Building Adult Ministries, Leadership for Adults Over 50

As we go through middlescence, our children go through adolescence, our parents head into convalescence, and the "sandwich generation" often turns into a "hoagie." What goes for the home also goes for the church. God has given us the ideal design for handling the challenge in which we often find ourselves when caring for our older loved ones, both within the nuclear family as well as in the church family.

I’m suggesting an array of ministry possibilities that embody Christ’s love for aging families, while at the same time providing a model of how the biblical mandate can be lived out through congregational responses. While these are drawn from the ministry of First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton, California, I’m not intimating that EV Free of Fullerton is a model church in this regard. Instead I offer Webster’s reminder that the word model is a “small imitation of the real thing”! Christ is our ultimate model for ministry (Is. 61; Lk 4:16-22), not the church. Yet there is much we can learn from one another by continuing to do church according to Christ’s model.

Ageless Ties
This intergenerational prayer support ministry matches older adults as prayer partners with young people in our church’s youth ministry as well as with the youth leaders. A weekly phone call or email for prayer updates from our mature adults to their youth counterparts facilitates the formation of vital relationships. A six-month relationship commitment of consistent interaction between our these young people and mature adults draws wisdom, prayer support, and accountability from both ends of the age spectrum.

Family Fix-It Day
A church-wide ministry primarily aimed at older adults and single parents in need, but made available to all ages in the church and in the community. Work teams form to serve, meeting these needs once a month on a Saturday morning. The teams consist of professionals and lay persons who give of their time, talent, and sometimes treasure for yard work, house cleaning, window washing, home repairs, transportation, shopping assistance, computer lessons, car repairs, and other similar tasks.

Forget-Me-Not
There are several assisted living facilities near our church. At Christmas, residents in these facilities are matched with families from the church and the gifting of presence and presents begins. Gift requests are provided by the activity directors in each residence. These are given to the church and specified in “adoption” papers that are given out to families. Most of these “matches” last beyond the Christmas season, and many long-term friendships are begun with the simple gift of time and companionship. We initially had hoped to enlist 50 people from the congregation to participate in this outreach. The response was an overwhelming 250 congregants (and some of these were family units) eager to be involved!

CODA
Caregiving is another area of ministry within the church. In our church, one of the first support groups for caring began as long ago as 1981. CODA, an acronym for Caregivers of Dependent Adults, is a group of people honored by and struggling with the role of caregiving a loved one. They bonded together in a common need and task, that of helping an aging parent or disabled loved one through life’s most difficult and often final hours. Many felt alone, experiencing guilt, anger, fear, frustration, confusion, and fatigue in this strange new role of parenting their parents. The stress of finances and medical bills added to the shared challenge. Discovering that their feelings were normal and shared by others brought hope and help through each other’s experiences and supportiveness.

R.O.C.K. Ministry
R.O.C.K. stands for Resources for Overseers and Caregivers of Kin. As the oldest of older adults require greater care, we discovered that designated caregivers needed up-to-date information, education, and support to help ease the demands of this trying time.

Professionals in the field of geriatrics and gerontology, as well as representatives from various community agencies, are invited to our church for a lecture series every three months to assist and resource caregivers. Topics include pertinent, practical, emotional, social, and medical issues that are vital to their own well-being and as well as to their caregiving roles and responsibilities. Emotional and mental health support are also provided through trained lay counselors who meet with caregivers on a one-on-one basis.

Difference Makers
This is a family music ministry for residents in retirement homes, skilled nursing facilities, and assisted living facilities. Once a month, several teams of vocalists, instrumentalists, actors, readers, and others with a love for older adults go to care facilities for the elderly and provide a half hour of singing, sharing, and encouragement to residents.

Second Wind
This ministry was developed when we observed that recent retirees without meaningful roles and activity tend to fill up their schedules with self-serving activities. In doing so, they were missing out on great opportunities for meaningful service to God, to and with others.

A discipleship group and team was formed using the Crown Ministries material (Crown Ministries Small Group Study, 1995, 530 Crown Oak Centre Dr., Longwood, Florida 32750-6758;(407)-331-6000); www.crown.org) to provide a common foundation, since they all may be at different stages in spiritual growth and development.

The Second Wind team serves in a variety of ways. What they do, they do together as a team. The tasks are myriad and include fixing, building, repairing cars and homes and “things” for those of the “household of faith” (Gal. 6: 10). They serve mission agencies, Christian organizations, and others in need; provide prayer support for each pastor as well as our missionaries; serve at a local mission agency mailing and shipping food and supplies overseas; minister to disadvantaged people and families in crises; respond to emergency situations within the community or abroad that require housing, medical attention and spiritual care. In general, they help in and around the church with seasonal tasks and responsibilities.

The Love-Line Phone Team
This group was formed early on as part of our Forever Young Senior Adult Ministry. Their focus was to be in telephone touch each week with the “fainthearted and the weak”(1 Thess. 5:14), including the sick, homebound, and those who were temporarily homebound. The callers are trained in phone etiquette, basic spiritual counseling skills and procedures, enabling them to provide a voice and a heart of reassurance, kindness, good words, the Good Word, and prayers.

Feast & Family
A ministry launched during the holiday season of Thanksgiving and Christmas. The intent is that no one need be alone, regardless of age or life stage, during what unfortunately for many is not the "happiest time of the year”—but the most lonely. Family members within the church are invited to participate by including one or more people around their tables to share, not only food but family as well. This intergenerational happening has been received positively, believing "the more the merrier" is the way to celebrate the seasons of life and the holidays.

Advocacy Programs
This ministry provides special services to older adults. These include helping older adults in decisions around moving to assisted living or a facility with more care provision; contacting the Ombudsman program or directors of facilities regarding cases of abuse or neglect among senior adult residents; providing connections to community resources for in-house care and support; serving as mediators and advocates for seniors who have no one to stand by them, particularly when dealing with medical issues and providers.

Van Services
With the growing needs of older adults, other ministry plans and dreams for the future include transportation for frail and disabled senior adults who can no longer drive to the church. Handicap equipment (i.e., wheelchairs, walkers, commodes, lifts, etc.) will be ready for use, free of charge, by older adults who need them for an emergency or even on a more permanent basis.

Senior Survival Conference
Currently in the planning stages the SSC will be hosted by the church to address the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs of senior adults. The conference will feature partnerships with the Council on Aging, Alzheimer’s Association, Office on Aging, University of California, Fullerton, Ruby Gerontology Center, and CASA (Christian Association Serving Adult Ministries).

Pen Pals Program
Several years ago, my wife, Jacque, and I were discussing ways in which we could somehow bring together our ministries. She was a third grade teacher at Arovista, a public elementary school in Brea, California, and I the pastor to senior adults at the First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton. We came up with the Pen Pals Program.

Jacque handpicked pen pals from our older adult ministry and matched them up with her students, based on their personal needs and life situation. Pen Pals write each other monthly. At birthdays and holidays, gifts are shared with the children. The surrogate grandparents attend Little League and soccer games, plays, piano and dance recitals; the children also go to Big League games and to lunch with their Pen Pals, fishing along with their fathers, ladies teas and concerts at church along with their mothers—and other significant events throughout the year. But the key to the success and power of this “program” is that it is not really a program. It is a curriculum of caring. These days, seldom do the ages—the young and the old—have opportunity to mingle together and become friends. Fewer and fewer children have a close relationship with an older person, often due to the mobility and miles that separate grandchildren and grandparents. Pen Pals help address this need through simple acts of caring and showing kindness.

George Washington Carver poignantly commented, “How far you can go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong—because some day in life you will have been all of these.”

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