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Are You Ready for the Age Wave? Who Really are the Missional/Emergent Leaders? Senior Adult and Ethnic Ministry Leaders
By chris | November 6, 2007
This graph in the image link is the market size of various age groups from now until 2015. Notice that the boomer market will drive up the size of the 50-69 year old segment of the population. Meanwhile the market of 35-49 year olds is growing smaller. The 20-34 year old market is far smaller than the total older market and, while growing, is transitioning demographically toward a more ethinic (toward 40% Hispanic in some places) marketplace. By 2030 this trend will be even greater than in this graphic!
Three implications for ministry.
1. Learn to love senior adults and understand that boomers will not go into their senior years the same way their parents did. We need creative senior adult ministry leaders stat!
2. Cultivate ministry and church planting among ethnic groups and bring them to the forefront in leadership in ministry organizations. Stop patronizing ethinc groups and start partnering with them.
3. More ministry needs to be done among the blue collar working poor. We can’t keep going with this middle-class orriented approach to ministry. If a working poor person has $2.14 in their bank (if they even have a bank account) then they can’t afford your church’s $75.00+ dollar retreats, etc.
You know who may be the least reached people in your community? The working poor 50-something empty nest boomer couple (or singles 22% of boomers are singles). With 77 million boomers, even though you may have a ton of boomers in your church, there are many more out there as yet unreached.
As for working poor boomers, their tastes are not for Starbucks and Barnes & Noble, either! Take in a gun show and head over to Walmart to meet them.
Every seven seconds another boomer turns 61 today!
In my opinion, the real “missional” or “emerging leader” is not really the church planter/pastor focused on leveraging the caffeine addictions of present 20-39 year olds into ministry growth. That’s the smallest and most rapidly shrinking market segment. More missional is the minister who looks at the market and works like a missionary to meet the needs of the people who actually comprise the marketplace.
Note: The graphic is from the book “Turning Silver into Gold” by Mary Furlong.
Here’s an intersting observation I found in the book…
Brad Edmondson former editor-in-chief of American Demographics says the Older Boomers are the focus of market opportunity in the next decade. The key concepts for reaching boomers around the globe are preservation and quality of life. The most important segments among boomers are empty-nest couples and older singles. The key to success in this marketplace is life-stage marketing because boomers will go through more transitions in their 50s and 60s than any other phase of life.
Topics: Demographics |
November 6th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
While those stats may be generally true across America, I’d caution to make sure those trends are true for your church’s immediate area. Then check your church’s unique position and ministry strengths against the demographic profile and projections available for your church’s sphere of influence.
I’d also caution that those stats may vary widely from one end of the same town to another. Be who you are and do it exceptionally well.
November 6th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Thanks! Looking at Garland, Texas all the stats I mentioned especially apply there. Some ministries need to be less “who they are” and more who their communities are in my opinion. The reason the church is losing impact often is the missional choices they make.
November 7th, 2007 at 1:13 am
i don’t know why you disparage ministry to 29 year olds.
62 million people from 55-85
103 million people from 20-45
and those UNDER 18 are usually pareneted by someone under 55.
reaching boomers is smart. there are lots, and they have been given all that money as rich old rulers that needs to be spent on the kingdom of god.
November 7th, 2007 at 7:05 am
Thanks Rev. Pete. Sorry, it’s not my intention to disparage anything. What I am attempting to point out is what trends really are “emerging.” Aging boomers are emerging. Ethinic leaders are emerging. Anglo white 20-39 year olds are declining. Next to nobody is focused on the working poor, yet poverty is not decreasing.
The Boomer market (which is 77 million strong) is a major force that will shape the USA (and ministry) in the near future. For the time being ministries are focused on reaching the 20-39 year olds. The present fads in church outreach are mostly targeting the white middle class. Of the people from 20-45 who are in the marketplace and unreached, the majority of them are not middle class and they are ethnically mixed with a large faction of them Latino.
We need missional leaders to work like missionaries will all people group segments. For now in places where the churches are concentrated, churches are stepping over themselves competing for people in the younger middle class white segment to the point that these folks are surfing from church to church.
I wanted to illustrate that what most people seem to think is emerging, is actually regressing.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:13 am
The implications for ministry are provocative… but I don’t see them in the stats you provide. The aging stats, I see. But where do you draw the implications for blue collar and ethnic populations… I don’t see a graph for them.
I think I agree that we are missing lower income populations and patronizing ethnic populations, but can you say more about your focus on blue-collar and Latino populations… where are you drawing your stats for those implications?
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Josh,
Thanks, I have been thinking about writing/exploring more about the ethnic and working poor trends to complete these thoughts. It’s one of those things where you think you are saying something because you are thinking it, but are being more vague than you know. My apologies.
In my work I have lead some primary research projects for my denomination that keep showing churches/evangelical denominations are more likely to have strategies that are focused on young families almost to the exclusion of older people, working poor people, and Latinos. I think we should do more to reach them, bring them into leadership, and stop being so patronizing to these groups.
There were also a couple good books about the subjects that were rattling around in my head when I wrote that post. The stats are in these books The first is “Immigrants and Boomers” http://astore.amazon.com/ministrymarke-20/detail/0871546361/002-3721267-0588856 and the second “The Working Poor” http://astore.amazon.com/ministrymarke-20/detail/0375708219/002-3721267-0588856
I have found that the “unchurched” are really not as exotic and as angst-ridden as they sometimes are portrayed in the popular books. The unreached in our country are not what many church leaders seem to think they are like. I think it is important to reach out to GenX’er families, but keep in mind the many other groups that are without significant outreach.
There is also a book I plan on reading “After the Boomers” http://astore.amazon.com/ministrymarke-20/detail/0691127654/002-3721267-0588856 that I was just reading a blog post about today that says the book talks some about the evangelical church and Latinos. This book is about emerging young GenX leaders and talks about their theological tendencies, etc.
But it also notes that evangelicals are inadvertently the largest body of people in the USA who are mobilized against Hispanic immigrants. That’s a real shame on us IMHO.
“Again, if evangelicals begin congratulating themselves at this point, they should pay attention to one other way that they excel in Wuthnow’s data: in being unwelcoming toward Asians and Hispanics. The odds of being unwelcoming “are about 1.7 times greater among evangelicals than among nonevangelicals,” Wuthnow reports, and “evangelicals are a more likely source of mobilized resistance against newcomers than any other religious group.”
See this blog for more http://www.kinnon.tv/2008/01/after-the-baby.html
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I added this graphic from “Immigrants and Boomers” that shows the Census projections of the size of the various “markets” by age through 2030 http://ministrymarketingcoach.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/generations_to_2030.gif
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Thanks Chris - that was really helpful. Didn’t want to jump on you; your comments about hispanic and lower income families really touched something that I have sensed but haven’t been able nail down. I work at a wealthy church but live in a mixed, poorer neighborhood and find the gap between outreach discussions and the community I see around me pretty wide. ($75 would be cheap(!) for a retreat at our church!) It’s good to hear that you are still figuring this piece out. I would love to hear more as you look more closely into it. The boomer/ immigrant book sounds intriguing. Ta.
January 4th, 2008 at 7:55 am
I am glad to have your comments. Thanks.