February 11, 2025
Roots for Churches is an ecumenical partnership (The Methodist Church, Church of England, The United Reformed Church, Sunday School Board of Wales, Christian Education, and Churches Together in Britain and Ireland) founded in 2002 to publish resources for churches that are following the Revised Common Lectionary and Common Worship. Roots serves 8000+ churches with print and digital resources for weekly and seasonal worship, preaching, small group Bible study, outreach, and faith formation.
New research from The Institute for Children, Youth & Mission (CYM) and Liverpool Hope University has found that young people who already attend church have an overwhelming desire to be more involved in Sunday services.1 However, in the same report, church leaders revealed a distinct lack of confidence when it comes to including and engaging young people in services.2
Is ‘getting the young people involved’ yet another thing to add to church leaders’ to-do lists? And, if they do, wouldn’t this alienate older church members who already seem to avoid church on the weeks when an ‘all-age service’ is scheduled?
How is it possible to make this desire for greater involvement good news, rather than just another item on an already overwhelming tick-list?
‘This is where an intergenerational approach to ministry comes into its own,’ says Melanie Cave, Managing Director of Roots for Churches. ‘Intergenerational ministry is about intentionally gathering people of different generations to learn, worship, serve and share life together. It’s not all-age by a different name, and it’s not just for children,’ she explains. ‘It’s for everyone – a place to be known, contribute, share and explore. The different component parts of the service are shorter and less wordy, but it’s also multi-sensory, so it’s a more engaging way to do church. That makes it helpful for those with dementia, ADHD, dyslexia, neurodiversity, English as a second language, different learning styles – all of us, really.’
This drive to equip churches in this way has led Roots to rename some of its resources. For the past sixteen years, Roots’ lectionary-based resource for leading services have been called Adult & All Age. But, from Jan-Feb 2025, ‘Adult & All Age’ is no more. This resource is now called Worship Together.
Worship Together implies a unity of purpose that the dual silos of ‘Adult’ and ‘All Age’ could never achieve. ‘Even if your church doesn’t have any children or young people, it’s still going to be intergenerational,’ explains Tracey Messenger, Editor of Worship Together. ‘Someone who is 40 is obviously of a different generation to someone who’s 70: they’ll have different life experiences, different cultural references, different ways in which they like to worship. Intergenerational worship makes the most of the gifts of everybody.’
In valuing and including people’s contributions regardless of age, these resources can support church leaders who lack confidence in getting alongside young people. ‘In making space for people of all generations to relate to each other, the bonds between young people and older role models will get stronger and stronger. And it’s not all one-way: young people can also act as role models to their elders,’ Melanie explains.
This desire to build relationships and learn from role models is a key motivator for young people. In Taking the Pulse of Children’s Ministry focus groups, young people stated that they could look up facts about religion online, as if they were doing RE homework. But on matters of belief, they expressed a desire to talk to someone they trust.
Roots’ Worship Together resources have long been structured in a way that facilitates intergenerational worship; differentiating worship activities by spiritual styles rather than by ‘age appropriateness’.3 Yet for church to be truly intergenerational, there has to be intentionality. With that in mind Roots is launching a year-long series of articles from January, encouraging churches to grapple with the theology and theory as well as the practicalities of intergenerational ministry.
‘We hope to equip church leaders to explore and live out the values of intergenerational worship: young, old and everyone in between, with our diverse needs and gifts, worshipping, learning, leading and serving together,’ says Melanie. ‘That’s a vision and experience of church we can all enjoy and get excited about. One I think God is committed to as well!’ Involvement, engagement and welcome for everyone? Now that’s good news.’
