Christian Leadership Alliance

Board Governance

Price: $12.50
Member Price: $10.00

See more …


In which Season does your ministry raise the most financial resources each year?

Take the poll

Intergenerational Teams

How One Ministry Shows They Can Work
Outcomes, Jul/Aug 2006

Three staff members from North Way Community Church (Wexford, Pa.) sat down recently with CMR to discuss the challenges and opportunities of intergenerational teams.

At the table:
Jay: Dr. Jay Pasavant, Senior Pastor (age 59)
Dan: Dan Chaverin, Executive Pastor (age 47)
JR: J.R. Kerr, Teaching Pastor (age 30)

 

CMR: Well, first of all, looking around the table it's clear you value age diversity. Or at least put up with it. Which is it?

JAY: I think a foundation to any discussion concerning intergenerational leadership is that we're having very much of a dynamic conversation. I don't think any absolutes have been nailed down. So, I find it a little difficult to say this is how we define a Gen Xer or a Mosaic or a Millennial. Suffice it to say that the baby boomer generation has provided primary leadership for most of the church for the last 30 years; now it's definitely time to engage the culture that's forming around it and to shift leadership to those who are rising up to take it. Whatever we call that group, whether it's Millennial or Mosaic, is secondary.

JR: I agree. Part of what I respect about Jay and Dan and the other leaders here is the willingness to learn, and admit we really don't know how to talk about this. Our language seems to change with every book we read and every experience we have. There are so many levels—philosophical, cultural, church-wise, business-wise, in marketing.
Obviously, we know who we mean when we say Boomers. I also use the term "Mosaic."  A buddy of mine and I actually started calling this generation Mosaics, because one of our characteristics is that we truly are very diverse. I refer to our generation as Mosaics because I think the GenXers, GenYers and Millennials are all coming together to form this emerging generation called Mosaics. I think this term is sticking here at North Way and with some of my peers.

CMR: Why did North Way decide to do this—to have an intergenerational leadership team?

JAY: I recognized two years ago that in the next five to seven years, I'd certainly be moving into a different role in the church, or perhaps beyond the church, because of my longevity, and because I feel change in leadership is healthy. So we launched a search for a teaching pastor to complete my ministry, and perhaps to take my position.
I began by interviewing guys in their 40s who already had experience in larger churches, had the education, proven track record, and demonstrated that they could lead a church like North Way. But I began to realize that the majority of our members are under age 40. To bring in an older person in a teaching role would then mean there wouldn't be anyone who was speaking the language and the values that would be particularly important to those in their late teens, 20s, and early 30s. So I began to look and pray for a younger person who could represent that point of view.
As Boomers, we probably need to stand outside the younger culture and try to evaluate it. I think JR and many of his peers marvel at how dense and thick and organized and linear and driven and productive we boomers can be. We, on the other hand, marvel at how nonlinear, abstract, creative they are. I made a decision that I didn't want North Way to age with me and become a church of gray hairs and then one day look around and say, "Where's the younger generation?" I grew up in a church like that and so did many of my boomer friends. We wonder why and how this happened.