Opinion column

Growing younger as we grow older?

Following last week’s opinion column on Network Norfolk, where Andy Bryant made a case for the role of older people in our churches, Rev Dr Patrick Richmond explains why it is essential to attract younger people to the faith.

I am grateful to Canon Andy Bryant for his characteristically stimulating piece last week, explaining why he believes older generations have a vital role to play in the church, but grinding his teeth when he hears the phrase “growing the church younger.” He makes many excellent points, with which I hope and pray we can all agree - that the elderly should have respect and a place of honour, especially in the Church, for we need the wisdom, insight, and experience of those more advanced in years.
 
We should not be seduced by the commercial industries claiming to keep us looking young. The retired can often commit the time, skills, and money the Church depends on, and develop their faith, when those younger are frequently too busy to do so. Church history shows that revivals have been as much about rediscovering our heritage and traditions as about embracing the new.
 
All this is true and important. My concern is that, comforted by Canon Andy’s excellent points, we might take the easy way out and reject the challenge of Christ to welcome and attend to the young as well. Growing older is inevitable, and the longings behind the paradoxical phrase “grow younger” need not deny any of the truths of which Canon Andy reminds us. It is not so much “either…or” but “both…and.” There are excellent reasons why Archbishops, Bishops and many parishes and churches want the Church of England to “grow younger.” We do not need to see this as an expression of uncritical “group think.”
 
In the Gospels, Jesus gives special place to children. The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these (Mark 10.14-16 and parallels). Jesus says that, unless we too become like little children, we will never enter his kingdom. Whoever receives a little child in Christ’s name receives Christ, but whoever scandalises or offends against one faces a fate worse than death (Matthew 18.1-6).
 
While Canon Andy seems to associate “a terrible mythology” with the desire to grow younger, I think we must recognise the role of official statistics. Decline among under 16s is even faster than decline among all other generations. Canon Andy agrees that “Church should be multigenerational”, but, in 2018 in Norwich Diocese, nearly three quarters of churches had no children at all. In contrast to Cathedrals, which Canon Andy notes are exceptional, the situation was significantly worse for small churches. The desire to grow younger reflects the fact that our churches are bereft of the young.
 
Where do the newly retired church members we all value come from? The retired are unlikely to come back to church if they were never there in the first place. People who weren’t brought up as practising Christians tend not to become Christians later in life. Older people can increase their interest in religion, but research shows 95% of people becoming Christians decided to do so before leaving school. The number of Christians in our churches and in our land is declining. If we want more older Christians, we need to welcome and nurture young Christians. Since the start of the century, baptisms have almost halved and infant baptisms more than halved.
 
I suspect Canon Andy is really objecting to assumptions that we must ditch the old ways and that the only hope is in fresh expressions, new church plants and all things modern. I agree that this would be simplistic, but this isn’t the vision the Church of England is trying to commend, which instead talks of a “mixed ecology” in which newer and more traditional approaches are all nurtured according to context.
 
The Cathedral has recently hosted a helter-skelter, above, and the Dippy the Dinosaur exhibit, which I know attracted the young and were not seen as totally traditional, to say the least. It has choirs and activities specially for children, mixing old and new in creative ways. All this is commendable for, while ageing is inevitable, welcoming children and paying special attention to them is deeply Christ-like, part of our ancient, apostolic tradition, and entirely compatible with loving, respecting, and honouring those who are older.

The statistics quoted in this article are all from published Church of England reports, available on request.
 

The Rev Dr Patrick Richmond is Vicar of Christ Church, Eaton, Rural Dean of Norwich South, a vice-president of Diocesan Synod and a diocesan clergy representative on General Synod. He writes in a purely personal capacity.