“They will still yield fruit in old age….” (Psalm 92:14)

In a church where I was the guest speaker recently, the minister announced,”Today is Senior Sunday. We want to honor all our senior adults!” So far, so good. Then, he really did it.

“If you are age 50 and above, you are a senior adult.”

What! My oldest son reached that age last February.  If he’s a senior adult, then what does that make me?  I wasn’t even ready to admit that I’ve become one!

Then, the next church where I spoke, the minister told the congregation, “Who is a senior adult? We will let each of you make your own decision about that.”  Ah, a wise man.

Anyone who would work with the seniors in church needs to get straight on some matters up front.

Don’t assume the old people in your church have anything in common other than a lot of years.  You must not assume they are all…

–senile. Some are smarter than you and me together. Their minds are clear, they recall everything they have lived through, and they are the first ones in the room to get a joke.  Condescend to them like you are talking to an infant at your own risk, friend.

–saved. Even if they are in church every time the doors open and love being there, not all have been born again. In your work with them, inquire privately concerning each’s relationship with Christ. Then, from time to time, to the larger group present the gospel with an invitation to repent and invite Jesus into their lives.

When I was pastoring, we planned a Sunday event around baptism. A unique feature was we decided to invite the unbaptized to remedy that situation on the spot. We provided counselors to help each person be certain of their salvation, and had available towels and hair dryers and baptismal garments. After my explanation and a demonstration, we sang a hymn and invited people to “walk out the back door’ (a change from the usual Baptist invitation of “going forward”) where they would be met by counselors. Among those responding was an 82-year-old lady who usually worked in the nursery. What a pleasant surprise it was to baptize Vivian Rau that morning, along with 17 others.

A senior lady told me that as a young mother, she began taking her children to church. When she asked the pastor if she could join, he said, “If you believe that Jesus is the Christ.” She said she did and received baptism (of a sort). Later, when she joined a Southern Baptist church, the pastor informed her she would need to receive immersion. Then, a decade later, when she joined our church, she simply “moved her letter.” She said, “This is the third church I’ve belonged to and no one has ever told me how to be saved.” We remedied that situation on the spot.

Let’s not assume anything about our members, but particularly these who are our seniors and thus (possibly) closest to the edge of eternity.

–spiritual. Some seniors who are saved are still carnal and immature.  The quickest way to see that is to introduce a change they don’t want.

In the late 1990s, the church I was pastoring was making a concerted effort to reach the hundreds of young families moving into our area. A consultant from our state office met regularly with our leadership and the group formulated a number of recommendations. What happened next was a complete surprise to me.

The older people began to protest that we were pushing them out the door, that they would be forgotten, that all we wanted in the church were young marrieds and were willing to destroy the church program to get them.  No amount of reassurance quietened their fears, even after we met in their homes to explain matters and answer questions. Finally, in exasperation, we sent a note of appreciation with our check to the state consultant and gave up on the effort.  People I had thought to be some of the finest Christians in the church showed themselves mean-spirited and irrational when they thought they might lose their favored status.

The good news is there are plenty of godly and deeply spiritual seniors in our churches. Their faithfulness goes a long way toward keeping the ministers from quitting and walking away in discouragement. (Plus, some can cook like the best chefs in town!)

–selfless. Some seniors can be as cantankerous and demanding as any four-year-old in the church nursery.

One of our older deacons once stood in a business meeting to recommend that since money was tight and the seniors did not actually need a bus for their trips, that we close that budget item. The motion passed and thereafter, the printed budget no longer mentioned a bus for the seniors. A couple of years later, the same man rose in a budget presentation visibly upset because the money for a new bus was not included.  The next day, I called on him and his wife with a photocopy of the minutes of the business meeting where he himself had made that motion.  Neither ever forgave me for this. I still feel the pain from their rejection.

–sexless.  The seniors in our society, we are told, have an increasing amount of STDs, due to the availability of ED remedies like viagra, cialis, etc. Pastors might be surprised at the amount of sexual activity that goes on with seniors.

Some years ago, an older deacon dropped by my home to ask for counsel. He’d been dating a woman in our church–both were widowed and pushing eighty years of age–and wanted to ask if it was all right if they slept together sexually. After picking myself up off the floor, I was blunt. “Where have you been all these years? Of course, it’s not all right for you two to be having sex!”  Not long after, they got married.

The members keep educating their preachers.

–sweet.  Thankfully, the Lord sprinkles sweet-spirited seniors across the membership of His churches as an encouragement to the ministers. They make staying there endurable. But to assume all seniors are this way is as big a mistake as assuming all are negative and bitter.

Seniors are a lot like everyone else, only moreso.

1) Seniors are as varied as all the rest of the church.

Older Christians don’t all like the same kinds of music, are not all nostalgic for the 1950s, do not all want to go to Branson, and do not all want programs on Social Security.  Some are still working 40 hours a week, some are more physically active than you are, and many are insulted when you imply they are getting old and might actually die some day.

I suggested to an older friend in our congregation that while his mind was still good, he consider making cassette tapes with remembrances and prayers for each of his grandchildren. They loved it.  So, thinking I was onto something here, when a woman in the church found that her heart condition was critical, I made the same suggestion.  She was so offended–the daughter informed me later that “Mother does not like to think about dying!”–they rejected me as pastor and had the Hospice minister do her funeral.

One size does not fit all with the seniors in your church. (Or anyone else, for that matter.)

2) Your ministries to younger, vital seniors will be completely different from the elderly immobile seniors.

Young seniors do not care to come to your meeting and sing endless verses of “Amazing Grace” or  “The Old Rugged Cross,” hear another boring devotional, then eat cold ham and green beans.

You are going to have to beat that to get them involved.

3) To reach the young seniors, you will need to involve them in the planning and not do everything for them. No one knows better than they what would interest them.  And what is that? Ask them.

What they do not want is to be treated as though they are all in the final ward of the nursing home.

This might be a good place to say to the ministers, “If you are not comfortable working with older people, then don’t do it. Find someone else.” (Then, stick around. One day you will find yourself in that group and wish you had done it well.)

4) Not all seniors know their Bibles, but many would like to.

So, give opportunities for those who wish to receive intensive training in the Word. Bring in a professor from the seminary or an outside pastor/teacher with great skill in teaching the Word.

I had a senior lady tell me through tears that she was in her 50s before she discovered the Psalms. “I could just cry thinking all the years I needed them and didn’t know they were here.” (My observation is a lot of seniors find comfort in the Psalms as in nothing else. You can do them an immense favor by making that introduction.)

5) Not all seniors oppose change; in fact, very few do.

Anyone who thinks all the oldsters in your church are opposed to change should check the parking lot. There are no ’48 DeSotos out there. In fact, many are driving the latest models of automobiles. In their homes, they have computers and HD televisions.  Most don’t mind change so long as it’s not done too quickly, and they are given time to adjust and opportunities for input into the decisions.

I often recommend to pastors that they not use the word “change,” but “experiment.” It sounds less threatening, and communicates that if this does not work, we can do something else.

6) The older seniors–and please don’t ask me to define that term–do indeed need the familiar songs and stories and events. 

The “really” senior seniors are the ones who don’t care for change and prefer things to stay the same. My wife says they like pleasure tours without a lot of walking, picnics inside air-conditioned rooms, and daylong trips but not weekend retreats.

They appreciate the ministers remembering their names and recalling their contributions to the church in former years.  They like it when the young people who are keeping the nursery now remember that they kept the little children for thirty years or more.

These older seniors enjoy babies and children, but not many and not for long.  A brief visit of these into their midst goes over well.

7) The oldsters do not mind your planning all their meetings and activities for them.  It’s the young seniors who want input.  In fact, my wife reminds me, the young seniors do not mind doing the planning for the oldsters. That can turn into a nice symbiotic relationship: the young seniors taking care of the older members of the group.

Find ministries that are just right for your seniors.  Where do you do that?

Ask them what they would like to do. Ask other churches what they are doing. Ask the Lord what He wants your group to do.

Look around in your church and your community to find needs they could meet. Keep up with denominational news to see what other churches are doing, who is making a difference, and whose brain you could pick. (Southern Baptists have a wonderful website with news posted daily: www.bpnews.net.)

There are ministries that can make a real difference in the Kingdom available to seniors young and old.  But you will have to dig to find them.

I hope you do.  This world needs believers young and old shining their light and spreading the salt.