Lay Ministries

On Friday, May 7, I went to “Beyond the Generation Gap: Attracting and Retaining Young People in the Life of the Church.”  Then, just six days later, I attended “Energizing Elderhood.”  My head is full of all the information I learned.  My mind is pondering the ways the ideas and issues both complicated and complimented each other.

“Beyond the Generation Gap” was led by Rev. Dr. Janet Forbes, Senior Pastor of St. Luke’s UMC, in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.  There’s no question that Rev. Forbes knows something about ministering to young people.  St. Luke’s attracts eight hundred to a thousand people to its services – and the average age of the congregation is thirty-three!

“Energizing Elderhood,” featured Rev. Dr. Richard Gentzler, Director of the Center on Aging and Older Adult Ministries for our General Board of Discipleship.  His ministry is dedicated to enhancing elders’ relationship to the church.

Here are some of the messages I took home from the two speakers.

Rev. Forbes used her iPhone as an example of “reverse mentoring.”  She got her phone – and was flummoxed by how to use the applications.  It was her 27-year-old associate pastor who was able to talk her through its use.  (In passing she mentioned that there are now over 500,000 applications available for the iPhone.  That absolutely blows my mind.)

She followed that illustration with a discussion of the Before Computers (BC) People and the After Computers (AC) People.  Here’s the dividing line she named:  those 38 years-of-age or older in the year 2000 are the BC people, those younger than 38 in 2000 are our AC’s.  While St. Luke’s is strongly an AC congregation, most of our churches mostly certainly are not.

Rev. Forbes named many young people today as “spiritual tourists.”  They often come to our churches looking for a community where answers to perplexing questions might be found.  These tourists have turned the usual spiritual mapping upside-down.  Traditionally, church members would first profess belief in our teachings, adapt our ways of behaving, and finally choose to belong (join) as a member.  Today’s “tourists” are developing a sense of belonging long before they are convinced they are believers.