One of my good church friends is Jimmy*. Jimmy is a Baby Boomer, served in Vietnam, runs a small business he owns. He, like many of his generation, grew up going to church and spent the middle twenty or so years not.
Jimmy and I would talk about what matters…
- Family
- Doing something with your life
- What the Spirit is calling him to do.
It sounds a little corny, but that’s how he and I would go back and forth.
Jimmy: You know, I was a Baptist growing up. And my Mama would take me to church every single Sunday and I would watch all that singing and dancing and shouting…it just wasn’t for me, you know?
Drew: I know.
Jimmy: It didn’t feel real. It felt forced. So when I went to college, I didn’t go anymore. When I’d visit my Mama, she’d drag me back to that church. And each time, it kept getting worse. Does that make any sense to you? It kept getting worse. It wasn’t just that I wasn’t feeling it, it felt wrong somehow.
Drew: I imagine.
Jimmy: You know, I didn’t start going back to church but 8 years ago or so. After I got remarried and it was she who brought me back in. She said “The Episcopal Church isn’t like aBaptistChurch.” And she was right. It has taken me this long to realize that I need to be doing something.
Jimmy and I had many conversations just like that one, if not that exact one. He is a great guy, and very representative of his generation.
This generation is the group in the middle: they are in their Mid-Life. And they have done a lot of things, are doing a lot of things, and are looking forward to doing even more things. And that is part of the problem. They have found their primary meaning in their work. But as work disappears, the meaning does too. Same goes for the family. When they have made their family their life, and then get divorced or children go away to college, meaning leaves the house with them.
The roles shift as this group (say, age 40-60) ages. At the beginning, they were no longer upstarts and hot-shots but the people in charge. Proud members of the established class in the community and, when they show back up in church, easily adorn that accoutrement. Fits like a glove! But as they age, the story changes.
Used to that prestige and authority, this group begins adjusting to new leadership (at least in the work place) and new ideas. A new role has to emerge, and thankfully, it is precisely the one needed by their successors: mentor.
Of course, Mid-Lifers are probably plenty visible in your church and engaging them doesn’t seem the paramount issue it does for the other generations, but it is important. Here are a few keys I’ve found.
1) Engage them in mentoring roles. This is an important part for both their development and everyone else’s. It also seems to be a role that has been undervalued in our society for the last 30 years or so. This is about building the relationships between the people that are starting out and winding down. Match great parents who have raised some incredible children with parents who need help with their little ones. Match up old buildings & grounds committee members with young contractors to keep an eye on building and rebuilding, rather than simply maintenance.
2) Share leadership. Help communicate the different needs of the different people in the church to this group, but keep it from being competitive. Find a way to make a “both/and” approach rather than either/or. Help this group to see how important the younger groups are, even if it doesn’t seem that efficient today, because we are…
3) Building Discipleship. Form all of the groups and organizations in the church to highlight discipleship first, efficient function second. Get existing leaders to cultivate new leaders by institutionalizing a practice of sharing leadership and leaving leadership. One great system I’ve been taught is to require the following:
- Each group must have one leader and one assistant leader; each serving one year.
- In the second year, the assistant leader becomes the leader and raises up a new leader for one year. And so on.
- The retiring leader must sit out of a leadership position for at least one year.
- Members can be a part of only one group at a time.
It expects both shared leadership and diversified leadership that makes mentoring an active part of the process.
4) Encourage specialization. We already worship the cult of specialization in our working lives, so why not engage it in our spiritual lives? Hmm…don’t answer that yet! Specialization in church means disciplined, directed discipleship, engaging in a particular ministry area. Who are the gurus who know about what stuff we have in the back closet or the people we go to when we’ve heard that Sally has been in an accident? Those people are already specialists. But we should have more than one of any specialty and we should be broadening our base of specialties to include everything we might need. How are we on web designers or app makers? Who knows how to play guitar or write music? Who are our social media mavens? What are we doing to build up these skills?
5) Get everybody engaged in everything. It is great that we have 10 people really committed to help put together some Thanksgiving baskets, but how many are truly good communicators? How committed are they to building up worship and formation? The downside to specialization is that we don’t always make well-rounded Christians. I challenge you and anyone in church to join groups you wouldn’t normally join and engage in multiple ministries. This is the beauty of my discipleship model above (#3): after serving on a committee 2-3 years, you are let loose to try something new! Move from the altar guild to the usher team to the finance committee! No problem! No need to be stuck on the same committee because there are plenty of leaders!
*[Note: Jimmy is a made-up name for a real person. He’d be embarrassed if I used his real name]
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