Growth of Nation’s Gray Population Challenges Community Ministries

Hope Jackson starts her Wednesdays swinging, stretching and strolling around the fellowship hall at Cottage Hill Baptist Church.

Then she climbs a few flights of stairs to join her fellow sopranos in the senior choir. But before the tennis-shoed 87-year-old flexes her way through an exercise class and sings scales during choral warm-ups, she and her friends bow their heads in prayer. They seek God’s blessings for those in need and thank the Almighty for the gifts they have received.

That divine communication, she said, makes all the difference.

“It’s just a wonderful, inspirational thing,” Jackson said. “I hope the Lord will just keep me going.”

These days, the Lord--along with advances in health care--seems to be keeping millions of Americans going longer than ever. More than 34 million people in the United States are 65 years old or older. By 2030, that population will grow to 70 million.

The booming senior population translates into big challenges for Ronnie McCarson, minister to adults 55 and older at Mobile’s Cottage Hill Baptist Church, and for other seniors ministries across the nation.

McCarson is trying to beef up the congregation’s ministry to older residents. In addition to providing a safe place where seniors can exercise, visit and play games, McCarson would like to offer adults classes in everything from computers to quilting.

“We want the seniors of this area to know that there’s a place they can come to,” said McCarson, pointing out the absence of any nearby senior center.

“It’s for the community,” McCarson said. “If somebody is unchurched, we’d love to have them come here.”

For more than a decade, the congregation housed a government-funded Senior Adult Independent Living Center but, in 1996, it elected to pull out of the program. Members wanted to use their resources differently, including creation of a Meals-on-Wheels program, and to avoid some of the restrictions that accompany government-funded programs, McCarson said.

Members of Cottage Hill and people from the area’s Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian and Jewish communities visit the church every weekday to pick up meals to deliver to about 80 people. “If they can’t pay the $3, we take care of the cost,” McCarson said. “Nobody’s going to go without.”

Don Morgan, 58, a member of Cottage Hill Baptist Church, picked up 11 meals for delivery one recent weekday. Two years ago, he said, a call went out for volunteers; he and his wife responded. Since then, they have delivered meals to a handful of adults once a week.

Demographically speaking, Morgan is exactly the adult McCarson hopes to reach.

“Fifty-year-olds don’t want to hang out with the 80-year-olds,” McCarson said. “I think you’re going to have a multilevel senior adult ministry.”

Charles Arn, author of “Catch the Age Wave: A Handbook for Effective Ministry with Senior Adults,” agrees that there is value in splitting up the grown-ups.

Indeed, Arn said, when a church has only one senior adult ministry, people may stay away.

“One of the mistaken assumptions that a lot of church leaders are operating under is one senior adult group or ministry in the church is adequate,” he said. “Obviously, it isn’t.”

Some have dubbed those between the ages of 50 and 69 “middle adults,” and recognize the group as a cohort completely separate from those 70 to 84--”older adults”--and the “elderly,” who are 85 years old and older.

“More and more, particularly as people live longer and retire sooner, even the word ‘senior’ or ‘senior adult’ is politically incorrect,” Arn said. “Most people think of themselves as somewhere between 10 and 20 years younger than they actually are. All of us make choices based on our self-image.”

Arn, who is president of Church Growth Inc., in Monrovia, Calif., said one of the greatest dangers for any group--one including older adults or anyone else--is an inward focus.

“There’s a tendency in many churches that have a senior adult group or ministry to see that group primarily as one--well, we sometimes call it a ‘Happy Times Travel Club,’ ” he said. “Almost invariably, groups die out through attrition and never have any significant impact on the growth or life ... of the church.”

But, he said, “When seniors do start realizing that they can have a positive influence in changing lives, it gives them a whole new sense of dignity and value.”