OVER THE HILL??

Our hunger for the Lord and our desire to truly follow Him has taken my husband and me through several different traditional congregations. There have been many reasons for this, the primary one probably being that leadership in several of these have focused on goals or ideas that cannot be found in the Bible. With one notable exception, another common thread has been the obvious exclusion of input from brothers and sisters over 40. Of course there is a surge right now to reach young people since they are the generation who many believe will be here when Jesus returns. That's right and proper; it's always right and proper to encourage young people to encounter the Lord and grow in intimacy with him. However, older believers quite often have real wisdom to impart. Scripture exhorts the older to teach and mentor the younger; but how can this be if seniors are not only not encouraged to make input, but are sometimes purposefully excluded?
My husband and I live in an area where there is no expression of simple church, so we cannot say how it is in a simple church or non-traditional gathering of believers. But those of you who are blessed to be in such a situation -- do you find this to be an issue? What has been the contribution and/or the usefulness of your over-forty brethren? Do you have difficulties or challenges in getting a wide range of ages in those who gather with you? We would love to hear what your experience has been in dealing with "elders".

Tags: age, diversity, elders

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Permalink Reply by Anne Chick on December 31, 2008 at 4:43am

Thank you dear lady -- I so appreciate those wise words of encouragement!!
Blessings and hugs in Messiah,
Anne

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Permalink Reply by Birgit on January 6, 2009 at 3:38pm

Hi Ann,
I realized after being on this forum for a while, that "elders" (you decide where the age cut-off is) are definitely underrepresented on this forum. I assume that part of this is due to the fact that older people did not grow up with the internet and do not consider e-mail, forums like this, blogs, chatrooms etc. valid forms of communication. In addition it is difficult for those without high-speed internet to make use of all these resources, which is why I only have discovered the internet in greater depth recently myself. The teacher in me wants to know what can be done to change that, not to make people change, just to show an open door. I would love to hear from those of you who have made the jump successfully.
Birgit

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Permalink Reply by Page Hamilton on January 23, 2009 at 10:51pm

Hello Anne,

Thought I'd chime in with another view - my wife and I are in our 40's (I'll turn 49 this year), and we've been gathering with roughly 6 families over the last 8 years or so. All of us are around the 50, + or - about 5 years. We've got kids in the group from 5yrs to early 20s. Probably because we're all around that same age, we've never noticed any age issue. We have talked about addressing the interests of the teens, but that's another topic... We meet people older and younger who are on this same journey, and have wonderful fellowship with them. Where the Spirit of God is, there's youthful vigor and wisdom of the ages. We also meet people who have, for whatever reason, come to a place where they don't seem to be on the same journey anymore, though they may have traveled some similar roads. We've had good fellowship, but it seems it can only go so far. The best I can tell, it seems to be related to how far we're still letting the Lord take us onward, or whether or not we've kinda shut down that process of ongoing transformation. Doesn't really seem age related, as much as a posture of the heart. But what do I know...

More importantly, I'd like to say a word of encouragement to those who have commented about "no simple gathering here." A dozen years ago we were in the same boat. We were going around to various venues - traditional church businesses, maybe a conference here and there, or home school groups, or BSF, or this or that - meeting people who, like us, were "on the journey" of leaving the church business, not knowing what to do, but wanting to just be the church that follows Jesus. And someone called a gathering, inviting everyone over to the house. And we talked about the journey. There's so much to talk about, and swapping stories is invigorating. And then we prayed for each other, and went home. Simple. We liked it, so some time later we called another one, and by then there were a few different faces. We brought potluck, we talked, we prayed. One thing led to another and we said, "hey, how about we do this once a month?" So we did, and it was wonderful. Much later, someone could play piano/guitar, so we shared a worship song together. Then someone said, "I'd really like to see you all more often, how about twice a month?" So we did. Next thing you know, a few years went by, and someone knew of some nice cabins by a river that could hold us, and there was a pool for the kids. So we went for three days, and it was wonderful. We've done that four years in a row now. Over the years we keep turning corners together, just letting one thing lead to another, and working out together what we sense the Lord doing among us. The Lord is teaching us so much about the priority of relationships with him and each other. Love and safety is growing among us. Next thing you know, God is using it as if to say, "okay, now that my presence is among you, you're ready to face some things and 'grow up' together". And we are. Somewhere along the way we realized lots of other people were doing this around the country/world, and they were calling it "simple church" or other names.

So my thought is, let's just gather, 2 or 3, and touch the Lord together - whatever that means. Who cares how big/small it is, who cares if it seems as "established" as the church businesses we've all been a part of - that's business-speak in our heads, not the simple, true, Kingdom of God speak. Somebody, someday, somehow has to simply start with inviting people over to talk, or whatever. One of our early memories is "show and tell" nights - it's where you bring some object you have that's got a story about you behind it, that helps people see a little bit about yourself that may not be obvious.

Not sure if others have this happen to them, but I find that all the years in church business can make you think things have to be so well thought out and organized and proper before it feels okay to just gather and be the church that follows Jesus. More business-speak in our heads, not the Spirit of God.

Blessings,

Page

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Permalink Reply by Angel Chavis on August 31, 2009 at 8:45pm

Right now our home church meetings consist of family members only. I pray for others to find our group and join in.

I am currently reading the Love Dare book and just today it spoke of finding an older couple who are strong devoted Christians to be your mentors. I think that is a great idea and of course is what the Bible tells us to do, as you said.

I don't think that currently happens very much, and I think it is usually to the detriment of many people. Our society does not seem to be open to wisdom from people with more experience, but I feel that we as Christian should put an emphasis on that. The people who God is putting this on their hearts should look for people to mentor, or to be mentored by. It is God's way for us to truly fellowship with one another. This is His design; and I know we will all be so blessed by it.

So yes, let's pray for this to happen more and more. This might actually be good for someone to minister on. Putting up a good website with Biblical references, articles, message boards, and maybe even pairing mentors w/ people to mentor...

OVER THE HILL??

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