Intergenerational Christian Formation

Those with a conventional faith have adopted the beliefs and values of the surrounding faith community, but have done so uncritically and without deep reflection.

“religious socialization” (see chapter nine for a fuller discussion of this construct). Westerhoff and Neville define religious socialization as “a process consisting of lifelong, formal and informal mechanisms through which persons sustain and transmit their faith (worldview, value system) and lifestyle, and this is accomplished through participat

kerygma (story, preaching), leitourgia (worship and sacrament), diakonia (mission and service), koinonia (intimate community), and paideia (formation

of belief, attitudes and values, organizational patterns, and activities.”[7]

Faith communities are perhaps the only places where families, singles, couples, children, teens, grandparents—all generations—come together on a regular interacting basis. Yet the societal trend toward generational fragmentation has moved into churches also.

Postconventional levels of faith reflect an owned faith that has weathered doubt and suffering.

intergenerational Christian formation—the

community of believers

Among those factors are modern and postmodern tendencies toward individualism and dependence on psychological, therapeutic or secular educational models rather than theological models.