Nurturing Elders and Others:
Embracing the Aging Adventure | By the Rev. Paul Graves
What kind of welcoming embrace do you offer to Boomers who are both active and inactive on your church membership rolls? Do you see ways to nourish them spiritually as well as keep them engaged in significant community service?
In late September, the Rev. Alice Hedges, pastor at Ocean Shores UMC, and I represented the PNW Council on Older Adult Ministries at a Symposium on Aging in Nashville. Persons from nearly every annual conference gathered for two days to discuss aging issues in our denomination.
One of the general things Alice and I confirmed is that every conference, thus our (American) United Methodist Church, is getting more gray-haired and wrinkled. I heard some have fears about that.
But the predominant attitude I heard was one of affirmation – that our aging needs to be embraced as a good thing – both for aging church members and for the denomination. The symposium’s “melody” was “Embracing the Aging Adventure”. Our conversations sang harmony to that melody – a good sound!
To me, it was reminiscent of “Energizing Elderhood”, the Western Jurisdictional Conference on Aging we hosted in May of 2012. In that conference and in September’s symposium, we found multiple reasons to give a resounding “YES!” to how older adults are often the keys to the vitality of our local churches.
The Rev. Dr. Rick Gentzler has been the 22-year director of the Office on Aging and Older Adult Ministries in our General Board of Discipleship. He is an effective and insightful leader in the aging arena for us and for other denominations as well.
His keynote presentation had a dry title – the “Comprehensive Plan for Older Adult Ministries for 2013-2016”. But his content sparked our imaginations as he challenged us to focus on developing leaders in three particular areas of concern:
A. The New Seniors: Boomers
Exploring the spiritual well-being of 78 million Boomers (those born between 1946-1964) who are joining the ranks of older adulthood (and, I might add, who are now eligible for Medicare at the rate of 10,000 a day)
B. Old Age Poverty
Examining issues of financial poverty among growing numbers of older adults in late life and identifying ways churches can be in ministry to help alleviate poverty
C. Living the Legacy: Intergenerational
Learning, growing, and sharing among young people and older adults. Blurring the lines among the generations
We certainly can’t say that Rick and the national Committee on Older Adult Ministries set easy, simple goals in this new quadrennium! Each of these three target topics is a challenge in itself.
Together, they really push volunteer groups like the Conference Council on Older Adult Ministries and local churches to stretch our imaginations and our persistence. I, for one, am eager to unpack what each of these goals might mean to our conference council team members.
I hope local churches will take one or more of these goals seriously as well.
What kind of welcoming embrace do you offer to Boomers who are both active and inactive on your church membership rolls? Do you see ways to nourish them spiritually as well as keep them engaged in significant community service?
What do you know about poverty among older adults in your church, in your broader community? What do you know about the back-story dynamics that make poverty such a blight on the community and on the dignity of older adults? What can you do to educate yourself and work with others to reduce poverty’s impact? Do you give more than lip-service to generations working alongside one another? Do you affirm that children, teens, and adults just may have something to teach older adults? What might that learning involve? What can older adults teach those other generations? Please take seriously the nationally-set priorities on Older Adult Ministries. Taken seriously, I believe they can have a profound spiritual and pragmatic impact not only on older adults, but on your local church and your community.
The Rev. Paul Graves serves as the chair for the Conference Council on Older Adult Ministries.
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