Connecting people of different generations can be a daunting task to say the least. And in some contexts it can seem literally impossible. Part of the overwhelmingness to this, I think, is many times due to us viewing people in groups, rather than as individuals. Let me explain a bit.

Think about this a little differently. If we think about relationally connecting two different races of people we can get overwhelmed easily. The first thing that comes to our minds are the distinctions and differences between the races and the idea of connecting these groups of people together, again, seems impossible. Trying to get both groups to holistically connect can drive us crazy.

But what if we shifted our focus? What if, instead of viewing them as groups of people, we just focused on individuals? And, what if we didn’t focus on the differences between the groups, but instead focused on helping two individuals find common ground?

I think this is the same thing with people from different generations. The important distinction to make here is we are not trying to connect two generations (groups). We are trying to relationally connect two people from different generations. As a leader of a college ministry this distinction is going to be extremely important for you to make.