This morning Jeanie Meadows (my sister/secretary) counted the people in our church directory and we compared it to the national average. Our numbers are similar to the pie chart above.
I became interested in learning about the current demographics of our church because I am currently preaching through Joshua and I'm in chapters 13-14 where Joshua takes on a new role (from soldier to administrator) and Caleb takes on the giants in Hebron. We know Caleb was 85. We don't Joshua's exact age but we know he was old because God told him in 13:1 "You are very old." When I read that it dawned on me that these two men were the only senior citizens in the entire nation of Israel. That led to memories of walking in some churches that were predominantly composed of younger people and others that were composed of an older generation. There are various reasons why old-young gravitate toward their own age group but I believe God's ideal is for their to be an intergenerational mix similar to families. I was very encouraged by the chart Jeanie put together. The age and gender distribution looks good to me and I believe it looks good to Jesus. We do, however, need to improve intergenerational relationships. I believe the best way to do that is by serving together. Not a program or a project or a new church ministry. It needs to happen naturally. A great example is the friendship between Robin and Ms. Martha. Two generations - great friends. I pray God will repeatedly create those types of friendships in our church family so his love will flow from generation to generation.
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