Celebrating Ministry To and With Older Adults
Our older church members often feel left behind, or unneeded. In our tendency to keep everyone in age-based silos, younger generations often lose out on the wisdom and experience of senior members. We can strengthen our ministries for all ages by creating and strengthening ministries that involve multiple generations.
As I move into my later 50’s, I’m seeing more and more of my peers struggle to find work in the church due to their age. Is my generation falling victim to an ageist environment that we had a large part in creating?
Ageism is perhaps the last of the acceptable ism’s and it is alive and well in the church. In fact, it may be worse in the church than in society at large. I fear that my generation may have played a key role in fostering that environment.
How can we take the insights from this book and apply them to Inter Generational Ministries in our churches? Marc Freedman had already been influential to me, through his book Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life. I read that book while beginning my own sort of Encore transition, stepping away … Read more
Is it possible that ministry to and with older adults has a low priority because we are afraid of our own aging? The physical aspects of aging can be depressing. Aging means we are that much closer to death, and thus we dread growing older. It might come as a surprise that older adults are … Read more