Intergenerational gap

Nearly every book I've read on church growth calls for targeting a specific age and socio-economic group for evangelism. That approach is perfect except for one thing: it bears no resemblance to the church as established by Jesus and the apostles. With that in mind, it was encourageing to find that Chad Hall, writing in Leadership Journal, has similar ideas:

As a church planter and ministry coach, I've worked with churches who are primarily young and others who are obviously older. What these churches have in common is a voiced desire for community. Yet that "community" is often a veiled form of group narcissism. Young or old, they want to do church with people who are like us and who, in turn, are easy to like.

We want relationships in service to Christ's mission to be smooth and tension-free. We don't want to get bogged down in the messy problems raised by how differently older and younger people see the world.

As tempting as it may be to do church with friends only, there are at least three good reasons to resist age gentrification of church.

I recommend reading Mr. Hall's full article and finding out what those three things are.