By: Sharon Smith Leaman, published October 19, 2023
Years ago, when my husband and I were newlyweds, we led a small-group Bible study for other newlywed couples in our church. As a new believer and being new to the church, I looked forward to building friendships and having robust Christian fellowship. While fun and lively, we sensed that our group lacked something significant—something deeper—like some sort of ballast to anchor us during this youthful adult season.
We were able to put our finger on what was missing after this young adult group abruptly dissolved during a difficult church split. Soon after, we joined another group and I understood almost immediately what was lacking before. In this new group, in the assortment of gray hair, middle-aged couples, men with loosened ties straight from work, toddlers at mothers’ feet, and teenagers on the periphery, I saw the Church. Among these people, I saw the realities of each season, not just a mirrored view of my own, narrow, newlywed life. Being a part of this new small group shifted my perspective and drew me in to love and value discipleship within a multigenerational church, not just fellowship of people my own age.
That’s not to say that age-specific ministries don’t have their place within the church. I am a coordinator for a girls’ discipleship group that meets weekly in our church. It is a specific time set apart to disciple them according to their age and maturity. Yet, in my ministry with our older teens, I know these young women need more than just me and each other. They need the Church—the whole church. They need to experience friendships from all generations. More specifically, they need to experience the kindness and wisdom of other and older women; they need to see biblical womanhood across generational lines. They need our older women to cast a vision for them of what living biblically looks like in each season of their lives.
God has given women a clear, multigenerational command in Titus 2:3-5. Titus tells us that older women (literally “aged women”) have a responsibility to teach younger women to discern what is good, to love their families and households, and to live lives worthy of Christ. This command is different from the “one another” commands of the New Testament; it specifically addresses multigenerational mentoring.
Often, because the Titus 2 verses refer to young women within the context of husband and home, we fail to think about this verse as relevant to our girls or to single women. But just because they may not yet live within that context, it does not mean that these virtues are not relevant to them. Titus 2:3-5 tells us that it is the duty of older women to cast a biblical vision of womanhood for them regardless of their current context. Our younger women need older women—and multiple women—to take active roles in their lives.
When we older women lose sight of our generational duty, our discipleship ministries can become siloed, which can lead to an inward, consumerist approach to church community. Women’s discipleship becomes programmatic rather than organic. We seek friends and connections rather than mothers, sisters, and daughters in Christ who provoke us “unto love and good works” (Heb. 10:24 KJV).
When we seek our own needs to be met within a specific group who are just like us, we miss God’s vision for His people. God’s word teaches us that multigenerational relationships are a far better descriptor of His heart for discipleship. In His wisdom, God describes the people of God as a household, not a nursery, dormitory, social club, or an old folks’ home (Eph. 2:19, 1 Tim. 3:15, 1 Pet. 4:17). He describes us as a family. He wants us all—grandmas, aunts, cousins, siblings, babies—all growing up together within one committed, covenant community until we all “attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph.4:13). Every generation in the church (seniors, empty nesters, middle-aged, young mothers, singles, and youth) is one family, that needs each other. So we learn how to look outside our own interests to love and serve one another (Eph. 4:15-16). Our young women need this vision to be cast for them and they need to experience it within our discipleship ministries.
Our young women (and youth of all ages) need the influence of the whole body, represented by all generations, in order to grow up healthy. Our youth leaders are important as they have specific gifts to work with our young people, but they are not the Church. They are only one part of the body and our youth need all of the body of Christ, working together, to see a picture of Christ’s church more clearly. As a church, do we, in our good intentions to meet a specific generational need, end up putting forth a crippled view of the church? How many young women lose interest or even fall away (like the parable of the seed in Matthew 13:1-13) because of this myopic, incomplete view of the church that we often functionally force upon them when we divide ourselves according to age? How many of them become disillusioned with the church because of one leader’s personality or whether they feel like they “fit in” socially at these youth-only programs? It can become a cult of personalities or consumerism rather than the biblical picture of Christ’s church. When we relegate too much responsibility to youth leaders to “meet the needs of our youth” we are not acting biblically as the body of Christ. When we do it in our women’s discipleship ministries, we are not fulfilling the command of Titus 2:3-5.
How then do we build a culture of generational mentoring in our women’s ministries? Below are four beginning steps:
- First, we must submit to God’s vision for His church. He has established it to bring Him glory, and for our good—so that we might become more like Him (Romans 8:28-29).
- Second, we must pray that God would give us hearts that love God’s church as He defines it and we must repent of our consumerism that seeks our own needs first (Phil. 2:3-4).
- Third, we must rely on the Scriptures to remind us that discipleship within God’s covenant community is multigenerational. The Bible is replete with this teaching—once you see it in the Scriptures, you can’t unsee it and its pervasive theme (Ps. 145:4).
- Fourth, as women, we must recognize that the Titus 2 command is for generational mentorship and that obeying that command is being proactive in investing in others from different generations. Young women obey this command by seeking out an older woman; older women obey when they are available and flexible to share their lives. In relation to our teens, just having an older woman notice them and be friendly, kind, and engaging goes a long way to invite them into the whole church.
Our young women need older women to cast a vision for what biblical womanhood looks like. They need to experience healthy, multigenerational relationships so that they will recognize biblical womanhood in the various seasons of life and have hope. Give them multigenerational relationships that anchor them in a healthy covenant community so that when they seek to establish themselves in a church as adult women, they will know that their church experience is not all about them, but about Christ and about being a part of a larger community that seeks to reflect His character. Young women need older women, and lots of them, to nurture this in them. They need us to take the initiative and show them the way.
How I thank God for that multigenerational small group who cared for us in our early years! God used that cross section of His church to give me a heart and a desire to value His church as a gathering of redeemed people from many generations. I am grateful for the older women in my life who have loved me, shared their lives with me, and discipled me to love Jesus. I hope to be like them to those who are coming after me. Will you join me?
Sharon Smith Leaman is a member of New Life in Christ Church, Fredericksburg, Virginia. She would love to hear from you if this article sparked an interest in you. You may reach her at leamans@yahoo.com.
Now A Mirror Dimly 