What do they mean by this?

Well, often, they are asking me to suggest a book about ‘running the race’ as a Christian for the long-term. How can they maintain the faith that has sustained and inspired them through their youth and middle-age, into later life.

I always recommend Gordon MacDonald’s A Resilient Life. Other Church Champions may have their own favourites, but this is a book that I have read and studied multiple times. It’s down-to-earth advice and accessible language have provided a challenge to me through the past decade.

In ‘A Resilient Life,’ MacDonald, an author, speaker and teacher, sets out how lessons from his Christian athletics coach, delivered in his teens, have served him well throughout his life – and despite mistakes he has made, and admitted, along the way.

MacDonald writes that resilient people:

– Are committed to finishing strong
– Are inspired by a big-picture view of life
– Run free of the weight of the past
– Train to go the distance, and
– Run in the company of ‘a happy few’

MacDonald sets out the importance of taking the long view – that life is a marathon, not a sprint. He emphasises the need to examine our calling, our aims and our gifting and stresses the vital role of confession and absolution, and of practising forgiveness and gratitude. He encourages Christians to look to their physical health and rest, to keep curious and to continue lifelong learning.

And he underlines the importance of cultivating a group of close friends to whom you can be mutually accountable and support each other in your life and calling.

It’s a recipe that I find compelling and challenging.

MacDonald is also insightful about how older people may be regarded in a church context that focusses its life and worship on the young. At a conference of young worship leaders, he challenges them to consider what the older people in the congregation may have on their minds as they come to church.

It will likely be, says MacDonald, very different to the concerns of the younger people.

He asks them, “You’re worship leaders. How are you going to usher people into the presence of God if you don’t know the questions that form the big pictures in the hearts of the various generations you are leading?

“I suspect there are different questions for every age in life, perhaps every decade. Knowing them helps us to deal with people sensitively, and it gives us a better understanding of how to build a larger view of our own lives.”

I wonder how far the worship in many churches is focussed on the needs of all generations, including older people?

I commend this challenging, helpful book. It may help many Church Champions in their role, and also be a resource to recommend to others.

Every time I re-read it, I discover something new…

(June 2024)

Around 900,000 people are currently living with dementia in the UK – with this figure projected to rise to nearly 1.6 million by 2040. The Alzheimer’s Society estimates that more than half of the UK population know someone who is living with the condition.

The symptoms of dementia can vary greatly, from mild to severe. Its development can be upsetting and emotionally painful – and will be deeply felt by many this Sunday.

Many Faith in Later Life church champions are helping to make their churches more friendly and welcoming for older people in a range of innovative ways.

In addition, Methodist Homes and Christians on Ageing have combined to produce advice on how to be more welcoming to people with dementia. Their guide, ‘Growing Dementia-Friendly Churches’ offers valuable advice to churches and individuals.

“It’s very easy,” they say, “for any church to assume that they would automatically be dementia-friendly. How could someone following Jesus think it acceptable to exclude anyone, particularly those who are so vulnerable in their midst? Yet so often people with dementia and their families do indeed become excluded and marginalised.”

A ‘dementia-friendly’ church would, they say, “look for strengths and abilities in people with dementia, then support and encourage the use of these gifts so that they too may participate in the community that is the body of Christ.”

The guide gives advice on making sure that the person with dementia, and their friends or family members, are both spiritually and pastorally supported and nurtured. This could include running a ‘memory club’ where those with dementia could enjoy a time of reminiscing, while their carers can separately share their experiences and challenges.

Simple services held midweek, or in local elderly people’s care homes, using familiar worship songs and readings can help provide spiritual support.

I lost my mother, Elsie, to Alzheimer’s – a form of dementia – in December 2021. She was 97 and had been living with the condition for several years before her death. I wrote this prayer in mum’s later years, as I visited her care home and sat with her. I offer it for all those whose mothers are hidden within the fog of dementia this Mother’s Day.

Dear mum,

You raised me, and now hardly know me.
You gave me birth, helped me to walk,
You helped me to flourish, to learn, to grow,
And you released me to live my life.
This Mother’s Day, may you – and all mothers – know God’s presence with you,
In the knowledge that God knows you in your innermost being,
knows you as uniquely created in God’s image.
May you be surrounded by God’s love,
As you are surrounded by mine.

Amen

Rev Peter Crumpler is a Church of England minister in St Albans, Herts.

Photo: Peter Crumpler, with his mother, Elsie.

For further helpful resources around the subject of dementia, please visit our Resource Hub.

To find out more about becoming a Church Champion go to this page here.

“Don’t grow old,” a parishioner of advanced years warned me some while back. “You won’t like it.”

Sadly, that dear woman is no longer with us, and I’m a whole lot older than when she offered me that kind advice. But was there wisdom in her words?

It’s true that generally people are living longer and in better health than in generations before. I recently learnt that the average life expectancy of someone born in Britain in 1837 was just 39 years. In London, the average age of death for labourers was just 22. In Manchester, nearly six in ten children died before reaching the age of five.

Thank God for all that progress, and the difference it has made to the lives of millions of people. We should never forget to give thanks and celebrate that achievement.

But there are increasing challenges for older men and women in our communities, and it prompts me to ask the question: is your town or village a good place to grow old?

I’m not talking about the quality of the care homes, the NHS services or public transport – important though they are – but about the everyday lives of older people.

My friend, Maggie Dodd is the ‘Anna Chaplain’ for older people in St Albans, Hertfordshire, the city where I live and minister. She is one of around 300 such chaplains up and down the country. They spiritually support people – of strong, little or no faith – in care homes, sheltered housing or in their own homes. Maggie’s important work is backed by the city’s two Methodist churches.

She has told me how life is becoming harder for older people in the area, and we’ve swapped notes on what we have both observed.

She explained: “Some of the basic services older people need are becoming more difficult to access. I hear about doctor’s surgeries asking for patients to print out their own forms or send photos to or from smartphones. Banks are phasing out high street branches, pushing everyone towards online banking – many older people feel very uneasy about going online, worried of being scammed out of their savings.

“A trip to the shops is also becoming more complicated. Checkouts in supermarkets are increasingly self-service. Mobility can also be affected as car parks often need an app to be uploaded onto a smartphone to park. Many city car parks ask for payment by app – at St Albans City station there is no option to pay by card or cash!”

Maggie is right, and I know of at least one older person who has to phone a friend who has a smartphone, whenever she wants to park her car! The friend has the parking app on her phone, so can make the payment for her.

On a recent visit to an NCP multi-storey car park in the Midlands, I had to pay £3 extra – £8.85 instead of £5.85 to park for three hours – because I did not have the NCP app on my phone! I call that outrageous!

The older people that I meet and talk with at our church and elsewhere are increasingly finding themselves being ‘left behind’ by new technology, and the presumption that they will have the latest apps, and an assortment of them, on their phones.

Many, since the Covid lockdown, have made the transition from using cash to cards – an easier switch for some than for others. But the move to online ordering and payment is proving much more of a challenge.

Last autumn, the charity Age UK launched a hard-hitting campaign, #OfflineandOverlooked, designed to persuade the Government to ensure that everyone is able to choose to access and use public services offline – by phone, letter or face to face as appropriate – rather than constantly being forced down a digital route.

This, says Age UK, “would end the discrimination against millions of older people who are not online or digitally savvy. This means many currently struggle to do routine things like make a medical appointment, order a blue badge for their car or pay to park it.”

The charity has pointed out that the number of older people online has increased substantially over recent years, but there is still a sizable minority who are not online.

In fact, a total of 2.7 million over-65s in the UK do not use the internet at all, equivalent to around one in five (22%) of this age group.  This includes almost 500,000 over-65s who had used the internet in the past but don’t do so now, showing that as we age it is not unusual to scale down or cease our online activities altogether.

It’s not just older men and women who are disadvantaged by the move away from people and cash to technology and smartphones. People with poor eyesight or reduced cognitive abilities can also struggle. Some younger people are ceasing to use smartphones, because of concerns about sharing their data.

It’s good that plans to remove the ticket offices at train stations have been shelved, especially as recent research showed that people found themselves paying more for their journeys if they used machines rather than buying tickets from a real person!

It’s not just a question of older people not keeping up with new technology.

This gradual marginalisation of people can leave them feeling lonely and isolated. Loneliness can have a huge detrimental effect on health and wellbeing. Prolonged social isolation and loneliness are the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Dr Richard Pile, an experienced GP doctor, compellingly set out the health risks of loneliness in a recent Tedx Talk in St Albans.

Older people are being increasingly marginalised when, alongside people of all ages, they should be able to play a full part in our community.

It’s excellent to see that many churches are serious about valuing older people; running special events and activities, ably led by Faith in Later Life Church Champions and others with a heart for those in later life.

But maybe we should be more vocal in our support for older men and women in our towns by pointing out to councils, the NHS and local businesses the impact of moves to new technology, and how they can leave older people disadvantaged – or stranded?

Christians are called to follow Christ’s example and speak out for those on the margins of our society. In today’s increasingly high-tech society, that could be anyone reaching later life…