As the Baby Boomer generation gives rise to the world's population over 50 years old, United Methodists have plans to utilize the elderly bunch.
"Over the next 14 years, the number of people over 50 in the U.S. will grow 74 percent, while people under 50 will increase by only 1 percent," according to research conducted by Edwin J. Pittock, president of the Society of Certified Senior Advisors, the United Methodist News Service reported.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 10,000 Baby Boomers are turning 50 every day and the trend will continue for the next 10 years. In 2000, the elderly population increased from 130 million to 419 million over the last 50 years, stated the Rev. Rick Gentzler Jr. in a report.
Gentzler is director of the Center on Aging and Older Adult Ministries of the United Methodist Board of Discipleship. He just came out of a meeting last week to discuss how to minister to and utilize the "incredible resource" of the elderly.
According to Gentzler, 62 percent of the United Methodist Church are 50 years old or older and nearly 50 percent are 60 or older.
The denomination's Committee on Older Adults made two proposals for the future: training volunteer caregivers to interact with the growing number of older adults; and modeling intentional intergenerational ministry where older adults serve as mentors to the younger, according to the Comprehensive Plan for Older Adult Ministries for 2009-2012, UMNS reported.
The United Methodist plan is one of a growing number of initiatives churches are launching in recognition of the large but underutilized talent pool of leadership potential.
Last September, the Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal group in the nation, appointed its first U.S. missionary to "mature adults" - those 50 years and older. The Rev. John Heide, the Pentecostal missionary, is trying to get churches to tap into the large elderly generation who have the time, the talent, and the "treasures" but are often neglected.
Mature adults want to be actively included in church life.
Several trends highlight the large elderly population, United Methodists reported in their Comprehensive Plan:
More people are living longer; current markers of old age are changing which will cause all of the stages of life to shift; fewer children are being born and more older adults are living longer; and many older adults will continue to work long hours after "the normal" age of retirement.
The listed trends would account for an increased need in community-based services as society expects a rise in chronic disease, growing cost in health care and financial insecurity.
The Committee on Older Adult Ministries serves as an advocate for older adult concerns and issues and supports ministries by, with and for older adults throughout The United Methodist Church and in the larger society.
Meet the new U.S. Pentecostal missionary, the Rev. John Heide. His mission field: adults 50 years and over. That constitutes an even larger mission field than the teenagers most churches are targeting, according to Heide.
Society is seeing a shift in population to older folks, or what Heide and the Assemblies of God call "mature adults." According to Heide, there are over 90 million people in America who are 50-plus years of age. They are the Baby Boomer generation. And they are one of the largest mission fields and also one of the most neglected, Heide says.
"For the most part, the church is neglecting this area," Heide told The Christian Post. "Our goal is to change that."
Heide became the first appointed AG U.S. Missions representative specifically to "mature adults" in September. But he wasn't sent into nursing homes, where only about five percent of those 65 years and older reside, he noted. Instead, he's going to the churches and Bible colleges to catch the huge population wave of senior adults and expose them as a significant mission opportunity.
"All the time and energy and resources have been spent and poured into the younger generation," said Heidi, adding that such investment is good. But he's trying to get the church to see the opportunity of tapping into the large senior adult generation, who a lot of times are neglected or pushed off.
Megachurches have largely geared their services and formatted their worship styles to be contemporary, the Pentecostal missionary pointed out. And that has pushed out a lot of the "mature adults" who either drop out of the church or seek other churches that make accommodations to their generation.
Other churches offer "perfunctory" programs for the elderly such as potlucks or sing-a-longs.
"That's not going to attract the baby boomer generation," said Heide. "They're not into potlucks."
"And what I call that is more maintenance than ministry," he continued. "It's just carrying them along month to month without utilizing their gifts and their talents."
As the first and newly appointed missionary to mature adults, Heidi is going into the churches letting the older believers make a ministry out of their interests and gifts. Rather than forcing them to do such traditional ministries as door-to-door evangelism or nursing home visitation, Heide encourages pursuing ministry around what they enjoy.
To reach non-Christian Baby Boomers, the new mission effort encourages bridge building where Christian adults reach nonbelievers through such casual and everyday activities as bowling or visiting car shows.
As the missionary effort is just beginning to bud with invitations from across the country, churches are missing out on a lot more than the large number of people. They're missing out on a generation that has the resources to be a help to the church in general, Heide pointed out.
"[Mature adults] have the time, the talents from years of experience, and the treasures including financial resources to help spread the Christian message throughout the world," he said.
Heide recalled a pastor who changed the format of the church's worship to gear his ministry to the youth. A year after making the changes, he was struggling with a lack of financial support as older adults fell out of the church.
"It's often times these mature adults that are financing the youth programs, supporting the missionaries and building the buildings," Heide stressed.
But mature adults don't want to just be asked to show up in church during offering time.
"Mature adults just want to be included and appreciated for their contribution rather than just kind of pushed off," said Heide.
No comments:
Post a Comment