Mark Hamilton, PhD - Associate Dean, Associate Professor of Old Testament, ACU Graduate School of Theology
An important feature of life in most established churches in America today is the graying of the flock. Increasingly, the average age of participants in church is rising, with the age of leadership rising faster still. No friend of the church can regard such a trend as anything less than concerning. In places, the gap between the old and the young is alarming and growing. What can be done about it?
To answer that question, we must begin by asking what is causing it. In part, the answer is that American society as a whole is getting older. Life expectancies continue to rise for many parts of the population. Centenarians mark the fasting growing segment of the country. Birth rates continue to fall for the majority Caucasian population. Birth rates for married people, whom churches are more likely to serve than others, are falling faster than for unmarried persons. Hence the demographic trend will to some extent move against us no matter what we do.
However, there are additional challenges that churches face. First, the improvement of health care has meant that the retired now enjoy long periods of health, both physical and mental. They may be able to lead at a more advanced age than in the past. They may hold onto power longer and with fewer checks and balances. Second, neighborhoods are increasingly segregated, not only by income, but by age. The retirement community has become a major force in the shaping of life in this country. Many of us encounter persons of a generation other than our own only in the context of family or work, rarely in social settings, and increasingly rarely in church. Third, the major technological gaps between generations (which are increasing) means that persons of different ages speak different languages and have very different understandings of what is “normal.” Fourth, the information explosion that has accompanied technological changes and the increased interconnectedness of the younger generations have meant that their understandings of what is “proper,” “appropriate,” or even “moral” may be a significant variance from what their parents or grandparents think. Far more ideas, beliefs, and practices are in play today than was true even 25 years ago. Without deliberate structures and practices for overcoming these tensions, the continuing separation of the generations in church will be inevitable.
How do we fix this problem? Let me make a few suggestions.
- We need to name the problem and to recognize that good intentions are not enough. All of us want a loving cross-generational community. We want to honor our parents and love our children. But we seem unable to bridge some gaps strictly through good will.
- We need concrete practices that put people of different ages together in periods of mutual learning and service. People learn by doing. Practice may not make perfect, but it does make better.
- We need to read the Bible together. Careful, prayerful, thoughtful, and open learning together about God’s will for the human race will make a difference in how we do things. The odd silence of the Bible in the church needs to be broken.
- We need to address some specific issues about theology and practice openly and lovingly. For example, we need to ask about the roles of men and women in the church. We need to address issues of justice in our community. The culture of silence, cultivated to avoid division, actually exacerbates division. We do not have the luxury of imagining that by doing nothing we can avoid offending someone. Many young people leave because there are too many taboo subjects.
- We need to understand what makes each other tick better. Younger people of my acquaintance are deeply interested in following the risen Christ. They are not interested in maintaining church structures that they did not build. Surely these impulses are valuable and right. They are deeply rooted in the Stone-Campbell tradition, as well. Conversely, many of our older brothers and sisters are keenly sensitive to the need for continuity so as to practice care for the elderly (who are often poor) and for children. They have learned the value of long-term commitments to important things. We need both perspectives to avoid one-sided lives.
- We need to encourage, train, empower, and support younger leaders, whether they hold church “offices” or not. We cannot keep people in a state of extended adolescence until they are 50 and then expect them magically to lead.
- Long-term Christians must cease being easily offended. We need to call each other to better and more generous approaches to disagreement. No one who has been a Christian for more than twenty years gets to be the “weaker brother.”
- Younger Christians do need to learn and recognize that they do not know all there is to know about the Christian life. If we believe in lifelong learning, then we must believe that it is possible to learn new things quite late in life – we should value such learnings.
- We need to address issues of race and class. We have grown very comfortable with a situation that is, in fact, deeply immoral. The church of all places should be the setting in which we work hard to bridge the walls that divide us. Lily-white churches drive off younger people who believe that the gospel is for all.
Some of these suggestions involve long-range changes that will require sound leadership and a lot of hard work. But there are some things we can do now that would benefit us.
- Plan cross-generational activities a few times a year. Identify champions, planners, and participants for such events. One could be about worship, one about service, and one about story-sharing, for example.
- Initiate a congregational appreciative inquiry. Let me explain. Appreciative inquiry is a method of study in which a researcher asks a few simple questions of persons so as to elicit their stories. Questions might be things such as “tell me how you became a Christian,” or “where do you see God working in your congregation,” or “if you could say one thing to the people younger (or older) than you, what would it be?” The results can be shared. Churches that have done this sort of thing have found it transformative.
- Name the challenges facing the congregation and explain why they are challenges. Bring the members on board as problem solvers rather than passive observers or obstructionists. An open church is a successful church.
- Cultivate prayer. Move prayer out of the side rooms and odd times of the congregation’s life into its center. Teach people how to pray. Model contemplative and intercessory prayer for them.
My earnest prayer is that we can begin to move in these directions for the sake of the future. It is not reasonable to believe that we can fix this problem through technical changes (hiring different staff members, singing different songs, or other such cosmetic changes). We need systemic change, and we need to make such change in the most Christian ways possible.
Mark,
It was neat to carry you and your wife to the lectures at Pepperdine one evening and to have time to show some appreciation for the seven years of work on the Bible Commentary. This post is right on target and some of the best suggestions I have read.
Thanks.
Larry Wishard
Thanks, Larry. For the post, and for the ride! I appreciate them both.
Mark
Thanks Mark. Excellent thoughts. Hope we can put them into practice at UCC!
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
Thanks, Tim!
Mark,
I appreciate these concerns and find them ringing true, but I think they still fall short a bit.
We need to encourage active discipleship as a way of life in the community, and not just as an ideal.
We need to see participating in God’s mission as our only mission, not as one of the programs some folks check off as an interest they might be willing to throw money at.
And we need to be more about encouraging the workers and less about spending time serving the convalescing members who were wounded twenty years ago and never checked out of their hospital beds. After all, getting three meals served to you in bed can be pretty nice, and all that attention to our every hurt or concern… But where is the rehab that will put soldiers of Christ back out on the front lines?
We have plenty of comfortable places to get involved in churchy-ness, but very little real intentional practice being salt in a flavor-of-the-moment world. We’ve been so busy polishing the glass lenses over the flame that it seems we hardly see the boats crashing onto the rocks right beneath our lighthouse. There are people right next door who are finding comfortable places to await the (to them) probable return some distant day maybe of Jesus (if they make room for him between the news and their favorite sitcom) – instead of getting involved together in bringing the good news to them in relelvant and motivated mission work here at home.
It has gotten so I even wonder whether we would recognize Jesus if he walked by, and even more whether we would bother to go after him to see where he’s going to sleep tonight – instead of sitting around hoping someone can pipe in a video feed for us or let us know on Twitter. We seem eager to know what to do and why and where, and even how to parse it all out in the most logical fashion, etc., but not too enthused about actually leaving the comfort of home to get into the messy business of serving others in life-changing ways.
Is that a bit harsh? Or is it just a bit too true?
Glenn,
Thanks for your prophetic voice here. It can all be frustrating, especially when I think of my own times of trying to convalesce too long or wait for others to wait on me. My hope is, however, that most Christians do have pretty good instincts on all this and would like some help and encouragement (and sometimes a kick in the pants!). So, I’m going to work on that assumption. If we can see the vision of the church as a community of disciples (emphasis on both words), then we get somewhere. We need community because human beings are not lone wolves but social animals (see Genesis 2), and we need discipleship because we’re sinners trying to get back to Eden, as it were.
Thanks for writing! I hope you’ll keep doing it.
Thank you brother Mark for being prophetic.
Many helpful things…my favorite is this: No one who has been a Christian for more than twenty years gets to be the “weaker brother.”
Thanks, Casey. I think it’s a big deal to say that there is a statue of limitations on immature behavior. Now, if I can get over mine…!
I am glad the problem is recognize; and thankful for the suggestions. I am a baby boomer, of the aging generation; and I am sadden over the gap; because I thought our generation had grasped the significance of it when we were youth. I do with a little less of what we prefer [e.g. song selections] for a little more of what they prefer [i.e. keeping updated on newer songs], I think it would be very meaning to them and to all.
Dr. Mark,
God has kept this issue on my heart for the last two or so years. For the Jesus community to begin embodying a kingdom of justice, kindness, and humility, we have to take what you’re saying seriously. Thank you for speaking out against the “excuses” we like to use in church settings. Your emphasis on the “community of disciples” is something worth exploring. God is looking for a community committed to practicing the way of Jesus.
Thank you for bringing out the fact that we have to address issues of race and class. Those subjects have been avoided too long.
Thanks, Broderick. This is an important discussion, and I hope it keeps going and getting broader. Blessings on your summer.
As a member of the younger generation, I thank you for being willing to open up and talk about tough issues. Being born in the eighties, I’ve never witnessed forced segregation to the extent that many more seasoned Christians have. The closest I come to seeing segregation has on Sunday mornings for most of my life, which hurts and confuses me. I’m unsure of what I can do, but it helps to see that others are also looking around and realizing that something isn’t right. Thanks for taking time to post on the blog, it helps undergrads like me get to know you better, which is a good thing.
Drew, thanks for this. I was born in the 60s, so I don’t remember segregation (de jure at least) either, though the legacies of it were very alive in my childhood and are, in diminished form, even today. The cure for the segregation of worship today is for all of us to build new relationships, and for us to push our congregations’ leaders to do a better job of interacting with others. Leadership matters here.