Allocating church resources for older congregants

I found an interesting post by Tony Campolo on redletterchristians.org titled “Should Churches Hire Youth Pastors”.

http://www.redletterchristians.org/churches-hire-youth-pastors/

I had been thinking of this for a while, but Campolo went a vastly different direction than my thoughts generally go and he more raised the issue of how the church should use its resources to best minister to its congregation. It starts like this:

“It seems strange to me that churches should show such favoritism to the youth and do little, if anything, for the elderly. When a church adds a new staff member, it is usually someone to work with the young people in the church, even though the young people constitute only six or seven percent of those who show up on Sunday morning, whereas a third of all those in attendance are over the age of 65.”

This is an especially important consideration at the church that I currently attend, which has more older congregants than what is probably average. We currently have a youth pastor, a children’s pastor, but also an associate pastor who is dedicated to our older congregants. This is well and good and I am happy to support that, but it does seem that there is a gap in some critical missions of the church – including young adults, adults, outreach to the community, missions, Christian education. All of these are significant needs as well, and they are being met to some extent, but like all things, could be done better.

I imagine there is no chance we would shift resources from youth and children’s ministry, so it does seem that any shifting will come from the care of the elderly. As a thirtysomething I had not really considered the immediate impact this might have on the people who make up our congregation.

The first consideration is the makeup of the congregation, not only at my church but at many churches. As quoted by Campolo, the elderly make up about a third of the congregations on any given Sunday. But, you might think, they are committed Christians and much of their needs are met. Not true! Campolo goes on:

“It is assumed that elderly people don’t need special ministry, but nothing could be further from the truth. Sociological studies indicate that elderly people are more likely to lose faith in God than young people. Through the years they have seen much suffering; they have seen too many unanswered prayers; and in the face of death they face incredible uncertainties.”

This is life. This is when ministry is most needed. The church does need to be responsible for making sure that the needs of the congregation are met, whether it is through dedicated resources or volunteers or whoever. This is of course difficult in times of tight budgets and the desire to expand ministry into as many spheres as is possible (as I mentioned above).

One of the takeaways from my time at Grand Portage is the respect the culture has for elders. I don’t need to go on a long rant here, but I think most people would agree that respect for elders is not one the strengths of American culture. The church is called to care for those that are most needy and most vulnerable, how likely is it that those that need the church most have been there the whole time? And this is especially poignant as our country enters into an unprecedented time of older Americans as the Boomers retire and more and more people live longer and longer.

This is not to say a youth minister is not important. There is certainly good sense in building up youth ministry, with the goal of bringing in more youth overall. After all, they are the future of the church (both big and local) and they, along with their parents, will form the core of the next generation.

All this to say that the church budget really does that get stretched, and resources can and do go in many directions. But I was really struck by this as I consider the direction of the church with the next generation. We must never forget to remember and care for those who came before us, and will need our care going forward.