Rural Seniors Ministry
In January 2024, Tim conducted a webinar for Faith in Later Life on “Rural Seniors Ministry”. You can watch the video below or see a blog summary below.
Why Should We Care About Rural Seniors?
We’re going to be talking about rural seniors today. If we were going to think of the most unimpressive ministry, this is probably where we’d end up.
Everyone thinks children, youth and students are cool. If people want to be anywhere in particular they want to be in the culture-shaping cities.. So why should we care about rural seniors? Here are three reasons to care:
Stats
10.6 million people live in rural places in the UK. Even though the individual communities may be small, the collective is significant. Of those people in rural areas, one in four is over 65. If we’re not reaching rural seniors, we’re not reaching the UK.
2. Saviour
Nathaniel said, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46) He says this because Nazareth was the middle of nowhere, with a population of 500 people.
Jesus didn’t prioritise urban areas either. It’s not that he didn’t care. He went to Jerusalem and proclaimed the gospel there. But he went to “every town and village” in Galilee. Our saviour cared about people in rural areas.
He cared about people of all ages too. Think of when he met Simeon and Anna when he was born. Older people were important to Jesus’ ministry.
3. Stories
There are stories we can tell of people saved in rural areas. Let me give you a simple one from our church (I’ll change a few details.
A retired couple went to the funeral of a Christian friend. As they listened to that funeral they thought, “We need to go back to church.” They went to our church and they’ve been coming ever since.
They wouldn’t have driven to a bigger city. They wouldn’t have been looking things up online. They went to their local church.
4 Key Areas for Rural Senior Ministry
Here are four key areas for any ministry. We’ll apply it to rural seniors in particular.
If you were thinking of the 90% of things that make the biggest impact in any kind of ministry you’d have these four Ps:
1. People
Paul says this in 1 Thessalonians 2:7-8:
“Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.”
(1 Thessalonians 2:7-8, NIVUK)
A nursing mother is revolved around her baby. She feeds whenever the baby wants to feed, night or day. That’s the description Paul gives of his ministry to these Thessalonians.
Every ministry should have that love. We should care deeply about people
This is one of the advantages of a rural area. With a low number of people, you won’t can’t chase big numbers. That means we can focus on the individuals. Rather than thinking of a room of 40 people you might be thinking of four individuals.
It's easy to get to know people in a rural setting. In London, you can be nose to nose on the Tube and never speak. That's not the case in rural settings.
While on holiday in Northumberland, we met an older lady who lived near the house. She bought chocolates for the kids. She invited us into her home. She would never meet us again but she wanted to know us. In these smaller communities, it's easier to get to know people.
Do you love the retired people of your village? It's easy to think, “Oh, we'd love to have more young people.” But those people aren’t there now. Do you love the people that you actually get to minister to?
Tips
Learn the names: Get to know the names of your neighbours.
Listen to their stories: Even if they repeat their story again and again.
Invite people into your homes: When we've done Bible studies in our homes, people who aren't part of a church are amazed. If we let that drawbridge down and welcome people into our homes it shows true love.
Retired people invest in friendships: Maybe join the U3A club, the village walk or visit friends you've lost touch with over the years.
Leave slack in the church calendar for friendship evangelism
2. Proclamation
Proclamation isn’t just standing from a pulpit and preaching (though that's important). It’s sharing the gospel message.
In Mark 4:14-20, Jesus explains the Parable of the Sower.
“The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”
This is before modern agriculture technology. There'd just be a guy with a bag, throwing seed. Some of it would grow, but a lot of it wouldn't. That's the illustration given to us of any ministry.
We need to sow the word. If you want to grow corn, you can't go throwing out some other kind of seeds. And if we want to see people come to know the Lord Jesus we must share the word.
What is the word?
In this context, the Word is probably the gospel of Jesus. A good summary is what Paul says:
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners
(1 Timothy 1:15)
That word contains good news and bad news.
The bad news is we're sinners We can’t save ourselves by good works. As I look around my Community, people are very nice. They're not engaging in terrible crimes, they're not drug dealers or anything like that. But they are sinners and they need saving.
The good news is that salvation is available. Christ Jesus came into the world, lived a perfect life, and died a perfect death. Now whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. That is the word.
What is the response to the word?
But what do we find when we share that word? Sometimes people reject it and sometimes people accept it.
When the message is rejected, we’re tempted to say: “Let's try something different.” But the message of this Parable is that we will see rejection of the Word. That doesn't stop us from sewing it.
Let me tell you two stories (details changed).
On one occasion, a woman had invited her non-Christian husband to an elderly lunch. For years, he’d not been willing to engage with anything. We were all excited. We were praying about it. She was keen.
I explained the gospel on that occasion. I don’t think I was particularly harsh. I was just clear and he was very put off. He told his wife: “I'm never going to come again.”
That caused a lot of soul-searching. Had we done something wrong that pushed him away? We eventually saw no, he was rejecting the message. That message is all we have to share.
On another occasion, I was in a Christianity Explored group. We talked about sin and our need for a saviour. He said, “I went to Sunday school as a kid. My wife's been to church and I've been to occasional events. People never told me that I needed saving.” That man eventually has been baptized and has become a Christian.
Nobody has chemotherapy unless they know that they have cancer. Unless they know they have something worse than the treatment. If we don't explain to people that they need a saviour, they're not going to look for one.
That will sometimes cause rejection. That is a particular challenge when maybe you've got eight people to turn up and seven people reject, but it's something that we've got to do.
Tips:
Invite people to church: I'm always surprised that a lot of people their first contact with the church isn't an event that we do, but it's coming on a Sunday. You don’t need to wait for a special event.
Prepare for low numbers: When you preach the gospel in events, you get lower numbers. Plan for those events to be small-scale. For example, we do Christianity Explored pretty regularly, but we're happy to run it one-to-one if necessary. Jesus was willing to leave the 99 sheep for the one and we should do that too.
Encourage questions: Many seniors have told me that when they were younger they weren't allowed to ask questions about the faith. Allowing them the chance to interrogate the faith can be a big help.
3. Prayer
Paul says in Colossians 4: 2-4:
Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.
Sometimes you don't get the opportunity to speak the gospel. Rather than trying to crowbar it in, turn to prayer.
Prayer is like a fine wine: it gets better with age. Most of the prayer warriors in my church are over 65. They can’t do all the ministries they did before, but they can pray.
Great revivals in our country often didn't happen in the big cities. They happened in the Scottish Islands or the Welsh Valleys. How, in these tiny little communities did they see hundreds of people getting saved? They always started with prayer.
This shows us where the power for salvation comes from. It doesn't come through fresh ideas. It comes to us, from us pleading to God.
Tips
Use technology to pray: We have a group of people who meet weekly on Zoom to pray for particular non-Christians we know. There are various WhatsApp groups in our church, and people in need will text a request. Most people know how to use a mobile phone so that can be a really good way of just sharing at any age.
Pray when visiting the elderly: What do you do on a visit with an elderly person? Don't go and talk and share what you think is the solution to the situation. Go there and listen for 50 minutes and pray for 10 minutes.
4. Perseverance
Paul said to Timothy, a young Pastor, in 2 Timothy 4: 1-2.
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage —with great patience and careful instruction.
This is similar to the parable of the sower. Just keep scattering that seed. Sometimes you'll see fruit. Sometimes you won't. Just keep scattering it.
There's a proverb I heard recently. The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. The next best time is today.
Well, with a tree you've got a great example of a rural Church. You don't get many stories of overnight success. But if we persevere we will see people saved. We will see people growing in their faith. We will see people able to show love and care to their community around them.
In the context of retired Ministry, sometimes we can think time is running out for these people. There is an urgency. Whether they're young or old, everyone will have to meet their maker at some time.
However, there is a danger. If we think time is running out, we might think “There's no point in trying to evangelise people over the age of 65. Let's just start with the younger.”
The reality is we still have plenty of time to witness to someone who is over the age of 65. We're not living in Victorian England. People live for a long time now. The average life expectancy for a rural man is 79.3 years, for a woman, it's 83.1. Someone who retires at 65 still has 15-20 years for you to share the gospel.
So, yes, there is a time scale on every human heart. At the same time, let's not be scared of slow work. Let's persevere.
Indian missionary William Carey said, “I can plod”. It’s one of my, my favourite descriptions of ministry. It took him seven years in India before he saw his first convert. If you want to be reaching seniors, you've got to be up for plodding. It might be that you don't even see fruit in six years, but eventually you might see people coming to know the Lord Jesus, people growing in him, and realize that the ministry that you've been doing over all those years has had an effect, even if it wasn't immediately obvious.
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Tim Wilson
Tim Wilson is pastor of Wheelock Heath Baptist Church in South Cheshire, England. He is part of the Rural Project steering committee, focusing on online content. He graduated from the Union School of Theology, is married, and has three children.
