Rev. Sara Krhla
Church of Christ, Congregational, UCC
Goshen, Connecticut
The Church of Christ Congregational in Goshen has been holding intergenerational activities for many years. After attending the InterGenerate Conference in Tennessee in May of 2019, I realized that, although we were offering intergenerational activities and providing experiences that were accessible to all ages, most of it was not intentional.
Sunday LIFT helped me bring some intentionality to our experiences together and made a lot of the planning less intense. LIFT encouraged a change in format to our Confirmation Class gatherings. One of the biggest questions I left the conference with was, “How do I make our youth group and confirmation gatherings intentionally intergenerational while still holding space for them to have their own time and age-group experiences? LIFT was the answer! We now begin each gathering with a LIFT session, and if we don’t have a LIFT session that fits our topic, we follow the LIFT format. Different adults volunteer to prepare the meal each time our group meets. The meal is shared with the adults who are kind and generous enough to provide it, and while eating, the entire group discusses the Scripture or theme questions. Being able to engage in conversation with people of different generations has started to build relationships between the youth and the rest of our congregation.
Other GenOn Connect January-February 2020 articles
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