How an Aging Church Can Reach Younger Families

My wife and I are entering the stage where parenting is giving way to grandparenting--we have a 14 year old son and a nearly two year old granddaughter, with more on the way--and it is striking me more and more that the "getting old" stage has a lot to offer those who are younger. You can remind young men how the maternal instinct is hitting their wives, help middle aged men understand their teens, etc..

Plus, I've felt for a long time that a huge ministry for older people can be the "lap ministry" in the nursery. We might no longer have the energy we used to, but that's not a problem for infants and toddlers who mostly want to be held and rocked and read to. Pair gray hair with brown in the nursery, children's church, and the like.

Our congregation went from having few children aside from my own to having young families and more kids than adults in our Sunday worship services. How? I have no idea. We didn't really change anything (although we did listen to the younger ones when they showed up and invite them to get involved). The sad part is how many of those older folks moved on once the kids started showing up, instead of embracing the role of mentor or surrogate aunt/uncle/grandma/grandpa.

pvawter wrote: The sad part is how many of those older folks moved on once the kids started showing up, instead of embracing the role of mentor or surrogate aunt/uncle/grandma/grandpa.

A lot of that may depend on what you meant in the previous sentence, and the degree to which you “listened”:

although we did listen to the younger ones when they showed up

I don’t know if there is a secret to maintaining a good mix of ages, and if there is one, I certainly don’t know it, but I do know this much — just as the young don’t want to be stuck in the past, the older saints don’t want the past to be completely thrown out either. My current church, which skewed old, last year merged with a church that skewed young. The churches agreed in almost everything, particularly doctrinally, but the worship styles were different. After the merger, we lost some from both congregations, but now the church bridges both groups, the service is a blend of what each church did before, and it not only seems healthy and thriving, we get visitors from both age groups and new members are joining. Both congregations had to give up some of what was part of their “church identity” for lack of a better term, but in doing so, both churches were able to go forward in a way that works for most, and the young and old are interacting well.

Will it last? Only time will tell, but I can say that as far as I can tell, the remaining people are committed to making it work. Do we miss the ones that left? Absolutely, but just as the first church in Jerusalem had to deal with serious changes in 70 AD, and may not have survived at all in the form in which it had existed before, God’s church doesn’t need any particular local congregation, and will continue to do its work until Christ returns, even if the local bodies change.

I feel like we are seeing a generational shift in my church. When I arrived 4 years ago, most of our ministry leaders were in their 60s and 70s. Now, most of our ministry leaders are <60, with a couple leaders in the their 30s. Along with that shift, we moved from majority hymns with piano to a mix of hymns, Getty, Tomlin, City Alight, etc. with piano, bass, guitar, and cajon. We are also implementing intentional discipleship groups for men, women, and teens. Our elders have also led our church to invest in the future growth of our church. We hired a fulltime music/youth minister, we are making investments to update our facilities, and we are working to make our services welcoming to young families.

We have a good generational mix in our congregation and many young families. The vast majority of my church is supportive of these changes. However, there are a few older members who don't like the added instrumentation with our singing. They prefer we just use the piano and sing hymns.

Also, most of our discipleship groups are filled with middle age and younger men, women, and teens. Most of the older members have no desire to disciple someone or be discipled. They've told me, "I've put in my time already; let someone else do it." That's a really sad attitude, honestly, but our younger members are engaging in discipling relationships. We've built them into our youth ministry.

So, not everyone is onboard with the changes (i.e., some of our older members). They want to keep our church a small, country church. The problem is that most of those small, country churches in our area have either died or are down to a handful of senior citizens. Lord willing, we have better days ahead for our church than that.

The sad part is how many of those older folks moved on once the kids started showing up, instead of embracing the role of mentor or surrogate aunt/uncle/grandma/grandpa.

Most of the older members have no desire to disciple someone or be discipled. They've told me, "I've put in my time already; let someone else do it." That's a really sad attitude, honestly, but our younger members are engaging in discipling relationships.

These statements are heartbreaking. I wish they were not so common and that these examples were rare exceptions, but from what I am hearing from so many others they are not. I hear of so many young mothers longing to just have older women with life experience and an understanding of the Bible to talk to. My wife has been mentoring many of them, but she is still fairly young herself. Many of them are from outside our church and they are telling her that the older ladies in their churches just don't want to be bothered.

I cannot help but wonder if we have conditioned the older generation not to interact with the younger ones. Why should they when the church has a program for that so they feel like they don't have to? Further, when the senior citizens of today had kids in church, those kids were in the youth group and away from them. The church was expected to take care of them so they didn't have to. Sadly many of them never broke from that mentality.

Older men are to teach the younger men and older women the younger women (Titus 2). Pastors are to equip them to do so (Ephesians 4). Instead, we are just told that there is a program at church for all of this. Thus, people have an excuse to disengage- especially if they volunteered for a program when they were younger. To add to the problem, there are all kinds of unchurched people that are longing for guidance and for someone to talk to.

Having mixed ages in the church should make all of this natural. It should be normal for older people to be used to little kids making noise during the service. It should be natural for young people to tolerate the older ladies who get impatient with the noisy toddler even though those same old ladies talk loudly to each other during the service and are more distracting than the kids. (They think they are whispering, but because they are hard of hearing they don't realize how loud they actually are). The point is that young and old need each other and we should have the grace to recognize it and to recognize how beautiful it is for them to worship together.

JD, one thing that I suspect is that older people tend to "drop out" of active service for various reasons, but perhaps significantly because a lot of ministries are "designed for the spry". That is, one needs to have a certain amount of physical capability to participate.

To use the nurseries as an example, if you can't lift 20-30 pounds from the floor to a changing table, you might not serve. If the church doesn't offer a ramp to the podium, or the option of teaching while sitting, it's going to be hard for you to teach or preach, etc..

Yes, part of it is the stubbornness of the aged--"I'm not going to play piano if it's that newfangled stuff"--but I think part of it may be that that we design ministries around ages 25-55. (and thankfully my church is blessed with a lot of ornery, more spry older folks....a category I hope to join)

I wish our older members would disciple our younger members. No physical labor required. What is required is for someone to be Faithful, Available, and Teachable. Our older members tell me they are not available to invest in the lives of others in our church. They've already put in their time. They are retired now and too busy with other things.

Almost all of these older members have never been intentionally discipled themselves. So, they don't see the need to disciple others. They made it through life just fine without being discipled... or, so they think.

It's a generational attitude. We are seeking to course correct that at our church. If we start with our younger members, Lord willing, they will see the need and be equipped to disciple others, and we will start a virtuous cycle of disciple making.