Passing on the faith from one generation to the next

Central to the church’s mission is passing on the faith from one generation to the next. Unfortunately, fifty-nine percent of 18-22 year olds leave the church, according to David Kinamann in You Lost Me. Young people are generally inarticulate about their faith, according to Christian Smith and Melissa Denton in Soul Searching and Souls in Transition, and Kenda Dean in Almost Christian. Passing on the faith may be central to the church’s mission, but recent research indicates that all is not well in this area.

As the father of two daughters (and three grandchildren) the challenges of passing on the faith are real. Their upbringing and church experiences were similar but their spiritual struggles were very different. Making sense of their struggles and the struggles of other young people and emerging adults is a personal and professional quest. In assessing the research, wrestling with Scripture, the Reformed Confessions, Catechism, and listening to the stories of young people it is clear that a primary means for passing on the faith to the next generation is through corporate worship.

Worship is a corporate activity; it is also an educational activity. Faithfully passing on the faith from generation to generation requires carefully considering worship’s educational dimensions in light Deuteronomy 6:4-9.

Deuteronomy 6.4-9

The Israelite community was commanded to pass the faith to the next generation. This included   that “the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (v.4), and learning to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (v 5). Moses described how the commandments were to be ever before them and “impress them on your children” (v. 6-9). The “you” in verses 6-9 are plural; it is the Israelite community that was to keep the Torah ever before the children. The Torah was to permeate their lives and relationships. Parents were supported by the broader community in the passing on the faith, and the community was supported by parents.

Parents play a significant role within the context of community in passing on the faith to their children. This involves the church functioning as a missional community seeking to enculturate young people into faithful Christ following.

A Missional Perspective

A missional church is committed to equipping believers to enter into the cultural narratives of its community to persuasively communicate and demonstrate the good news of the gospel in a manner that promotes the common good. A missional church strives to be a visible expression of the body of Christ grounded in the belief that every part of the body is essential (1 Cor. 12;12, 13, 20, 25-27).

This is why our baptismal liturgy teaches that baptized infants and children are members of Christ’s church when a congregation declares,  “With joy and thanksgiving, we now welcome you into Christ's church; for we are all one in Christ. We promise to love, encourage, and support you and to help you know and follow Christ.” The body of Christ metaphor invites the missional church to live as an authentic community inviting each member to lay aside preferences in order to foster the spiritual growth of other members of the community so that “we can reach unity in the faith and knowledge of the son of God and become mature attaining to the measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4.13). Worship services that segregate the body of Christ disrupt the passing on of the faith from one generation to the next.

Enculturation

Infants, children, teens, and adults learn about the Christian faith together by participating in corporate worship, which includes interacting, supporting, encouraging, nurturing and challenging each other in their relationship with Christ. In other words, by participating in worship people are enculturated into the beliefs, values, behaviors and standards of the community.

Learning is a complex activity involving the five senses and the brain’s remarkable ability to store, access and recall data. Learning is a lifelong activity. Two often-overlooked observations about learning deserve more attention.

People are enculturated, they learn through participation. We learn by engaging in activities with others. When we segregate infants and children from our worship services they do not learn about worship. My daughter’s remark about her son rings true, “How will Tuck ever learn to worship if he is not in worship.” Through regular participation in worship the neural pathways connecting various experiences with worship are strengthened. My granddaughter, Karlie, has placed her offering in the plate every Sunday with me since she was born. First I carried her and pulled the dollar from her little grasp, later she began to drop the dollar into the basket. Vow she listens for the offering “signal” and looks at me expectantly, knowing it is time. The link between worship and giving is being forged; neural pathways are being strengthened through participation. Does she understand what she is doing and why? At some point she will.

People know more than they can articulate. Articulating what one knows is a complex process that involves recalling, organizing and encoding data. Enculturation includes learning to articulate what one understands within the context of community.  Karlie is not able to articulate why she gives an offering, but her description would be age-appropriate.  As she matures, questions will arise about what she is doing and why, providing teachable moments.

The significant role of enculturation was validated by the 2003 report Hardwired to Connect released by the Institute for American Values.  Drawing on the neurosciences and related disciplines the report observed, “We are hardwired for other people and for moral meaning and openness to the transcendent. Meeting these basic needs for connection is essential to health and to human flourishing”.  The report goes on to describe the type of communities’ children and young people need, which they labeled authoritative communities. “Authoritative communities are groups that live out the types of connectedness that our children increasingly lack. They are groups of people who are committed to one another over time and who model and pass on at least part of what it means to be a good person and live a good life.”

Authoritative communities enculturate and integrate infants, toddlers, children and young people into the life of the community. Segregating infants, toddlers, children and young people disconnects them from church community’s defining activity and its faith forming influence.

Towards a Way of Life

We were created to live in community, in relationships with other people across the generations. The Passover celebration captures the generations eating and learning together as the children asked questions. The feasts, festivals and sacrifices were instructional community events. It is through intergenerational relationships that the faith is passed on from one generation to the next as stories are told, questions asked and the frame of reference of those present is broadened. It is through intergenerational relationships that catechesis takes place.

Catechesis is a way of teaching that intertwines knowledge and life. It involves explaining and illustrating through the use of stories from every persons’ lives. It invites questions and seeks to promote dialogue and application. A session on the first phrase of the Lord’s prayer, “Our Father” would include both explanations of the significance of “our” and God as “Father”, stories about how those particular truths inform one’s life, and discussions about its meaning and significance for life.  Adults, teens, children, and toddlers are able to share stories that are appropriate and challenging to all those present.

Catechesis employs intergenerational relationships in order to foster authentic community. The elderly woman was always quick to listen and welcome the children and teens at church. Everyone knew that if you said “Hi”, a peppermint and the question “How are you?” was inevitable. An answer was expected. Children grew and left for college. Upon return, they would make their way down the aisle for peppermints and her inevitable questions. Intergenerational relationships invite the church community to learn, grow, support and challenge each other in their walk with Christ. Intergenerational relationships are essential if the church is to be a safe place to ask authentic questions, wrestle with the issues of life and pass on the faith to the next generation.

Conclusion

Jesus stated, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me” (Mark 9.37) and he summons adults to “receive the kingdom of God like a little child” (Mark 10:15). Passing on the faith from one generation to the next is a priority. Every dimension of a church’s ministry should be able to articulate how it contributes to the passing on of the faith, whether it be serving meals, council meetings, worship services, worship committee meetings, youth programming, etc. Truly integrated intergenerational worship is not optional and the church as a missional community must recapture this essential component of its being. If we do not, then not only will the spiritual lives of our children and teens suffer, but our congregation’s spiritual life will be impoverished as well.

One of the hallmarks of the Reformed tradition is the statement: Reformed and always reforming according to the dictates of scripture. May the Holy Spirit through the Word empower us to a wholesale commitment to passing on the faith from one generation to the next by recovering a truly integrated intergenerational approach to worship.