How you would react if you knew with certainty that the following would be doubled in the next few years: your chance of being severely injured falling off a ladder, your chance of dying in a plane crash, or your chance of being incapacitated due to poor health choices. Would you pay closer attention and make some adjustments?
Now assume you hear that a certain segment of your church and community’s population will double in the next few years. Would you begin making some adjustments? Following WWII, churches were confronted with the start of the generation known as the Baby Boomers. For the last 70 years the church has continued to adapt to new ways to reach youth and young families. Boomers are now entering their senior years at the rate of 10,000 per day, and the parents of the Boomers are living longer than previous generations, resulting in a doubling of seniors in our society over the next 15 to 20 years.
Business and medical communities have been preparing for the graying of America for quite some time, but every Government program that deals with the aged is either at or near bankruptcy. And the age wave tsunami is just starting! Don’t miss that - the tsunami is just starting! Government’s answer is to ignore it and hope that it will solve itself. The odds of that happening are about the same as me buying the winning ticket for the recent 1.5 billion dollar lottery.
Since mid last century the church has been focused on youth and young families, but I don’t see the same intensity being shown to the Baby Boomers (and the generation preceding them) now that they are entering their senior years. What is the role of the church in the age wave tsunami? How can the church effectively reach seniors within the church and within the neighborhood? How can technology be used to reach today’s seniors?
Thanks to my friend Marshall Shannon at Ministry Design Training these questions are answered in three short videos from Elder Source Senior Ministries. We specialize in a people group often overlooked! Check out the videos at www.MinistryDesignTraining.com, and contact us if we can be of help to your church.
Stan Means
Elder Source Senior Ministries