Every few weeks, I sit down and write a letter to my friend Josie. The art in her replies decorates the walls of my tiny dorm room. You see, my pen pal is just 6 years old.

Because I’ve been deeply shaped by the adults who made room in their lives for me, I don’t want the 100 miles that separate Josie and me for the nine months of the year I spend at college to create distance in our relationship. Intergenerational relationships within my church community have been fundamental to nurturing my faith through the witness of Christians whose lives weren’t perfect but who demonstrated a real personal relationship with Christ.

Presenting a Perfect Image

As I’ve begun to find my place in a new church at college, I’ve been thinking afresh about the role that Christian community has played in my faith. My father is a pastor, so from the time I was small, the community of the church has been a big part of my life.

Yet my place in the church hasn’t always been an easy fit, perhaps because my father is a pastor. For years, I mentally limited my identity to “pastor’s kid” in my interactions with my peers as well as adults in the church. I believed I had to present a perfect, curated image, so I was left feeling simultaneously that I lacked friends and that I bore some responsibility to be a friend to everyone.

Placing my identity in something unachievable meant I constantly felt like I wasn’t living up to everything I was supposed to be, even though my life looked good on the outside.

I’ve been deeply shaped by the adults who made room in their lives for me.

After attending church every week as a child, I could tell you all about the Bible. But as I entered middle school, I began to wrestle with the knowledge that I lacked personal salvation, that my parents’ faith couldn’t save me—and neither could my perfectionism. I couldn’t check a list of boxes to be saved. I couldn’t just work a little harder to get into heaven.

By his grace, God used older generations in the church to show me what faith looks like—to show me what it means not just to know about Jesus but to know Jesus.

Witness to a Faith-Filled Life

One woman from my church provided a particularly compelling witness of a faith-filled life. She didn’t pretend that life was easy or that she wasn’t busy balancing work and motherhood. But she was always cheerful and patient. Always full of grace. It seemed to me that she was a constant, joyful witness of God’s work, always ready to proclaim “the wonders that he [had] done” (Ps. 78:4) in her life and how she’d seen his goodness.

Her conduct wasn’t part of a projected personality but a sign of genuine faith, which overflowed easily and abundantly in her interactions. She would share prayer requests and eagerly receive mine. She would pray for me and ask me how I was doing. She showed me it was OK to ask for help because the Christian community is meant to provide it.

I needed someone older than me to let me see that she wasn’t perfect but that her imperfections didn’t keep her from a relationship with Christ, because she rests in his perfection rather than her own.

God used older generations in the church to show me what personal faith looks like.

This woman is little Josie’s mother. Her faithful testimony has been so important for me in coming to understand what it means to be a faith-filled adult. I’m grateful for my church’s emphasis on intergenerational relationships because they’ve been a crucial aspect of discipleship for me. I prioritize my time differently as a young adult, not only because I’m eager to continue walking intentionally in relationships with older women but also because I hope to have a similar influence on the little girls in my life.

Thrive in Community

When I walked into a new church on the first Sunday of my freshman year of college, I felt at home amid the rambunctious children running around before the service, babies fussing, and people of all ages joyfully greeting each other. Because I understood that this, though imperfect, was a thriving community.

I chose to attend a ladies’ Bible study so I could have an intergenerational setting for study and support. I’ve resolved always to have something to say when someone asks me how he or she can pray for me. I’ve found an encouraging community, not by being perfect but by being vulnerable in my imperfection.

And I keep writing letters back home to Josie. I hope my words help her see how the Lord is at work in my life. Through intergenerational relationships, I’ve been given hope that, while I can’t perfectly live out my faith, I can trust that the Lord is powerfully working in me. I’m so grateful for the church’s role in creating a space for this to happen so that I, too, can “tell to the coming generation” (Ps. 78:4) what Jesus has done in my life.