Acts 2:1-4; 12-21 (Esp. vs. 17)
We were visiting Dave and Kelly in Austin when we saw an ad for a new church, a disturbing ad. It said something like this: “We have a great nursery and children’s program so you won’t be bothered by children in the service.” Puzzled by the intensity of that statement, I mentioned it to a pastor friend when I got back. He said there was a movement in some churches to create child-free services since many modern parents want breaks from their kids.
I’m not sure how that attitude resonates with the founder of the church, the One famous for saying, “Suffer the little children to come to me.”
I actually like children in the services. If they make an occasional bit of noise, we will survive. I remind myself that I’m the adult. I accept my preaching may enliven Charlotte or put Ezekiel to sleep but they’re just demonstrating they already have distinctive personalities. (The matter of whether females pay more attention in church than males is a question beyond my pay scale.)
Speaking of younger generations, one of the memories I’ll take with me involves our youth mission trip to Benton Harbor in that state up north (Michigan). A last minute change of plans sent us there instead of Toronto where SARS was a threat. In Benton Harbor we were going to paint houses and conduct some children’s services—routine mission-trip stuff. Instead, we found ourselves in a city gripped by rioting, homes being burned, and confrontations with the police—all during the week we were there.
Looking back, I can see some parallels to this text.
We were in an upper room—the third floor of the Salvation Army.
We were united in prayer—especially when we thought of the riots only a few blocks away.
There was the sound of a mighty rushing wind—of course, that was only the police helicopters patrolling all night.
When the rioting made national news, some churches demanded their groups return home. Our youth wanted to stay so we did. For all of us, young and old, it was a memorable experience.
This leads me to this historically significant text. This verse has been used by Pentecostals to explain their distinctive theology. It has been cited repeatedly through the centuries to defend women in ministry. New Testament scholars have pointed to it to define “last days.” Today I want to use it to underscore the multi-generational character of the church.
Of course, the church has always been made up of more than just one generation. That’s to be expected. Things are different now.
In the past, most churches had only two well-represented generations in the congregation. Today, there may be three or four.
Unlike the past, when one generation was pretty much like the next, today’s generations can be very different from each other. The differences are real and can lead to conflict and misunderstandings. Let me suggest a few.
- Generally speaking, the younger generations are less loyal to a denomination than the older generations. For this reason, when your children move away they may look for a church that ministers to their needs, regardless of its denominational affiliation.
- Generally speaking, the younger generations are more interested in mission/service opportunities close to home rather than those half a world away. They are not as likely to be interested in seeing the slides or videos of church planting in Belize as their grandparents might be.
- Generally speaking, the younger generations tend be more interested in developing relationships than building organizations.
- Each generation is to be valued.
According to the late Lewis Drummond, the several generations living now vary in their church attendance patterns. The older the American the more likely that person will go to church. The younger the American, the less likely they will go to church.
When young people show up at church, we should rejoice.
Keep this in mind: The pull to be indifferent to the church is strong but those who resist it form the pool out of which a future generation of church leaders will come. And it may be they have the potential to do something great, because they’ve already demonstrated they possess the capacity to go against the stream.
But they’ll need guidance and encouragement, along with an opportunity to discover and develop their own gifts.
A multi-generational fellowship is valuable to the church.
1. Multi-generational fellowship reminds us that age does not limit usefulness in the Kingdom of God.
This passage from Peter’s sermon, a quotation from the prophet Joel, reminds us that no one is a second-class Christian by reason of gender, social status, or age.
There’s lots we can say about this promise but I want underscore what it says to people of all ages. It says that the old maxim “Christian youth are the church of tomorrow” isn’t quite right; in the nature of things, they’ll probably have more tomorrows than some of us should expect, but they are also the church of today.
At the same time, any suggestion Christian seniors have outgrown their value is off-base as well. It they maintain an openness to the Spirit and a willingness to use their gifts for the good of the whole church, they will continue to contribute.
A church that discounts the value of any generation will miss God’s blessing.
2. Multi-generational fellowship keeps us in touch with the traditions and values of the past.
We’ve all heard of the churches with brass bands and “worship teams” but here’s something you may not know. Some of the most exciting churches, churches reaching people who’ve never shown any interest in most churches, have returned to practices from earlier generations. For example, the worship services in these churches make use of candles and silence.
Not every church will take such a “retro” step but churches where there are senior adults have a recourse for recalling what was valuable in the past.
3. Multi-generational fellowship opens our imaginations to fresh ways of doing things.
One Sunday, as a young man and his father left a worship service, the young man complained that the music hadn’t been very inspiring. His father said, “If you think you can do it better, do it.” Isaac Watts did just that.
He revolutionized church music. Though he composed his hymns in the early eighteenth century we still sing some of them. He set a precedent for using the fresh ways to express the Christian message.
New ideas can come from any generation. What’s important is keeping our hearts and minds open to see how God might be leading us to a new freshness.
4. Multi-generational fellowship can provide perspective in the midst of challenge.
Have you ever encountered a group of young, inexperienced Christian “Chicken Littles” who have taken the newest anti-Christian book or movie as proof the ecclesiastical sky is falling?
One of my earliest memories of Christian radio was my mother listening to it as she worked in the kitchen. I remember those preachers thundering against the communist menace. They darkly spoke of how communism would destroy the church. It didn’t.
Years later, the threat was secular humanism. Secular humanism, we were told, would be the death of the church. It wasn’t.
These threats weren’t insignificant, but they weren’t enough to destroy the entity about which Jesus said, “the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.” Time provides perspective in the face of such threats.
Older, more-experienced Christians can help younger Christians see the newest threats for what they are, old, defeated enemies with new faces.
5. Multi-generational fellowship can inspire hope for the future.
Is there anything more disheartening than listening to a squad of sour seniors? As they wait to head off to heaven they complain about the younger generation and declare the world to be going…. Never mind where they think the world is going. Suffice it to say the trip involves a hand-basket.
I went on three mission trips with the youth from our church. They were weeks of heat, hard work, poor sleep, and bad food. I would recommend the experience to each of you.
While on these trips I met young men and women from other places and other churches as well. I was encouraged about the future of the church.
I believe the majority of those young people were there to honor God and discover how they could put their faith into action. Watching them would give anyone hope for the future.
Observations and Conclusion:
Almost a quarter-century after Peter preached his message on Pentecost, Paul wrote a trio of letters to two pastors, Timothy and Titus. The letters point to the ideal relationship of the generations and hint that it wasn’t easy to maintain it.
Paul instructed Timothy: “Let no man despise thy youth.” Here are a couple other translations. The New Century Version says, “Do not let anyone treat you as if you were unimportant because you are young.” The New American Bible says, “Let no one have contempt for your youth…”
We don’t know how old Timothy was; he need not have been young by our standards. But, still, there appear to have been some who felt free to show their contempt because of his youth.
The remainder of the verse makes clear the best antidote to this disrespect is a life of Christian integrity. But, still, there will be those who disrespect and distrust the young. That’s not the Christian ideal.
Of course, some might imagine Paul writing today and saying to a sixty-something pastor, “Let no one despise your grey hair.” In fact, Paul did instruct Timothy to show respect for older Christians, even when he disagreed with them. When I reviewed those scriptures, I noticed how Paul both called for younger Christians to respect older Christians and for older Christians to be respectable.
Christianity did not produce an ancestor-venerating culture where the presence of grey-hair guarantees wisdom. You won’t sell that to today’s young people anyway, since they’ve seen too many “grey-hairs” caught in financial, political, and sexual scandals.
Nor did Christianity endorse today’s idolatry of youth. It does not promote a culture where the promise a product will make you look twenty years younger can turn a quack who failed the chemistry final into a millionaire or that prompts a studio to relegate gifted actresses to playing the mother-in-law just because they’ve hit 45.
Christianity produced something different from either. When dealing with the matter of generations, Christianity tells us:
Of course, that’s a reflection of a principle basic to Christian morality, “Do unto other as you would have them do unto you.”
As a senior adult, you want to be valued; value the younger adults. As a younger adult, you want to be valued; value the older adults.
This kind of mutual valuing means the younger Christian will fight the impulse to say, “I know it all.” Then, too, so will the older Christian.
2. Mutual respect, mutual valuing, will shape how one generation treats the other.
The older generation is not to take an antagonistic or competitive attitude toward the younger. Instead, older Christians are to function as mentors for younger Christians. Paul told Timothy the older women in his congregation weren’t to sit back and shake their heads at the mistakes the young moms were making. They were to step up and say, “Let me see if I can help.”
Taking on the role of mentor means the time will come when you willingly and cheerfully hand the reins over to someone younger. You don’t hold onto them just to prove you’re not past it, as the British would say.
Younger Christians are to be patient, ready to listen, ready to learn. And this is tough: they are to show respect even when they disagree. That doesn’t mean endorsing an idea that just won’t work but it means trying to work through to a compromise.
Youth doesn’t give you the privilege of ignoring the lessons of experience.
Age doesn’t give you the right to disregard the ideas of the young.
3. In the Christian community, the way one generation treats another should mark the church as distinctively different from the larger culture.
Way back in the 1960s, before a computer could fit in your pocket or even on your desk corner, we began to hear a term to describe some of the tension so evident in society. The term was “generation gap.” It is defined as “a lack of communication between one generation and another.”
When I hear the word “gap” I think of the signs you could still see on the London Underground when we visited. They said, “Mind the Gap” and were a warning to be careful when stepping the short distance from the platform onto the train car. It wasn’t a great distance; you could easily step over it. You just had to remember it was there.
If there was a generation “gap” in the sixties, today we sometimes seem to have a generation chasm. I recently heard a broadcast debate between members of my generation, “Baby Boomers,” and a couple “Millennials,” members of the last generation born in the 20th century. As I listened I realized the Millennials could have easily complained, “You only think you know us.” In the end, I doubt the participants had grown in understanding or respect.
That kind of generational alienation has no place in the church. It is in some of our churches but it doesn’t belong there.
Yes, we need to come to grips with our differences. While some are just matters of taste others go beyond “You say to-mA-to, I say to-mah-to.” There are genuine differences in understanding what it means to live Christianly. For example, one generation sees missions as taking the light to the heathen living in darkness. Another generation sees that vision as paternalistic and wants a less offensive way of sharing the gospel.
The differences won’t be bridged easily or quickly, but they can be bridged. Joel’s promise, quoted by Peter, tells us the Spirit can bridge economic, social, gender, and generational chasms. When that happens the church will once again become a place the culture looks at and says, “So, that’s how it’s done.”
