Dive into even a bit of research on helping young people become faithful, productive Christians as adults and you will see the word “grandparents” used quite often. It seems the extended family model described in the Bible and practiced in this country until the last few decades makes a huge positive difference in the faith of children and teens.
Grandparents are often the ones who have the time and patience to have deep faith conversations with their grandchildren. They are willing to sit and fully listen as their grandchildren talk about anything and everything. Their relationships are often less volatile than the parent child relationship may be – especially during the teen years – which allows for more godly mentoring. Grandchildren can often more clearly see faith lived out in their grandparents’ lives because they can see them a bit more clearly than they can see their parents.
Sounds great, but very few of your Bible students have grandparents that aren’t at least several hundred miles away. You have considered providing mentors from the older generation in your church, but they seem to want to shrink their community and service to God at a time when they should be expanding it. Other than begging or having a tantrum, how can you engage these older Christians into becoming substitute faith grandparents for your Bible students?
One way is to create as many inter generational activities as humanly possible. Keeping children and teens in the worship service, hosting potluck dinners and fun fellowship opportunities like talent shows, offering church camps and retreats for all ages, planning service projects and other similar activities will increase the natural interactions your seniors have with young people. Over time, relationships can begin to develop. Commonalities are discovered.
Then comes the hard part – helping those casual relationships move towards mentoring grandparent type relationships. The best way to make this happen is the most time consuming – having one on one conversations with potential mentors. Offer training and support. Match them with young people they already know or with whom they have things in common. (Please do criminal background checks and keep other safety practices in place. You don’t want something that was meant to be positive to take a horrifying turn.)
Providing your Bible students with spiritual substitute grandparents takes a lot of work, but for some young people it can be life changing.