Young Christian Leaders and the Old.

Are old people irrelevant in today’s church?

This question was posed to me in a Christian youth forum that I had been invited to attend. Part of my answer was to say that I believed that old people in the church were no more relevant or irrelevant than they are in secular society. However, in many western societies old people were seen as non-entities or rather as an unseen sector of the community.

When challenged to explain I put it this way;

The world is getting faster, faster broadband, new faster technology that is unintelligible to older people. The world of older people is a lot slower they are about face to face encounters with friend and people, they don’t like talking to a faceless corporation and when they do talk to a human that human lives in India or the Philippians. Today it’s about being part of a global citizenship rather than a vital and productive part of a village community.

Older people are being bombarded by new political and social movements. They are being blamed by 16 year old teenagers that they have ruined the futures of millions of young people. Yet when they were young they used glass bottle not plastic, they had paper bags not plastic bags, they walked to school, or went by public transport, and they were never driven. Yet those same 16 year old feel that they can shout the loudest at the old and never come up with realistic solutions for themselves.

The old political paradigms and parties that they trusted have become blurred and no longer reflect the values that they once held. Social media as a way of communicating with your next door neighbour seems nonsensical when all you have to do is get up and walk next door and talk to them face to face.

Ideas and concepts of gender and identity have been warped and are completely unrecognisable to many of the conservative ideals that are held by the old.

It is for these reasons and perhaps many more that old people, feel that they are unseen or feel as though they are irrelevant. Young people come to church with a different worldview and with a sense of entitlement that the old never had.  The Old come to church for relationship and fellowship and meeting. The young come to church to text their friend in the next row and many shout about their rights. Yet youth forgets the wisdom of age and the lessons that can be learnt through life stories. Experience always trumps Google, or pintrest or snapchat and even instagram. The best and most functional churches are those that have meaning and involvement by all ages within the church.

The old are just as relevant in church as the young. The young need to see the old just the same way that Jesus sees them.