We Need Each Other: Multigenerational Family

by Joy Walter

We’re likely all familiar with the phrase, “Birds of a feather flock together,” and we’d probably all agree that this tendency hinders diversity. Yet, we all do it. By nature, we tend to spend time with those that are most like us. Recognizing the need for diversity has become a popular topic as of late, but is also a necessary component of the Christian life. 

God created us as relational beings in need of each other’s uniqueness. As 1 Corinthians 12: 18-20 says,

“But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.”

Diversity comes in many forms—cultural, ethnic, racial, socio-economic. However, I want to suggest that there is a component of diversity that is often easily overlooked: generational. 

In Titus 2, Paul gives instructions for each generation:

“Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.”

Paul’s instructions are that those with age, maturity, and life experience ought to pass that on to those who are younger as they live their lives together. Men and women are to teach, disciple, and train the generations that follow them in how to love and follow Christ and live a life of integrity and wisdom. We learn so much more by watching someone live out the truths in God’s Word rather than just hearing them tell us what the Bible says. 

Real Family Spans Generations and Seasons

In the book, The Simplest Way to Change the World, the authors discuss welcoming others into your home, and doing life together as a way to spread the Gospel. One of the examples I, as a mother of four small children, most appreciated was the idea of inviting young singles into your life. The book suggests having a college student over for dinner and then inviting them into the kids’ bedtime routine, reading a bedtime story to one child while you brush the teeth of another. This idea seems so foreign and yet it has been a game-changer in our home. 

Our family has been blessed by a handful of college students who have called our missional community (MC) home. (Missional Communities at New City are groups of people who do life together and gather during the week to encourage one another in the Gospel.) I find it so life-giving to disciple these younger ones in their current stage of life while also inviting them into mine. They have each shared how much they have learned about marriage and parenting just by spending evenings in our home. Simultaneously, they have renewed my passion and excitement for life.

We recently had a college graduate return for a visit. She shared how much she missed the community she had while here, commenting that an important piece of that was generational diversity. Since being back home, her community has mostly consisted of those her same age or life stage. She missed learning vital life lessons from those older than her while simultaneously investing in those younger than her. For example, I have a fond memory of this student spending Easter with our family since her home was out of state. After a meal together, she spent the afternoon teaching our daughter how to crochet. 

We have also had single men and women endearingly called “aunt” or “uncle” by our children who recognize that those within our MC really are family. One of our children listed one such uncle on the gratitude list we made together during our Friendsgiving this past November. All of our children made such an instant bond with this particular “uncle,” that he was a deciding factor on the MC we chose to call home when we first arrived at New City, even though there were no other children present at our first visit. It is a gift to my children to have relationships with other adults who love and follow Jesus - a rich and diverse example to them of what it means to be a disciple in many stages of life. 

Finally, I crave the wisdom and insight provided by those a life stage or two beyond me. Such people in my life have not only taught me how to live as a passionate follower of Jesus, but they’ve also shown me what it looks like to be a godly wife and mother. I am encouraged by the fruit in their families as their older or even adult children now pursue the Lord for themselves. This encouragement gives me the fuel to not give up in the trenches of parenthood. 

Family In the Everyday Stuff

When we live life with generational diversity, we truly live as family—children, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents—all growing together, learning from one another, and portraying the unity of the Body of Christ for a watching world. In whatever stage of life you find yourself, you are a vital and necessary part of the Body. 

To the college students, are you surrounding yourself only with other college students? Or are you immersed in a family you can both learn from and help rejuvenate? I encourage you, do life with a mother of small children from whom you can learn how to eventually be a wife and mother while also supporting her—babysitting so she can get a much-needed break or simply helping her put kids to bed. Ask to get coffee with the older single person in your MC. Ask them what following Jesus is like in their season of life and be encouraged by their faithfulness. 

Moms, are you inviting a younger generation into your home—knowing that it doesn’t have to be perfect? Others learn best in the realness of our messes. Let that college student read your kids a bedtime story and then help you fold your laundry while you take time to listen to her struggles. Dads, let that single guy help you fix the car while you teach him what you’re learning about how to be a godly husband and father. 

Brothers and sisters without children, are you investing in the lives of younger believers? Who could benefit from your lived experience of applying the gospel to the everyday stuff of life? Who can you invite into your regular rhythms of home, worke, exercise, hobbies, and the normal everyday stuff?

Empty-nesters, have dinner with that couple raising small children. Remind them that the trenches of parenthood are worth it cause you’ve got the scars and victories to prove it. 

So, as you live your life, seek to do so as a family—life on life together with every generation. Making disciples who make disciples.