At that time, as today’s Protestant church leaders were themselves teenagers, such a dream seemed sweet: old people bouncing “Vera, Chuck and Dave” on their knees and scrimping to take vacations together.
Now we are there, and the average age of our congregations is estimated to be around 64. It doesn’t feel so sweet.
Not that 64 feels old as a personal age, but the problem of aging congregations and absent young adults has caught our attention. If we are simply aging in place, what can our future be?
I have three suggestions:
First, we need to talk about it — without defensiveness or blaming, but facing this fact: if we don’t start lowering our average age, we’ll be out of business ere long. Some observers give many Protestant congregations less than two years to make it or fold.
Second, we need to examine the obstacles we put in the path of younger potential members. Age itself isn’t an obstacle. Young adults might prefer other young adults when it comes to dating. But being in an age-diverse faith community is actually a comfort to young adults.
The obstacles tend to arise from our attitudes, such as:
• Fear of youthfulness, and the way it can make the middle-aged feel old.
• Resentment of the emerging youthful world — overtones of the resentment that we inspired in our parents — because it’s different, high-tech, career-oriented and mobile.
• Fear of loss, as if the price of welcoming young adults would be radical changes in music, liturgy, and noise levels. (Our parents had the same fear of us, and succeeded in driving away our generation.)
• Clinging to power. It took us many years to become the ones in charge. Now, we say, young adults need to wait their turn.
Third, we need to ask whether those fears are well-founded. Even more, we need to ask whether a healthy faith community can be built or sustained on a bedrock of fearfulness. Do we want to preserve those obstacles or find ways to get beyond them?
As I find in nearly all areas of Church Wellness, it comes down to human will. Can we find the will to change a self-defeating course and claim a new future?
Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant, and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the publisher of On a Journey, and the founder of the Church Wellness Project www.churchwellness.com.
