This Christian Life

Tri-generational Church

There is a problem beginning to emerge as a result of the baby boomer population: there are a lot of baby boomers, and not as many baby busters (also known as generation X). What does that mean? We don’t have enough people to run churches effectively—we are in a vacuum. I’ve started to notice that perhaps one of the reasons we are “losing” young people in churches is because there simply aren’t enough people to go around.

The baby boomer generation is the largest generation our country has ever seen. If you look at the population pyramid below, you’ll recognize the baby boomer generation by the large bulge growing up the screen.

By common sense, you can see that there is a natural gap happening behind that bulge.

There is a book I’ve been reading called “A House Divided: Bridging the Generation Gap in Your Church.” In it, there is the concept of the imporatant connection between 3 generations in order for a church to succeed. The generations include (in order of oldest to youngest): The Builders, the Boomers and the Busters. In reality, this plays out as: Grandparents, Parents, and Children.

I’m learning a lot from this book and think it’s premise is true: we need all three generations to make the most out of our communities.

See also, The Incredible Shrinking Generation