Intergenerational Small Groups
Recently I came across this article about a church that has monthly Table Talk groups – Intergenerational small groups over a meal, for small groups of 6-8 different aged women.
This got me thinking about the intergenerational small groups I’ve been a part of over the years.
Weekly Bible Study with other women
We were the first to have children in our group of friends. Our daughter was the only baby or even child in the church at the time. I really needed support and friendship from other women. A mother of teenagers invited me to join the Bible Study group she was part of which included women her age and older. A couple of the women were Family Day Care mothers at the time, so there were other children for my children to interact with. I deeply valued the support of this group of women. I was part of this Bible Study group for about 6 years.
Intergenerational Small Group for a short period
Years later when there were more children and families in our church I ran an intergenerational small group during Lent. Several families plus some single adults joined us for an interactive time of exploring the Lent Bible readings on a Sunday afternoon. We finished our time together each week with a shared meal. The age range of the group was 9 to 50+ years old.
Lent Gathering that turned into a Regular Gathering
A couple of years later when we offered resources for households to choose from to use for Lent or Easter, a family chose a Lent Bible Study amongst other things. They decided to use the family Bible study whilst having breakfast in the park before going to church on a Sunday morning. They invited other households to join them. Three families and a couple of single adults joined together in the park during Lent. After Easter we had a dinner together to discuss if we wanted to continue to meet going forward. There was agreement that we wanted to try and continue meeting but decided that it wasn’t feasible to meet every week before church. Particularly as many in the group were often in involved in 8am worship practise. We were struggling to find a time that worked, then the youngest in the group (11 years) suggested we meet straight after church. We did this for a while with whoevers house we met at leading the activities and discussion.
At some stage things changed again and we decided to meet on a Sunday evening over dinner. We all bring our own dinner and discuss our learnings from whatever church service we’ve attended in person or online that day. This group continued to meet on Zoom during COVID. The group has changed over the years but many of the original members still meet on many Sunday evenings. We are usually led by a special needs young adult with the help of her dad. The format is simple but lifegiving for those of us who attend. We share some of what has happened during our week, share and discuss learnings from the services we’ve attended and then share prayer points. The dad asks this special needs young adult who’s going to pray and she always answers that she’s going to start and points at my husband to say that he’ll finish.
So this is just a few stories of how intergeneration small groups can work whether it’s for a short period of time or something more regular, monthly or weekly.
How could you add an intergenerational small group into your ministry?