Generational Blessings

My daughter got married a just over a week ago.

It was a great day—a day of celebration and joy and hopes for the future and gratitude for God’s past blessings. There were flowers and ribbons and church bells ringing and lots of very happy smiles and, yes, some tears. Vows and rings were exchanged, the official pronouncement was made, congratulations were given, there was a wonderful dinner party, and then the bride and groom drove off into the night as a new entity—two become one!

Ten days later, we’re still sorting through the aftermath. If you’ve seen the movie Father of the Bride and you can recall the opening scene—Steve Martin sitting there, exhausted, amid the confetti and used silverware and half-drunk champaign flutes—that’s what our life feels like right now. It’ll be a while before things truly get back to normal.

My role in the big event, other than walking the bride down the aisle and officially relinquishing primary responsibility for her well-being to her new husband, was to pronounce a family blessing on the bride and groom. This blessing was originally written by my grandfather and has been passed from generation to generation through multiple branches of the Taylor family tree. My parents received this blessing at their wedding, and my dad invoked the same blessing on my wife and me when we got married.

The text of the blessing recalls the privilege fathers have had for many centuries of pronouncing blessings on their children—a privilege instituted in Genesis and repeated many times throughout the biblical stories. God seems to listen in a special way when a father blesses his children.

One part of the Taylor family blessing has provided some humor through the years. It says, “I would bless you with the blessings of prosperity and its concomitant obligation of sharing.” Many a Taylor father has stumbled over the word concomitant, and some have skirted the potential elocutionary obstacle by removing it altogether. The next sentence has been the source of good-natured complaining: “May you have neither too much nor too little.” That’s kind of a funny thing to bless a young couple with, isn’t it? May God keep you from having more than you need?

Yet being forced to rely on the Lord’s provision is a blessing. Jesus was pretty clear about the dangers of material riches. The absence of wealth is much more conducive to spiritual flourishing than an excess of it. My grandfather, who decades ago wrote the blessing I pronounced over my daughter and new son-in-law, was a wonderful example (along with my grandmother) of relying on the Lord and being generous even in times of want. In times of plenty, he leaned hard into the concomitant obligation of sharing! His legacy continues today through the work of Tyndale House Foundation and in the blessings invoked by generations of his descendants. May the Lord bless each one of us with exactly what we need, along with a spirit of happy giving, however much or little we have in the way of material wealth.

Here’s what’s happening.

Generational Focus
It seems like everybody is writing about generations right now. The National Christian Foundation just published its report on generational wealth and generosity. Cru has revamped its Senior Leadership Initiative to focus on next-generation emerging leaders, building character, competence, capacity, and community among younger leaders in the Majority World. World Vision has released an online resource called “Parenting the Open Generation” in partnership with Barna, Fuller Youth Institute, and others. What all these reports and resources have in common is the importance of training and preparing the next generation to live lives of leadership, stewardship, generosity, faithfulness, and integrity amid increasingly challenging circumstances. For years, Tyndale House Foundation has been engaged with global partners who are thinking about and acting out these same principles. Through our Africa Leadership Study, our partnerships with Majority World seminaries, our focus on leadership development and training, and more, Tyndale has been a champion of generational equipping since our founding two generations ago. As the world continues to change and new challenges emerge, let’s pray for the many ministry organizations working hard to prepare the next generation to take the reins of Christian leadership in the coming years.

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Generational Faith
A New York Times feature from three weeks ago declared, “Americans haven’t found a satisfying alternative to religion.” A Pew Research Center publication from January 2024 asked, “Has the rise of religious ‘nones’ come to an end in the U.S.?” Plenty of cultural clues seem to support the Times’s pronouncement and suggest that the answer to Pew’s query may be yes. According to Pew’s Religious Landscape Study, 62 percent of Americans identify as Christian. Prominent figures like Larry Sanger, cofounder of Wikipedia, have publicly come to faith in Christ. Yet a February 2025 PBS article assessing the state of religion in America warns, “Despite this widespread spirituality, there are harbingers of future religious decline.” Statistics collected by the American Survey Center suggest that Generation Z (born roughly between 1997 and 2012) will be less religious than their parents, who were already less religious than previous generations. So the discipleship work being done among younger generations by THF partners like Steiger International, Axis, VIVA Network, How2Life Movement, Parfums de Vie, and many others is essential. Of course, we acknowledge that God doesn’t need our help to advance the gospel, and the evident decline of religion over the past few generations is neither a surprise to him nor an indication that God’s plans are less than sovereign. But we believe encroaching spiritual darkness grieve him, and it’s a special privilege to be invited as his people to labor alongside him in telling the next generation the Good News.

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Trend Analysis
During the month of May, I’ll use one segment of each THF Weekly Briefing to describe and analyze some of the trends we’re seeing in the world of philanthropy—a different trend each week. In this first installment, I’ll focus on Trust-Based Philanthropy. What are others doing? Many funders are loosening restrictions, offering unrestricted and/or multiyear grants, and trusting nonprofits to use funds as they see fit rather than adhering to a pre-written proposal. What does the trend mean? Trust-Based Philanthropy is based on a desire to empower local leaders and reduce or eliminate power differentials between funders and grant recipients. Those are worthy goals, but Trust-Based Philanthropy often appears rooted in a worldview that assumes people can and should be identified by category or class (e.g., those with means vs. those with needs) rather than as individuals with inherent value outside of their group identity. What is THF doing? We definitely want to operate from a position of trust, and biblical partnership certainly includes striving for equal footing. But rather than seeking to eliminate differentials for the sake of equality of outcomes, our priority is on forming healthy relationships in which trust can be built over time. We call our approach Relational Grantmaking. We are a partner-driven foundation, but we don’t take a completely hands-off stance when it comes to funding. We strive to build trust with our grantees through open communication, total transparency, and mutual prayer.

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Expressions of Gratitude
The THF board met two weeks ago to conclude our April grantmaking cycle, and I thought I’d share just a few snippets from the thank-you notes we’ve received over the past several days as an example of the global scope of THF’s work and the impact we expect to see from these grants.

• From a Czech Bible translator: “Thank you so much for your continued partnership. I am more excited about this project than ever! We hope to print our first volume this year.”
• From a Christian educator in Latin America: “We are indeed so thankful and ask God for integrity in our stewardship.”
• From a healthcare provider in Africa: “Thank you so much for your partnership in sharing the gospel and helping kids run free from a life of disability as we live out a modern-day version of Acts 3 and 4.”
• From a UK-based ministry working with at-risk children: “We greatly appreciate your support—and the way you approach that support. We very much enjoy the relationship and recognize that it’s going far beyond the financial.”
• From a Bible translator in South Sudan: “We are grateful for Tyndale’s ongoing partnership in what God is doing through Bible translation.”
• From a Majority World publisher: “We greatly value your prayer interest in our work of producing good Christian literature for the places in the world where they have the least resources.”
• From a partner in Kenya: “It is also so nice to know that you are praying for our team. We do the same for you and Tyndale!”
• From a publisher in India: “Your email compelled me to get on my knees and thank and praise God for his providence through Tyndale! You are really helping us in our mission to reach out to every person with the gospel of Jesus!”

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That’s it for this week’s briefing. Please send any questions, comments, wedding congratulations, and examples of generational impact to [email protected]. I send out this email resource most weeks primarily for a Tyndale audience, but you should feel free to share it with others who may be interested, inside or outside of Tyndale. Thanks for continuing to pray for and support our partners around the world.

Jeremy Taylor
President | Tyndale House Foundation

The THF Weekly Briefing provides information about significant events happening in the wide universe of Tyndale House Foundation partner organizations as well as an occasional peek behind the scenes of THF’s operations. It is available to anyone at Tyndale who’s interested in learning more about the Foundation side of the organization. Was this email forwarded to you? Contact [email protected] to be added to (or removed from) the distribution list.