Multigenerational Community: How we Found the balance – Transcript
Jim Latimer
Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministry, best practices and quick help wisdom from the field. This is our collaborative Wisdom from the Field project, featuring short interviews with transitional interim ministers and others, with practical help and wisdom to offer those engaged in transitional ministry and ministry in general. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Wisdom from the Field.
Today is the second part of a podcast series with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashua New Hampshire. Reverend Allison Palm is the minister, and Sadie Kahn-Green is the Director of Faith Formation Programs. And just a word about how we got connected. Allison and I first met about six years ago. We’re both part of the PINNE program of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, which is related to Hartford Seminary, now known as the Hartford International University for Religion and Peace. PINNE, the Pastoral Innovation Network of New England, is a fabulous group that comes together in cohorts. It’s not just about being creative. It’s about innovating to make ministry more relevant.
And that’s where she and I first met about six years ago. And during that I had the pleasure, the opportunity, to be in her space, in her church at the UU Church of Nashua, New Hampshire. And as I was in there, it was obvious there were lots of generations present, and that they were working together well in their ministry. It seems everybody wants to do multigenerational ministry – has that ideal. Well, not everybody, but most of my colleagues do. But making it really work, where people are generally satisfied and growing in their spirit and emotions and heart is much harder. It’s a different thing, and they seem to have somehow figured that out for their context. And that’s what I wanted them to speak to today. So, I think Sadie, you were going to start this one, particularly around multigenerational community. If you could speak to that and get us going, I’d love it.
Sadie Kahn-Green
Sure. Yes. Thank you for having us. We wanted to talk about how we found the balance in building multigenerational community in the Unitarian Universalist Church in Nashua, and specifically because we had the joy of being a growing congregation and also adjusting to returning to being able to be in person again after our online time during COVID. And during that time, we attracted new members, and our community was learning how to be together again. And so, the challenge we had was, how can we learn how to be in community together again when we haven’t been together in a while? And how can we welcome in new folks who are joining us so that they can get to know the community? And how can we help our community get to know our newer members? We heard from elders that they were noticing that there were a lot of younger families, and they were happy to see them, but they didn’t know them. So, the challenge was, how do we help our congregation rebuild this community that is not the same community that all went online in March 2020.
Jim Latimer
Let me just say a word here, but thank you for saying that, Sadie, and observing that, because you can be in worship with somebody for 30 years and not really know them. Maybe know their kid’s name, if that, because Sunday morning worship typically isn’t designed for intimacy, that comes in other areas, and that’s what you guys have figured out. So, yes, great.
Allison Palm
And part of it was people were craving more time together and more time to connect beyond fellowship hour on Sunday morning. And so, it was in the spring of 2023 that we really doubled down on building relationships, that we decided as a staff team that one of our goals for our congregation was just to have fun together. And the timing of that was, you know, for a lot of reasons, it was we were really coming out of lots of pandemic restrictions at that time. And we were also coming out of a period of time where we had a bunch of staff away.
And so spring 2023 we were back in full swing, and we decided we were gonna have fun together. And so that spring it was all multigenerational at first, because we knew that people wanted to get to know each other across generations. And we think that’s really important. So, we did a game night. A couple of game nights, I think, that were like, we order pizza, and people bring board games, and people of all ages play games together. We continue to do a game night once a year, and it’s really fun. We get 40 or 50 people, many ages, many levels of games. There’s often a moment where someone takes little kids to another space so they can run in circles because they’ve, you know, done their board game thing, and they need to run now. But it’s just a really fun time of seeing our teens playing with our adults and our elementary age kids playing with our adults. So, it’s a great multigenerational event.
We also did a talent show that spring, which had acts again from all ages, and our first camping trip was that summer, which was another multigenerational event. We had at our first camping trip, about 30 people, whole bunch of different ages. So, we did all multi Gen at first, and then we heard this desire from our folks for grown-ups of different generations to connect. Not just our elders wanted to connect, not just with our kids, but also with their parents, and our younger adults wanted to connect with our older adults, and particularly we heard that they wanted to have a space to do that where people who are parenting weren’t actively caregiving. Because I know I have young kids, and when I am at an event with my kids, I am 40% doing the event and 60% taking care of my children at all times. And so, it’s lovely, it’s wonderful, and it’s a different way of being in in that space.
And so, the solution we came up with was to start two parallel things, and we called them Circle Dinners and Kids Movie Night, and we have done them the last two years. We’ve done them three times a year – beginning of the year, middle of the Church year, end of the Church year. They are two kind of separate events that happen at the same time in some ways. So, the circle dinners are dinners that happen in the homes of members. Sometimes we had a few of them at church here as well. And people sign up. And then I do some like matchmaking behind the scenes, and make groups of people who have dinner together. I try to match up people who don’t know each other, and everyone brings a part of the meal, and they enjoy a nice dinner together.
And at the same time, we have a kids movie night happening at the church, and the kids movie night starts half an hour before the circle dinners and ends half an hour after. And it is what it sounds like. We show a movie, we serve the kids pizza. Often there’s also time to do games or have some quiet activities as well. And when it’s nice out, we start outside on our playground, so they get all their energy out and then watch a movie. And this is something that parents can drop their kids off at. So, the idea is that parents drop their kids off at kids’ movie night. Kids have a great night with their church friends. Parents get to go to a circle dinner, talk to other adults in the congregation, and then come back and pick up their kids.
And we have expanded kids’ movie night now, because we had some teens and tweens who wanted to be there, but were interested in doing role playing games. So, we now have kids’ movie and game night. And so, we have the movie happening in one space, and we have our teens and tweens doing a role-playing game in another space, but all serves the same purpose.
At these events, we get 50 or 60 people engaged in either going to have a dinner at someone’s house or being a part of this kids’ movie night. I have heard only, only good things about it from folks that they are starting to get to know people they didn’t know before. Parents are really appreciating a free night of child care to go and talk to other adults. That is a gift when you are actively parenting and able to go, have a night with other grown-ups. And our kids are having a lot of fun too. I know my kids really look forward to Movie Night. They’re like, Is it going to be Movie Night? This is going to be great! This is fun!
So, there’s connections being made all around, and part of it was, again, this idea of finding balance. So, our game night is a really amazing space where we have different generations interacting together, and this circle dinner and movie game night is a great opportunity to have a little bit more age specific spaces, but build connections in different ways. Build connections among those folks. We also have started offering child care, or kids programs for more things in general. Just realizing, Oh, this is a space where it’d be helpful to have parents not actively caregiving. Let’s have something available for the kids that’s fun and compelling and that they want to be at.
And we also have been doing more multi Gen events as well. So, it’s having that balance. And we have a couple of age identity groups as well. So, knowing that even the adults don’t always want to be with adults of all ages, we have a young adult who do a game night. They’re people in their 20s and 30s. They do a game night twice a month now. And we also have our Elderberries group, which I love. They came up with that name, but it’s for folks who are either 60 plus, 65 plus, and they do social events together, and they’re often in the middle of the day because they’re mostly retired. So, we have these times whenever again, when everyone’s coming together, and times when we’re a little bit more separated, and that has felt like a really good balance.
Jim Latimer
Wow. I appreciate so much the thought and clearly of the collaboration that you two have together with no doubt, other leaders, probably lay leaders that aren’t part of this conversation directly, but you found a way to not only involve them, but get them to feeling ownership for things. Because for something like this to go, it constantly needs a tune up, right? Because things kind of get going and then, oh, you know, We got a loose wheel. Where do we need to make the correction? And it’s when you have the kind of leadership like you have, I clearly see here that you listen to each other well, you respect each other’s ideas. There’s not this, Yes, but, rather there’s a Yes, and. You build on each other’s thoughts rather than worrying about whose idea it is. You just get it out there for the sake of the good of the congregation and God’s green garden that we’re growing here, which is what I see it happening there.
Thank you so much. And, just a reminder, I’m just hearing again of how people’s desire for multigenerational community, multigenerational worship, whatever it is, it doesn’t just happen. It doesn’t just happen because you simply bring everybody together and say, Oh, we’re multi Gen! No. Usually that makes people unhappy – I’m not doing that again, honey! So, you need to think about it from their point of view. What are their motivations for going? And your point Allison of when you’re in active parent mode that you’re only 40% involved with the activity, right? That’s a reality that folks that either aren’t parents or beyond it have forgotten. But that’s very real. If you want a parent of young children to be involved you’ve got to keep that in mind.
So, thank you so much. This has been a delight. Many people will benefit from this, Allison and Sadie. I look forward to coming up sometime and seeing when the new building is done. I know you guys are doing great stuff up there. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Allison Palm
Thank you.
Sadie Kahn-Green
Thank you.
Jim Latimer
Okay. Bye, bye.
More Bits Of Wisdom from Rev. Allison Palm
More Bits Of Wisdom from Sadie Kahn-Greene
< < < Back to the biographies of Rev. Allison Palm & Sadie Kahn-Greene