{"id":73335,"date":"2018-03-27T00:05:17","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T05:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=73335"},"modified":"2018-03-27T08:33:42","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T13:33:42","slug":"faith-midlife-church-michelle-van-loon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2018\/03\/27\/faith-midlife-church-michelle-van-loon\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith, Midlife, Church (Michelle Van Loon)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

By Michelle Van Loon<\/p>\n

www.michellevanloon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

www.MomentsAndDays.org<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been writing about faith at midlife since\u2026well, since I hit that life stage more than a decade ago. I discovered that when I sought support and encouragement from my local church as I was facing a string of disorienting changes and losses directly tied to this stage of my life, the answer I received (and I\u2019m paraphrasing a bit here) was: \u201cJust keep doing what you\u2019ve always done. Serve your way out of that funk. We always need help in the nursery!\u201d<\/p>\n

I recognized that while serving is an essential component of a healthy spiritual and emotional life, my fragile health and family responsibilities combined to mean that working in the nursery was no longer a good fit for me.<\/p>\n

But that was about all the church had to offer. I discovered that suburban church was pretty typical in that most of the focus of community life was on families with children under 18. About this time, I started noticing stats that reported that Millennials weren\u2019t the only ones leaving the church; people in my age demographic were, too. The statistics proved what I already knew: many committed Boomer and older Gen X believers were quietly slipping out the doors of their church, never to return. I began asking a lot of questions about the way in which we think about discipleship through every stage of life. I\u2019ve blogged on the topic of midlife spirituality on my own website<\/a>, on Christianity Today\u2019s<\/em> blog for women<\/a>, and now at a website<\/a> a friend and I launched a year ago, and occasionally, here in this space<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Over the years, many people have talked to me about the challenges and changes they\u2019re facing in their faith journey at midlife \u2013 things including ministry burnout (say, from years of serving in the nursery), unhealed wounds from bad congregational politics, health issues, financial worries, sandwich generation caregiving responsibilities, and being neglected or marginalized by their local churches. There are good, if heartbreaking, reasons many are drifting away from congregational life.<\/p>\n

During this decade, I\u2019ve sought examples of congregations doing meaningful work to support and challenge those in the second half of their lives. While being involved in church leadership and mentoring younger believers are both tried-and-true ways older members can serve the body, certainly not all are called to these roles. There are many other ways to re-engage and strengthen those at midlife and beyond, though they come with this caveat: Older members chafe at being treated as a project or problem to be fixed. And really, isn\u2019t that true for all of us? People can tell the difference between a church offering that comes from a whole-life discipleship orientation versus being a slot to be filled on someone\u2019s org chart, creating more church-y busywork for everyone.<\/p>\n

That said, you may find some inspiration from one or more of the ideas below if you\u2019re a church leader wondering if you\u2019ve neglected outreach to some of your older-but-not-yet-old members.<\/p>\n