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Multi-generational, cross-generational, intergenerational. What are the differences and where are we headed as a church? Join Reverend Daniel as he shows where we are at today and what we will look like in the future.

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So, church, today I've entitled my sharing Intergenerational Ministry at YCCA. Right? And I'm using Psalm 71 as a kind of uh uh launching pad or kind of framework to show us that in in scripture itself, particularly in Psalm 71, uh if you read through the whole Psalm 24 verses, you see a sweep through the generations. Uh so Psalm 71 is part of book two of the Psalter. Uh Book 2 of the Psalter uh has Psalm 42 to 72 in mind. So it forms a unit uh under the common thread of the early monarchy of David. So David, according to commentators, wrote Psalm 71, likely in his old age, a little while before he died. And interestingly, if you follow me, we don't have the reference on slide, but David writes that God is the God of his birth, right? Verse 6 tells us God is the God of his birth. And in verse 5 and verse 17, uh David goes on to say that he is the God of his youth. When he's a youth, uh God is still his God. And right through his old age, when he has gray hairs, he says, Oh Lord, do not forsake me when I'm old. So verses 9 to 18 kind of carries this idea through. So this is an epsal for us today, being a family service, as we explore the topic of intergenerational ministry at YCCA. So, what are some common themes in Psalm 71? The first theme we see is that God is David's refuge. And a refuge is usually an elevated ground, a safe place when protection is needed from something or someone. So David, throughout his life, even as from birth, right through his youth and old age, saw a primary picture of God as his refuge. We see that in verse 1 of Psalm 71. In you, O Lord, do I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame. Verse 3 tells us, uh, David says, Be to me a rock of refuge to which I may continually come. Verse 7 tells us, I have been as important to many, but you are my strong refuge. So for David, uh God being his refuge is part of the picture of what it means to uh uh understand and know God truly. Secondly, God is David's trust and hope. Uh and this is uh David's life from youth, even before his birth, in the context of the troubles and issues of life. Uh in Psalm 71, there's always a corresponding verse of hope and trust in God. We see that in Psalm 71, verses 4 to 6, David said, Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grabs of the unjust and cruel men. So, and the next verse tells us, For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth. David learned trust and hope in God from his youth. And not only that, even from birth, the verses goes on to tell us, Upon you I've leaned from before my birth. You are he who took me from my mother's womb. My praise is continually of you. So the pattern of having crying out to God for him to rest to be rescued from the wicked people follows with a word of trust and hope in God. We see that pattern again in verses 12 to 14 of Psalm 71. It says, Oh, my O God, be not far from me. Oh my God, make haste to help me. May my accusers be put to shame and consumed with scorn and disgrace, may they be covered who seek my hurt. But I will hope continually and praise you yet more and more. So, in contrast to his predicament and the troubles of his life, he's setting his hope on God. And this hope is what he has learned since he was a youth. And he and when he was conceived in his mother's womb, he learned that it is God who brought him forth to birth. The third theme is that David will proclaim God throughout the generations. So the proclaiming of God is not just left to those who are uh older, but the proclamation of God is throughout all generations. We see that in verse 15 to 18 of Psalm 71. David says, My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation all the day. For their number is past my knowledge. With the mighty deeds of the Lord God, I will come, I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone. He goes on to say, Oh God, for my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, oh, oh God, do not forsake me until I proclaim to your might, I will proclaim your might, sorry, to another generation, your power to those who come. So the so-called the indication for a church that is continually growing and thriving, it's not so much about how much or how many activities or events we run. But like any organization, the church also relies on the generations to be interconnected and to have the sense of proclaiming Christ, not only in our generation, but the generations that come after us, so that they will love God, they will fear Him. So that that is the goal actually of our church life, that we don't want to end our faith in our generation. But we hope and we pray that the next generation will be able to pick up what we have left behind. So that is the heart of everything that we are trying to do. So, how do we grow as into an intergenerational church that will exhibit the themes mentioned in Psalm 71? Looking to God as our refuge. Develop our next generation, children and youth, especially in their formative age, as David had experienced, to trust and hope in God. And how do we proclaim God throughout the generations? I believe that an important end outcome is to grow towards the vision of us as a church together to grow in Christ-likeness as an intergenerational family church, is to see families across generations investing time and effort to build relationships with one another such that the legacy of our faith can be passed on from generation to generation. And that is what ministry is about is life-on-life uh impartation. And if you look at your own life of discipleship journey, there's always someone that has walked with you. And uh this is what uh uh has happened time and time again when churches gather and they reveal discipleship and talking about how do we grow in discipleship and Christ-likeness, you know, every time they gather, most of the feedback comes when uh as a realization that it's always someone that has brought them to the faith, someone that has nurtured them in a certain journey of their life. So therefore, our faith is not just complete by coming to church only or just attending uh Bible study or having a good knowledge of the word alone, as important as that is, but our faith must translate into a relational connection across the generations, so that the legacy of our faith will not stop in our generation. So our growth towards Christ-likeness certainly involves relationship with one another, both within our generation, right? Uh that means those who are similar age profile to us, similar life context and season, and that is easier. We tend to connect with people uh in our own generation easier because we go through the same experience in life. But I think one thing unique about our church is that we need to learn to connect, not just within our generation, but also intergenerationally. We see that from Psalm 71 trusting and hoping in God, experiencing God as our rock and refuge, and proclaiming him presupposes a relational connection with God. You know, it's not just a mental apprehension of who God is, but a relational connection. David knew that he could trust God, he could depend on him. He knew that God is his refuge through his own experience and journey with God. And by extension, I believe uh with one another, we need to build that relational connection so that we are able to support one another in this journey of life. I will come back again to this important point of connecting to God and to one another relationally in a while later. Let us first look at some definitions to give us perspectives of what it means to be an intergenerational family church. Firstly, what are the various generations? So uh on the screen before you you see uh a list of listing of the generation and the birth years. So this is arranged more according to a historical life context where um because of sudden key events that happen, uh so uh sociologists or those who look at life trends actually study those patterns and then group people according to that uh historical life events. But it is by no means uh a way of trying to box us within a particular context, but it's saying that as a general profile, uh the birth years between that range has some common experience. So that's the reason of grouping it into these uh different generations. So we have the silent generation, um, those born between those years, 1928 to 1945. We have the baby boomers, those born between 1946 to 1964, the Gen X, those born between 1965 to 1980, the Gen Y, Gen Z, and Generation Alpha with the birth years uh delineated there. So it's just a way of framing uh device to help us to see and locate where we are actually. So I believe all of us here are born uh within a particular generation, and because we are born between a particular generation, we have a certain framework and uh ideology or approach to life, perspectives, and all. Right? Secondly, how do the various uh generations then relate to one another? So uh a book authored by Weihao and Su In, uh, which uh just came into publication called The Generation Project, Bridging Generational Divides in the Singapore Church, defines an intergenerational church as a church where there is comprehensive mutuality, meaning that it has a give and take. It's not just one way, it's not just we are expecting the young to serve, you know, and and contribute, and then the those who are more senior just leave it to the young to do uh to so-called run the ministry or do the work. But it's there's sometimes some mutuality. It's the older, uh those who are older in our guiding the younger ones and mutual, mutually benefiting uh each other. So that that's the idea. We help one another. It's a two-way street. So there's a sense of equality. There's not a sense that uh uh because I'm older, so I'm blessing you, you better learn from me. You know, but there is a certain mutuality uh and equality, just as how those of us who have gone on mission trips, we say that we are out there because we want to bless the people, but we are we end up being blessed by them, by their faith. So something like this, right? There is equality and mutuality. It's not just a one-way street, but it has to be a two-way street. And and reciprocity meaning it's a two-way uh kind of channel. Uh so this is what we are aiming for. And uh so because when we have this comprehensive mutuality, equality and reciprocity between the generations, it makes uh transformation into what God desires for us as a church, more likely. So this is construct, sorry, contrasted with a multi-generational church, which I think we are at uh this state at the moment. Uh most churches, actually, all churches are multi-generational, uh, which we have a lot of different generations living together. There is superficial and polite interactions between generations, but that that is about all. We often keep our fellowship within our own generation, right? Uh we only we tend to relate to people we feel comfortable and those who understand us. So this is where we are, and the next step is a cross-generational church. It's somewhat in between. There's some sharing, uh, listening, learning between the different generations, uh, but little transformation yet, but at least there's more interaction. So there's a movement uh from a multi-generational church to a cross-generational church where we start to interact and learn more from one another towards a multi-generational church. So, how do we as a church grow towards an intergenerational family church? Let me just outline a process which I believe could form a kind of a guideline, uh framework for us to consider how as a church we can move towards being an intergenerational family church. The first phase or first part, which is this year, is really to bring us through an awareness and understanding about how different generations communicate. So the goal of our journey this year is really just awareness and understanding. And it makes it take time, it will take time for us to understand that we are different. You know, we may have a common faith in Christ, but we are different across the generations. Right? And phase two, which is uh and phase three, which likely will be kind of launched together, is sometime next year we want to uh embark into a kind of evaluation process and facilitating some form of intergenerational conversation and projects or certain ways we can work together to tackle some of the hot button issues of church renewal. So it's something we want to look at. And of course, phase three is how we learn to uh build uh mutuality, chemistry forming uh throughout among the generations and mutual mentoring. So that is uh as a guideline, not a hard number, um, from next year. You will bring us through 2026. So the first step, I'm on phase one, which is awareness and understanding how different generations communicate. The first step in the journey towards uh being intergenerational begins with an awareness that we need to take the issue of generational differences seriously and attempt to understand why there are tensions between the generations. The trigger for this uh in Singapore churches is when uh there's a time post-COVID, I think we are still experiencing that, where churches are losing the young adults from church life. And and not only that, on a national level of concern to many churches is the Singapore Census Report 2020, uh, which noted that there's an increase. Uh the Singapore Census Report uh look at trends every 10 years. So there's an increase uh when they compare the the report from 2019 and 2022, that there's an increase among the younger profile, particularly those within the age bracket of 25 to 34, um, reporting no religious affiliation. There's a note of a 6% point increase in this group, which is rather significant when you compare the figure uh 10 years ago. Right? So it shows us that the younger ones, those between the bracket of 25 to 34, find it easier, find it more uh challenging to connect to a church or to a religion, so to speak. So many of them reported no religious affiliation. In Singapore, there has been a strong trend of second generational uh millennial Christians leaving the church. They grew up once they started working. And we, I think uh in in YCCA and other churches have experienced that phenomenon. And Weihao, which is uh one of the co-authors of the Generations Project, I uh he's he's about my age, in his 40s. This is what he he writes. He has served in a young adult ministry for more than a decade, and uh he says it pained and frustrated him to see many dear friends and co-laborers in Christ leaving the church hurt and disappointed. How about our church? I think we are on a good track to have a number of our young adults serving in the worship ministry. We have uh we try to engage uh the young adults or those who have started working in in the PCC some ways, and we do have uh young adult groups that are forming. So all these are good signs. We do have points of integration to our church. But more than just having them serving, uh we need to develop a more concerted way to engage them in spiritual friendship, meaning we have to be their friend, right? And we need to help them feel a sense of belonging to the church. Give them a reason why coming to church is important, especially for those of us who grew up uh having the discipline of you know having to be present in church. Uh, those of us who are, especially the baby boomers or silent generation, maybe there are some lessons or some ways we can help our young understand um why they need to come to church physically, since everything is so accessible online, since they can get a lot of content just by watching sermons or listening to uh tapes or videos of good preachers. So eventually they are the ones who will take on the mantle of leadership in the church. Tensions between generations often arise because of a lack of understanding of our generational differences. Uh, as I said earlier, we need to know that each generation of which we are part of, we are shaped by different historical life events that kind of form and shape our lived experience. So the next slide will show us uh, it's not by means comprehensive, but it just indicates for us each generation and the birth year certain shared historical life events that were uh defining. So for the silent generation within that bracket of uh birth years, it was World War II. So they had lived through experience of insecurity and dislocation. Right? And because of that, that kind of framed their recognition. Towards life, uh develop certain worldviews, maybe being frugal, uh being a sense of thankful for the life they have, uh, and um grateful for the Singapore government for the progress after World War II. So the baby boomers uh were slightly after came, were born after World War II. That that was where uh the economy was picking up, rebuilding of economies, uh industrialization, the manufacturing came uh to Singapore, the shipyards and you know and so on. So these uh they are the baby boomers are the not the boomers and shakers, but they are actually the the ones that laid the foundation for the nation. So they are they were give their best, they work hard, right? They they they recognize the value of hard work and building the right foundation. That was also the time where television started entering the home. Right? So Gen X, within their age birth years, uh grew up, which is during my time. I'm a late Gen X. So uh so it grew up, I grew up during the birth of cable TV. That was the first time you know we had something called cable TV. Uh so in the study that Wei Hao and Su In did, uh, the Generations Project, uh there's an indication that there is also a missing generation within this H bracket, the Gen X for quite a number of churches. So uh so this is are those who in their 40s and uh early 50s. Right, then the Gen Y uh millennials uh they saw the internet become social for the first time. They live uh in an interconnected and global world where there's a lot of opportunity and many choices such that they don't know what to choose from. So going down the generation generations, the Gen Z grew up on Wi-Fi and smartphone. They they are they learn more, they are exposed to more things, and they experiment more. Then, of course, we also have the Gen Alpha, it's not been profiled yet. Those born 2013 to the present. So just to give us an example, uh the silent generation and the baby boomers, they grew up within a lens of framework where making a living is a priority. Uh they grew up, they have to have a command and control kind of leadership style, and grew up being anxious because of the experience of World War II. Uh so they tend to take control easily and uh so-called fight for the family and you know, to in order to uh survive, survival instincts are strong. So, in contrast, the younger Gen X millennials and Gen Z would not so much be concerned with survival or the or the fear of losing their jobs as a number of them uh would have parents' financial support as a safety net. So this is a blanket statement, right? Some are really concerned that they'll lose their jobs. But generally, uh the millennials, uh most of the time they have the parents' backing in some way. So, because of that safety net and the many choices they have, uh they will be experimenting more with the varied choices and options out there and would prefer a more consultative, participatory, engaging, collaborative approach to learning. And I would think towards leadership too, uh, working towards consensus rather than a command and control style of leadership. So looking at the differences between the generations, we must ask what God would have us do in the face of it. Are there possibilities and areas for collaboration? Uh, one observable point of possible collaboration is that the silent generation and the baby boomers, which is representative of quite a large number in our congregation here, have much lived experience under their belt. So a lot of us here have lived through many years, and because of that, you all have accumulated many experience. Whereas we compare the younger Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z, most of them have much learned expertise. That means knowledge, they pick up things very fast. Like I'll ask uh Kayla and Gloria, and they they will learn things much faster than me because they pick up things so fast on the internet and they learn things so fast on the go and uh versatile with the phone and so on. So knowledge, expertise is learned at a much faster rate. So live experience and learn expertise, right? Isn't that something that we can possibly collaborate uh uh between across the generations? One has much live experience, uh the other younger ones have much learned expertise, knowledge uh through the internet. So could we find a way to help one another across the generations? So, for this year, how do we kind of create uh and grow an awareness? I think some of the things that have been done already is if you all uh recall on the 7th January at the beginning of the year on Vision Sunday, uh we invited uh uh Dr. Su In, Tan Su In to just give uh uh a sermon on intergenerational dynamics. That's where you have been first introduced to the whole idea of the generations and how there needs to be unity in diversity. Uh and today actually is the second instalment where I'm trying to follow up and talk about intergenerational ministry, how we need to be aware of the different dynamics between the generation and how we can work together in the years to come. And towards the end of the year, on the 5th October, we'll be organizing uh a workshop for PCC and ministry leaders, lay readers, uh, to those who are serving in ministry, uh, PCC and lay readers to for a closer look on how we can facilitate intergenerational connections. So this will be done on the 5th of October. So these are some steps, some processes that will help us uh engage more dynamically in the whole process. So the second phase will involve, which is next year, an evaluation and uh facilitating some kind of intergenerational conversations and projects. So the plan or the consideration is that we will meet in separate uh generations to have conversations, to identify what are some of the greatest problems and opportunities of the church. So somehow within the same generation, we can identify some common struggles or common challenges. And with that, uh we will try to gather to discern convergence by identifying what we can do, some common areas across the generations, and looking forward, God willing, we can form a kind of uh intergenerational uh task force, perhaps, to look at specific areas in YCCA where we can engage the generations together. Right? And phase three is about chemistry forming and mutual mentoring across the generations, is is really to help us together mingle across the generations. So uh in again next year and the year following, I hope to engage uh the Generations Project by Grace Works to uh deliberately bring us through a process of how we have intergenerational mentoring. So there'll be one session to uh teach on what's the basis for mentoring in the church, and three other sessions about how to uh select suitable mentors and to conduct relevant training, and further sessions on experiential learning, how how to mentor someone in uh in the context of journeying together, and then we will start to review the process. So there are some things in place in the pipeline, right? So these are all possibilities for us going forward. Right? So, what is interesting is that the research done by Grace Works uh generations projects has discovered that the most effective way to bridge the generation gap is to build deep intergenerational relationships. So if you look at the uh the infographic there, um we all know that as with all relationships, communication is key if you want to build trust. With enough trust, a particular group will then find it easy to collaborate and execute a task at hand. The foundation of anything we do as a church, the base is communication and trust. However, because the ministries that we run in church are seen and measurable, while the depth of relationships are usually invisible and cannot be quantified, there usually exists a tension of where we will choose to focus our time and resources. In a hectic and time press era where everything should have been completed yesterday, it's much easier to deem a church that is successful with quantified statistics like the number of ministries and events being executed with the corresponding number of participants rather than an unverifiable claim of the quality of relationships built in the last year. I believe as a church we need to start building deep intergenerational relationships. Uh I'm quite uh uh uh moved by this uh pictorial that we see here because we spend a lot of time in church building ministries, running events, uh, but actually without the base and without the foundation of a strong intergenerational connection, you know, uh strong communication and trust being built. Whatever events we make, you know, or try to develop, at the end of the day, cannot be sustained over the years. So we need as a church to start building deep intergenerational relationships. And this is one of the key trusts that God has laid on my heart uh as a vicar in the past few years. Uh so what you'll see perhaps in the coming years uh in YCCA will not always be quantifiable and measurable in terms of numbers. Some of us may be looking for the next big event or big bazaar that the church is going to run. Uh I think we should start to look out for who the Lord is leading you to connect to relationally. I think as a church we are uh an aging church in some way. Uh so we need to set the foundation right. We need to start investing in building friendship across the generations so that we can grow trust, so that each generation will not be suspicious of one another when we work together. So, of course, like typical Singaporeans, we want to just get to the cut to the chase and get the work done, you know, but I don't think it will sustain us in the long haul. The fruits of intergenerational connection, building trust, growing our communication will come. But we as a church need to pay the price and build rightly for the sake of the next generation that will come after us. So my prayer for us is yeah, be excited and be looking forward because there are some things in place for us and to consider how as a church we can tap on both the old and the young to grow together as an intergenerational family church.

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We pray that you've been ministered to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about Eastern Christian Church, please visit our website at yccanglican.com. Have a blessed day.