Building a multi-generational worshiping community – part 2
Nine years ago, St John’s Johnsonville was in interregnum. Before it was ready to call for a new priest the Diocese did some discernment work with the parish around their sense of God's vision for their life together. The church had an older demographic and was declining in numbers so in response to this the parish discerned 3 key priorities for the 5 years ahead.
The church wanted to grow by 40% over 5 years. Research by the church of England in its report “Anecdote to Evidence” showed that the number one factor for churches growing was that they had a stated intention to grow which then informed all their decision making.
The church wanted to grow by focusing on ministry with children youth and families – the very demographic that was missing from their midst.
The church also wanted to prioritize rebuilding missional links with its wider community. These had been present historically, but at this time of discernment it was realized that there were very few new people becoming church members.
Once this missional vision was in place the parish called Revs. Ben and Teri Johnson-Frow, and their children (aged 6 and 8 at the time) to lead them into this mission. Three years later the goals of the mission plan had been achieved – two years ahead of schedule and currently the church has 80 children on its kid's church roll. 30 attending mainly music, 40 youth, and 20 kids in intergenerational house churches. So, what made the difference? Ben Johnson-Frow picks up the story.
For me and Teri, a focus on kids and youth in worship has always been important, but even more so once we had kids of our own. In our background as youth group leaders, we had seen the tension for many “priest's kids” of having parents devoted to ministry whilst also trying to juggle the demands of family. So, we really wanted to be a family on mission together where our kids could grow and minister alongside us. We had also seen through ministry at All Saints Hataitai and St Mary's Karori that kids and youth had wonderful gifts to share. Gifts that were like seeds that, if planted and nurtured, could bear amazing fruit that both blessed the church, but also helped kids grow in discipleship and feel involved and part of the church, rather than some extra add on.
What was it like coming to a church with few children present?
Initially, it felt a bit daunting, but it made all the difference that the church itself had set priorities for ministry to children and families. We weren't coming in and saying, “Hey this is really important!”, it had already been decided that this was important. In fact, more important than anything else - the priority. So, a month after we were installed as clergy in the parish, Teri started Kids church... with four children; two of which were our own, and two from another family that responded to our advertising. HUGE beginnings 😉.
Next, while there weren't many children in our Sunday worship - there were lots at the school across the road where our children went. They ran a music programme that needed help so Teri and I, as musicians, got involved and ministered there every Friday. Every week we would have contact with over 100 kids, get to know parents, and were known as the local Vicar and Rev Teri. I got involved in leading mainly music sessions, which the parish had started up during the interregnum, so every week 30 families would be coming into contact with the local Vicar. Sunday services were an ongoing work in progress, but we decided to take every opportunity to create special events that were kid friendly and invite everyone we had a connection with. Christmas services, Easter services, Pet services, pancake parties (Shrove Tuesday), midwinter dinners - you name it - if there was an opportunity to make something into a child friendly event we would take it, prioritize them, and invite. Soon families began to filter into church outside of these events and Kids Church began to grow. It was important to us, though. that they weren't growing up as a separate satellite ministry, but that we were becoming a fully integrated intergenerational community. So, kids would start in with us in worship, go out for their own teaching programs and then come back in for communion - our family time at the table - and Diana Langdon, the STRANZ co-ordinator (and great friend!), did a wonderful job of teaching around that at one of our early holiday services.
What did you do that moved the kids into being involved in the ministries of the church?
Pretty soon we started to get some older kids coming along, so every 1st Sunday became a “youth led” Sunday. This was not so much a “youth service”, more young people (mostly aged 10-12 early on) leading in all the roles that you'd usually associate with our regular worship - music, readings, preaching, communion assistant, sound desk welcoming, etc.
This was assisted at a Diocese level when our clergy ministry camp becoming a family ministry camp. The first one had an intergenerational focus and Gendy Thomson, the Diocesan Mission and Ministry co-ordinator, asked us to bring an intergenerational worship team. So we asked a bunch of our kids to step up, including our son Jakob who played drums... well, a drum... for the first time in worship ministry at aged nine in front of 300 diocese ministry leaders. He loved it, committed himself to this ministry and is now 15 and involved regularly in worship at New Wine, AYM church and diocese events.
“Pizza Church” house group.
After 3 years of intentional focus - prioritising mission and ministry to, and WITH young people at every opportunity - we were really up and running. It just became part of “who we are” to have kids regularly leading in worship, to prioritise kids and families for every parish event, to listen to kids who were enthusiastic to give ministry a go and find ways to bring out the best in them. One of our really successful projects was to do a year of intentional development with six young musicians (aged 11-13) for worship ministry. This involved weekly practices and worship leading in church once a month, 1 on 1 mentoring with our older worship musos, and an opportunity each term to play outside their regular congregation at a church school, diocesan, or New Wine event. They have graduated into regular worship ministry now, and we have taken on our next team of 9-12 year olds.
It's also become part of our culture and DNA that at every point in the parish's growth and development we ask, “how are we prioritising children and families in this.” So in lockdown, even as we were trying to transition everyone into Zoom house churches, online and livestream services, and ongoing missional connection with our community we were trying to ask ourselves how do we help kids, youth and families to keep connecting and journeying together in mission and ministry? The youth leaders ran Zoom Alpha for the youth, the Kids leaders put together at home family packs and we were really proactive in this space, just as we had been before lockdown, but MORE so 🙂. When the Diocese asked us to pick up some Live stream services we asked again “how is this an opportunity to get our kids involved,” and the services ended up being put together by three camera crew aged 13-15, and a Video Director who is 15, as well as kids out in front of the camera on music and prayers.
Lastly, coming out of lockdown we have found that a lot of life in small groups and house churches across the parish has continued even after we can return to our large gatherings. Again, in this stage of our growth and development we are asking “how can we prioritise children youth and families” and this had led us to trialling new intergenerational house churches that meet first for dinner and then disciple-making activities that include all ages. We have two groups with about 20 kids at the moment and plan to launch a new one next year with another 10 kids and their parents. This is new for us in the past 12 months, but so far is going great and is really just another extension of our parish wide commitment to intergenerational worship and disciple making.
This is quite a journey you have been on at St John’s, but it's obviously bearing fruit and been very successful in transitioning to a large multi-generational church community. What would you say to encourage other parishes who are wanting to do similar things?
The Appreciative Inquiry discernment process that began this journey has a concept that I think is really important – “what you focus on becomes your reality.” Every organization is perfectly designed to get the results it's got. When we look at our churches, they reflect what we have focused on and prioritised whether we are aware of it or not. If we want to change where our church community is at, then we need to change our focus. It means being quite disciplined in our thinking about what we want to focus on, and then disciplined in our actions to turn that focus into a reality. The biggest gift to us as church leaders at St John’s has been that the congregation did the work of disciplined thinking before we arrived. They were clear that they wanted to be a growing intergenerational church community that reached out and connected missionally with our wider community. The leadership team's role then was merely to keep us on track with disciplined action that turned that focused thinking into a lived reality. We did this by asking questions at every stage of our growth and development such as “What is going to help us grow at this point in time? What is going to help us focus on ministry to children youth and families? What is going to help us connect missionally with our wider community at this point?” And then prioritising those actions.
It does take some time, but not as much as people often think. Rev. Paul Williamson, a mentor of mine at All Saints Hataitai was fond of saying “people always overestimate what they can achieve in a year, but underestimate what they can achieve in 5 years.” That has certainly been our experience at St John’s. Change had small humble beginnings, and week by week felt slow, but in the end, transformation was achieved much faster than anyone anticipated. And if it can happen at St John’s in Johnsonville, it can probably happen anywhere.
