Ahead of Their Time

Jim and Gwen love their family. They were among the early couples to sign up for GrandCamps when the Christian Grandparenting Network first started them more than twenty years ago. Long before GrandCamps existed they recognized that their children were increasingly dissatisfied with the age-segregated options in their church. So, Jim and Gwen decided to take action.  

Their story is a powerful testimony about what can be done when a few individual families choose to build the kind of healthy environment in which all the generations do life together. I’ve asked Jim and Gwen to share that story with you here…

I guess we were ahead of our time. Back in the early 80s, when my husband and I were still raising our children, three mothers, all good friends, came together over lunch one day to discuss what to do about our children’s religious education at our church. Our children were not enthusiastic about the age-specific ministries that our church provided to them. We certainly didn’t want our children to grow up disliking church, so we decided to start an intergenerational ministry without even realizing that’s what we were doing. We dubbed it “Family Group”.

We started a Bible study that included five sets of parents and 20 children between 13 and 22. It started with a big brunch because we had a lot of hungry teenagers in the group. After brunch, we held our group time, which began with singing contemporary Christian songs that we all knew led by a guitar player in the group. Then, after one person at a time each read aloud the scriptures, we broke into groups to discuss those scriptures. 

After about half an hour of discussion, we came back together, with one previously designated person reporting from each group what key ideas had been generated by the discussion. Sometimes we came up with an action step, motivated by the scripture study. For example, one year, we offered our services for our entire group to be the choir at one of the Christmas Services. At another Christmas time, we sang carols at a local nursing home. Another time, we made Valentines and delivered them to somebody that we thought might not be remembered on Valentine’s Day. One springtime, each family acted out their favorite scripture story, with costumes, props, and all, performed in the host family’s back yard.

We alternated hosting this big group in each of our homes. Sometimes we even had our own weekend retreats. We also included fun activities together like a ski trip and a river rafting trip. We met for Bible study every other weekend (excepting summertime) for 6 1/2 years. We were so delighted when some of those who had gone off to college came back on weekends to gather with us. There are many more examples of how this incredible experience in family ministry resulted in really “doing life together”. 

We supported all the kids in their school activities by attending sport games, plays, or concerts wherever one of our kids was participating. We attended all their graduations. And when they got older and began to get married, we attended their weddings. It became a group that continued on for many years, well past our 6 1/2 years together in Bible study. 

My husband says that next to GrandCamp, Family Group is the best thing we ever did together as a family. We tried to pass on this idea to several congregations but had little success in convincing anyone else to give it a try. Perhaps they felt it was too much work. We were all working parents, but believed deeply that the time and effort spent were well worth it! We believe so much in the enormous merit of meaningful intergenerational ministry that we would be very willing to help anyone who might be interested in starting a group like this.

Thank you Jim and Gwen for sharing this story. I believe things that are worth doing are worth doing well… and that requires some hard work. Five families and three generations made a powerful impacted through their hard work and determination to do life together generation to generation. They did it because they understood that it matters. 

I hope you’ve taken some inspiration from Jim and Gwen story, and will prayerfully consider how you can, through a very simple, but strong commitment, make an impact with other families who know the value of doing life together. And if you do, I’d love to hear your story too.