"I don't think that the government's commitment to localism and devolved power is simply a cynical walking-away from the problem. But I do think that there is confusion about the means that have to be willed in order to achieve the end.
If civil society organisations are going to have to pick up responsibilities shed by government, the crucial questions are these.
- First, what services must have cast-iron guarantees of nationwide standards, parity and continuity? (Look at what is happening to youth services, surely a strategic priority.)
- Second, how, therefore, does national government underwrite these strategic "absolutes" so as to make sure that, even in a straitened financial climate, there is a continuing investment in the long term, a continuing response to what most would see as root issues: child poverty, poor literacy, the deficit in access to educational excellence, sustainable infrastructure in poorer communities (rural as well as urban), and so on? What is too important to be left to even the most resourceful localism?"
I heard earlier this week of similar problems at the other end of the age spectrum. The resources available for home visits and support for the vulnerable elderly are drying up. It may be that an army of well-meaning volunteers steps into the breach, or simply that people rediscover what it means to be a good neighbour.
But these folks aren't going to riot to draw national attention to themselves (where do octegenarians riot anyway? Boots? Pilates?) Here too, there need to be 'cast iron guarantees of standards and continuity'. But will the vulnerable elderly get this, or does someone need to start kicking off about it?
PS sorry about the font, seems to have a mind of its own.
Following the release of the latest batch of CofE attendance stats, various media reports picked up on a separate study, released at the same time, on the age and ethnic profile of the Church of England. The conclusions are based on survey data, so there may be some margin of error, but with a sample of 110,000 people, it's probably not going to be massive.
'Celebrating Diversity in the Church of England' noted that the average Anglican is a white 61-year-old woman. The 'youngest' Diocese, London, still has an average age 6 years higher than the average UK citizen (54, compared to 48). Of the 43 Dioceses, 24 have 50% or more in the 'over 65s' age bracket. Being positive, that shows that the CofE has great appeal to a certain age group. Put negatively, it means that, all other things being equal, in 20 years those Dioceses will be half their current size or smaller.
But here's an interesting thing. Yesterday I posted a table of the changes in adult attendance over 2001-8. A reminder of those Dioceses which were growing, and by what %
London 9.1 Southwark 6.4 Manchester 3.9 Ely 3.2 Hereford 3.1
I've excluded Europe, because it's not mentioned in the diversity survey. Now, compare and contrast with the Dioceses with the most balanced age profile, in this case, those with the smallest number of people in the over-65's category. The figure below is the % in this age group:
London 28% Manchester 38% Southwark 39% Oxford 40% Bristol 41% Ely 42%
What immediately jumps out is that all but one of the growing Dioceses are amongst the top 6 in terms of youthfulness. The exception, Hereford, is the 4th 'oldest' Diocese, with 56% over-65s. But they must be doing something right. The presence of Bristol (actually doing quite badly growth-wise) is odd, and I don't know how much of a boost Oxford gets from all those students at the big university churches.
It makes sense: if there is a wider spread of age groups in church, anyone turning up on a Sunday is more likely to find someone who is 'like me'.
Two challenges: 1. Helping 'older' churches to think missionally about their natural age group. The CofE has tended to see older people as 'normal' churchgoers, rather than a mission field, but there are more and more churches who are recognising that, as the Rolling Stones draw their pensions, there is much more diversity among the SAGA generation, and much more to be done in making the gospel relevant and accessible to silver surfers, as well as to the devotees of the BCP who probably don't share the same worldview as the Stones' Baby Boomer generation.
2. Growing younger: I had a call the other day from a retired vicar who, at 70, is the youngest member of his church. Is it possible for a church like that to engage with younger people, or is it a question of starting again? At the same time there are other local, rural churches, who have started up after-school clubs, or used their resources to invest in a childrens worker.
I try very hard to discourage some of our rural congregations from beating themselves up about the lack of children and families in church, encouraging them to focus on their natural age group. But at the same time, we have a problem.
The easiest thing is just to cut and paste the latest FX bulletin....
Welcome to the December edition of e-xpressions. New stories on our website this month include: Hartcliffe and Withywood Lighthouse, a fresh expression on two needy estates in Bristol. The Terminus Initiative, a fresh expression at a bus station. Emmanuel Café Church, a student fresh expression in Leeds 'fuelled by coffee'; Solace, a fresh expression for clubbers in Cardiff. December's podcast has more from Solace and Emmanuel Café Church, as well as news from the Mission21 conference in Bath. You can also hear a longer interview with Graham Cray at Mission21 in our podcast extra.
From generation to generation Fresh expressions of church are for all generations, from pre-school children and their families to the 'Jagger generation' (Old Mick is a pensioner now!) and every possible local combination. But it is particularly good to see older generations blessing God's work among younger ones.
The Methodist chapel on Polzeath beach had just four members left – the longest serving being 90 and 85 years old – when the suggestion was made that the chapel be developed as a fresh expression for the surfer community who flocked to that beach most of the year. It took them a whole thirty seconds to agree to the idea, and then to actively bless the work as it took shape as Tubestation.
A group of senior members of a Women's Institute, many in their eighties, once told me that they were worried that none of their grandchildren ever came to church. 'Do you think they would ever come to a church like ours?' they asked. When I replied that I did not think they would, they asked what could be done? There is now a monthly, all age fresh expression of church in the barn where we were meeting.
In Luke, chapter one, there is a lovely example of this cross-generational blessing when Elizabeth, 'in her old age', greeted her relative Mary, who was probably about fifteen, with wonderful Holy Spirit inspired word of praise and encouragement. 'Blessed are you'. Elizabeth thanks God for something which, she could not yet see, which would take place through some one else, and which still awaited God's fulfilment: namely the kingdom which would come through the child Mary was carrying. Then she encouraged her young relative to continue in faith – believing that the Lord would fulfil his promises.
On of the evidences of God's Spirit at work is when we can rejoice when God does something in the next generation, which we have not seen in our own, and encourage young disciples to trust God's word.
Mary's response, which we call the Magnificat, reminds us all that God's mercy is for those who fear him 'from generation to generation.' +Graham
Christmas is coming... Christmas is a comin' in. That makes it high time for not one, but two, Advent Beach Hut Calendars – and a Christmas Day sermon by text. Last year, the Beyond group in Brighton and Hove hit the headlines with their seaside variation on the advent calendar. Each night a different beach hut opened their doors to reveal the owner’s interpretation of a favourite Christmas carol.
The seasonal success is being repeated on the Sussex seafront this year – and, for the first time, in Bridlington. Pioneer minister Ben Norton, of XY Church for Men, is using one beach hut and 24 different local community groups and individuals to tell the Good News of Christmas.
Revd Matt Ward of Leeds University's Emmanuel Café Church has also been in festive frame of mind and prepared a Christmas Day sermon to send to Café Church student regulars by text. Read the full story in our Christmas Day sermon media release. Share Fresh expressions are for all generations, both young and old. This is echoed in specific pages in the guide part of Share.
Fresh expressions for under 5s and their families contains four examples of fresh expressions for this age group, including a write-up of the soft play centre, The Wesley Playhouse, which will feature in the January Fresh Expressions podcast. There are hints, tips and principles for people working with this age group and a list of suggested resources.
Children's fresh expressions contains two examples for this age group, including a Messy Church in Sheffield. Again, there are words of advice and a list of resources.
Finally, there's a page called Fresh expressions for older people which has write-ups of three examples, a 'Things to bear in mind' section (with helpful statistics) and a list of helpful resources.
The government has provided researchers with a very useful online tool for calculating the UK population for any year between 1992 and 2031. The website provides an interactive map that graphically illustrates the extent to which age profile of the UK will change over the next few years. The mapping tool allows the user to select criteria for studying various age groups from UK level down to every local authority. So, if you’d like to see what the age profile of your locality will look like in ten years’ time, this site will help you plan ahead.
It's actually quite striking. If you set the age range to the 0-15's, it's like watching pools of water dry up on a sunny day, as the drought of young people spreads across the country. Or watch the progress of the over-65s (which I join just after the end of the period) as the map gradually darkens. This raises massive questions about who can support an increasingly dependent population, and throws into stark relief Jonathan Sacks comments a couple of weeks ago about the 'selfishness' of a secular Europe which, through choosing to have fewer children, is sowing trouble for the future. I'd be interested to see whether the data shows that it's secularism, or economic development, which has the strongest influence on the birthrate. If the former, then that's a challenging correlation for a Darwinian atheist to grapple with. If the evidence shows that, the more secular a society, the lower the birthrate, then in terms of 'survival of the fittest', this is rather interesting. To caricature, the only way a secular society can survive is by importing people from more religious countries to do the jobs.
On the other hand, you could say that giving birth to a child in the West is an act of selfishness, as they are likely to have a much bigger carbon footprint than a child anywhere else in the world. For the moment, falling birthrates in the richest countries are good news for the globe, as they apply a certain restraint to global warming. Not enough mind you.
(housekeeping note: I'm at the Mission 21 Conference in Bath for the next couple of days, so if comments take time to appear, it's because I've not sussed out the wifi provision.)
Just put this together for my Deanery, so it might be useful for someone. The population study released yesterday focused on immigration figures: 180k a year boosting the population to over 70 million by 2033. But there's another story: the number of pensioners is going to rise to over 15 million by 2033, from 9 million in 2005. The number of over-85's will treble to over 3 million. We probably need net immigration to keep a balance of ages across the population.
We tend to take older people for granted in the church, and agonise about reaching the young, when many churches (and the majority of Anglican churches) are in a much better position to connect with older people than with younger folk. Here in Somerset, there are more over-60's than under-20's, we employ childrens workers but how many churches have a Seniors worker?
Update: had a call this morning from someone who wanted to do more for the isolated elderly living alone and struggling on a fixed income. Having only put this together yesterday, I was struck by the timing! A God moment.
Resources for Work With Over-60s.
a) Books/leaflets - A Mission Shaped Church for Older People, jointly published with the Leveson Centre, available for £10 from the Leveson Centre (see below). An excellent 80 page study with material on age awareness and mission to older people, and a substantial ‘ideas’ section on everything from dementia to outreach. Lots of material which could be used in training and resourcing lay people.
- ‘People try to Put us Down’, Encounters on the Edge study of mission with over-60’s, published in 2008 by the Sheffield Centre/Church Army. Available from The Sheffield Centre Wilson Carlile Centre 50 Cavendish Street Sheffield S3 7RZ Telephone: 0114 272 7451 or online from http://www.encountersontheedge.org.uk/
b) Charities/Organisations 1. The Outlook Trust: http://outlook-trust.org.uk/ The Wycliffe Centre, Horsleys Green, High Wycombe, Bucks, HP14 3XL Tel: 01494 485222 Email: admin@outlook-trust.org.uk A mission agency specialising in work with older people. They’ve recently produced a DVD on how to do ‘Holiday at Home’ events.
2. The Leveson Centrehttp://www.leveson.org.uk/levesoncentre/index.htm Temple Balsall, Knowle, Solihull, West Midlands B93 0AN Tel 01564 778022 Email: leveson.centre@virgin.net. Wide range of conferences, resources and publications. Here’s their index – in some of these areas there are literally dozens of bits of research, publications, papers etc.
•Age discrimination •Ageing in the countryside •Ageing policy •Ageing research •Christian Council on Ageing Dementia Group •Dementia •End-of-life issues •Ethnic elders •Housing options •Ilness in old age •Leveson Centre publications •Long-term care •Older people and religious organisations •Quality of life in old age •Related organisations •Spiritual needs of older people •Welfare, benefits and pensions •Worship and older people
3. The Church Army: lots of material. including - Discovering Faith in Later Life: research papers by Mike Collyer focusing on particular ministries to older people, e.g. residential homes, ‘Holiday at Home’ events, church for the SAGA generation etc. Free to download. - Information Bulletin: comes out every 2-3 months, brief articles on new research, training, conferences, resources and ideas for work with seniors. Free to download. - Links to Grandparenting Forums and a range of other charities working with the elderly. - ‘88 Ways for older people to enjoy their ministry’ Ideas paper from Mike Collyer with a whole range of ideas for involving older people in fruitful ministry in the church.
Other 50 services for use in Care homes: worship ideas for care homes – main celebrations, seasonal and biblical themes, hymn choices etc. http://www.parche.org.uk/
‘Waiting for God: Ideas for mission and outreach among the elderly’ booklet produced by the Diocese of Peterborough, available from 01604 887000 or http://www.peterborough-diocese.org.uk/. Brief, encouraging, and with short summaries of things to learn and questions to ask.
A cut and paste of all of the above (if you put the Leveson Centre list into 2 columns) will fit on an A4 sheet.
Continuing the survey of 44 diocesan websites for useful resources on mission and fresh expressions that could be useful for anyone. Previous posts covered: Bath and Wells - Coventry Derby - London Sheffield - York to follow next week, all being well.
At the end of the series I'll also be doing a 'top 10 resources' post, and some suggestions about what resources could, pretty easily, be held in common across all diocesan sites.
This time, we start in the land of my birth (almost)
Manchester a pretty comprehensive looking site. Interesting bits: Mission planning statistics - the Diocese has neighbourhood census and demographic stats organised parish by parish, to help parishes understnad their mission context. There is a pack for each parish with maps and key local stats. Excellent idea.
A very good Parish Audit booklet, taking parishes step by step through the process of thinking about their local context, and how to respond to it. Great tool for thinking through priorities and direction as a parish/church.
Superb communications home page, which helpfully sets out all the main local media in the Diocese, and which area they cover, as well as what communications the Diocese is sending out and who to. Great overview, the kind of thing every diocese should do. Great. The other communications stuff is of a similar standard - there are a cluster of advice pages on publicity, news releases, media contacts, websites and magazines (use links in the sidebar from the Communications home page).
Chunky Evangelism section, which starts with a clear statement of intent: Manchester Diocese has a vision to see the local church growing: growing qualitatively in terms of spirituality, unity, generosity and discipleship. Growing quantitatively as more people are drawn to faith in our great God and his son Jesus. Within this is a page on Experience Easter, with ideas about how to make the most of Easter as an outreach opportunity. To free up time to do outreach at Easter, there's another page with bags of resources for Good Friday meditations, well worth a look (though a bit late for this year!)
If the diocese has a key outreach event, a downloadable poster is put on the site so people can access the publicity themselves. Clever.
Sadly not online, but avaible from the Diocese, are a couple of booklets on outreach with particular age groups. Luv 'em is for work with children and young people, and Silver Service for ministry with the elderly.
Newcastle Good 'faith and life' section on baptism, weddings, funerals etc., which recognises that many visitors might come with these on the agenda. Lots of stuff here that could be easily replicated in every diocese, or indeed on your own church website.
Norwich:'Committed to growth' says the top of the sidebar, which is encouraging. This link takes you into a suite of Mission Action Plan ('Growth Plan') resources, with a booklet introducing the idea, which would make a useful PCC resource in its own right for pretty much any church. The MAP resources are well set out, with templates, example plans etc.
Very good Mission Support Fund page, with the guidance notes for applications, a full list of projects funded so far, dates and deadlines for applications over the year. Good example for other dioceses to copy.
A booklist on Welcoming Newcomers, v helpful, with links to 2 examples of church welcome packs, one of which (hoorah!) was from another diocese. There are also simple pages explaining Fresh expressions and alternative worship, with links to local examples.
A page on discipleship courses reproduces the LICC survey of discipleship materials, helpfully adding which parishes are using certain courses for people who want to explore further. This is vital: it's so much better having someone local who can talk you through how they've done it, what's worked and what hasn't.
Helpful page on alternative and creative worship, from all-age to 'liquid', with links to blogs, books and resource sites. Helpful for people wanting to explore some popular alternatives to a standard hymn sandwich.
Easy to use Back to Church Sunday page with downloadable invites and posters, but they need to change it over from 2008 to 2009!
Couple of good case studies of redeveloping churches as community centres.
Oxford Big Back to Church Sunday splash on the home page, sends a clear message about what's important.Their BTCS resource page has some useful case studies of parishes which did it, along with the usual resources, and a 'timeline' of how to prepare.
Oxford is also sponsoring a study of how faith communities 'add value' to their neighbourhoods, the results will be interesting and will contribute to a crucial national policy debate.
The Encouraging Evangelism page has a selection of vid clips on the practicalities of evangelism, of which the most helpful are no's 3 (on running a mens breakfast), 4 (on running an Alpha/nurture course) and 5, which focuses on the Jigsaw fresh expression of church in Witney:
Oxford is one of the pioneer Dioceses in Fresh Expressions , having invested heavily in the Cutting Edge initiative several years ago. Cutting Edge resourced 6 pilot new congregations, there's a summary of the fruits here, and the full report on the project is well worth a read if you are looking to set up a Fresh Expression within an Anglican diocese, very very helpful. The Diocese has also produce a concise 'Beginning, Nurturing and Sustaining Fresh Expressions' booklet, which is available as a pdf.
Yet another superb link: Nurture Courses - this focuses on the four most popular (START, Alpha, Emmaus, Essence), with a full review of each, and several stories from people who have used them. It also includes a handy list of books and websites on evangelism, and a useful page on how to follow up an evangelistic event so that it helps you make contacts.
There's also a brief list of useful links to sites and blogs on evangelism, and there's also a cluster of documents around 'Living Faith', the diocesan vision for growth and development. There's a clever 'Easter Ingredients' evangelistic leaflet, based around Hot Cross buns - if you can airbrush out the Oxford logo this could be used anywhere, good idea.
I mention just in passing that Oxford diocese also links to three of its bloggers...
Peterborough tough job to follow Oxford, but some very handy niche products. Under Mission downloads, there are some great little booklets on Providing a Welcome, and ministry with the elderly, and some good ideas here on options for outreach, and several documents produced for a 2007 Lent course to get churches to think about mission.
Good Back to Church Sunday section with stories of people who came back to church, a countdown, welcoming children, and ideas for BTCS at Easter and Christmas.
introduction to Parish Nursing, interesting concept: "A parish nurse is a registered nurse with community experience, who works through the church, offering spiritual as well as physical and mental care."
Portsmouth:woo, psychedelic! A site designed by an evangelist: the first 4 sections are on Jesus, stories of people who came to faith, FAQ's and life events (baptisms, weddings etc.). It's only when you get to the penultimate 'Info' panel that there's anything about the Diocese, and you end up at a site within a site with Diocesan information. Love it. They even have pretty much the entire Street Bible online at the site.
Has a FX section, and great to see that there are 4 video clips of different FX in the diocese, plus an intro from the Bish. Love the Saturday Night Service in particular. Otherwise fairly standard contents (what is FX, training, funding etc.) but at least it's there. Strange that the vids aren't linked from the FX page!
Rochester. The Diocesan Evangelists have their own site, complete with testimonies, FAQ's mission booklist etc. There seem to be plenty of them, which is encouraging! To be honest the navigation is bewildering - I found myself on the same site via 'Mission and Unity', which also seems to have a separate site from the main Diocesan one. Seems odd that 'unity' should be separate, but what do I know?
There may have been other helpful resources on this site but frankly I just gave up, what with new windows popping up all over the place, and bits of the site which didn't do what they said they'd do. PLEASE CAN THE NEXT BISHOP OF ROCHESTER BAN POP-UP WINDOWS.
A real curates egg of sites, though there are at least some mission/evangelism/fx resources on all of them. Just goes to show that the way you communicate is vital to whether or not you'll get your message across, no matter how important that message is.
Best bits: Manchester communications tips Norwich on mission funding Oxford on FX and nurture courses Peterborough booklets on welcome and ministry with the elderly Portsmouth gospel illustrations Ripon & Leeds FX videos.
This latest edition to the Mission-Shaped series, published by the Leveson Centre (£10, £9 for pdf), has found at least 2 fans; Mark Russell, and this blog. Here's a summary, originally produced for our '3rd Age Task Group', a group of folk in our church looking at mission and ministry with the over-60's
The 81 page A4 booklet has 2 main sections, following a scene-setting introduction: a) raising awareness in churches of issues around mission to the over-55’s, including a training manual for a modular course on mission to over-55’s b) a collection of ideas, resources and discussion starters for mission to over-55s.
It looks like a superb starter kit for anyone looking into ministry with the elderly.
Introduction Of the 3m who regularly attend church, a third are over 65, up from just 18% 30 years ago. This will increase as the baby boomer generation moves into retirement. There are 200,000 more older people in church than under-18s.
Church attendance is stronger with elderly than the rest of the population, and they are a growing proportion of the population. The elderly must start to become a mission field, with finance, training of specialists etc. They are also our largest asset in terms of people and resources. Old people are the best missionaries to their peer group, and have gifts, wisdom and skills to share with others.
3 cohort groups are identified: pre-senior (55-64) – working, independent senior (65-80) - retired, independent older frail (80+) dependent.
There is no one way of doing church or evangelism will fit all 3. Many of the younger old have never had meaningful contact with the church. Mick Jagger is in his 60's, and the stereotype of the kind of music, culture etc. that over-60's will enjoy just doesn't work.
Part 1: Raising Awareness This includes an introductory presentation for a PCC or Deanery synod, and a modular training course for folk working with older people.
The course has 3 modules, each of 4-5 sessions.
ageing and attitudes,
engaging with older people,
practical evangelism
The sessions have a mixture of Bible study, presentations, discussions and practical tasks. At the end of the course participants should have a good idea of what they can do in mission to the elderly and how to go about it. Very good materials, they shouldn’t need much tweaking, or too much preparation for those delivering them.
Part 2 Practical application This is a set of resources on a whole range of relevant areas. Some are very practical, full of ideas and ‘how to’ sections. Others are more informative (e.g. on living with loss, visiting).
Welcome pack for newcomers to an area
special service to celebrate age
care home services
holiday at home
visiting and befriending
living with loss and change
dementia
mixed economy of church
church policy on ageing.
Finally, there is a very good 3 page bibliography including websites. It is split in to sections relating to the topics covered in the main book (e.g. dementia, loss, holiday at home etc.)
The conclusion asks what resources do we need to do all this effectively; for example paid workers with the elderly. It also explores what kind of churches we need to be, and what mission journey we need to go through to engage with the challenge.
Excellent, compact, practical and well thought out.
Another review here. James Woodward seems to have been at the same conference on mission and the elderly as Mark Russell, and is worth a look, not least for a lovely picture of Sheffield city centre and its fountains.
For other resources on older people, the Sheffield Centre is superb - research, regular newsletters with lots of helpful short articles, and several other links via their web page.
An event in mid-Somerset which might be of interest:
The Spirituality of Ageing With special reference to worship for those suffering with Dementia.
Led by Revd. Margaret Goodall
Wed. Sept.24th, 9.30am-4.00pm
St. Gilda’s Langport
Cost: £17.00 to include lunch
Margaret is Chaplaincy Advisor for Methodist Homes for the Aged Care Group and chairs the Dementia Working Group for the Christian Council on Ageing. Completing her Professional Doctorate on spirituality and dementia she often contributes to books on these subjects.
I've just ordered 'A Mission-Shaped Church for Older People?', an intriguingly titled booklet from the Leveson Centre. First time I'd heard of them, but the list of stuff they've published looks very interesting for anyone working in that field, whether you're involved as a church, caring profession, funeral director, etc.
Here's their full list of publications - more details about each one on their website:
A Mission-shaped Church for Older People? Practical Suggestions for Local Churches. Resource materials from Church Army and The Leveson Centre for churches and anyone who ministers among older people. £10.00 incl p & p.
Working with Older People - A resource directory for ChurchesDetails of over 100 church-related organisations working with older people. (published in collaboration with MHA Care Group), 2004. In plastic wallet £7.50 inc p & p, or free to download in PDF format.
- First, what services must have cast-iron guarantees of nationwide standards, parity and continuity? (Look at what is happening to youth services, surely a strategic priority.)
I heard earlier this week of similar problems at the other end of the age spectrum. The resources available for home visits and support for the vulnerable elderly are drying up. It may be that an army of well-meaning volunteers steps into the breach, or simply that people rediscover what it means to be a good neighbour. 
