Thought For The Week 1 May 2022

This week Andrea and I have been Timaru’s commissioners to the 2022    Special Assembly. The Moderator’s theme for his tenure is “Empowering Generations”:

As Hamish explored this theme with the national resource team 2 things became clear:

Timing

In many churches in Western World there is what the French sociologist of religion,  Daniele Hervieur Leger, calls a broken chain of religious memory. The transmission of faith from one generation to the next has faltered. There is a sense of urgency about reconnecting the chain! As a result there is a strong emergence of attention to                  intergenerational ministry. The theme Empowering Generations takes its place in a movement that is gathering momentum.

Target

Often intergenerational ministry is simply reduced to ‘getting young people back in church’. We see that it is much more than that. It is about addressing the needs and gifts of each generation and how those needs and gifts can be connected. The task therefore involves asking ‘what does each generation need and what can each generation give?’ As all         generations are empowered in this way that the church stands a good chance of becoming truly intergenerational.

Blessings,

Rory