When it comes to passing on faith to your children, what’s your strategy? Obviously, you’re working to have a growing and vibrant faith yourself. You want to have your child involved in a church where they can learn the stories of God and develop a solid foundation. You may not know this, but you also need to be highly intentional when it comes to connecting your kids to older generations who will model faith and encourage your kids as they grow. You need intergenerational discipleship!

The term intergenerational discipleship means exactly what you think it means. It’s when different generations come together to encourage and disciple each other. The phrase “it takes a village to raise a child” has long since conveyed the now-proven theory that it takes many people (“the village”) to provide a safe, healthy environment for our children, where they are given the security they need to develop and flourish. Connecting your children to some hand-selected adults and then inviting those trusted adults to leverage their influence along the way through challenging, enlightening and providing another voice of wisdom in the life of your child is an often overlooked part of faith development and discipleship.

This month’s resources will help you think about how to incorporate elements of intergenerational discipleship into your family’s life and paint a bigger picture for your child. Check out this month’s video and Toolbox Resource (entitled The 4 I’s of Intended Influence: A Parent’s Guide to Intentional Intergenerational Discipleship) below. We hope these will provide you with some much-needed encouragement and practical ideas that will help you better understand the importance of intergenerational discipleship.