THE SPLENDOR OF RIPE OLD AGE:

The Ministry Of And To The Elders [1]

 ”Do not cast me away when I am old; do not forsake me when my strength is gone.” (Ps 71:9)

Last month I conducted the celebration of the resurrection for my mother JoanEllen after a long life of 95 years. My mother has been one of my parishioners for the last ten years, so who else was going to preside over her funeral? I was delighted because I knew all the stories. The sermon was easy to preach. I proclaimed God’s promises for a woman who knew herself to be a redeemed repentant sinner. 

My mother, JoanEllen, was a woman of great faith who in her last months would pray even over a simple bowl of cereal. She enjoyed being involved in our prayer group, going to worship and helping with the quilters. One of my deepest sorrows is that I lost one of my most committed prayer partners.

My Mom’s life points to how important the lives of all our seniors are to the church’s mission today. How do our mature saints live as models of the faith among our community of believers? How do our congregations carry out the ministry of the LORD to our elders when they are old and their strength is gone?

Ripe Old Age

Our consumeristic American society embraces agelessness, always wishing it could turn back the biological clock. We live in a society that will do anything to disguise or deny the fact that we’re all, minute by minute, day by day, getting older.

Whereas American society is fixated on youth or at least the illusion of youth, Christian congregations can and should celebrate the splendor of ripe old age.  Where contemporary media portrays the elderly as out of step and even clueless, our biblical faith directs us to view the aged as God-seeking elders nearing the culmination of their faith journeys.

With advances in health and economic well-being, people are living longer than ever. This amazing gift of additional years has created an opportunity for people to grow, learn, participate in meaningful ways during their golden years. Our senior years are not winding down their years, but rather they are enjoying extra time for continued growth. As Paul writes, “I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). Rather than seeing some sort of decrepit decline, we are encouraged by scripture and our faith to see our old age as a time of ripening spiritual maturity and bearing godly fruit.

The Church can function as a countercultural institution by being an intergenerational community that runs counter to society by bringing young and old together as fellow spiritual pilgrims in the extended family of God.  Every week the Church gathers to courageously face aging, and even death.

Ministry with the aging should be an integral aspect of a congregation’s total mission. To have a positive ministry for our elders, pastors and congregations will want to embrace a biblical perspective on aging. This perspective includes a theological view on God’s finite creation. Agelessness is contrary to His plan for us. We are designed biologically by God to age in a life-long process. Luther saw spiritual growth as a slow, lifelong process that culminates in facing death, not as a final event but as a transition to resurrection.

“This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.”[1]

Ministry with the aging should be marked by an interactive give-and-take of shared service together. Most Lutheran pastors are experts in providing pastoral care to senior citizens because they make up a significant percentage of our congregational members. The challenge is to include these elder saints in the ministry of the church. God calls us and instructs us in the scriptures to honor our elders, especially our parents, as a means of assuring our own longevity (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16; Ephesians 6:1-3). The people of God are encouraged in the ethic of Christ’s love to show respect and care for widows, our own kin, and all elders (Acts 6:1-6; 1 Timothy 5:1-8, cf. Mk 7:9-13). “When we see clearly the image of God in our elders, we understand caring as honoring to be a journey of God’s people, the young and old together.” 3   Senior citizens from retirement age to their centenary years have important contributions to make to the mission of God’s church by their involvement, contributions, and faith wisdom.  Christian care for our aging neighbor is a matter of compassionate concern for his/her well-being which, at the same time, respects his/her autonomy and individuality.

Can your congregation gather a task force of three to six elders who will listen to other elders’ needs and then create a senior ministry that responds to them and at the same time challenges them?

Reaching the Geriatric Guest

  While the older generations have greater levels of expressed Christian faith, not all people over 65 years of age have an active faith. About 18% of boomers have no religious affiliation at all. The next generation, GenX, which is beginning to retire, reports one out of four with no religious affiliation.4 The fact is that not all “old people” go to church. When you factor in attendance patterns across all age groups, nearly three quarters of Americans make up the harvest field.  Sixty percent of Americans attend worship rarely or not at all. Five percent attend worship once a month and 23% attend worship weekly or even more frequently. 5 Many senior citizens drifted away from the church over the course of decades. So, plenty of your bridge-playing friends are not seriously attached to a congregation and could be invited to worship.

Congregations should be encouraging their members to invite elderly friends and neighbors to come to church. People are attracted to belong to others who are like them. If your congregation has lots of older folks then it makes sense that they can reach others like themselves. Perhaps a good way to start the discussion about senior evangelism is by asking your members a few questions, like “How would you feel if you didn’t have this church?” or “Where would you be at your age if you didn’t have the gospel and the church?”   And don’t forget to remind members to greet people as they would want to be greeted as first-time visitors.

Churches often want to bring in young families, but doing that successfully is usually dependent upon already having a population of children in the congregation. Young families certainly bring advantages of longevity for the church. But they also require intensive ministries to serve children. On the other hand, senior citizens don’t require nurseries or VBS programs, instead they bring with them life skills, financial resources, and ample time to contribute to the local ministries of a congregation.

Don’t Say You Are Too Old  

I recruited elder saints to make up our congregational prayer group that meets every Monday morning. We study a daily lectionary passage each session. As we explore God’s word, we often get into deep theological questions. Some of my elderly cohorts talk about how they are growing in their faith.

No baptized Christians should use age as a reason to stop living as an active child of God. Elder Christians have definite gifts to contribute. Congregational leaders should continuously explore how elder Christians might serve in God’s kingdom.

The elder Christians still can be useful and want to be useful with the spiritual gifts, experience, and wisdom they possess. These days, it is not whether the elder Christians should be invited into the planning and conduct of worship, leadership, outreach, and decision-making in the local church, but rather how church leaders can challenge complacent older people who assume they have pretty much fulfilled their responsibilities or that their productive days are at an end.

This means that congregations and pastors should continue to challenge seniors to follow the biblical model of lifelong learning and ministry. The best example is the call of Abram and Sarai who were living a comfortable retirement in Ur. The LORD calls this childless geriatric couple across the wilderness to the Promised Land to form a new people. At a very advanced age and “as good as dead”, God works through them to bring about His promises (Rom 4:19).

While most elderly Americans have worked hard to enjoy comfortable retirement, they still have much to contribute.  The elderly preacher of Psalm 71 pledges his continued discipleship when he writes, “O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds” (Ps. 71:9). Scripture reminds us “the righteous still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green” (Ps. 92:14). The Apostle Paul explained that older men and women are to lead by example, passing on their wisdom to the next generation (Titus 2:1–5).

Because the aged feel they have lost status and role importance in society, inviting them into ministry activities can help assure them of their continued worth and usefulness as well as communicating their value to younger believers. “Our later years well may be the season to answer more fully than ever before Christ’s call to serve.” 6 Living wisely is more important than longevity. The psalmist writes, “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). The real wisdom and work of our lives is growing ever more mature in Christ.

Older Christians who respond to being called in their later years tend to be far less focused on themselves, and instead are more engaged in work that contributes to building up the kingdom. How much fuller might old age be if elders gave of themselves in some form of service to others?

Aging and the Older Adult explains that “Older members of the church have skills, wisdom, and experience to share in exercising the universal priesthood of the baptized. The Spirit helps us to discern the special gifts and needs of the elderly, along with the related opportunities and obligations of Christians in society.” 7

Our elder Christians are needed in our congregations to share the wisdom of their faith. They are entrusted with great responsibility: to transmit their life experiences, their family histories, and the histories of their congregations. “These ‘elder statespersons,’ transmit … the ideals and traditions of the congregation’s history, [and] help to open up opportunities for the present and future.” 8

Does your congregation have ministries which deepen the spiritual lives of your elder members?  Don’t let the numbers of people participating determine success.

Ripe Old Age

Our elder Christians are ripe for the ministry of the LORD. These older Christians often have more free time, more scripture learning and life experience, as well as the faith maturity to understand of what it is to live a life that follows Jesus. Even past their centenary year, elder Christians can serve the LORD and His people in the church and the community.

I remember Gertrude, in her mid-70s, giggling about how she had to go off to take care of the old people. Truly one of the ways elder Christians can serve is to help care for even older Christians. This happens easily as the aged recognize that they may need someone in the future doing the same thing for them. We have pairs of folks who serve as eucharistic ministers visiting a couple of shut-ins each month.

While many evangelical churches segregate members into age groups, at St. John’s we have a couple of programs where elder Christians are tapped to be mentors of the faith. In what we call “Junior-Senior friends,” pre-school and elementary children are paired with an elder Christian as a “church grandparent.”  They meet for fellowship and a learning craft project once a quarter in our fellowship hall. No contact occurs outside of the church setting. We have assigned older Christians to pray for each of our teenagers. Again, clear boundaries are put down and no contact outside of the church is permitted. And we keep looking for other opportunities to create intergenerational connections within our congregation.

Early on I recruited a couple in their late 70s to be marriage mentors for our engaged couples.  This couple who still has romance in their marriage experienced the childhood illness of their oldest daughter and her death in her 40s. Their hard-learned wisdom and humor is appreciated by every one of our engaged couples, who always invite them to their weddings.

One of the most critical ministries older Christians can be recruited for is prayer ministry. Our congregational prayer group functions as the pastor’s prayer team, supporting the congregation, members in need, and the pastor himself, through dedicated intercessory prayer. Having lay people partner in prayer with godly leaders “unleash[es] the potential of prayer on behalf of themselves, one another and the church.” 9      

Of course, other activities are offered as well. The best way to launch ministries aimed at older saints is to involve them in the brainstorming, organizing, recruiting and execution of the ministries themselves. Our most attended activity is our “Social Seniors” group which goes out to a “destination” restaurant each month. Led by a couple of faithful women, we average between fifteen to thirty and see this as a critical ministry of assimilating older members who are new to the congregation. We also have men’s and women’s Bible studies that primarily consist of older members. A small quilting group meets once a month. Some older gents even put together a dartball team. (I had no idea what dartball was until I moved to Indiana.)

For the sake of building the community of believers, we would encourage church leaders to actively introduce older members to one another, helping them to discover what similarities they may have in common on which to build friendships.

What ministries do your mature Christians have a vision and passion for?

Celebrating The Splendor of Aging:  

The often-cited quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, “Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art,” 10 encourages us to see aging well as an intentional process. The community of faith can have a significant influence in helping our older saints mature into the fullness of Christ.  Again, Martin Luther saw our aging as a lifelong process culminating in facing death to transition to our promised resurrected life.

Dr. Richard “Rich” Bimler, author of Joyfully Aging: A Christian’s Guide, encourages us “to see aging as a blessing to celebrate rather than a burden to bear, to no longer see aging as a problem to be fixed or a disease to be cured, but rather as a powerful, rational, lifelong process that connects all of us in this community of faith, the Church.” 11

Aging is natural.  Genesis 15:15 states that being “buried in a good old age” will be the peaceful outcome of Abraham’s life. “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10). The Bible neither glamorizes nor denies the reality of aging. Ecclesiastes 12 portrays the dismal physical losses of aging. Arms shake, legs grow weak, teeth fall out, eyes grow dim and ears so deaf you can’t even hear the millstone grind

Yet through aging one also accumulates wisdom. Proverbs 16:31 notes, “Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.” Wisdom comes with age. Aging leads to a “heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12). Wisdom doesn’t just come from growing old. Wisdom comes with the blending of knowledge and experience, seasoned with reflection and reconciliation.

Aging is the opportunity “to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,” to become fully mature in Jesus (Eph 4:15, Col 4:12). First, having gained perspective, we bear the fruit of humility and persevering patience. Next, we act out our discipleship in new ways, especially as mature Christians helping to guide younger believers. Then we seek to pass on the faith to the next generations, leaving a legacy of seeking and trusting in the LORD. Through the losses of time, we grow deeper in our trust of our savior Christ through our own suffering and weakness. Finally, with the hope of the resurrection and eternal union with Christ, we prepare to die. 

Congregations would bless their elder saints to gather small groups, perhaps even just groups of three, to go through guided reflections on their lives and aging. The ability to forgive and be forgiven is crucial, not just living a resilient life, but finding resolution and peace.  “Looking back, taking stock, giving thanks, knowing shame, reconciling where possible and forgiving when necessary, oneself as well as others, and accepting God’s forgiveness – all this is the work of the human spirit collaborating with the human mind.” 11

How does your congregation encourage older Christians to reflect on their lives, examining themselves and making reconciliation?

Preparing for the Church Triumphant  

The process of aging is living through  losses, growing in severity, until finally we are stripped of nearly everything. In the last couple years of my mother’s life the death of her last remaining classmate from her deaconess nurses training caused her great grief and intensified her feelings of being alone even though my sister lived with her.

Part of the pastoral ministry of the Church is to help elder saints deal with these losses and the resultant grief. Two retired registered nurses have worked with me to hold workshops addressing matters of loss confronting our aging families entitled  “Memory Loss” and “Caring for Caregivers.” We also brought in our local funeral home director and our Thrivent agent to conduct a workshop: “What Do You Do When You Die: Planning For Your Final Demise.”  Seeing evidence that younger generations often do not care if their faithful Christian elders have a Christian funeral, we wanted to encourage our elder Christians to make their funeral desires clear to their heirs. Pastors need to give their people a Christian understanding that the funeral is a celebration of the resurrection, not an award ceremony for the deceased (I will be glad to send our notes on the workshops if requested).

As the body declines, finances dwindle, physical mobility shrinks and the outside world becomes more irrelevant, enduring the ordinary, everyday suffering is daunting. Reflecting on these spiritual realities put us on a path of Christian growth in the midst of earthly decline as we move towards death. Aging is a hard discipline imposed upon us by the LORD. The Law works its wretched authority over every cell and points its accusation in every weakness.  When older saints embrace the limitations and the loss of independence with a faith empowered by perseverance, they can experience a deeper humility which leads them to discover a steadfast dependence on Christ. Jesus tells us, “In the world you will have trouble” (John 16:33b).  Then he continues, by telling us that genuine hope comes only through his cross: “But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Luther “taught that Christians could rest assured of their salvation, and that this assurance could be attained through faith in God’s gracious promise to forgive sins.” 14 We should struggle over our sins while we are living, but our deathbed is the time for the assurance of salvation. Giving the last rites, what we Lutherans call the Commendation of the Dying, has become more and more important to my pastoral ministry, working with families to try to celebrate this rite while the dying person is still conscious and in the presence of family. I have added the clear absolution from the Brief Order of Confession and Absolution. The word of forgiveness needs to delivered direct and clearly, not just alluded to. 

In “the process of growing older we are forced to confront the fact that we are finite, unable to be and do all that we can imagine and desire.” 12 Luther encouraged people to meditate on their own mortality, to see sin and the Law as the cause of death, and to receive the ultimate assurance in the promised resurrection. Even though we recognize that death is a painful and frightening process even for Christians, in Christ death is overcome. With the Apostle Paul we proclaim about suffering and death that we need “not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). For those preparing for death [which will be all of us], Luther stated through the promises of faith the best part of life is not in the past, not in this earthly tent, but is to be found in the eternal future that lies ahead. In our ministry with the aging and the dying, we are to proclaim a future we can barely conceive. The real glory days are not behind, but ahead. Our task is to help our people to commit their spirit to the LORD and depart in peace (Psalm 31:5, Luke 2:29).

“Why am I still here?” As pastor I hear that question often asked by my oldest and most suffering saints. I have come to recognize that aging and physical infirmity are the stripping away of this world, leaving us utterly dependent upon God. All the pretenses of strength, will and pride are gone. We are left with our desperate faith in Christ. “The discipleship of the cross recognizes that the cross Jesus Christ bids his followers to take up includes the ordinary, everyday sufferings of human life—including those associated with aging—that are borne as Jesus bore his sufferings.” 13 With the physical decay, loss of beauty, and failure of vitality, our finitude is thrust upon us. In this physical humiliation we recognize we are not self-sufficient. We will not be walking into heaven under our own power. Learning the hard lesson of the weakness of the flesh and stripped of confidence in the flesh, we learn to ultimately rely on the LORD rather than any aspect of this earthly life.

What does your congregation do to help people prepare for death?

Older saints discover that these ripe years can be an exhilarating time of spiritual deepening. Far from casting us away in our old age, or forsaking us when our strength is gone, the LORD is drawing us into his embrace of grace.

 

 

Works Cited

  • 1 Referenced in Prov 20:29 “The glory of young men is their strength, gray hair the splendor of the old.” Ref. Zech 8:4, “This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each of them with cane in hand because of their age,” NIV Study Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing, 2020). All subsequent Bible citations in this essay use the NIV translation.
  • 2 Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 32: Career of the Reformer II, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 24.
  • 3    Anne E. Streaty Wimberly, “Caring as Honoring,” pp. 9-17, Christian Reflection: Aging (Waco, Texas: Baylor University, 2003), 10.
  • 4 Ryan Burge, “What Generation Can We Blame for Religious Decline?”Graphs about Religion, Jul 03, 2025, Accessed 12/08/25 https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/what-generation-can-we-blame-for .
  • 5 Ryan Burge,”Why Were People Attending Church More (or Less) in 2022 vs 2020?”, Graphs about Religion,  Aug 22, 2024, Accessed 12/08/25, https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/why-were-people-attending-church?utm_source=publication-search .
  • 6 Stephen Sapp, “Aging from the Perspective of the Cross,” pp. 18-25, Christian Reflection: Aging (Waco, Texas: Baylor University, 2003, 24.
  • 7 Aging and the Older Adult (Chicago:Lutheran Church in America, 1978), 2.
  • 8 John A. McConomy, “Ministry with the Aging”, Word & World, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN, vol. 2, issue 4 (1982), 390.
  • 9 John C. Maxwell, Partners in Prayer (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 1996), xiii.
  • 10 Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1960), 14.
  • 11  Paula Schlueter Ross, “Older Adults: An Overlooked Ministry Resource?” The Reporter, Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, January 31, 2019, Accessed 12/08/25, https://reporter.lcms.org/2019/older-adults-an-overlooked-ministry-resource/ .
  • 12  Carole Johannsen, “Epiphanies of Senior Spirituality” Reflections, Yale University, Fall 2013,  Accessed 12/08/25, https://reflections.yale.edu/article/test-time-art-aging/epiphanies-senior-spirituality .
  • 13 Sapp, 21
  • 14 Sapp, 1815  Austra Reinis, “Luther, Linck, and Later Lutherans on Pastoral Care to the Sick and Dying.” Journal of Lutheran Ethics, April 1, 2015, Retrieved 12/08/25, https://learn.elca.org/jle/luther-linck-and-later-lutherans-on-pastoral-care-to-the-sick-and-dying/

Article previously published in SIMUL: Journal Of St. Paul Lutheran Seminary. Fall 2025, Vol.5, Issue 1

Leave a comment

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑