Intergenerational Ministry Resources

Our "Returning to Sunday school" survey (Feb 2021) shows that about 60% of the respondents would like "Creative lessons for more broadly-graded groups." I have collected some resources to help churches think about and plan for Sunday school or other programs for intergenerational groups.

Intergenerational ministry is more than having parents attend Sunday school with their children. It is intentional activities and interactions between people of different ages and stages of life - preschoolers, grandparents, unmarried people, teens, college students, young professionals, empty nesters, .....

Here is a great article from Building Faith about how to be more intentional about intergenerational programming in your church: Stop, Collaborate, and Listen: Practical Steps to Increasing Intergenerationality. The author includes suggestions for building a team that will work with committees in the church to encourage them to think about the whole congregation for some of their programming. Plus here is a handout from First Presbyterian in Stillwater, OK, that summarizes what intergenerational ministry is and has suggestions to help the team brainstorm with committees. (PDF also attached here  in case the link goes dead.)

Here is a resource from GenOn to help you evaluate where your church is currently: Intergenerational Ministry Snapshot.

CRC has lots of good suggestions to help cultivate a culture in which faith in God is nurtured and relationships are fostered as all ages learn and grow, serve, and worship together on their intergenerational toolkit page; look in particular at the "Learning and Growing" section: "information and ideas for building on what your congregation is already doing to provide opportunities for people of all ages to “know and be known” by each other, both in small group gatherings and large group settings." There are articles linked that talk about how to adapt your current curriculum intergenerational groups.

Don't miss the conversation here at Rotation.org about a Faith Mentor Workshop. The primary goal of the "Faith Mentor Workshop" is to get the parents/mentors talking with their kids. The lesson activities should be designed to support that emphasis. This is not a "sit with your child and listen to the teacher" workshop.

And remember, the Rotation Model is more suited to the needs of broadly graded Sunday School. See more here.

NOTE: many of the ideas linked are more for really big churches that have things like a young singles Sunday school class and a women's class of people who have been members since the church was founded, etc., who never really interact. A small church may already be intergenerational by default/necessity (it certainly is multi-generational).