This week’s reflection is all about age and how it impacts on the life of the Church of Scotland strategy. Obviously just a ponder but how often do we make age a factor - either a disability or a status symbol? Do we need to be more open about it for age is a marker not a destination.
The Age Game in the Church of Scotland
Tomorrow is my birthday and I will be officially old in terms of ministry. Perhaps not as old as I feel although definitely older than I think I am! A good few years ago I was on a group called the "Under 45s" and it was well in the future for me and we were trying to find ways to encourage more into the ministries of the Church. The group was certainly creative and imaginative, and at times pushed to be more radical by members yet curtailed by the General Assembly (the mythical version I talk about in the previous post). We looked at incubators, designed an apprenticeship scheme and even a volunteering scheme. Not everything worked as well as it might and the Church certainly attempted to find ways to keep costs down. Like many projects, ideas went somewhere but even today we have no idea of how successful they were. We assume failure yet preach a message of seeds planted and I live in hope that those who did benefit from our schemes have been blessed in their callings.
Nowadays we are desperately looking for the under 40s and extremely concerned about the 45% of ministers potentially retiring over the next 5 years. I have closer to 20 years but would be it be wrong to have a back up plan? The under 40s is about the sustainability of the Church and the over 60s is about the sustainability of ministry. Figures given at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland made for worrying news, especially at the number who have left in the past year or so.
Can you see patterns yet? We don't face a new problem. It can be made to look like it and we can massage numbers and change titles, monikers and even people. We can try to silence the past by pushing forward. We can seek our ‘miracle’. Yet we have done that so many times before. What I see is that too many of us think we hold all the answers, yes, including me. And if our solution is different to the current solution instead of working collaboratively we work competitively. We spoke years ago of developing a consensus system - something we see more and more locally but perhaps not yet at regional or national. Maybe because we all want to be that ‘miracle’.
However hard we try though we can't change the reality of now. For sure, we cannot live in the past and I know my first charge put up with a lot. Lessons learnt and things I would do over with the experience I have now. But I will never regret those years and much I learnt and received I carry with me now. Therefore, like it or not, the past forms our foundations. A new minister in a charge will always have to learn about what went before. The hurts and the joys, the milestones and the traditions.
None of us operate in a vacuum. Perhaps if we were to truly value our past, even our recent past we might find we are well resourced with creativity, vision and that there are passionate people out there And can we please stop and consider whether we place more value on numerical age than experiential age? And before you dismiss that statement really stop and think. How many young elders? How many youth groups include grandparent aged people, which is a really good age to have involved? Don’t forget the partnership between the National Youth Assembly and the Guild. Is it cynical of me to say the Guild continues but the NYA with us in spirit so to speak…
There are a good number of ministers under 50, even 55 who have clocked up more years than those over that age in ministry. There are those who have experience in multiple fields within our institution from previous careers if in ministry or in our sessions and congregations and there are those who might not be churchy at all but have much to give and want to give. A church children’s group of mine was saved by parents who never came to worship!
And for the record the most insightful folks in our midst are often still in school. Out the mouth of babes and all that. There are lots of young people in our congregations who despite their numerical age have lived full lives. They have experienced the joys and trauma of life. They know judgment and rejection, achievement and hard work.
Over the years we have closed more doors to participation than we have opened new ones. We invest in something for 5 minutes and then call it a failure. We are worse than toddlers for our attention span! Remember children's forums or Child Friendly Church. Many of our National Youth Assembly folks would have come from that foundation. Yet as soon as the budgets squeeze we siphon off the young then moan we don’t have any. Where is the investment?
We are a Church that demands quick fixes and bails when we don't get them. We fall into the
trap again and again of personal projects, accepting them on the charisma of its proponent rather than its merit. And yes sometimes that has worked but more often than not when we hit the drudgery, the wading through the mire we lose impetus. The excitement of a fresh start lost in the hard grind. Our finishing line too far ahead, the results not fast enough.
Whatever we put in place to "safeguard" the future of the Church of Scotland, please can we stick at it! I don't want to be writing in another 5 years that we gave up on another plan and are starting again. And please, please, can we not be so focussed on numerical age, but invest across the generations? For as someone in the middle between the 40s and 60s, I want to contribute to the solution rather than be part of the problem.
As the song says "I count whether I am 9 or 90!" At the General Assembly we heard a baby cry and many of us empathised. May their little voice be a timely reminder we are not the future, we are the present and that little voice is also church now.
So before I am marked obsolete because I am 46, or praying for retirement at 64(!) let’s make sure we all count. And then we might sound less desperate and more welcoming for all.
Happy Birthday!
Blessings
Sarah
No comments:
Post a Comment