Paul Nixon
The Promise of Intergenerational Worship in the New Century

In the last decade, many of us have become so focused on target markets with our various worship services that we have fallen prey to the fallacy that multiple generations can no longer worship together as they did in days past.   The creation of our fourth Sunday morning worship service last fall at Gulf Breeze United Methodist Church taught me and our church's leadership that intergenerational worship is just as possible today as ever.

Our church is primarily a boomer congregation, with lots of youth and children and a strong representation of younger seniors as well.   Young adults under the age of 30 are under-represented both in the general population of Gulf Breeze, Florida and in our church.  Up until 1996, we offered three identical services on Sunday mornings, services that one might label "spirited traditional," led by big choirs and robed pastors with messages centered on life issues.  In 1996, we gradually changed our 9:30 a.m. service to a format led by a praise band with extended congregational singing and the use of drama.   This service doubled in attendance over the following 18 months, and became our major entry point for new members, most of whom were boomers joining by profession of faith.   In 1997, we purchased 13 acres of land eight miles to the east of our Main Campus.  In 1999, we constructed phase one of our East Campus and gathered several new staff members.  As we planned the beginning of a fourth Sunday morning service, to start in the fall of 1999 at the East Campus, we decided we would go a little "closer to the edge."  We looked at the community around the East Campus and decided that our primary target audience would be unchurched thirty-something adults with preschool or elementary

What helps generations worship together?       

 

• Creative and occasional use of such elements as The Lord's Prayer or "Amazing Grace"
• A generous dose of humor.
  Message illustrations that intentionally relate to various life stages.         
• The median age of the visible worship   leadership should be about ten years younger      than the target median age of the crowd.         
• Music that helps everyone to feel young, regardless of age.         
• Pairing young and old together as greeters and ushers, in the media booth, at the hospitality desk, in worship drama team, etc.         
• The sacrament of infant baptism and other activities which forge a sense of family and community among a group of worshipers.         
• Where film clips are used, draw both upon current films and classics.         
• Informality in dress and manner.       

Toward this end, we designed a new worship service that was decidedly non-traditional.  It would be held in our gym.  I would preach without either a pulpit or a necktie.  The band would sing music with a harder edge and a louder volume than the band at the Main Campus.  The ages of band members would vary from 15 to early forties.  (One band member turned out to have green hair.)  We would integrate video and graphics throughout the service.  We would include a bank of round tables across the back of the room for those who preferred tables to standard rows.  We would welcome coffee in the worship area.  This format was designed to appeal to persons we had been unable to reach with our three Main Campus services.  Occasionally, prior to the completion of the new facility, senior adults who lived close to the East Campus would tell me how they intended to begin worshiping there once we started the new service.  I knew that they simply had no idea what they would be in for.  In that much, I believe I was correct.  For scores of them, the service  is better than anything they could have imagined.

On Sunday, September 19, 1999, we kicked off the new service with 590 in attendance.  Many of these were people who planned to continue worshiping at the Main Campus but who wanted to be supportive on Opening Day.  However, a core emerged quickly, many of whom were either coming back to organized church or were new to it altogether.  The average attendance for the first six months held at about 425.   As of January, half of our attendees were active in no church prior to September 19, 1999.  Only 30% were previously active at Main Campus.  By January, several people had gravitated back to the Main Campus looking for more traditional worship music.  Those going back to Main Campus were quickly replaced by new faces.   The children's ministry has been growing faster in early 2000 than the overall attendance, reflective of the young families that quickly connected with this new worship community.  This has all been pretty much what we had expected prior to launching the new service. 

The biggest surprise has been that a strong contingency of senior adults have gravitated to this service.  This last group is extremely consistent in attendance, actively volunteering for leadership, and vocally has become the most outspoken of any particular group in favor of the unique approach and flavor of our East Campus worship service.  Our seniors at the East Campus are a diverse lot.  Several talk of how they dropped out of regular church attendance years ago, but find this service refreshing and down-to-earth.  Others gave up suits and ties with retirement and are delighted that golf attire is perfectly appropriate for worship.  Others have simply never liked church, but like this one.  Still others have been active in more traditional services, but connect with the higher energy and emotional expressiveness in the new service.  A few like all of our services equally, and attend the East Campus because of its convenient proximity to their home. 

I just knew that the rock music would drive most of them away.  I was wrong.  It drove many away, but just as many seemed to enjoy it.  And then it hit me: these folks have not been limiting the music in their lives to Lawrence Welk for the last twenty years.  Many of them see all the current movies and know the current secular music artists better than this 37-year old pastor.  They go out on the town.  They enjoy music with a beat and with energy.  Suddenly I began asking, not why are these people tolerating the music in our service, but why have they tolerated music that feels like yesteryear at church for all this time when so many of them were growing and changing with the times.  The fact is that many of them grew bored with traditional worship years and years ago.

What has evolved is an unusually even age spread from birth to the seventies, all sharing together in one room, much like the rural church that I pastored in seminary. 

A few lessons suggested by our experience

1. That any age person may respond positively to a particular style of worship.  Society is not made up of monolithic groups with hard and fast lines drawn between the generations in terms of personal preferences and world views.  It would seem, to us, to be a mistake to formally identify any service with a particular age group.  To do so only narrows the people who will give that service a try. 

2. Most unchurched people will not be served effectively by traditional worship.  The vast majority of the previously unchurched people who are members of our church came in via one of our non-traditional services.  Our adult professions of faith quadrupled in the first six months after we began offering a non-traditional worship service in 1996 as opposed to the six months prior to that option.  The crowd at our newest service is very "unchurchy" in their appearance and attitudes compared to our other services.  Many of these people have lived in our community for years, but only now have felt a desire to be a part of our church.

3. That non-traditional worship may be the most promising venue for the creation of intergenerational worshiping communities.  Our most traditional service is heavy on persons over 55 years old and extremely light on youth and adults.  It is the least intergenerational of our four services.  The median age of this very strong and healthy service is about twenty years higher than the median age of our community.  Very few professions of faith are made by participants of this service.  In short, this service looks very much like the typical landscape of mainline Protestant churches across America.  This service, while an important piece of our church's ministry, offers the least viable model for intergenerational worship in the new century.  On the other hand, our least traditional service is probably our most intergenerational.

A few conclusions NOT to draw from our experience

1. That one size fits all.  Far from it!   A lot of Gulf Breeze Methodist people detest the music in the East Campus service.  Others are distracted or occasionally offended by other elements.  For some, it does not feel reverent enough.  They tell me "it just doesn't feel like church."  (Perhaps one secret of its success!)  We remind these folks that our church offers options that fit their sense of reverence.  Our church now offers three distinct flavors of worship experience, and will expand to four within the next year.  Each time we have added a new style of worship, we have experienced a leap in participation.  We are not advocates of a blended approach that leaves everyone feeling either bored or frustrated. 

2. That we should avoid targeting an audience.  This would be a tragic step backwards.  As Christian evangelists we have a responsibility to look at the many people groups in our communities and to approach each of them intentionally and strategically, especially if they are under-represented in the faith community.  Our church is still short on Gen X adults, and we will be targeting them in a new ministry initiative in the next few months, culminating in still another worship service.  There may be seventy year olds who choose to be a part of that service also, but we will cater first to the needs and tastes of 22 year olds in that service.  The target audience of the present East Campus service is unchurched people raising families.  No matter how many persons come from other Christian communities, we will cater first to the needs and tastes of unchurched people in that service. 

3. That intergenerational services are superior to age-specific services.   We at Gulf Breeze Methodist are simply delighted that we can be a place for both kinds of services!   Young adults ages 15 to 28 may be dealing with life issues such that they will almost always be more effectively served in a more age-targeted worship experience.  It is fair to say that the jury is still out on how well the current Gen X group will mainstream with the rest of the worshiping population ten years from now.