Intergenerational sharing in the African American church: Re-establishing the connection between the elders and the middle generation.

摘要

Smaller African American churches like St. Mark's Chapel African Methodist Church are increasingly in danger of closing their doors. As these churches continue to lose older congregants, either through death or, in many instances, relocation to southern roots, the next generation, the middle generation (middlers) between the elders and the youth, is not poised to carry on the work or connect with the generation that follows. At St. Mark's the elders provide most of the leadership and participate in most of the functions of the church. The premise is that bringing the elders together with the middlers through intentional, planned activities provides opportunities for accomplishing tasks together and learning from and about the other. Both groups gain from establishing rich relationships and sharing, as it relates to experience, both objective (things that happen to us) and subjective (things that we generate) and faith.;The project team consisted of a group of twelve invited participants. For the purposes of the project and in the context of the church membership, the elders were defined as being fifty-four to seventy-five years of age, and the middle generation (middlers), that group between the elders and the youth (eighteen and under) aged thirty to forty-five. Ten were women and two were men. Five were elders and seven were middlers. All were members of the church.;Project participants were selected according to age, gender, length of membership and level of participation in the life of the church. Each received a written letter of invitation, followed up with a personal interview to discuss the project and confirm involvement.;Participants were asked to commit to attend five planned activities with duration of 1.5 hours each over a four month period. Members of the Lay Advisory Committee, selected to help guide the project, attended all activities. The average attendance for each activity was ten.;While the groups were expected to work well together, and they did, the resulting relationships that formed and the new leadership that emerged, along with apparent levels of trust and honesty experienced between the participants was a great benefit as expressed by all involved.