Ask me who I connect one-on-one with most outside of family, and you might be surprised at my answer: a woman from church about 40 years older than me. Not a peer, or a cool twentysomething, but a church grandma. Why? Because intergenerational relationships matter.

Our church pairs every student with a more mature believer in a discipleship relationship, seeking to intentionally pass along wisdom from older to younger Christians. So, twice a month, my discipler and I meet to do everything from decorating cakes to discussing biblical womanhood, from seeing a movie to hearing Christopher Yuan speak, from exploring the chai at new coffee shops to crying with each other while drinking it. It’s life-on-life discipleship: We do life with each other, for Jesus.

Unusual? Yes. Hard? Absolutely. But beneficial? Far more than you might imagine.

Better than Pizza and Games

Intergenerational relationships are out of fashion in youth ministry, overlooked in favor of cool events and age-specific small groups. After all, don’t students want free pizza, fun games, and awesome friends more than they want to talk about the Bible with someone far removed from their own generation? I can’t speak for everyone, but I haven’t grown closer to Jesus because of the pizza. I haven’t formed life-changing relationships because of mafia nights. And I haven’t learned tested biblical wisdom from hanging out with people my age.

I’m not criticizing any of these, and I enjoy them all, but I’ve realized more and more that I also need intentional relationships with those older and wiser than me. So, how is this discipling relationship—between people ordinarily far removed from each other—deeply beneficial?

I have two answers. First, the Bible makes clear that intergenerational relationships are necessary to impart wisdom and reveal previously unseen facets of God’s glory. Christ calls the church to encourage and support one another as members of one body, each playing an invaluable role in the lives of the others. Paul describes the church like this:

Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. . . . If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. (1 Cor. 12:12, 17–18)

By Christ’s radically unexpected grace, the church has become his blood-bought Bride. He brings together wildly disparate people that we may glorify God better together than we would apart, and that we may together love him first and love each other as he loved us. So of course we need intergenerational relationships; they’re integral to the church.

God brings together wildly disparate people that we may glorify him better together than we would apart.

People of different ages grow from the challenge of living with and loving each other, teaching and learning from each other, and reflecting God’s goodness to each other. The Bible explicitly declares we need one another: “Older women likewise are . . . to teach what is good, and so train the young women” (Titus 2:3–4). At the same time, Paul writes, “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Tim. 4:12).

Younger Christians need the wisdom of experienced saints, while older Christians need the example of youthful saints. It’s countercultural, but both need each other—and the church needs both.

Second, I can affirm from my experience that I needed this. I was skeptical at the beginning of this relationship, uncertain if it was necessary. But it turns out, my discipler knows a lot more than I do. Not only has she instructed me through her teaching, but she has also shaped me through her intentional, faithful living as an older Christian woman.

When I experienced a season of grief, she came alongside me and pointed me to our unshakable hope. When I worry about next steps, she offers biblical wisdom. When I struggle with sin, she encourages me as a pilgrim further along. We’re all going to be shaped by somebody; we’re all going to look to someone as a standard and example. My default would be to look at peers or culture, so I’ve been immensely thankful to God for putting her in my life that I might instead follow her as she follows Christ.

Generation to Generation

Because my church wants to see this work continue, I also, by God’s grace, have the joy of discipling a fourth-grade girl. For the past year, I’ve met one-on-one with her, building a countercultural relationship that points her to Christ as we enjoy ice cream, long chats, and a Bible study—a relationship we hope will support her through the formative teen years. While I’m being discipled, I’m also learning to disciple and to pass on what’s been entrusted to me (2 Tim. 2:2).

We’re all going to be shaped by somebody; we’re all going to look to someone as a standard and example.

Many forms of discipleship are effective, yet I can say from experience that intergenerational relationships teach much about wisely and lovingly following Christ in a skeptical world; indeed, they’re invaluable in forming a God-glorifying, Christ-centered church community. In an age of individualism, isolation, and tribalism, they radically reorient our vision and point to the all-surpassing goodness of our God.

It’s dangerously easy to float with the culture in forming relationships, gravitating passively toward those who look like you, talk like you, and are the same age as you. This isn’t biblical. Christ-centered intergenerational relationships may be downplayed, discredited, or deserted altogether. But running this race together will prepare us for the day we behold Christ face to face.