General Asset Building
1. Lead a series of classes (or preach sermons) that introduce the Developmental Assets to everyone in the congregation.
2. Regularly encourage all members of the congregation to think of themselves as asset builders for young people in their families, congregation, neighborhood, and community.
3. Survey the congregation on needs, interests, and priorities related to youth and asset building. Then include a regular report on youth work and asset building on the congregational board’s agenda.
4. Do an audit of the congregation-wide activities you offer. Are children and youth welcomed and included? Find places where you can be more intentional about intergenerational community.
Support
5. Be sure that people of all ages have opportunities to get to know each other. Some congregations help people remember each other by providing name tags for everyone.
6. Plan games at picnics and other events that are appropriate for all ages, not just for children or those who are physically fit.
Empowerment
7. Provide opportunities for children and youth to serve in leadership roles in the larger congregation. This could include serving on committees, providing leadership in worship and other activities, organizing special events for the congregation, and leading programs for younger children.
8. Include children and youth in congregation-wide service projects and work trips.
Boundaries and Expectations
9. Set and communicate clear policies about how everyone in the congregation is expected to treat the facilities—and the consequences for not respecting those policies.
10. Teach adults skills in setting boundaries so that they’re more comfortable talking to young people when a boundary is crossed.
Constructive Use of Time
11. Make facilities available for a youth “hangout” or a homework room on a regular basis. Have adult volunteers spend time providing encouragement, friendship, and help with homework.
12. Plan activities on a regular basis for people of all ages in the congregations. These may include social activities, spiritual growth experiences, service experiences, or other times when people can build relationships across generations.
Commitment to Learning
13. Host intergenerational learning events. Sometimes have young people facilitate learning opportunities for adults in which the children or youth share what they’re learning about their world and how they are responding out of their faith commitment.
14. Support local schools by announcing upcoming music, drama, sports, or other school events in the congregation’s newsletter.
Positive Values
15. Address in sermons how the positive values of your faith tradition inform and shape the daily choices young people make.
16. Remind all members of the congregation that they’re role models of positive values for youth in the congregation and beyond.
Social Competencies
17. Form a partnership with a congregation of a different cultural, ethnic, or religious heritage. Plan activities that allow people of all ages to learn from and about each other.
18. Draw on your faith tradition’s commitment to peace by highlighting for all members the importance of peaceful conflict resolution at home, in the community, and around the world.
Positive Identity
19. Help children, teenagers, and adults all discover and share their unique gifts and talents with each other.
20. Get young people to create a video or scrapbook that shows signs of hope for the future. Then have them share it with the whole congregation.
