By some estimates there are around 50,000 centenarians in the United States today, three times as many as there were in 1980.
In two years, the first baby boomers will turn 60, and most of them hope that medical technology will help them see 100 as well.
As the American population grays, churches are faced with meeting the needs of people in a widely varied range of ages and health.
Ministers to these older adults realize that while times and practices may change, the goal of ministry does not.
Conrad Howell, associate pastor and minister to senior adults at First Baptist Church, Jasper, says that ministers to senior adults must help them be as much as they can be.
A key verse for this age group, he says, is Psalm 1:3: “He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers” (NIV).
“In whatever circumstance and whatever situation, as far as our Christian testimony is concerned, our goal is to be prospering. You shouldn’t wither, you should prosper,” Howell said. “I’m about the task of joining [senior adults] in prospering and trying to keep them from withering.”
According to Eileen Wright, who works with senior adult ministries across Alabama through the State Board of Missions (SBOM), church statistics show that many rural churches have a large percentage of senior adults in their congregations. Some churches in urban areas, particularly those in transitional neighborhoods, also have large senior adult populations.
Wright says that one of the most important aspects of senior adult ministry is establishing a sense of community among members. And perhaps no area of church ministry is more important in building community than Sunday School.
Information gathered by the SBOM shows that the number of senior adults (age 55 and up) in Sunday School has grown almost 50 percent in the last 15 years, and as the baby boomer generation ages, these numbers will continue to increase.
Gloria Irby, a member of First Baptist Church, Satsuma, in Baldwin Association, says that Sunday School is important to her.
She has seen people lose interest in senior adult programs at her church, but the senior adult Sunday School department has remained strong.
Irby, who is 79, says that senior adults have a lot to offer to their churches.
“Senior adults can use the telephone. They can write cards,” said Irby. “You can do something no matter how old you are, but we all need to be encouraged.”
How individual churches engage their members in ministry differs. Some Alabama Baptist churches provide regular fellowship meals for senior adults. Others plan trips, weekly or monthly meetings or exercise classes.
While such programs help nurture the emotional, social and physical needs of members, Howell says that the spiritual side of senior adult ministry should not be ignored.
“From a church perspective, the more spiritually mature a person is, the better they will be able to handle the losses of life,” Howell said. “That’s true at any age.”
But Howell says that church members and ministers sometimes assume that older people are spiritually mature, which is not necessarily true.
“The perception is that senior adults have reached this plateau of faith, but the truth is we should nurture our faith no matter what age we are,” Howell said.
Dennis Sansom, chair of the department of philosophy at Samford University, agrees that the church’s responsibility to people does not change as they get older. The church, Sansom says, believes in life, regardless of the stage of life.
“The church has to assure its older people that they won’t be abandoned, even if they become feeble,” Sansom said. “Whatever the church needs to do to convince them that they are important, it’s imperative that we do that.
“At the heart of Christian ethics is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s position,” Sansom said.
“The closest thing we can get to hell on this side of eternity would be to die utterly alone and totally rejected.
“For an old person to die rejected by their family would be a gut-wrenching experience,” Sansom said. “That is where the church can and should come in.”
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