member of the family. Among them, there was a family of five; all its members wrote letters to apologize to one of the children in the family. The child burst into a bright smile after receiving the apology letters from the whole family.

In addition to worshiping together and supporting each other, IG family small groups also serve together. For example, at our church's community service event to raise funds for Ukraine and Afghanistan refugees, the whole group participated in musical worship. The group members also served in the event according to their personal gifts. For example, several children were willing to sing alone, while the adults participated in musical instrument performances, face painting, food preparation, etc. It is particularly worth mentioning that this community service event was led by the young adults of our church, inviting different congregations and generations to serve together. This has brought our church's intergenerational and inter-congregational ministry a step forward.

Reimagination: Three arenas & five dimensions

Age-specific ministry has its advantages and necessity, but it must be complemented by IG ministry. The Lord Jesus called twelve disciples who were in their prime years to work hard with Him and proclaim the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, which is one kind of “age-specific” ministry. However, the Lord Jesus also valued “intergenerational” ministry. Children were seen among his followers (John 6:8-13). In fact, Jesus rebuked those who prevented children from coming to him (Mark 10:13-16). It is worth noting that although the Lord Jesus did not have a family of his own, based on his in-depth conversations with religious leaders in the temple when he was twelve years old, we can reasonably infer that Jesus received a good “family” education. The above-mentioned “age-specific”, “intergenerational”, and “family” ministries echo the “three arenas of faith development” proposed by Fredenburg and Lawrence.  The essence of the three arenas is that the church equips different generations of Christians separately through an “age-specific arena”, edifies them simultaneously through an “intergenerational arena”, and thus enables different generations to build meaningful relationships. Finally, after receiving the church's age-specific and intergenerational nurturing, each Christian must return to the “home arena”, devoting him/herself to strengthen the family as a small church, and then move forward to build the church as a big family together.

When the church tries to build a structure by balancing the age-specific, intergenerational, and home arenas, she must consider how to incorporate the wholistic church life into this structure. The wholistic church life consists of five fundamental dimensions—celebration, learning, relationships, service, and spiritual discipline.  Most Christians should have some basic concepts on how to implement these five aspects of church life in the age-specific arena, but how can they extend these practices to intergenerational and home arenas? This requires brainstorming and “intentionally” carrying them out, especially in a biliterate and trilingual church with language barriers. Although the challenges are significant, it is an inevitable responsibility of the church to bring back and strengthen the next generation to pass on the mission through IG ministry (whether in the church or at home). May God raise up servants in Chinese Churches to revive families and churches through IG ministry, so that the family of God will be solid as a rock and the body of Christ will be closely connected.

Hui Er (Maria) Yu (Intergenerational and Children's Ministries Pastor of NYCCC, PhD.)

在新約中，兩個用來描繪基督徒群體的基本圖像是家庭和身體。 不過，教會如家庭和教會如身體這兩幅美麗的圖畫已被「分齡」給蒙上陰影。在這個以「分齡」所定義的社會裏，教會各個年齡層的人普遍已習慣留在「分齡」聚會這樣的舒適區（comfort zone），而忽略神的旨意--建立神的大家庭（包含老、中、青、幼）以及建立基督的身體。今日，大多數的教會因過度倚重「分齡」事工，導致每個年齡層的人都困在自己所屬的孤島上，缺乏互動的橋樑，因而無法建立關係。我們的下一代就在這樣不健全之「神的大家庭」、不健康之「基督的身體」裏長大，無怪乎高達七至九成 不等的下一代會選擇離開教會。如何重建世代之間互動的橋樑? 「刻意跨代事工」應該是一個充滿願景的進路。

「刻意跨代事工」（Intentional Intergenerational  Ministry；簡稱IIM）這片語是由甘博恩（Gambone 1998）所創建，指的是一種事工形式；在其中，「整個教會委身於讓盡可能多的世代參與在盡可能多的教會［生活裡］。」 懷特指出，跨代事工至少需涉及兩個不同年齡層的人之間的對話和活動。 如上所述，我們身處在以「分齡」所定義的社會裏，因此，跨代事工仍然不被大多數的教會所重視，甚至被視為是一種「反文化」（counter-culture）。 因此，任何的跨代聚會都必需「刻意」地加以推動。

今日，雖然有些教會勇敢嘗試，但因為只把IIM視為是一種新方法，而不是一種心態（mindset）或核心價值（core value），以至於面對挑戰或困難時，就容易退縮、無法堅持。感恩的是，筆者所服事的教會已於主後2019年通過跨代性（intergenerationality）作為教會的核心價值之一，並成立了跨代事奉團隊。

乍看「跨代青少年兒童事工」這標題，或許有些人會理解為：它是指連結青少年及兒童這兩個年齡層的事工。然而，筆者認為，它其實更積極地指出，這是一個一定會包含青少年及兒童這兩個年齡層的跨代事工，但不限於此。換句話說，青少年及兒童是必然成員，但還須加上至少另一個年齡層，例如，父母輩或年長者。筆者之所以如此主張的原因是，連結青少年及兒童固然是好事，但若考慮到如何才能使他們持守基督教信仰及教會生活，這麼做還不夠，因為他們大多需要五位成年人給予支持性的關懷。

正視北美華人教會無形的困境

在新冠疫情的肆虐下，教會面臨的困境之一，是弟兄姊妹受困於家中，無法到教會參加實體聚會。這種「有形的困境」是教會全體會眾，無論老幼，都能強烈感受到。感恩的是，因著疫苗的問世及療法的進步，這種有形的困境在不久將來應該會有重大的突破。

然而，北美華人教會所面臨之「無形的困境」，卻尚未得到應有的重視，那就是李道宏所指出的語言的隔閡，使北美華人教會無力培育牧養信二代（註1）（特別是在人力資源有限的小型教會）。這語言隔閡所產生的問題，在大多數的華人信徒家庭中更是嚴峻，致使教會在推動家庭祭壇時，遭遇到莫大的阻力。如何才能突破這樣的無形困境呢？因篇幅有限，筆者僅提出以下兩點建議。

北約華基教會於去年5月的執事會中通過一項提案：跨代性 （Intergenerationality）作為教會的核心價值之一。隨即於 6月份，我們召開了第一次跨代事工團隊會議，會中決議於秋季試辦兩項事工：「跨代興趣分享小組&父母成長園地」 及成立「跨代家庭小組」；此小組由六個家庭組成，大人孩子共計20人。感謝主垂聽我多年的禱告，讓跨代事工在 北約華基教會開始萌芽。

自從與神相遇後，「跨代」的工作就在我生命幾個重要歷 程中，扮演著關鍵的角色。例如，當我決定成為全職在家教育的媽媽時，就有一個由基督徒家庭所組成的在家教育 共學小組，邀請當時尚未信主的我和兩個年幼兒子加入。 這小組提供一個「跨代」學習的環境，我和孩子在其中經 歷了跨代學習的祝福。信主之後，隨即加入教會的兒童事 奉團隊；我們持守著訓練小門徒的信念，帶領和陪伴兒 童、青少年參與事奉。此外，當我在撰寫博士論文的時 候，招募並訓練一個「跨代聖經翻譯小組」從事《聖經》 翻譯的工作，那是我研究的其中一個環節。2016年，我成 為北約華基教會的兒童傳道，經過兩年多的溝通和禱告， 「跨代事工」在神的保守中，終於得以順利開展。

刻意的跨代事工

在後現代的社會裡，家庭功能不彰、社會冷漠已是不爭的事實。鑑於此，西方國家開始推動「刻意的跨代事工」（Intentional Intergenerational Ministry，簡稱IIM），「刻意」在教會、社區、機構等地點推動。它的目標在於形成一個運動，將耶穌基督無條件的愛，以跨代的信息帶進一個老化的社會，這樣的社會正受苦於世代隔絕、分離、忽視。另一方面，由於兒童、青少年大量流失，西方教會和學者回到《聖經》，重新探索神對世代傳承的心意。研究結果顯示，跨代事工可成為重新挽回下一代其中一個解決之道。在這個世代隔離、極度分齡的社會裡，IIM不被認為是教會需要著重的核心事工；然而，愈來愈多的西方教會致力推動IIM，並產生很好的果效。

「跨代」意味兩個或更多不同年齡層的人的對話或活動，這使不同的世代能夠彼此互相連結。IIM這個詞彙是由James Gambone（1998）所創，論及一種事工的形式；在當中，整個教會委身使更多不同世代的人參與教會不同的事奉或活動。就Gambone而言，這可以視為基督徒信仰之旅的重要歷程、教會核心事工的一部分。礙於篇幅，本文無法逐一從《聖經》、神學及學習理論的角度加以探討，以下將列舉幾處提到跨代聚集的經文，支持IIM立論的適切性。