Rethinking the Aging Congregation Problem

I write this now because it will be too late to write later. Presently, I write as the mascot of a Christian community of which I would like to be a citizen. My skin is white and unwrinkled. I am healthy: 300 pounds plus on a bench press, three hours plus on a marathon route. I drink the trendiest coffee, listen to the trendiest music. I have the resources and desire to do these things. My spouse and I comprise that "young family" for which so many churches pine. If my spouse were to birth a child, or if we were to adopt a non-African-American child, our "young family" stock would skyrocket -- the political potency of potential potency. A son of the rural Midwest, an upwardly mobile migrant to the more urban and urbane east coast -- specifically, that place Wyclef Jean dubbed "The New Jerusalem" -- I am one in a long line of 33-year-old mascots of Christendom. The city on the hill contains such uplifting possibilities for 33-year-olds from the country.

Before my knees go, my favorite music gets archived and all of this starts sounding like sour grapes, I wish to contest my mascot status. American churches should stop fawning over young people like me. The fact that I and my demographic are so idealized bespeaks a profound, if often unintentional, ageism -- one that inhibits not only senior citizens' abilities to participate fully in the life of the church but mine as well. As long as I am the church's mascot, seniors cannot be citizens of the church -- and neither can I. It is time for American churches to grow up.