5 Practical Ways Churches Can Bridge the Gen Z Baby Boomer Divide in the Pew

Published on by The Rev. Jason A BurnsLeave a comment

Bridging the Gen Z–Baby Boomer Divide in the Pew

We live in a culture that sorts us by age almost without thinking. Children gather with children. Teenagers stay with teenagers. Adults build friendships with people who share their stage of life. Even our online spaces often place us inside age-based circles.

Two women reviewing community outreach materials in a church pew
Two women review community outreach materials together during a church gathering.

That arrangement can feel comfortable, but it also leaves us with a problem: many of us rarely build meaningful relationships with people who grew up in a different decade. We may share a neighborhood, a workplace, or a church building and still remain strangers.

American churches have a unique opportunity here. We can bring generations together in ways that much of modern life does not. The church can become one of the few places where a Gen Z Christian and a Baby Boomer Christian worship, serve, learn, and grow alongside each other. That is more than a pleasant idea. It is a powerful gift.

Here are a few concrete ways we can start: pair older and younger members for weekly prayer partnerships, organize joint service projects like neighborhood cleanups or food drives, create mentoring pairs where a Baby Boomer shares life experience and a Gen Z member brings fresh questions about faith and culture, and simply schedule regular shared meals or small-group discussions that mix the generations on purpose.

The pew can be a meeting place

When we sit in the same worship service, we begin with something important in common. We may disagree about music, technology, politics, or the proper temperature for the sanctuary, but we gather around the same faith. That shared center gives us a reason to know one another rather than simply make assumptions.

A younger person may see an older believer as out of touch. An older person may see a younger believer as impatient or uninformed. Usually, those judgments become less certain once we hear one another’s stories. A conversation after worship can reveal the sacrifices someone made, the questions they carried, or the faithfulness they practiced when life was difficult.

The same thing happens in the other direction. Older adults may discover that younger Christians are not careless about faith. They may be trying to follow Jesus in a world shaped by pressures previous generations never faced. Younger Christians may discover that Baby Boomers are not merely defenders of old habits. Many have endured loss, doubt, change, and disappointment while continuing to show up.

Relationships give us what arguments rarely can: context. They help us replace caricatures with actual people.

We can make that happen on purpose. Start a monthly “story swap” after worship where a Gen Z member and a Baby Boomer each share a short faith journey. Form prayer triplets that mix generations. Invite younger adults to help older members with tech for online giving while the older members teach practical skills like budgeting from a faith perspective. These small, repeated actions turn the pew into a place where we actually know one another.

More than sitting in the same room

Being in the same sanctuary is a starting point, not the finish line. Cross-generational relationships grow through shared work and ordinary time together.

We can pair older and younger members for service projects, prayer partnerships, Bible study, mentoring, and informal meals. We can invite people from different generations to tell their stories, not as museum pieces or lectures, but as fellow disciples. We can create space for both practical wisdom and fresh questions. We can also form intergenerational small groups that study Scripture together, organize joint outreach events like neighborhood cleanups or meal deliveries, and set up skill swaps where younger members teach phone apps for daily devotionals while older members share how they navigated faith during major cultural shifts.

The exchange should go both ways. Older Christians may offer patience, perspective, and a long memory of God’s faithfulness. Younger Christians may offer curiosity, creativity, and a willingness to experiment. Neither generation has everything the church needs. That is precisely why we need each other.

A healthy relationship is not built by pretending our differences do not exist. We do not need to agree on every preference before we can listen well. We can ask honest questions, explain why something matters to us, and resist turning every disagreement into a verdict on someone’s character.

What we gain from one another

When generations worship and serve together, the church becomes a place where faith is not only discussed but observed. Younger believers can see what perseverance looks like over decades. Older believers can see the courage it takes to live faithfully amid rapid cultural change.

We also gain a wider understanding of belonging. A church family should not be a collection of age-based groups that happen to meet under one roof. It should be a community where people at different points in life recognize their responsibility to one another.

That kind of community takes intention. If we leave everything to convenience, we will usually choose people who are most like us. So we may need to change how we organize events, whom we invite to lead, and what we consider a successful ministry. A program that brings together three generations may look less polished than separate age-specific gatherings, but it can produce deeper relationships. We can start a quarterly “faith story night” where pairs from different generations interview each other and share highlights with the group. We can run a tech-and-tradition swap where younger members teach apps for daily prayer while older members demonstrate handwritten prayer journals. We can plan short mission trips or local service days that require mixed teams. These concrete steps turn intention into habit.

We should also be patient. One meal will not erase decades of misunderstanding. One conversation will not settle every dispute between generations. But repeated contact, shared service, and honest listening can slowly build trust.

A superpower worth practicing

The church cannot solve every difference between Gen Z and Baby Boomers. We should not pretend that generational tension is simple. Still, we possess something many parts of society have lost: regular opportunities to meet across age, experience, and background around a shared purpose.

That is our superpower, but it only matters if we practice it.

We can start small. Sit beside someone from another generation during worship. Ask about their faith journey over coffee after the service. Invite them to lunch and share a short Scripture reflection. Form a monthly prayer text chain with one older and one younger member. Volunteer together for a single service project like sorting donations at a food pantry. These tiny, repeated steps turn strangers into fellow travelers.

In a divided culture, these ordinary choices become a quiet witness. They show that Christian community is not built on sameness. It is built on love, patience, humility, and a shared commitment to follow Christ together.

The pew can be more than a place where we sit near strangers. It can become a bridge. And when we cross it, we may find that the people we were tempted to dismiss have wisdom, questions, humor, and faith that we need.

Reimagining Jesus’ Teachings: From Knowledge to Action

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From Hearing the Teachings to Living the Truth

Jesus’s teachings are many, and in this case he opens the conversation by asking, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13-20) The disciples list the popular answers: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. It is safe, easy, and culturally acceptable to talk about who others think Jesus is, but is it safe to share your own thoughts on the matter?

The crowds following Jesus respected him. They elevated him to the status of a great teacher or prophet of old, but they stopped short of recognizing him as their king. Why might that be? Is it because they are afraid of being wrong? Are they afraid of what the Roman or Temple authorities might do to them? Or do they just want to keep their options open? That temptation is familiar to many of us.

Knowing facts about Jesus or surrounding yourself with religious chatter can feel like faith, but it remains strictly intellectual and spectator-based. The crowds knew something about Jesus, but they stopped short of recognizing him as king. Words and admiration are not the same as allegiance.

Person reading a book beside a lit fireplace with tea and notebooks thinking about the teachings of Jesus.
A reader enjoys a warm, peaceful evening with books, tea, and a glowing fire.

I think that many of us fall for the illusion that we know Jesus, when truly we don’t. We know of him, we know some things he likely said, but we don’t actually know him, in many respects we are observing him from a distance and likely waiting for the thumbs up as a sign it is time to fully commit, which is one of the many reasons why living a life of faith and love is so difficult. We place our trust in someone we have not learned to encounter personally, and therefore treat faith as a spectator sport.

Many people live off the theological residue of their parents, pastors, or Christian culture without ever taking ownership of these convictions. Some attend Christmas and Easter services, seek out a church service for a loved one when they die or ask to be married and have their children baptized because that is what their families have always done.

A few years ago, I agreed to assist with a funeral on a Sunday afternoon. A few years earlier, the family had held their mother’s funeral at the church because she and her husband had joined the parish. They felt the service was so moving that when their father died, they decided to do the same, even though they were not religious at all. The church was packed with friends and family and the service was a classic episcopal funeral, but it was also one of the most awkward experiences of my life. No one participated except the priest, me, and the acolyte. No one stood, knelt, sang, or anything. They were purely there because it was what their father would have wanted. The family was honoring the theological residue of their father, but I am not sure how meaningful it actually was for them. They said it was very lovely and they appreciated our willingness to do it. I believe God was present in that room because love was present. Even though the experience felt awkward, perhaps that presence of love was what mattered most.

I am left wondering where in our lives we have settled for knowing about Jesus rather than knowing Him personally. I am not afraid to admit that I have never felt a personal connection to Jesus. The Holy Spirit feels far more present to me because I believe the Spirit resides within us, nudging us to seek God in all things and follow Jesus’s teachings as best we can, like the little angel on our shoulder you sued to see in cartoons.

I think many of us miss a critical step in knowing Jesus: allowing his parables to move from stories we interpret to teachings we practice. The parable of the Good Samaritan, for example, does not simply ask us to admire compassion. It asks us to notice the person we would rather pass by, cross the road toward them, and make their need our concern. We know the stories, we can probably explain or even tell them, but that is not the same as internalizing them. When we internalize a teaching, it becomes more than information we can repeat. It begins to guide our instincts: we forgive when resentment would be easier, serve when no one is watching, and make room for the person we would rather avoid. Knowing the parables matters, but internalizing their teachings shows that we understand them and allows them to shape how we live.

When Jesus asks his friends who they believe he is, Simon answers “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” To which Jesus responds, “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church…” he is praising Simon for understanding that Jesus is the one sent by God to help rescue them, but he is also saying much more. In this retelling, we are witnessing the moment Simon understands who Jesus is. Simon is not merely identifying Jesus correctly, he is beginning to know him by recognizing that the stories and parables are not just stories, but the foundation for a different kind of life. To know Jesus is to let his teachings gradually become visible in us, not simply admired from a distance. We will not live them perfectly, but they should begin to change what we notice, choose, and do.

The question, then, is not only who do people say Jesus is, but who is he becoming in us? The faith we inherit may give us words, rituals, and stories, but it cannot answer for us. At some point, theological residue must either become a living conviction or remain only the trace of someone else’s faith. Where do his teachings challenge our instincts? Whom are they asking us to see, forgive, or love? And when we answer who Jesus is, will we speak from our own encounter with him, or only from what others have left behind?

Culture of Authentic Fellowship: Replacing isolated convenience with deep community connection.

Published on by The Rev. Jason A BurnsLeave a comment

How reclaiming the dinner table counters the loneliness and hyper-convenience of modern American culture.

Friends sharing a festive dinner around a table in a warmly lit home counters loneliness and builds culture and community.

Reclaiming the dinner table offers a practical response to the loneliness and hyper-convenience of modern American culture because shared meals create regular opportunities for attention, gratitude, and belonging.

Nearly every Friday my wife and I gather for dinner with friends. We always go to the same restaurant and every week, without fail, they have our table waiting for us — even though they don’t actually take reservations.

I did not grow up in a household that ate dinner together. There were only my mother and me, and I think she was often too tired to prepare a shared meal. Over the years, however, I have grown to love the times when my family and friends gather around the table to share food, play games, and laugh. There is something both magical and healing about the experience.

Unfortunately, the data show that fewer and fewer families eat dinner together regularly. According to YouGov, only 29% of families report eating together every day. The reasons vary widely, but I think one of the most important is that many of us do not understand how important it is to sit down and eat together.

According to The Messy Bite Podcast, having a structured meal time for your family is incredibly important to raising healthy eaters and supporting long-term good mental health. While not an expert, my experience every Friday night confirms for me the importance of having a meal routine on mental health. I look forward to our time together and try to keep Friday evenings as free as possible.

Eating together is one of the most basic forms of community building and has been a staple of faith communities since time immemorial. In many Christian denominations, a central part of worship is Communion, or the Eucharist. The term comes from the Greek eucharisteō, meaning “to give thanks”. Theologically, there is much debate about what it means and what happens during the ritual, but what they all agree on is that the purpose of eucharist is to bring people together to give thanks to God.

Of course with church attendance dropping, fewer and fewer people are participating in this ritual. Perhaps because they don’t believe it worth their time, perhaps because they don’t believe in God, or perhaps because they don’t fully understand its meaning.

The communion table is first and foremost a banquet table, it is a table where people gather to sing, eat, drink, and most importantly be with each other. Although the ritual has become highly formalized, its communal meaning is still present. However, churches rarely explain that meaning, and I think this silence significantly affects both those who participate and those who do not.

I have met many people who approach communion with what appears to be reverent fear. They seem to know it is important, but not understand what it is all about and I find that to be a significant issue for two reasons. First, as a teacher I believe it is important that we understand things we choose to interact with, especially cultural practices. Second, I believe that by not fully understanding what they are participating in they are not able to reap the full benefits of it. This is, of course, no fault of their own. The church has often done a poor job of explaining its practices. In some cases, it has barely explained them at all.

When Jesus established the Eucharist at the Last Supper (see Mark 14:22–25, Matthew 26:26-28, Luke 22:19–20), he was not merely creating a way for his followers to remember him. He was establishing the heart of what it means to be a Christian: as followers of Jesus, we are all members of his body. This is a metaphorical way of saying that we are members of the church, a community that belongs to the Lord.

I can see your eyes glazing over—bear with me. Communion is a tool for building community. The purpose of the eucharist is not only to remember Jesus, but to bring people together, symbolically and physically, around a shared table. The bread and wine matter, but so does the act itself: sitting beside one another, receiving the same gifts, and recognizing that faith is not meant to be practiced in isolation.

That same truth is present in the ordinary meals we share at home. A family dinner may not look like communion, but it carries a similar invitation. We pause our separate routines, put down our phones, pass food around the table, and make room for one another. The meal gives us more than nourishment. It gives us time to listen, laugh, and notice who is struggling. Around the table, community is built through repeated, ordinary acts of presence.

This is what can get lost in a DoorDash culture. The convenience of having food delivered is not the problem. The problem comes when convenience replaces gathering altogether. We receive the meal, but miss the table. We satisfy our hunger, but lose the unplanned conversation, the shared laughter, and the simple reminder that our lives are connected.

Before the communion table became a place of formal worship, it was a banquet table, a place where people gathered to eat. That history matters. The communion table reminds us that nourishment is both physical and relational. We need food, but we also need one another. Reclaiming shared meals, whether around a family table, with friends at a restaurant, or within a church community, is one small way to resist the isolation of modern life. It is hospitality in its most ordinary form: making room, sharing what we have, and staying long enough to become a community.

The purpose of the Eucharist is not only to remember Jesus, but to bring people together, symbolically and physically, around a shared table. The bread and wine matter, but so does the act itself: sitting beside one another, receiving the same gifts, and recognizing that faith is not meant to be practiced in isolation.

That same communal truth extends beyond the church: ordinary meals can also interrupt our separate routines and give us a physical practice of belonging. A family dinner may not look like communion, but it carries a similar invitation. We pause our separate routines, put down our phones, pass food around the table, and make room for one another. The meal gives us more than nourishment. It gives us time to listen, to laugh, to notice who is struggling, and to remember that we belong to something larger than ourselves.

Before the communion table became a place of formal worship, it was a banquet table, a place where people gathered to eat. Perhaps that is why shared meals still have the power to restore something in us. They turn strangers into companions, families into communities, and a collection of individuals into a people.

Reclaiming shared meals does not require a perfect family, an elaborate recipe, or a spotless dining room. It may begin with inviting a friend to dinner, keeping one evening free each week, or simply lingering at the table a little longer. These ordinary choices resist the isolation of modern life. They remind us that hospitality is not mainly about what we serve. It is about making room, sharing what we have, and staying long enough to become a community.

For more thoughts on community check out Sheep form Community, so should we and Finding peace through Community and the Holy Spirit.