Elder & Family Care: A Call to Churches

Our global population is “graying” and multiple generations of family are often separated by great distance. Churches will be increasingly relied upon as a resource for Elders and their families. Now is the time to call ministry teams and develop Elder-adult outreach programs. Older adults need to remain visible to church membership, their families need to remain on the radar for spiritual care. Churches can set the standard for how we care for and with each other across the lifespan.

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To better understand the urgent nature of the “flood” of aging persons and their coming needs,  consider the impact of the following two facts on the family, the church, the community, and the individuals who need care and support.

  • Currently, for every person receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits, there are 4 contributing individuals in the workforce. By 2030, (only 14 years away), there will be approximately 2.2. (Reference available upon request).

Nurses, social workers, doctors, care givers, etc, will be in shorter supply by half. Greater pressure will be placed on Medicare dollars. Supports for aging in place over a longer life span must be strengthened. Churches should be part of the solution.

  • Assisted Livings are marketed as vibrant communities filled with fun and social activities, but it is very easy for older adults to become isolated and discouraged. 13% of institutionalized adults suffer from depression.  Spiritual care is sparse.

Facilities rely on volunteer programs from the community to engage with residents, and church members hunger for support and visits from their “church family”.

I feel an urgency in the call to develop ministries that serve Elders and their families. Whether your church’s focus is evangelism or social justice, the trumpet is sounding and the time to act is now.

  1. Hire a Parish Nurse, part or full time. Look for grants to support the position. RNs can:
    1. Create a program for home visits, medication review, wellness teaching, patient advocacy, and communication with families and medical providers.
    2. Be a medical case manager who can also address spiritual and wellness needs.
    3. Work with Eldercare Advocates to write policies governing the church’s supportive programs for aging adults and their families.
    4. Encourage discussion of Advance Directives, end-of-life care wishes, and emergency contacts. Develop a way to secure that information in the church in the unfortunate event that it is needed.
    5. Discern how to provide spiritual support for individuals facing the end of life. (Hospice chaplains are often the sole spiritual providers at end of life).
    6. Coordinate church staff annual CPR and AED training.
    7. Assures volunteers working with Elders (and children) have criminal back ground checks completed.
  2. Develop a ministry of Eldercare Advocates. EA’s can:
    1.  Host family/caregiver support groups open to the community.
    2. Identify safety and accessibility for older or fragile church members and work with the appropriate leadership to make changes.
    3. Introduce weekly visits Assisted Living Facilities/ Memory Care Units where members or family members reside. Share Bible Study, music, prayer, and monthly worship and communion.  Never assume “someone else is taking care of their spiritual needs now.”
    4. Teach other volunteers, expanding the scope and reach of the ministry.
  3. Scrutinize your buildings and programs for accessibility and safety.

    1. Is there a handicapped accessible bathroom, complete with a cupboard of protective undergarments, disposable gloves and cleansing wipes?
    2. Can mobility-impaired persons get around the building safely in a wheelchair, scooter or using walker, canes or crutches?
    3. Is there a protected “drop off” area for inclement weather? Is there a greeter to help those with mobility needs?
    4. Adapt your “cry room” for families with a potentially disruptive Elder, and include some appropriate interactive items.
    5. Consider hosting an “IT” room for those who don’t have home computers. Computer literate members can teach others to use Skype, email, and social media to connect with distant loved ones. Get them talking!
    6. Create an emergency response plan to contact members who are home bound or have special needs.
  4. Bold congregations can also consider developing:
    1. Adult day care programs to provide respite care and social opportunities. Not unlike a church preschool model, it can include Bible Study, teaching and respite for family members.  For adults with dementia, a routine can includes chapel, music, scripture and creative projects. (This same ministry can be offered in facilities.)
    2. Manage a church run “board and care home” to serve the congregation and others. One efficient, but small scale model is the Green House Project thegreenhouseproject.org/ . Social policies generally support “aging in place”. Some Elders need fulltime assistance when they are no longer safe to live independently.
  5. Communicate and collaborate with local social service agencies to understand the needs of seniors in your particular area. There are likely Foster Grandparents, spouse/caregivers, or seniors living in poverty that would benefit from “adoption” by a congregation. Are there special needs in your area? In 2001, the Faith Based Initiative partnered churches and social service agencies. In the case of Eldercare, it could be revived to promote protection, support, and spiritual nurture of the aging population.

There are other ways to support an aging congregation and its local neighborhoods.  From community gardens to home repair ministries, the opportunities are endless. The first step is to understand the needs that are closing in upon us. May your ministry teams prayerfully prioritize and begin to address these needs within your local congregation.

 

 

Church Congregations and Aging Adults

Part 1 of 4:  The Invisible Aging Person

The church needs renewed consideration of the Eldest members. People too often become invisible once they are no longer able to get out, when they are too fragile to “contribute” to the growth or life of the church. I have witnessed a sad trend played out in congregations I have participated in and the work I have done with Elders both in the community and in Assisted Living Facilities.  Once a person becomes absent – through relocation to an institution, becoming home bound due to infirmity or because the church is not set up to accommodate special needs –  they become invisible.  Deacons may send a card on special days.  A church visitor may pop in for an hour once a month, but the Older member becomes exiled, wandering alone in the spiritual desert of their last years.

I belong to a small, aging congregation in a rural community. There has been discussion of late that if we don’t bring in younger families, the church may not have sufficient members to keep the doors open.  That’s a reality shared by many small churches, and the focus of revitalization strategies taught by leaders like Thom Rainer and Ken Priddy. It makes sense: We must find ways to invite people to come in – and stay – to keep the church alive.  The Great Commission calls us to make disciples and certainly we can’t do that if the doors are closed.

Historically, churches grew from the younger demographic upwards, not unlike societal institutions. Historically speaking (pre Baby Boomer cohort) the majority of our population were in their middle years, with a large base of youth and children at the base of the population pyramid, and retirees and Elders comprising the narrowing tip. Nursery care, preschool programs and Vacation Bible School drew families by attracting  children and their parents. That was an effective paradigm for growth as the Boomer Generation was created, well into the 90’s as they then had their own children. (This format worked for me. I was “unchurched” until a program drew my children in and then I followed. Nothing softens the heart of a parent more thoroughly than seeing their children glowing with joy and a sense of purpose; the innocence of “letting their light shine”).

The times, though, they are a’changing. The Boomers will be launching the last of their babies shortly.  The Generations X and Y and the Millennials will not likely reproduce in the numbers that the Boomers and their parents did. Church nurseries, I predict, will not host the numbers that were common 30 years ago.

I will close this installment with a story I was privy to. I began reflecting on this situation as our church discusses revitalization efforts and how we become more welcoming. It occurred to me to think through “to whom do we need to be welcoming?”  We need to not overlook our aged church members, who once disconnected from their Spiritual fellowship, can suffer in isolation.

Mae was a resident at an assisted living where I was employed as a nurse. She was in her early 80’s, and suffered short term memory loss.  Mae had been moved to the assisted living apartment because she could no longer safely care for herself at home, and her family thought the socialization of the community living facility would benefit her. Mae had a church visitor – once a month a young gentleman would “round” on about a half dozen residents who had once been church members. As far as I could see, that was her only church contact.  In chatting with her eldest child one day, I heard an intense anger towards the church and it’s members, as he felt that for the 40 years Mae had participated in all aspects of the life of her church, no one “saw” her anymore.  She had become invisible to the church family, save the dedicated volunteer who provided ministry in the local facilities for “former” church members. Mae was starving for conversation, for regular prayer, Bible Study, a friend, and the ritual of church services.  In the assisted living, she was spiritually starving. Her children also felt abandoned by the church family they had grown up with, and thought would continue to be a resource for them and their mother as her needs changed.

Our seniors become “the forgotten” and often decline visits because “they don’t want to be a bother”.  I’ll let you in on a secret.  They DO want to be a bother.  They want to be seen, noticed, cared about, included, even in their changing states.  They thirst for authentic connection, visits, prayer, hymns, gossip.

Questions to consider:

How many of your aged church members seem to have become invisible once they no longer attended services regularly? 

Is anyone designated in your church to notice an absence and follow up with a call to the parishioner or their family? 

Who in your church family is tasked with making sure members, unable to get out often, are visited frequently enough to nurture still growing relationships, rituals and spiritual succor?

* * * * * * *

I challenge church leaders to take an inventory of the people that have faded from view in the last year.

Where have they gone?

Who has reached out to them?

What training is offered for your volunteer visitors, if you have such a body, so that they are equipped to have meaningful visits to those who are home bound?

Does your church regularly engage with the families of their aging membership?

The Changing Image of Aging

GrannyContemplating issues facing the aging population on our planet (and therefore, facing us all) I became aware of the lack of positive role models for active aging and co-generational caring in families. In the US, where people over 60 are more than 30% of the population, only 2% of movie and television roles portray older adults, and then often in cameo/comedic roles.. What does this lack of role modeling mean for us? That we don’t have a strong cultural idea – coming out of the “nuclear family” post WWII era – regarding the needs of our Elders for meaningful relationships with younger adults and conversely, the need for all of us to “mind our elders.” Culturally, we lack a map for what healthy, positive co-generational sharing should look like, and how to live it out.

I cut my cultural teeth on the sitcoms of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. I remember when American television broke the color barrier and when women quit vacuuming in high heels and pearls (Thanks be to God!). Seniors, however, continue to remain quite invisible.  Where is the show about life in the Assisted Living or retirement living that includes bicycling miles for an ice cream treat? British and Canadian television have done better integrating multiple generations in their storylines –  from “Doctor Who” to 81 year old Dame Judi Dench (who continues to model of an active and vibrant “granddame”), as Jean Pargetter-Hardcastle in the multi-generational family sitcom “As Time Goes By”. “Downton Abbey” gave us a 4-generation family (albeit cared for by paid staff), and the excellent aging (and maturing) of family members across a decade. Some other favorites portraying the retirement cohort would be “The Last of the Summer Wine” and “The Vicar of Dibley” which include positive, humorous and touching portrayals of people from different generations supporting and encouraging each other (sometimes into trouble). They are people we can relate to and imagine being in relationship with. (They also die – and their friends mourn).

Twenty years ago, the battle cry for assisting the most vulnerable in our communities was “It takes a village to raise a child.”  Then, as now, we hear little about how the needs of elders in our society will be addressed beyond the hot button topic of Medicare and Social Security “reform.” There are problems there that will need to be addressed creatively as the Boomers hit those roles. More pressing, and in the grasp of each of us right now is: How do we support the Elder community from the ground up?  When is the spotlight going to fall on Elders – not as dottering, cameo appearance comediennes or crazy/scary and unpredictable  – but addressing the need for accessible spiritual care and nurture, medical care, socialization, generational sharing and protection from those who would abuse or exploit?

The Art of Parentcare LLC will be offering training in 2016 for individuals, churches and other community groups to develop additional skills in assessing and creatively supporting the spiritual, physical and emotional care of aging adults and their families, and to aid in anticipating and meeting the changes that will come as the wave of Boomers hits the shore of their seventh decade and beyond. Private and group consulting services are also available.