Not just songs and sermons

She watched from the perimeter as the children colored Easter eggs. She was fascinated by this new experience. Of course, we told her she could join in, along with her friend, the one she had been worshipping with for over thirty years. The two older women enjoyed the new experience and the opportunity to create something to be used as decoration in the service and then become part of the shared meal afterward.

I received the call to full-time ministry when I was in high school. I have had the opportunity to be a youth minister, missionary, children’s pastor, chaplain of a daycare center, and senior pastor of an older congregation. These various positions were not stepping stones to reach my final career goal, but places where God called and used me throughout different periods of my life.

As a pastor of a church of mostly retired individuals, I thought I might have some ideas to share for this issue’s theme. The more I thought about it, I realized the techniques I found beneficial in ministry to older adults are the same techniques I used in youth ministry, children’s ministry, and childcare ministry.

Ministry is about connection—connecting people to a relationship with God but also connecting people with others so that they may grow and develop together. The church is the body of Christ and the family of God.

I was not raised in a Christian family, but the churches God led me to as a young person were small multigenerational churches. It was a middle-aged single woman who drove across town to where I lived—the last house on the dead-end road right by the railroad tracks—so I could attend the church my junior high school friend invited me to. When I relocated to a different state, it was a retired man named Justice who came door-to-door inviting children in the neighborhood to Vacation Bible School. In church we sang songs like “The Family of God” (by Bill Gaither), and I truly felt like a part of the family when Miss Zelda, a woman in her eighties, gave me knitted slippers she made just for me, the young teen who came to church by herself.

It has always been my goal as a pastor to help facilitate these inter-generational connections. When I served as a children’s pastor, I paired older adults with children in the church as prayer partners. The children were encouraged, and it also helped the senior adults be less concerned with the noise and activity of the children because they were “their kids.”

Most of the time our church uses a basic outline for worship, but we are not afraid to put aside that outline and use worship time in different ways. We have had worship services geared specifically toward children instead of just sending children out during adult worship. Sometimes we use worship time for seasonal outreach events.

All ages look forward to our annual holiday events. When we had sporadic attendance at our fall outreach for children, we began setting up activity stations and encouraging everyone to participate. Instead of having adults stand on the edges and watch one or two children do an activity, relationships were formed when teens and seniors did activities side by side.

In December, we have a Jesse Tree making event, an Advent tradition which traces the relationship of God and people from creation to the birth of Jesus. We use a chunk of worship time to create ornaments based on Scripture passages. Through media like iron beads, felt, and shrinking plastic, pairs of non-related children and adults or individuals create ornaments. Then, we take turns reading the scripture passage, presenting our ornaments, and hanging them on the tree.

In the years when we had more children and grandchildren attending, the children presented plays and musicals at Christmas. More recently everyone brought their creative gifts to the Christmas service. In 2019, couples shared their musical gifts in duets, children played handbells, a teen used art to create a Christmas story, and an older woman used her gift for calligraphy to create a nativity scene with Japanese characters.

My primary ministry role is pastoring a Japanese congregation. Most of the regular attendees are past retirement age. Like many congregations, we have gone through phases. There was a time when these older adults were raising their young children together. Then there was a period where the church was full of grandchildren. Now it is mostly older adults, a few in middle age, and one or two teens.

We have discovered that everyone benefits from creative activities, and we must recognize that worship is for all generations and can happen in different ways. Everyone benefits from trying new things and being challenged to present their faith and serve in new and creative ways.

Our definition of church is not just songs and sermons. Church is everyone of all ages serving, creating, and engaging. Church is a body and a family where everyone has gifts and everyone has value.

Photos submitted by author