Read.My.Mail

Look over Keith Drury’s Shoulder as he answers his mail

QUESTION:

I am frustrated with the traditional service at my church. It is filled with people in their 50’s and 60’s and the service is dead and there is little response. When I go from that service to our more contemporary service it is like leaving a funeral home and entering an electric atmosphere. I’ve come to dread the traditional service and increasingly see it as mere practice for the "real" worshippers in the contemporary service. We’ve tried everything from a worship band to a motivating song leader to get some life into that funeral but we’ve failed. Any ideas?

ANSWER:

You've got the right word…"funeral." Yep, that's the right word. If you want to understand this age group, start with the word "funeral."

I'll address “funeral” later, but first let me point out that few people really try to understand people in their 50's and 60's. Go look in your local Christian bookstore or Christian college library and count the books on youth, or generation X, or the millennial generation, or the emerging post modern generation.  You'll lose count. Then go searching for books to help you understand and adapt ministry to people in their 50's and 60's and you'll be able to count them on one hand--two at the most if you're in a great Christian library. But even if they are there--nobody buys them or signs them out. Face it, we are keen to discover the interests and preferences of the emerging generations but have little interest in people over 50, even though they comprise a significant component/majority of many congregations.

Well that's not completely true. The church is interested in this generation's money. This is the generation expected to pick up the tab, or at least lots of the tab.  However the church is not interested in their preferences or needs. They are overlooked except when it comes to paying the bill. When people in their 50's and 60's express a preference they are often told "this service is not for you--it is for others--don't be selfish." Emerging generations are not told this, of course. Many older Christians are taking this message seriously and have quit coming so regularly--in fact most statistics show this is the most sporadically attending group in the church. Why not? They've heard the message: "it isn't for you--pay the bill and be quiet."

They’ve seen lots of death and destruction. Perhaps these folk in your contemporary service act like they are in a funeral because they are!  Even the externally cheerful ones carry a deep sense of grief. They are not new gung-ho recruits fresh from boot camp--they've seen plenty of warfare and plenty of dead bodies littering the battlefield of life. They grieve--so perhaps your traditional service is mournful because they are grieving.<span style='mso-s