Reconnecting Boomers with the Body of Christ

Older folk do not seem part of most churches vision for growth. This is despite the fact that are already the fastest growing segment of the community and will continue to be so as ‘Baby Boomers’ begin to join the ranks of the “Seasoned”.

While fully supporting the need to plant new churches - perhaps of an unconventional kind - to attract the unchurched, what about reaching the ranks of the many older folk who are the ‘were-once-churched’?

These ministries are not even mentioned in the vision statements of most churches. If your church’s outreach to this age group is limited to visits to nursing homes (valuable and essential as they are), note that statistics show that over 90 per cent of “Seasoned Believers” are not to be found there! They want more than a couple of bus trips and a potluck each month.

We seem to have forgotten that in their childhood and youth, a goodly percentage of both the older and the newer band of “Seasoned Believers” attended Sunday School.

This is particularly true of the Baby Boomer generation who, in the two post-war decades, were the catalysts of the building of many Christian Education Centers in churches. They were also in home Bible studies, and participated in youth groups, fellowship teas and evening services, house parties, camps and rallies, as well as sporting teams under the auspices of the churches.

As they approached adulthood, the rapid secularization of our society in the 60s and 70s presented them with competing influences, interests, activities and commitments that left no time for God or church-related activities.

However, not all their earlier contacts had been negative. In many cases there is a reservoir of positive experiences and good relation-ships waiting to be tapped. For many, in the absence of a genuine Christian commitment or parental example, it was not a matter of conscious rejection, as much as neglect in the face of attractive alternatives – and those attractions no longer apply today.

Those who are invited to ‘come back’ to church often find nothing that accords with their memory, nothing familiar, nothing they recognize and not even one hymn or song or chorus they can even follow, let alone attempt to sing!

As quoted in the September 2006 Southern Cross: “New research by the Southern Baptists indicates many Boomers are profoundly nostalgic. Among ‘de-churched’ Boomers, it was found that a significant number would return to church if it resembled the church of their 1950s childhood.”

In order to be “seeker friendly”, many churches began to change their worship service to what they called “contemporary worship” with contemporary songs, contemporary music and contemporary worship bands.

What they did not realize that “contemporary” is an ever moving target like the simplistic computer game “Duck Hunt”. The definition of contemporary is “happening, existing, living, or coming into being during the same period of time”. What is going on in most churches today is not contemporary to the “Seasoned Believers”.

If it is appropriate to hold services that are specially designed to appeal to youth or to young families, with their kind of music and message, why not for “Seasoned Boomers”?

Any evangelistic outreach to this potential harvest field must include "Seasoned Believers” in the planning and execution.

Most churches provide services that cater for the sub-culture of youth and of young families, but services suited to the sensitivities, interests and learning needs of “Seasoned Believers” are equally as essential. In any case, many older Christians with hearing aids are physically unable to attend some modern services!

Moreover, if “Seasoned Believers” are to continue to grow and mature in worship and fellowship, being restricted to an 8 am service is not the answer.

I do have some suggestions. (more later)

The Boomer Blogger