I am often asked the question, "If you were starting a senior adult ministry, how would you begin?" My answer includes five components:

1. Finding, selecting, training leadership. The success of your ministry will be directly related to the quality of your leaders. Someone(s) needs to own the goal of ministry/outreach to seniors. My experience is that the senior adult leaders who are most successful have a genuine love for people in this age group.

In research we conducted with 500 churches that had a full-or part-time senior adult staff member, we found that the leaders who had received training in the area of older adult ministry were far more effective—and their senior adult ministries were more likely to be growing—than were those leaders who had received no training. We also found that retired pastors are generally ineffective as senior adult leaders … unless they have been re-trained in the unique issues and challenges of senior adult ministry in the present generation. ...