Throughout all generations . . .

Twelve years ago I was in a bi-vocational phase of my work life. I served part-time in a parish as an assisting priest and worked full-time in the marketing department of a non-profit organization whose mission was to further the career development and job satisfaction of working women. In my full-time job, I interacted with many managers, executives and business owners. Prior to that time my work had been in social science research and the performing arts. I left that position for full-time ministry several years ago, but the knowledge of the business world that I developed in the marketing job has informed my work as a parish priest and contributed to my understanding of my parishioners needs and stresses.

The Internet boom of the late 20th and early 21st centuries was in full swing at the time when I was doing a lot of reading about business. One of the hot topics was managing inter-generational communication and conflict in the workplace. Members of Generation X were entering the workforce with a very different ethos and agenda than the baby-boomer managers to whom they reported. Low levels of unemployment motivated companies to reconsider policies, perks and benefits to attract workers. Executives were becoming aware that different generational cohorts valued different things.

Inter-generational issues are still a hot topic in the workplace despite a very different economic situation. Businesses in 2013 are challenged with harmonizing the values, interests and work styles of the baby boomers, Generation X and the Millenials,those born between 1981 and 2000. Generational distinctives are as real now as they were when the phrase "don't trust anyone over 30" was coined. The man who first said it, Jack Weinberg, will be 73 years old this spring.

Everyone has heard of the mythical northern-California Internet start-up where the employees all bring their dogs to work and all human interaction is mediated by text messages. Banks and professional firms swing the other way with dress codes, strict hierarchies of relationship and serious consequences for rocking the boat. The ethos of a particular business at one end of this spectrum or the other might impact the generational composition of its workforce somewhat, but the ages at which people typically enter and leave the workforce all but guarantee that most business will have employee bases in which a maximum of three generations are represented. There will be outliers at places like fast food restaurants where 16-year-olds can get a job or professional firms where the work is not physically taxing and knowledge and experience acquired over decades is highly valued. But managers of businesses really need only deal with the generational quirks of three cohorts coming together in common life and mission.

In the church, the relationships between staff and members are different and the relative status of any individual members of the community may be determined by very different criteria than in a business. What the two have in common is that they're groups of people coming together to create a common life and pursue a common mission. But six generations are represented within the membership of the church. Parishes still have members eighty-five and older from the GI generation. People born between 1930 and 1945 are frequently the backbone of a church's volunteer and financial support. Baby boomers, well into middle age now, may not support the church as fervently as their parents did, but they are still well represented. Generations x and y are the holy grail of congregational development, the mythical young families and people in their teens and 20s that every parish hopes for more of. And school age children, the offspring of those young families, born since 2000 populate our Sunday school classes and middle-school youth groups.

It isn't easy for businesses to balance the needs, interests and prerogatives of three generations of workers. It's not surprising that the church is struggling to attract and build authentic community among six generational cohorts. Obviously, not congregation has members representing the full range of age within the span of these six generations. But those that do are envied by the "graying" parishes where young people visit rarely, seldom return and whose Sunday school rooms have been empty for a decade or more.

What does it take to create and sustain a level of inter-generational community across a broad range of ages within a congregation? Do businesses offer clues that the church can learn from? How do churches that have built this kind of community do it? More in the next post.