{"id":2264,"date":"2012-10-04T10:58:58","date_gmt":"2012-10-04T17:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/gc2012\/?p=2264"},"modified":"2013-08-26T17:15:32","modified_gmt":"2013-08-27T00:15:32","slug":"housebreaking-ageism-in-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/housebreaking-ageism-in-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Housebreaking Ageism in the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

Housebreaking Ageism in the Church<\/strong> | By the Rev. Paul Graves<\/em><\/p>\n

A few months ago, I invited us to consider naming the unidentified elephants that live in our lives. My aphoristic comment: \u201cUntil you name the elephant in the room, you have no chance to housebreak it.\u201d So consider with me naming one of the elephants in our lives, and in our churches: Ageism!<\/p>\n

Ageism is the mentality that puts you down in so many ways simply because you\u2019ve reached a certain calendar age. Ageism is the tendency to buy into a cultural stereotype and cultural behavior that relegates older adults to what feels like second-class citizenship.<\/p>\n

Ageism happens in our society. It happens in our communities. It happens in our churches. And it can happen within our own hearts and minds. Don\u2019t let it happen anymore!<\/p>\n

Ageism irrigates a lie. That lie is that older persons are not worth as much as younger persons.<\/p>\n

Joan Chittister offers a pithy and thoughtful essay on Ageism in her 2008 book, \u201cThe Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully.\u201d She wisely observes that while stereotypes absolutize age-related characteristics, persons who are externally old tend to smash those stereotypical barriers with their vitality.<\/p>\n

My 85-year-old cousin is one of those barrier-smashers. He retired from his insurance business only 2 years ago. He keeps himself in good physical shape, occasionally shoots his age on the golf course (always a good thing!), and is a vigorous husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and a contributing volunteer in his community.<\/p>\n

That kind of vitality in countless persons we know \u2013 and hopefully are! — makes ageism a \u201cbig fat lie\u201d. So how do we spread the word that ageism is both a lie and an elephant in the room that needs to be housebroken?<\/p>\n

Three things come to mind: 1) use self-talk to remind you of your vitality; 2) model aging to others as a life-phase to be achieved rather than a death-sentence to be feared; and 3) challenge yourself to challenge ageism whenever and however you can, confident that your challenge is an act of faith and hope.<\/p>\n

SELF-TALK<\/strong>
\nMake self-talk part of your own faith journey. Remind yourself that God is with you as you age. But God isn\u2019t there to rescue you from aging; rather, God honors you for achieving your age and encourages you to remain a vital and giving member of your family, your church, and your community.<\/p>\n

MODEL AGING TO OTHERS<\/strong>
\nIf you hear persons denigrate you or someone else because you are old, present your argument by living in a way that shows the wisdom and compassion you have gained through the experience of your years. Two questions: 1) Who showed you what aging can be like? 2) What do you want to show others about aging? Let your answers help guide how you model aging to others.<\/p>\n

CHALLENGE AGEISM IN YOURSELF AND WHEREVER YOU SEE IT<\/strong>
\nAgeism is often a sneaky foe! It might be disguised as solicitous concern (\u201cCan I help you up the stairs?\u201d) or as impatient decision-making, or any number of subtle messages. Don\u2019t let what you feel as an ageist remark or action go without some kind of challenge.<\/p>\n

For instance, I try to remind leaders in our churches and in our Conference, that the emphasis we place on \u201cgetting young people involved\u201d is important. But don\u2019t do it at the expense of abandoning the older members.<\/p>\n

As we fuss about worship styles, education, community service, etc., we get too easily caught up in Generational Myopia. This is when our vision is fixed so much on our short-term irritations and not \u201cbeing heard\u201d by another generation that we defensively fight for \u201cmy generation\u2019s experiences\u201d are the most valid!
\nIf we are going to transform the church, it will happen more likely when generations see the value in each other\u2019s passions, ideas, and commitment. My bias is that older adults in our churches need to lead the way in this effort. Our experience shows that ageism is a lie, and that working together works best.<\/p>\n

\n

The Rev. Paul Graves serves as<\/em>
\n the chair for the Conference Council on Older Adult Ministries.<\/em>
\n Respond to this article at facebook.com\/channels.pnwumc.<\/em>
\n This article was originally presented in Channels 57. Download this issue, here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Housebreaking Ageism in the Church | By the Rev. Paul Graves A few months ago, I invited us to consider naming the unidentified elephants that live in our lives. My aphoristic comment: \u201cUntil you name the elephant in the room, you have no chance to housebreak it.\u201d So consider with me naming one of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":2265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[111,142,113],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-channels","8":"category-older-adult-ministries","9":"category-opinioneditorial"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/4_COLUMNS_NurturingElders.jpg?fit=600%2C307&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-Aw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2264"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4902,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions\/4902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}