Congregational Life Centre
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The Future of the Church
by David Wood
Three years ago we noticed a change in the Sunday School at St. Andrew's United Church in Prince George. The children who were coming to Sunday School weren't being brought by their parents. The children didn't take coming to Sunday School for granted and they felt it was a real treat for them to come to church on Sunday morning. What was behind this change? It was grandparents, rather than parents, who were bringing their grandchildren to church.
We had been worried about the future of our Sunday School. Families were having fewer children and those that did were moving away from Prince George for economic reasons. The School Board had closed a quarter of the schools in the school district. This year they closed six more. With the declining attendance of 30 to 45 year olds (the "lost generation" that has been the subject of "The Emerging Spirit Campaign" of the United Church) there were fewer and fewer children coming to church on Sunday morning. We wondered if the Sunday School would survive.
That was when grandparents began bringing their grandchildren. This was not a conscious decision by a group of elders in the church; it was more a spontaneous decision as one set of grandparents after another found themselves having their grandchildren sleep over on Saturday night. These grandparents realized there was something missing in their grandchildren's lives. They wanted their grandchildren to know what it was like to have faith and they started bringing their grandchildren to church on Sunday morning.
I understand the special relationship that grandparents have with their grandchildren because of my own relationship with my grandmother. When I was a teenager I said to my grandmother, "Why do we get along better than I get along with my parents?" She said, "Do you know what they say about grandparents and their grandchildren? They have a common enemy."
The faith grandparents pass on to their grandchildren can have a bigger impact on children than even what their parents can teach them about God. This is one of the points Rachel Remen makes in her book, My Grandfather's Blessings. Rachel's grandfather was an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi. When he came to live with the family, Rachel's mother, a "militant atheist," forbade him to teach Rachel about God. Rachel said, "They might just as well have told him not to breathe." Her grandfather taught her about God in secret.
This secret knowledge about God had a far greater impact on Rachel's faith than what her parents taught her. Rachel grew up believing in God because of her grandfather's influence. When it came to choosing between the faith of her parents or the faith of her grandfather, it was her grandfather's faith that she chose.
Rachel's experience is becoming more common in the Christian church today. Many Christian young people are finding themselves influenced more by their grandparents' beliefs than by their parents' beliefs. In fact, some Christian young people are playing key roles in bringing their parents to faith. A year ago, one of the children who came to our church with her grandmother said to her parents, "Guess what? I am going to be in the Sunday School Christmas play." Her parents said, "That's wonderful. What are you going to be? An angel? A shepherd?" The child said, "I am not going to tell you. You have to come to church to find out." That Sunday her parents came to our church for the first time.
The influence of grandparents on their grandchildren will have an important
impact on the future of the church. The church of the future will be very
different than the one we inherited from our parents. It will reflect the
values of a new generation of Christians and a new way of looking at the
world. But it will also reflect the relationships between grandparents and
their grandchildren. It is the faith of grandparents that will lay a new
foundation for the future of the church.
Congregational Life Newsletter. June 2010. Volume 16 No. 5.