Older Pioneering?

Older Pioneering?

There is much talk in the church at the moment about pioneering and pioneer ministers. I looked up the definition of pioneer in the dictionary and it says this:

1. a person who is among those who first enter or settle a region, thus opening it for occupation and development by others.

2. one who is first or among the earliest in any field of inquiry, enterprise, or progress.

The title ‘Pioneer’ is one which both works and doesn’t work. It doesn’t work in that the areas which the pioneer ministers are heading into are not new to the Church. They are areas where the church once had a strong positive influence and of course sharing the love of God with anyone is not a new thing either, people have been doing it for millennia.

It does work in that for many of the people pioneer ministers and projects are serving have little or no experience of the church and so they as individuals or groups are ‘new territory’

I work within the Diocese of Portsmouth and we have a whole range of new pioneering projects which are seeking to engage with families and students in areas where the church has little or no impact. It is these groups that pioneer ministry tends to focus on but I wanted to share with you a project I am involved in through the Cathedral and with the Portsmouth inner city cluster of Anglican churches which is doing pioneer work with older people.

Hang on…. Older people? How is that pioneering? Surely older people are the bread and butter of the Church of England? When someone is trying to identify someone within the church they usually describe them as medium height, glasses, grey hair. “You’ll need to be more specific than that!” I reply as the describe 95% of people who come. I frequently joke that the reason I work for the Church of England is that it is the only place where, at the age of 46, I am still referred to as ‘young man’!

But despite the fact that an 81 year old is 8 times more likely to be a church attendee than a 21 year old there are still very, very, many older people who have little or no connection with the church or who through life circumstances have drifted away. Here is another ‘new territory’ in a similar way to younger people and families but one which gets less attention or press coverage because it somehow is not as ‘sexy’ or ‘eye catching’ as the younger groups. The love of God is however for everyone and as such any pioneering work must cover people from 9 days old to 99 years and above.

A year and a half ago the inner city churches in Portsmouth started an older persons advocate project to work with older people in the city – specifically to address their spiritual needs. Funding only allowed us to pay for a worker for two days a week but we found a wonderful worker who has achieved a tremendous amount in the time allowed. The project has established new worshipping communities in several care homes, created a monthly Sunday afternoon tea for those who would otherwise be on their own, linked individuals and groups together for support and companionship and enabled individuals to discover or re-discover a relationship with God.

We discovered, unsurprisingly, that you could not address these older people’s spiritual needs without also addressing their practical one. We are whole people and not split into compartments. So to enable a person to pray or worship often involves helping them to sort out a confusing electricity bill or helping to arrange a medical appointment or some repair work in the house.

For many people it involves addressing loneliness and isolation, Christianity is after all about community with others as much as it is about individual prayer to God.

Let me give you an example of one aspect of this, August can be a difficult month for those who are elderly and on their own. Family and friends head off on holiday, regular events tend to close down and there is less to do or to go to. We have run “Do Something Different Days” within the churches for elderly people which involve a morning of activities including jigsaws, newspapers and magazines, crafts, quizzes and keep fit sessions. This is followed by a fish and chip lunch and then in the afternoon a film show – this afternoon’s offering at the Cathedral is “Summer Holiday” starring Cliff Richard!

These events have proved to be really popular and are enabling people who might otherwise be on their own to enjoy the company of others and to engage with the church in a way they haven’t done for a long time or may never have done.

So pioneering ministry is for all, young and old alike. It is both new and also simply an extension of what the church has always done. It is perhaps doing exactly what Jesus commanded us to do –

“you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.”                         Mark 12:30-31

You can find out more about the Older Persons Project on Facebook