A series by Chaplain Ben Boland: The Church and Older People: Part 1 – Current Practice. Each part of this series stands alone. To read the rest search “older people” at theothercheek.com or use the links at the bottom.
This article focuses on how the church currently engages with older people concerning Jesus’ commandment to love your neighbour as yourself. It demonstrates that using four metrics: language, proportions, resources and staffing, churches currently don’t love our older neighbours. This is part of a series of article on how the church interacts with older people.
Language
The first piece of evidence that the church/Christians fail to love our older neighbours comes from what we say. For example, have you heard any of the following statements?
- ‘Children/youth are the future of the church.’
- ‘Church should be more youth/family friendly (aka less friendly for older people).’
- ‘We need more young people.’
The emphasis on youth ministry descends from Aristotle, who said:
Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man
Then was picked up by the Jesuits:
Give me a child until the age of seven, and I will give you the man
The second ‘give’ is particularly important as it emphasises that the person’s shape can be set with early training; in this case, Roman Catholic training for the first seven years will give a lifelong Roman Catholic. However, this theology of focus on younger people to grow the church is common across Catholic and Protestant Christianity today. Specifically, I cannot think of a church that does not have or passionately desire a thriving children’s/youth ministry much more than a senior’s ministry.
Proportions
In addition to language, most churches’ ministry is focused on younger people. Consider what proportion of your church’s ministry resources (e.g. time and money) are focused on people under 25, then contrast it with ministry resources focused on people over 75. This question of proportion can also be applied to the energy put into interchurch ministries. For example, ministry in facilities for younger people (e.g. schools with School Chaplaincy and Scripture/RI) vs ministry in facilities that serve older people (e.g. respite centres, aged care villages and residential care facilities). Thus, the low proportion of resources given to seniors’ ministry provided additional evidence that loving older people is not a priority for modern Christians.
Resources
This proportional imbalance also applies to resources. A Koorong search reveals 23,000 resources for ministry with younger people [1] and 12,000 for ministry with older people [2]. This discrepancy cannot be blamed on Christian retailers, who stock what Christians buy. It is evidence that Christians are almost twice as likely to purchase youth as opposed to seniors’ ministry resources.
Another form of resource is training. Although numerous Australian church conferences focus on youth ministry [3], there is one Australian church conference aimed at older people [4]. This pattern continues in terms of theological training, with most Bible/theological colleges having multiple units about youth ministry and institutions such as Youthworks focusing solely on youth ministry. By contrast, only three Australian institutions have subjects about senior ministry [5]. Therefore, the lesser amount of resources regarding lack of products, conferences and theological training provide strong evidence that older people are not a priority for churches.
Staffing
The qualification expected of people involved in focused ministry to older people continues to be significantly less than the qualifications required for local church leadership. Indeed, I heard one significant denominational leader argue that older people should be responsible for ministry to older people. He was correct in that the overwhelming majority of people involved in ministry to older people are older. Yet in other ministry areas (e.g. youth, women and Men’s ministry), the church expects qualifications and encourages people of varying ages to be involved. As such, there is strong evidence from the staffing metric that ministry to older people is not a priority.
Conclusion
Examination of the metrics of language, proportions, resources and staffing all show that the modern church does not prioritise older people. In light of Jesus’ commandment to love our neighbours and assuming this commandment includes older neighbours, the question becomes, is it reasonable to correlate low prioritisation with a failure to love?
Footnotes
1 Search terms and results: ‘youth’ – 4,532 resources; ‘kids’ – 4,615 resources; ‘children’ – 16, 959 resources
2 Search terms and results: ‘dementia’ – 101 resources; ‘older’ – 598 resources; ‘aged’ – 11,042 resources
3 For example: AMPLIFY for children, youth and family ministry; KYCK and Onward Youth at KCC, Ignite, SMBC 2023 Children’s Ministry Conference; Youthworks House Conference.
4 Seniors Plus, https://www.mtcc.org.au/events/seniors-plus-conference/
5 Catholic Theological College offers a Graduate certificate in aging. Mary Andrews College offers a diploma unit, Foundations in Seniors Ministry (Disclaimer: I teach this subject) Morling College has two master-level subjects in their chaplaincy program.
The Older people Series
Part 1 – this story
Part 2: Why the church does not love older people as much as Jesus did
Part 3: Scripture and older people
Part 4: How churches engage with older people
Image credit: Pixabay/Pexels
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