Consider This....
June 5, 2014 | Posted by Amy Hanson in Baby Boomer Ministry, Evangelism and Church PlantingOne comment
I try to keep a pulse on what is being written about baby boomers and older adults. Here are two that have recently caught my eye.
This article in the New York Times gives more proof as to why churches cannot ignore ministry with the new old.
I’ve said for some time that church planters need to pay attention to the growing boomer demographic. And while I wish this author would not have referred to older adults as geezers, (Smile), I am SO glad a veteran church planter is talking about this!
How should the church respond to the information presented? Any thoughts?
In Longevity Response-Ability (2013), I proposed the successful second-half ministry ingredients were twofold:
The first step was the education of the societal hierarchy (every theological educational institution, corporate church body, local congregation, nonprofit and private enterprise and governmental legislative body about the need for full-scale ministry to the whole person for the entire life,”particularly the new “life stage”).
The second step was to educate those in the second half of life to the choices of building His Church and a better society.
The lack of implementation for the above ingredients is many. Examples of a few include:
Lack of a standard core curriculum at theological educational institutions responsive to issues that affect people in the second half of life.
Lack of corporate church body creative vision priority, and equipping.
Lack of unity by the forces of inter-generational ministry and second-half ministry.
Youth orientation and ageism bias.
Belief older adults already Christians
Reluctance to change.
Institutional pastoral model.
A “group think” by elected leadership that only they know best for the congregation.
Lack of local congregation leadership regarding continuing education, equipping active adult volunteers, inter-generational culture development and profiling for Kingdom building.
Lack of standards for online educational training in the areas of certification in second-half ministry, gerontology & readings; conferences, meetings, & workshops; Christian blogs & websites; and professional resource directories.
Lack of the church initiative to take a more active role in societal change and national welfare.
Lack of research on the new life stage and project implementation funding.
Enough has been talked about and written. Now is the time (1) to implement and (2) for allied second-half ministry organizations and individuals as well as elderhood protirement adults to just do it!
There is a new book entitled The Essentials of Ingredients for a Second-Half Ministry which I’ve written. It was written to answer the question as to the missing ingredients for the church to be successful with the new life stage of Elderhood, graduation from the public sector and protirement life style.