By: Ian McKerracher

In today’s world it is just possible that grandparents are needed more than ever to play a larger role in the spiritual lives of their grandchildren. The purpose of this blog is to tell you how I discovered this truth. But first, let me tell you a story.

When my daughter birthed the baby who initiated me into the wondrous Land of Grandparenthood it became a family ritual to have the little newborn bring her parents to dinner each Sunday. After one of these precious early dinners my daughter casually broached a subject that until that moment I hadn’t worried about. It was time, she said, for the Big Talk on what terms of endearment our granddaughter would bestow on me and my wife. 

“Hey, you guys,” she began, “what do you want this baby of mine to call you?” Gisela, my wife, and the baby’s grandmother, spoke up immediately. “I want to be Omie!” My wife was born in Germany where Oma and Opa were the proper terms. But Oma was already spoken for by her own mother, so Gisela changed it to Omie, the endearing name that had once belonged to her own Oma. When my turn came, I spoke up decisively. “I dunno,” I said, “I haven’t given it much thought.” 

In the ensuing conversation, I came to understand that my son-in-law’s parents had already had The Talk and that the chief rival for my granddaughter’s affections had already claimed Grampa. So, as a joke, I said, “I know! Call me the Grand Poobah!” Laughs all round—but the name stuck. And so, it came to pass that the two of us would forever be called Omie and Poobah. We now have 8 grandkids and find them a constant source of great delight. And they, it seems, are delighted to call me Poobah! 

Now to business. I recounted this episode to bring you up to speed about what’s going on around here at Faith Beyond Belief. It is our intention to connect with Christian grandparents, just as we’ve done in the past with high-schoolers and their parents. This is not totally new. Some of you may remember that at our last pre-COVID Be Ready conference we had Dave Schiedel with The Christian Grandparenting Network of Canada as a break-out presenter. But recently our Glorious Leader Julie Lane (aka Executive Director) suggested that I pay some attention to this oft-forgot demographic. It is our growing conviction here at Eff-Bee-Bee that grandparents have a key role to play in passing the faith along to coming generations. 

To explore that goal, I spent a couple of days at the end of October attending the Legacy Grandparenting Summit, originating in Jacksonville, Florida, and live streamed to a local Church in Edmonton where I live. The Summit was a veritable treasure trove of ideas for intentional Christian grandparenting. Interestingly, at the retirement of its founder, the Christian Grandparenting Network of Canada is being folded into the Legacy Coalition to create a strengthened and unified partnership. The wind is definitely at our back, and I am convinced that grandparents will become a force to be reckoned with!  

The key word for modern, Christian grandparenting is “intentional,” as in the phrase “intentional grandparenting.” It takes intentionality to influence your grandchildren toward the things of God, and this duty is placed upon grandparents by virtue of our vintage and experience. As the Summit booklet puts it, “Altogether, the ‘big picture’ of grandparenting in Scripture is that we are the link—the link between the words and the works of God in past generations and the learning about God of future generations.”  

Intentionality means we deliberately spend time with our grandkids. It means we work to ensure access to them even if there is a broken relationship with their parents. It means we do everything possible to reconcile with our adult children. It means that everything we know about Christianity should be applied to those closest to us, that we should tap into the wonderful conflict resolution system inherent in our faith. It means we leave politics and physical ailments out of the conversation. It means we relate to our offspring gently and with respect. It means we acknowledge that our role as parents to our own children is over—long over in most cases. We do not have the levers of control in our hands anymore, and it is bad form to attempt to wrestle them away from our adult children. But we can come alongside them and be close enough to hear when they ask for help. We just need to let them initiate that conversation, even though at times our tongues are almost bitten clean through.  

In the Legacy Coalition publication quoted above, grandparents are called “the story tellers.” As the link between the past and the future, we are to fill our grandchildren in on the Grand Narrative of the Story of God. We can tell the stories of our own spiritual awakening and the life challenges that God used to build our faith. We shouldn’t edit out the difficult parts or painful scenes, but we should also ensure that we never fail to get to the part where things come right in Christ. We can tell the Bible stories that we love the most and point out our favourite verses from that amazing library. We can tell of the great Saints and missionaries of Church history. We can discuss, converse, and relate. We can work to be THE storytellers to grandchildren who are often surrounded by other, less wholesome voices. 

As a grandfather of eight I face an embarrassment of opportunities. And I want you to know that I see the role of storyteller to my grandchildren to be a God-given privilege. Let me tell you one more story of how God arranged it so I can fulfill this role with great joy.  

My wife’s mother and my son-in-law’s father had both passed away. I was thinking about their legacy and how I was going to create my own. I got to thinking that the rest of the world seems to get along with the family life model that includes multi-generational households. It is only in North America where this is rarely done. I wanted to try a social experiment which I mentioned to my daughter. She was interested! Which meant I spent the last half of 2019 in my basement, creating a 400 sq. ft. living space for Gisela and me. When everything was ready we moved downstairs while my daughter, her husband, and their two boys moved upstairs into the house proper. Then the Covid lockdowns hit, and we were snug in our little house with a cohort that included grandkids.  

This arrangement is stellar. Yes, we put rules and boundaries in place. But we also experience a delightful sharing of our lives with the people upstairs. They still come for Sunday Supper, crowding into this little space we call our own.  The boys come down nightly to be prayed for before bed, and my wife and I are frequently involved with these two on a one-on-one basis. Then, at the conference, I discovered this is a setup made in the Heart of God. 

We have other grandkids. My son lives with his wife and five children in a place a long way away, so we have to be satisfied with a few visits a year, and Zoom meetings the rest of the time. It takes more effort to connect with these than with the two in my house, but that is what grandparents do. My hands may be aging, like the rest of this old Poobah, but still, they overflow with the blessings of God.

Watch this space for further development of this theme of how grandparents can have a huge impact for Christ on their grandchildren.

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