Hope died on the weekend. She was a wonderful Christian lady, faithful in prayer, a wonderful servant of others, a bulwark of Barneys. At 88, she was still actively serving as a ‘Pink Lady’ volunteer at Royal North Shore.

Jesus has now called her home. Those that knew her are mourning her.

I wish more of the young people at church knew her better - they are poorer for not having known her and not grieving her death. I don’t blame them though - I blame the system!

Like many churches we’ve got a system of age-based congregational apartheid here - seniors at 8.30, families at 10, people younger than me at 6. This has got many great advantages - you don’t have as many arguments about hymns v drums, you can put on a kids spot, teaching is tailored in age appropriate ways.

But the downside is that relationships aren’t strong across the ages. Younger Christians don’t get to see older wiser Christians. Young marrieds look to peers rather than those a little further along. Conversely in the older congregation, they don’t have the joy of seeing young people turn to Christ, or see the growth of the church with new families and children.

Its nice when we do have the occasional meal get-together. Our seniors love hearing news of engagements and holding the babies. Our youth love being led in prayer by the 80 year old widow prayer giants. Its great to be reminded of the profound unity we have in Christ - there is no longer young or old in that sense.

I’m sure it would be much harder if we were to try to meet together week by week.

But I’m going to re-read the pastorals again.

Seems that there, and also in 1 John, there is an expectation that the church will have a mix of young and old in the household. I know some churches have resisted the congregational age apartheid model for these reasons. I wonder whether we should reform. Perhaps over Summer we’ll combine the services in the morning and run a meal Life of Jesus training during the normal evening slot.