Faith in Later Life
The Bible is packed with examples of older people living purposefully for God, being respected in their communities, and sharing wisdom with future generations. Abraham was 99 when God promised to make him the father of many nations. Moses was 80 when he spoke to Pharaoh, and the prophet Anna at 84 was worshipping God with fasting and prayer in the temple day and night. Abraham, Moses, and Anna are just some of those who honoured God well into old age and are now held up as wonderful examples to us.
Fast forward to 2024 and to the UK, and I’m afraid older age is often not associated with this vitality and purpose. All too often older people rather than being at the heart of families, communities, and even the church, are pushed to the margins and seen as incompetent, hostile, and a burden to society.
But our population is ageing, that’s a fact. Fewer babies are being born and more people are living longer, and those of us still in our younger years have a vested interest to help shift our negative culture around ageing. After all, if we’re breathing we’re ageing, and the church is wonderfully positioned and biblically motivated to be at the forefront of this shift.
Faith in Later Life began in 2017 in response to a growing need for local churches to receive support in their ministries among older people, to help them become more effective or to encourage them to keep going in this vital work among the fastest-growing and much-loved sector of our population.
How engaged older people are in matters of faith, church life and discipleship will vary, and that’s where Faith in Later Life comes in. Our work is in part to help churches keep and draw older people in the heart of their communities, enabling and mobilising them to minister meaningfully for the whole of their lives. Equipping the entire church to reach older people with God’s love through the challenging times and the end of their lives, in a way that goes beyond pastoral care.
We also love seeing those in later life come to know Jesus. We understand the urgency of this, and the complexities wrought by a lifetime of misconceptions about the church, God, and His people, and for some, diminishing cognitive clarity or ability.
There are physical challenges to ministering among those in later life too. For many older people there is a season when they’re not out and about so much anymore, they’re behind closed doors, perhaps because of illness, or because they’re near the end of their lives, and it’s harder for us to reach them.
The challenges of reaching older people living in a rural context are often magnified by geographical isolation, limited transport, accessibility issues, technological barriers, and the limited resources of smaller congregations.
We want to support churches with these challenges and more, and together join in with God’s mission to make disciples.
We do this primarily through our network of almost 1000 Church Champions. These are people in churches around the UK, paid or unpaid, who have a heart for older people and are already ministering among those in later life in some way.
Church Champions sign up to receive our information and training opportunities and this gives them access to a whole range of free support, training, prayer, and encouragement; like how we can minister to those with dementia, or how to share the gospel with older people at any stage. We have bimonthly online training and prayer sessions and lots of helpful information on our website.
The feedback we receive shows that those ministering among older people greatly value our resources, recognition of their work, prayer, and fellowship, and many have expanded their ministry or reignited when they ran out of ideas and encouragement.
Whatever your ministry among older people looks like; we’re praying for you, and we invite you to come and be part of our growing network as together we help people everywhere to have faith in later Life. Find out more: https://faithinlaterlife.org/
