Our eldest daughter came to us recently to tell us about a plan she and her fellow church youth group colleagues had for purchasing a vacant building in the main street and turning it into a youth centre.

Fran and I started turning pale. “You can’t just buy a building and turn it into a youth centre! You need capital, mortgages, planning permission, church support, probably a charitable trust to manage it, demographic studies, market research, a youth worker, staff …

“What happens if no-one uses it? What happens if you can’t agree among yourselves on its future direction? What about security? What happens if that new planned shopping centre at the top of the round goes ahead and the area where your building is turns into a ghost town?”

And so we went on … yadayadayada.

It’s because we are getting old. Getting old brings wisdom. It brings a caution based on experience of life being a lot more complicated than it first appears.

And that’s a bit sad because there is much to be said for the idealism, enthusiasm and energy of committed young Christians. And those three qualities may well be enough to turn an empty building into a vibrant youth centre.

So we remembered when we were young and started to once again see the challenge from a youthful perspective. One of the advantages of being middle-aged (well, late middle-aged in my case) is that for a brief few years you somehow manage to bridge the generations.

It is still possible to look at the young people in church and see the world through their eyes, feel the pleasure they get from the modern music, sometimes manage to still “get” their quirky humour, not get offended by their dress sense (or lack of) while appreciating their vision and idealism.

But at the same time is also possible to value the wisdom that life experience brings, to appreciate the blissful moments of quiet, to value the older members of the congregation for what they have contributed and what they still have to offer.

Society has changed in so many ways over thousands of years of human civilization but one constant remains: From the Old Testament to the post modern, the idealism of youth has clashed with the wisdom of age.

Hardly a month goes past without us receiving a letter to the editor from a frustrated older congregation member complaining about how loud the music in church is. Hardly a month goes past without a young person questioning the “relevance” of Sunday church.

Churches put a huge amount of effort into retaining, and then developing the spiritual maturity of, young people. Many churches also value their elderly congregation members, look after them, and encourage them to hand down their wisdom to others.

But there is one group in church that doesn’t get talked about much at all. My group. The middle-aged, the bridge between young and old with the ability to still see the world from both perspectives.

Understandly, the major burden of running the world and the church falls on this group, but perhaps just occasionally we should pause in what we are doing and intentionally consider our role in that oldest of all battles – the Generation Gap.

– Duncan Pardon