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The Workshop Will Begin in a Moment
Midwest UU Leadership
Faith Formation 2020 and the Multigenerational Community
Introductions
This Conference Is Being Recorded
Faith Formation 2020 and the Multigenerational Community
Midwest UU LeadershipBarb Friedland, Director of Religious Exploration, Thomas
Jefferson Unitarian, Louisville, KY
Nancy Combs-Morgan, Faith Development Director, Heartland District of the UUA
“Who are We and Where Are We Going?”
The first question to consider…is your congregation articulating a goal to be intentionally multigenerational…in worship, service, and religious education?
If so, what then informs your next steps and/or further steps in realizing this goal?
For valuable insights look at, “Faith Formation 2020”
Multigenerational Focus
What could faith formation look like in 2020?
Specifically, how can congregations provide vibrant faith formation to address the spiritual and religious needs of all ages and generations over the next 10 years?
www.faithformation2020.net
Driving Forces
Driving forces are the forces of change—social, economic, political, technological, educational, cultural, and religious—that are most likely to affect the future shape of faith formation.
The trends in this study indicate a need for congregations to incorporate a greater intentionality around multigenerational programming.
1. Will trends in U.S. culture lead people to become more receptive to organized religion, or will trends lead people to become more resistant to organized religion?
2. Will people’s hunger for and openness to spiritual life increase over the next decade or will people’s hunger for and openness to spiritual life decrease.
Two Critical Uncertainties
4 Scenarios for the Future
Multigenerational Strategies
Targeting generations iGeneration Millennials Gen X Baby Boomers
Targeting young familiesEmpowering the community to
share their faithOnline & digital faith formation
Generationally-Specific iGeneration (2000 - ) Millennials (1980-1999) Generation X (1964-1979) Boomers (1946-1964) Builders (up to 1945)
What does
digital natives: web, social networking, digital media
formed by media & visual learners ability to use technology to create a
vast array of content openness to change desire for immediacy learning style: active, engaged, creative
(project-centered), visual, practice & performance, digital
What does
Expressive CommunalismEmerging adults have embedded their
lives in spiritual communities in which their desire and need for both expressive/experiential activities, whether through art, music, or service-oriented activities, and for a close-knit, physical community and communion with others are met.
Expressive Communalism expressive/experiential faith
activities (worship, learning, rituals, prayer) and physical community with others
a faith that makes cognitive sense to them and that is also an expressive, embodied spiritual experience
Creating deeper community through small groups
Making a difference through service Experiencing worship – reflecting their
culture and revering and revealing God (visual, musical, artistic, experiential)
Exploring religious tradition with depth, questioning, and applying faith to life
Utilizing the technology to communicate the message and to connect people
Building cross-generational relationships Forming the spiritual life – spiritual
practices & disciplines
Desire first for community and belonging, and second for personal fulfillment.
Truth, for Xers, is best conveyed through stories and myth, and is authenticated through the lived experience of themselves and others, rather than through the pronouncements—and propositional arguments—of external authorities.
Generation X is moving from written text to narrative and image as a basis for religious belief.
There is a move from the essentially individualistic spiritual quest that characterizes baby boomers to a religious/spiritual identity rooted in the larger community.
Greater individual authority in religious and moral decisions.
Religious identity chosen through experience and study.
Choosing a specific community, rather than committing to a larger denomination.
Being experientially engaged in a religious community, not “show up and watch”
interpersonal relationships with people who express and explore their religious identities in similar ways
Service: Boomers want to do something interesting and challenging.
Boomers want service opportunities that have a mission. They want do to do things that give their lives purpose, meaning, and fulfillment. They want to know their contributions truly matter
Spiritual Growth: Later Adulthood is a season of significant life transitions and people are more responsive to religion.
A reason adults are open to faith and spiritual growth is their desire for meaningful relationships. small group faith formationhost events that appeal to interests &
needsservice opportunities
Intergenerational Relationships: Developing intergenerational relationships is one of the best ways to break age-related stereotypes, to share faith across generations, and to help the church become more unified encourage generations to serve together form groups according to similar interests
rather than age ask adults to tell their stories, at events or
programs, and capture them on video or in print
Spiritual enrichment: “spirituality of aging” programs, spiritual disciplines and practices, retreats, rituals to acknowledge life transitions
Learning: book clubs, classes and courses, Bible study, small groups, trips
Nutrition and wellness: exercise programs, nutrition classes, healthy meals with programs
Intergenerational: activities, coaching, mentoring
Service: tutoring, service—local and global, church ministry
Community: social activities, trips, dinners, pilgrimages
Gil Rendle, Alban Institute
As leaders trying to understand generational differences, it is more helpful to back away from all of the … differences…all of these generational cohorts do, in fact, have their own preferences and life lessons that make them different from one another…
But each of these generational cohorts shares a need for a personal faith lived in community (a congregation), and each of these generational cohorts lives, daily, in a multigenerational environment. “Generational Worship in a Multigenerational World”
Gil Rendle, Alban Institute, cont.
In today's congregations such multigenerational voices that speak out of different value systems are commonly in competition, if not contention, making leaders particularly uncomfortable. It is difficult to have it both ways when facing competing preferences.
Despite the discomfort, such negotiating over worship is a sign of health in the congregation
Lifelong faith formation that is generationally-specific, developed around the specific characteristics of the five generations in a faith community
ANDintentionally intergenerational across all generations in learning, service/mission, worship, community life
What does
Intentionally Intergenerational intergenerational learning: large
group and small group Intergenerational study intergenerational service projects
and mission trips infuse intergenerational
relationships into existing age-group programming , e.g., mentoring
What does
Mobilize the Whole Faith Community through an Annual Church-Wide Project. Develop an annual church-wide justice and service project with local-global connections.
Focus on a project, such as adopting a local or global action project organized by an organization, or focus an annual theme, such as poverty, care for creation, or peacemaking.
For each annual theme develop a comprehensive set of programs and resources (often available from organizations you partner with) for all age groups, families, and the whole community.
Develop faith formation (learning, worship/ritual, faith practices) around lifecycle milestones, celebrations, and life transitions to deepen people’s faith, strengthen their engagement in church life, and equip them with practices for living their faith.
Multigenerational Strategies
Move from solely having separate age groups using a curriculum to a Lifelong Learning Network approach
Provide 24 x 7 x 365 faith formation for all ages and generations—anytime & anywhere
Integrate multigenerational faith formation in physical settings—church, home, community—with virtual (online) faith formation opportunities —websites, and on-line learning programs
www.faithformationlearningexchange.net
Multigenerational Resources
The Thematic Church, http://themebasedministry.org
Making Worship Part of Kid’s Lives, Don Skinner, www.uua.org/leaders/leaderlibrary/leaderslibrary/interconnections/158588.shtm
Ten Good Ideas about Multigenerational Worship, Rev. Phil Lund, www.philontheprairie.wordpress.com/category/multigenerational/
Hardwired to Connect, www.americanvalues.org
Multigenerational Resources
“Creating a Multigenerational Culture,” Michelle Richards, (Interconnections Tipsheet), www.tipsheets.blogs.uua.org/2009/08/28/creating-a-multigenerational-congregation/
Michelle Richards, Come into the Circle: Worshiping with Children. http://www.uuabookstore.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=579
Maria Harris, “Fashion Me a People”
Multigenerational Resources
Multigenerational resources at uua.org, http://www.uua.org/religiouseducation/multigenerational/index.shtml
The Multigenerational Congregation:Meeting the Leadership Challenge, Gilbert Rendle, www.alban.org
Multigenerational:A Family Under One Sky, Unitarian Universalist Church of Las Cruces, NM
(website)www.uuchurchlc.org
Q & A
Thank You
