Trendex

Coping with an Aging Population

Pastor and futurist Richard Kew predicts, as Baby Boomers near retirement age and the numbers of elderly increase, local churches will be faced with these challenges:

• Delayed retirement. “Older people will work much longer. Now in my fifties, I do not expect to retire until at least 72 or 75. Older pastors will be necessary to work among seniors as they adjust.”
• Giving to their nest egg. “I suspect we will see seniors, who have been the primary financial support for churches in the last 40 to 50 years, setting aside much more of their resources to support themselves. Ministry will have to look for other ways to fund itself.”
• Unpredictable volunteer force. “Older folks have the energy and ability to make a significant difference for the kingdom.” But, many of those may be working freelance after retirement. They “may be unavailable for volunteer work for several months, then later return.” Kew advises developing short-term mission opportunities for older people.

—from Net Results (Sept. 2002)

War Drums Silenced

A truce may have been called in the battle over drums in the sanctuary. A new study by pollster George Barna indicates fewer pastors are calling their churches’ squabbles over music and instrumentation serious. But, the researcher warns, “Everything is not OK in Worshipland.

“High satisfaction and low frustration does not mean everything is great in worship, because most of these people don’t know what’s going on in worship,” he told a gathering of musicians at a Texas symposium.

In a study conducted for Baylor University, Barna reports:

» 24% of senior pastors say their churches have music-related tensions. Only 5% said those tensions are “severe.”

» All told, only 7% of Protestant churches have “severe” or “somewhat severe” tensions over music.

» 3 in 10 adults say worship music is the single most important factor in their choice of a church.

» Women, African Americans, people in congregations of over 500 attenders, and people over age 56 were more likely to be concerned about music.

» Pastors listed worship third in church priorities, behind evangelism and preaching. Only 26% named it at all.

» Only 17% of attenders report they would attend a different service or church if the music style changed. And 76% say they would just go along with the changes.

Coverage of “worship wars” blew the issue out of proportion, Barna said. Church leaders encouraged the debate by offering additional musical styles to satisfy the personal preferences of their congregations, rather than “dealing with the underlying issues of limited interest in, comprehension of, and investment in fervent worship of a holy, deserving God.”

Barna identified four groups who are “worship challenged”—

1. Men (“self-reliant and emotionally closed”)
2. Gen-X (“self-focused and unskilled in worship”)
3. Whites (lag behind blacks and Hispanics in understanding worship)
4. “Notional Christians” (worship attenders without a personal relationship with Christ).

“Revitalization might begin by evangelizing those in the pews,” Barna told the musicians.

—information from Associated Baptist Press and Barna Research Group

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.