David Thompson, Secretary of the Council for Congregational Life and Witness, reflects on the church’s ministry and mission among those in later life and introduces PCI’s new evangelistic resource ‘All the days of my life.’

Unchanging God. Changing lives.

As you read the title of this blog, your mind might have taken you to the familiar words of Psalm 23:6.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

It is mind blowing to think about how God is with us and cares for us throughout all the days of our lives. When we were little children. Teenagers awkwardly trying to just find our place. As adolescents struggling to make our way in the world. In the sandwich years, when we find our lives stretched and pulled in two directions, looking after the up and coming generation while also increasingly caring for aging parents. Then there is that phase when we begin to sense that we are getting older, moving into the second half of life. Beyond that, retirement and the onset of circumstances in which daily living becomes that bit more of a struggle.

Wherever we are on that journey of our lives today, it is good to know that God never changes. However, it is also important to realise that the primary challenges, needs and questions that arise as we try to follow Jesus do change and are different across life’s varying ages and stages. In the church we probably haven’t given enough attention to that.

Unintentional ageism in the church?

We have a long standing record of well-developed thinking and tailored programmes that address the spiritual development of children and young people, even though the speed at which their world is changing these days often leaves us simply trying to keep up.

In recent years more attention has been given to the multiple transitions involved in the complicated season of young adulthood. There’s a growing sense of the need to specifically support and encourage parents who are often found in the early middle years. Then what?

Are we just meant to have accumulated enough spiritual wisdom along the way to be able to address whatever lies ahead in later adulthood? Are we supposed to just sit quietly in church having handed everything on to the next generation? Are we now simply the objects of pastoral care, rather than a significant stimulus to, and active participants in, the work of the kingdom of God? If that is how it works in practice, is it any wonder that there are signs of stagnation and weariness in so many church members and leaders, the majority of which inhabit this season of life?

In his book Finishing Well: A God’s-eye view of aging, Ian Knox, references the observations of Rhena Taylor, who, on returning to the UK church after overseas missionary work in Africa, observed,

‘The Western world has been for many years in the grip of ageism, described as ‘a deep and profound prejudice against the elderly’. The church has shared in this prejudice. Yes, there is a care line, possibly a lunch club, a friendship club and a weekly meeting for the over-60s in the church, but no one can pretend that church programmes involving older people are high on the list of church priorities, and provision for their spiritual care is often non-existent.’

She continues,

‘As young people are not the church of tomorrow, neither are older people the church of yesterday.’

A focus on faith in later life

So, how could we create a richer, better congregational life for those in the second half of life, as well as seize the opportunities for witness among their peers? It surely begins with a rebalancing of perspective where necessary.

We need to stop visualising, objectifying and marginalising those in the later life as a pastoral care issue to be catered for in church life and instead realise the enormous potential of their accumulated Christian life experience, if properly motivated and mobilised.

We need to talk, listen and begin to better understand the particular challenges and opportunities that following Jesus in this stage of life brings, so that we can apply ministry to those more particularly and effectively.

We need to very quickly recognise the scale and urgency of the task of mission to this generation, understanding that the demographics of Northern Ireland show that the proportion of older people aged 65 and over will increase by 20% by mid-2045 and the number of those in this this age bracket will overtake children aged 0-15 by mid-2027. The population of the Republic of Ireland is taking on a similar age profile.

A first step?

In a simple, but significant, attempt to take a first step into this area of ministry and mission to those in later life, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in collaboration with the Faith in Later Life network has released a new resource entitled All the days of my life. It offers a six-session, light-touch, evangelistic tool produced particularly for ministry among those in later life.

Walking participants through Psalm 23, each session offers a friendly, simple, gently appropriate way to bring to light an awareness of God’s presence throughout life. From that starting point, the conversations opened up by the resource can help participants to explore what faith in Jesus means, the difference it can make and how to respond to him in faith. It may be used individually, one to one, or in a range of small group settings on church premises, residential facility or private home.

Just as we often say that we need to equip and mobilise young people in evangelism because they are the best people to reach their peers, and that in doing so they grow in their faith in Christ, so with this resource and those in later life. Encouraging members in that age bracket to spread the word, run groups, use the resource with others one-to-one, holds the potential to reinvigorate them in their involvement in the life and witness of the church.

Spiritually re-fired in later life

So let’s reflect on what it means to know God’s goodness and mercy following us all the days of our lives, but also what it means to follow Jesus and share him with others all the days of our lives. It’s how it is meant to be. Later life need not mean spiritual retirement. How much better if it brought spiritual re-firement like the psalmist describes,

‘The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming ‘the Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.’ Psalm 92:12-15

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Rev David Thompson is Secretary of the Council for Congregational Life and Witness.

 

Find out more and order the All the days of my life resource here