Our family gathered around the table, which was decorated with balloons and streamers. At the head of the table, in a highchair, sat my daughter with a slight grin. She stared at the smash cake ready to dive headfirst into bright pink icing. Everyone quieted down prepared to sing “Happy Birthday” to her for the very first time. However, before I could start the song, my wife spoke up with a request. “Before we sing, could everyone say one thing they love about Everly?”
A New Table Tradition
Grandparents, aunts, and uncles each spoke up, offering words of appreciation and love to my young daughter, who was more focused on the cake than the compliments. Nevertheless, the moment and the words they shared stayed with me long after the party ended. I loved what my wife initiated and the tradition it would become. Now, at every birthday party, before we sing, we always make the request: What is one thing you love about the one we are celebrating?
These days, this question comes to mind whenever I am gathered at any table for celebration. Birthday parties. Special date nights. A reunion with friends. I think, What do I love about the people gathered around this table? What do they bring into my life for which I am grateful? The table and tradition of my daughter’s first birthday celebration now impact how I view every other table where I gather with friends and family—especially at Thanksgiving.
An Ancient Table Tradition
The Thanksgiving season highlights themes and attitudes that are important for us to consider on a regular basis. We are invited into gratitude. Attention is given to the grace in our lives. Our abundance is a reminder to be a blessing to others. These priorities are meaningful no matter our faith tradition. However, for Christians, Thanksgiving holds a deeper theological meaning. The tables around which we gather can point us to the Table of the Lord.
That Table has sustained the Church since its inception. The earliest Christians regularly gathered to take bread and wine in the same way Jesus did in his final days. They did so, remembering and proclaiming the goodness, grace, and forgiveness they experienced because of him (1 Corinthians 11:23–26). They called this meal the Eucharist—literally, to give thanks—a constant reminder of the joy and goodness they experienced in Jesus. In the same way Jesus gave thanks at the table, so they also shared a table of thanksgiving and celebration.1 The Table became a formative means by which the earliest Christians saw the grace of God in Jesus.
Our abundance is a reminder to be a blessing to others.
Grace Around the Generational Table
This grace also extended into every aspect of their lives. Early believers acknowledged that grace saved, shaped, and sustained them (Ephesians 2:8–10). One of the ways they encountered that grace was through other individuals in their community of faith.
Grace in Community
In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul reminds the church of their communal identity as the body of Christ, a oneness that shapes how they consider their community (Ephesians 4:4). Then he makes an important claim about that oneness: “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it” (Ephesians 4:7). Paul informs the community that every single person in the community of faith has grace. Everyone has a gift! The good gift giver, Jesus Christ, gives gifts to the entire community of faith.
Gifts in Every Generation
Passages about gifting often turn us inward, prompting us to ponder the gifts we have been given. That is fine and needed. But texts like this one should also turn us outward, toward others. We are to ask ourselves, What are the gifts I see in the lives of others? How do I see the grace of God, the gifting of God, in their lives?
One way to consider the body of Christ for churches today is through a generational lens. We can look around at our communities of faith with an appreciation for what each generation brings to the table. Every age and stage of life has been given grace. Every generation has gifts to offer! We are not just any body of Christ, but we are a generational body of Christ. We need all the gifts each age group in our church brings to the table.2
Three Ways to Model
Intergenerational Thanksgiving
The season of Thanksgiving is an ideal time for churches to name and appreciate the different generational gifts present in their community of faith. What does each age group bring to our church community? What do we love and appreciate about each age and stage of life in our church? Simply asking these questions begins to help a church see the generational body of Christ in their midst and cultivate a greater intergenerational culture. Some ideas for how a leader might initiate this in their congregation include the following:
1. Appreciation During Worship
Leaders can model appreciation for the generational body of Christ during worship. Preachers or worship leaders, for example, can prioritize naming the gifts each generation brings to their church. They might consider taking each Sunday in November to focus on a given generation and tell that age group why they matter to the congregation. They might also offer a special prayer of blessing for each respective generation on each of those Sundays.
2. Poster Boards for Every Generation
A church might utilize poster boards or bulletin boards in the foyer. Set out one blank poster board for every generation in the church. Have a table with markers and sticky notes where people can write. Then invite the church on a given Sunday or over a series of Sundays to write down the gifts they appreciate in each generation and place them on the respective board. The display can be a visual reminder for the church that every age brings value to the congregation.
3. Send Notes
Encourage the church to write notes or send texts to people of a different generation in the church. Emphasize that these notes are to be written to a person of a different generation. You could even pass out stationery to the church and ask everyone to write one note of encouragement and appreciation to a person of a different generation. Give them a simple prompt to help: “One of the things I appreciate about you is . . .” or “One way I see God working in your life is . . .”.
No matter which path you choose, it is important for the leader to keep naming this each week to form a particular mindset within the church. These are ways to help everyone begin to consider the grace given to the different generations in the church. It is also a way for every generation to feel blessed and appreciated.
A New Tradition, a New Community
A similar kind of congregational impact can be had to what I experienced at my daughter’s first birthday party. The practice of appreciating the gifts in our midst changes how we view our community. We begin to see what each person brings to the table in our congregation. We better see the grace in our lives by seeing the gifts in others. We can give and receive the gift of naming gifts in our church, no matter the age, and purposefully form a more intergenerational community. This Thanksgiving, I encourage you to explore ways that you can find grace in the whole church.
Article by Wilson McCoy.
- John Mark Hicks, Come to the Table: Revisioning the Lord’s Supper (Leafwood Publishers, 2008). ↩︎
- Valerie Grissom, “Finding the GIFTS: A Process for Becoming More Intergenerational When Designing Scripture Presentation in Worship,” in Imagining All Generations: A Renewed Vision for an Intergenerational Church, ed. Wilson McCoy (ACU Press, 2025). ↩︎
