We have two Bible readings this evening. The first one is from Psalms, and the second one is from Titus. The first one is Psalm 78, verses one to eight. My people hear my teaching.
Listen to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth with a parable. I will utter hidden things, things of old, things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their descendants.
We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power and the wonders he has done. He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach their children. So the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born. And they in turn would tell their children.
Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds, but would keep his commands. They would not be like their ancestors, a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him. The second reading is from Titus, chapter two, verses one to eight. You however must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine.
Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way that they live, not to be slanderous or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled.
In everything, set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching, show integrity, seriousness, and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us. This is the word of the Lord. We're continuing our series this week too of being God's church.
Last week we looked at what it meant to welcome people as God's family, and this week we're thinking about what it means for church to be God's extended family. I mentioned before, we're using the term intergenerational ministry, it's a term that you'll hear me use a lot, and hopefully it's a term you've heard Emma use a lot when she was kicking around doing to her ministry stuff here. Intergenerational ministry, it's actually, it's difficult to define because it is a philosophy of ministry rather than a program. It's a goal to strategically build significant and purposeful interactions between the generations within a church.
The key components of intergenerational ministry are interaction and intentionality. Intergenerational ministry is more than bringing generations into close proximity with one another. It is intentionally building mutual and influential relationships with a degree of regularity between people of different generations. Now in our context, the Garrison Church, we have a lot of very young children kicking around, and so it's easy for us to fall into thinking that we're talking about children's ministry today, but that is to misunderstand it.
Today we are not talking about just children, we are talking about all of us. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word, and we pray now that as we consider what it means for us to be your church as an extended family, that you help us to see the value in one another, the wonderful ways you've worked in each of our lives, and that you would strengthen us as a church who reach across the generations to love and support and grow in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
I know for a lot of people their family history can be quite important to them. This is something I always wished is important to me, but I've never had a lot of access to it. An example of this was another whole section that was taken away from me, this was a weird story from Tom's life. My grandmother, unfortunately, she passed away a couple of years ago when I was still living in the UK, and something very strange happened kind of in the weeks following her passing, and that was that as people start to pull out kind of family documents and things about her, we discovered that her birth certificate was falsified, that all of the stories that she kind of told us about her childhood were a fiction, and we slowly discovered, and this was much harder for my dad than for me, that we actually didn't know anything about my grandmother before she met my grandfather, with the exception of her kind of RAF records, we had nothing.
Everything she told us was completely made up, she's this mystifying person, and I may never know who she was behind being my grandmother, or who she was before she was my dad's mum. Kind of weird and awkward thing. We kind of like to fill in the gaps of our history, don't we? We feel that those sort of things define who we are, and help us to understand our identity within our families.
And what we're talking about today is how the history of us as a people, as God's people, does have an influence on how we understand what it means for us to work forwards, and so we need this history to be known, and the truths of what we know need to be passed on. Psalm 78 that we read at the start is a big recount of the history of God's people. If you read it all the way to the end, you'll be glad, when you look it up, you'll be glad that I didn't have it read all the way to the end, but you'll see that it is a massive, long history of recounting, and in verses one to eight where we zoned it on, the psalmist urges God's people to listen, to ancient teachings and parables, committing to pass the story of God's praise, where he deeds his power, his wonders, his statutes and laws for their children and for future generation. This is ensuring that the young know God, that they trust in him, that they remember his works, that they obey his commands, and they avoid the stubborn rebellion of their ancestors.
We see that central to the success of God's people is then passing on their knowledge through the generations, that those growing up need to know the deeds of their God, they need to know how to live his way, and they need to have this model to them. They look to their elders for guidance, and this must come through the teaching of his word, and the living amongst his people who seek to invest these truths in them. Now, Psalm 78 was written a bit later, but we see that this practice, is a practice that they've always thought was valuable. I'm gonna read as a chunk from this from Deuteronomy 6 one to three, when laying out the laws of how God's people are to live, God says to Moses, these are the commands, the decrees, and the laws of the Lord's, the Lord's your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children, and their children, may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping his decrees and commands that I give to you, and so that you may enjoy long life.
Here, Israel, and be careful to obey, so that it may go well with you, and that you may increase greatly in the land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors promised to you. Now, straight after Deuteronomy, we see in Joshua, a series that we preached through over 12 weeks before this one, we saw over and over again that memory is important, and it needs to be passed on, that each generation needs to know about the acts of God for his people, that the truth needs to be cultivated within a community, or there'll be a tendency for people to stray. This is not an individual identity, we're talking about a central function of its communal identity, not who I am, but who we are, and this is how we should look to each other. We're not talking about a new thing today, we're actually talking about a central function behind what it means to be God's people.
In these passages, it's not just parents that are being addressed, it is the entire community. The community has a responsibility to keep the faith and to pass it on. This concern continues into the New Testament, and it comes out in Paul's letter to Titus, which was our second reading today. Now, on first reading, Titus is one of those passages that it can be easy as a minister to kind of want to dodge, but unfortunately, it's the most clear explanation of what I want to talk about.
And so on first reading, this passage can seem to be perpetuating attitudes to gender that might make some of us feel a little bit uneasy. It's a letter addressed to Titus, a young Gentile convert who had been left in Crete to organize and lead the emerging churches there. Now, the historical and cultural context of those churches in Crete is critical. Crete was a Mediterranean island known for its moral laxity, with even the local prophet, is Appymenius quoted in Titus 1 describing the Cretans as always liars, evil brutes, and lazy guttens.
That's a Cretan describing themselves. So that the churches are facing particular challenges with regards to godly living, they're facing challenges with regards to the welfare of their families, and so it is particularly addressing the fact that these family units need to be strengthened at the time in that context. And so it is calling on people to live out godly lives that are different to the world around them in a way that promotes good order, mutual love, and support within the community of God's kingdom. Our context is different, you might argue that it's the same in some ways, but certainly today it feels different.
And so the examples that we might use or might be addressing our lives might be different ones. But what we have to learn from this passage is the intergenerational means by which the church family grows as a community of God's people alongside one another. Paul instructs Titus to promote sound doctrine, and he starts with the older men. He tells the older men to exemplify temperance, respect, faith, love, and endurance.
He moves on to older women to live reverently, to avoid slander and excess. And then we see a process occur where he calls on the older women to actively teach the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, so that God's word isn't discredited. And then finally he just has one instruction for the young men, which is be self-controlled. I think he's probably guess what some of the problems were that they were dealing with at the time.
He wants Titus to model this integrity, and the emphasis is on elders mentoring youth in godly virtues to foster discipline and to grow in maturity. I think it's fair to say today that all of us are at risk of listening to the tempting teaching of the world, and abandoning a godly life in order to pursue the hopes and desires of our hearts. And this is such a struggle for younger people in our society today. Now this may look different to the time of Titus, but I think the central problem is the same.
We know that holding to the truth is important in these times. We know that holding to who our God is, is critical. And so there is a need for the older to invest in the younger, and vice versa, for the good of the church, and for the good of all God's people. We each have different experiences to bring to the table.
Some people here will have faced challenges in their life that you might be facing now, and that wisdom can be shared. What I would say about Titus is that you kind of get a sense that the onus is on the older, but the benefit and the outcome is for both to participate. We have a responsibility to pass on the truth to the next generation, to care for them, to nurture them in their faith, but it's not a one way street. We invest in one another because that is what forms the family and strengthens the community.
The younger should seek out the older and desire to be invested in and to invest in them as well. But there is more to this. We need to see each other. We need to model to each other.
The young, whether you realize it or not, look to the older in guidance, they see how you live your life. And they look at that example. And that is why Paul starts on calling on the old to model what it means to live as a person of faith, before moving to declaring that they must instill this in those who are coming after them. And so what we see here is a desire to celebrate the saints that we have and to invest in the saints of the future.
When I was very young in ministry, I was very lucky to have an older mentor in my life. His name is Stu. One of the things I like about Stu and often hate is that me and Stu are very different. And Stu is a lot more mature than I am.
He's a straight talker, which means that he doesn't think about what I might feel about something before he says it. But I found it immensely valuable having him in my life. He's someone who in different times from ministry has given me thoughtfulness, has given experience that he could draw on. He's been able to think carefully about things that I'm maybe not thinking so carefully about.
Because he's just got more experience than I do. He's got more thoughtfulness. He's lived more life than me. The fact is, is that the younger need mentoring.
And they need godly examples to follow. I need it, Stu, in my life. But most importantly, almost critically for us today, is that they need this from outside their family, in addition to them. Now we cross a number of generations in this congregation, and we all have a lot to learn from one another.
This isn't about programs, it's about relationships between Christians and our core value of Christ, investing both in the history and in the future of God's people, by living as a family in the present. Now to help us think through this, I'm going to borrow from another mentor of mine, a guy called Ed Springer, who's done a lot of thought about intergenerational ministry. And he loves to start with what intergenerational ministry is not. Intergenerational ministry is not founded on the belief that all activities and programs in a church must be conducted with all ages present.
So we don't just go, whatever we're going to run, we're going to throw everyone together. And that's going to be awesome. It might be, but it's not the intent. There are powerful and valid and important reasons to gather by age and stage.
We run a children's ministry for a reason. We're looking towards starting youth ministry for a reason. However, there are equally powerful and valid and important reasons to gather the generations together. Intergenerational ministry is a both and rather than an either or proposition.
It's let's do these things in our age groups and together, not or. In addition, intergenerational ministry is not multi-generational ministry, which is when you just have a church service where everyone is of different generations so they don't really talk to each other. Intergenerational ministry is a mindset and an action. It begins with the church acknowledgment that the acknowledging the gifts that every generation bring to spiritual formation of the other generations.
We all benefit from one another. Second, that the church then seeks to create frequent opportunities for this to occur, for different generations to communicate in meaningful ways to interact on a regular basis and to minister, worship, and serve regularly together. We will be a stronger, more connected, and supported godly family if this sits at the center of what we do and how we think about our church. This involves every single one of us, but it also benefits every single one of us.
The fact is, is that churches that do not seek to do this are at risk of diminishing. I'm sure there are so many people here who can think of a mentor who was central to their faith holding and being what they live for. It is one of the key ways that we as a church community can flourish and truly seek to love both those who come every week and someone new. It is about fostering and supporting relationships and opportunities for these relationships to flourish.
In essence, it's that we all benefit from engagement, refreshment, from speaking to one another and growing alongside one another. We're not just talking about us investing in our children, we're talking about us all investing in one another across the generations. And so to bring it home for us today, I have a few suggestions. The first is to take the opportunities.
Thanks to the wisdom of those who have come before me here, there are actually a lot of opportunities here at 4pm to practice this. Our community dinner next week, which we have often, the time that we spend together after church in its various forms, but also this church wide ways. The recent women's event for those who attended will have noticed that this was done really well. The men's event provides this opportunity, Rivendell, when the entirety of the church comes together for the weekend.
I mean, come, even if it's just to spend time with the saints from the 830 congregation, who are so full of wisdom and genuinely care and love you. The opportunities are already being provided in many ways. We will plan more, but I think the first thing to do is to shape our culture around this by taking the opportunities that are already there. And if you don't know where to start, I'm sure Hailey has some very tangible ways that you can be actively involved.
The second is to parents, encourage your children. There are a few things here at church as important to me now than Matthew being engaged with adults, Matthew being engaged with adults who are not Danny and I. There is a reason other than us wanting to get a quick break that I quickly put him in your arms and walk off. Parents, we have an opportunity here at church that our children get in few, if any, other places.
Encourage our brothers and sisters to engage with our children, but we need to actively take that step and find ways to promote this both with our children and with our church family. And finally, for all of us, invite people in. Paul puts the onus on the older, but I'm willing to say that almost all of us here are older than someone else here. You have more to offer than you realize.
Overwhelmingly, when I've done this in various churches and Christian groups that I've been a part of, overwhelmingly, I've seen young people rearing to engage with those who are older than them and people who are older thinking that, you know, I don't have much to offer, I don't, you do. You have a time to offer someone else and young people actually genuinely want to hear it and they want to engage with you. They want to be invested in by you. Invite people into your life.
Go for a coffee, read the Bible together. And if you are younger, jump at the opportunity. In our new church vision that has been, had months and months poured into it with feedback from the congregations with groups coming together and wrestling with what we wanted to be as a church, this is what we came up with. And I want you to notice number four, growing through generational renewal.
By 2030, by the grace of God, church here at Anglican will be growing through intergenerational renewal, continuing our commitment to ministry to young people, raising up the next generation in faith. When we have four things to say about who we are as a church, we knew this is something that we want to be. And so let's take the opportunities, let's encourage our children and let's invite people in. Because doing this is part of not just who Christ desires for us to be, but it's already who we desire ourselves to be.
So today we're not talking about starting a new program. We're seeing the call to invest and intentionally walk alongside each other, crossing the boundaries of our generations to see that we are all part of God's extended family, to see that we need each other and seeking to be in the lives of those younger than us is not just the right thing to do, it is the Christ honoring thing to do. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for all that you have to teach us in Psalm 78 and in Titus.
Lord, I pray that we be a church that do not have generation boundaries between us, but that we would each take active steps to love and grow alongside one another. I pray for those who have wisdom at this church to share it with those younger than them. I pray that you help each of us to grow as we seek to know you more through one another and through the church for your glory. In Jesus name I pray, amen.