Ministering to little Mobility Senior Adults

Law Of Diminishing Marginal Returns - Ministering to little Mobility Senior Adults

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Law Of Diminishing Marginal Returns

From the earliest days of human history all indications are that life expectancies were relatively short. The few who reached "old age," bearing the subsequent restrictions related with it, were viewed a disadvantage in families that frequently valued utility over mortality. However, with the coming of efficient agricultural methods and the supervene stability of food supplies, humankind learned to survive with longer and healthier lives, alleviating some of society's systemic prejudices toward chronologically advanced individuals.

According to historical records, sometime around 4000 Bc, a significant segment of the habitancy began to attain "old age" in positive regions of the world such as Mesopotamia. Agriculture not only in case,granted steady food supplies extending chronological longevity, but also helped to encourage a view of elder adults as economically beneficial. Increasingly counted upon to perform varied family functions such as teaching the young and overseeing unencumbering tasks, they found themselves "needed." While the general zeitgeist and societal view towards elder adults waxed and waned during civilization's early development, the historical mention of this segment of the habitancy was relatively sparse. In the words of group historian, David Hackett Fischer,
Aging is a topic that has practically been totally ignored by historians. The health of neglect will not continue. Old age is likely to come to be a branch of much interest to the 'new' group historians-partly because they themselves are starting to grow old, but mostly because it lies at the intersection of many major questions in the field, about the family, about the life-cycle, stratification, welfare, and many other things.

A significant improvement in the study of aging came from Persia in the eleventh century A. D. When a doctor named Avicenna wrote a book entitled, The Canon of Medicine, in 1025. As a portent into modern academic studies of gerontology and geriatrics, Avicenna included material that prescribed positive health habits to encourage elder persons to preserve their diminishing strength.

At about this time in medieval Europe, inimical sentiments towards the elderly prevailed although perspicuous mention is sparse. Donald O. Cowgill of the American Academy of Political and group Science attributes the allowance in respect and veneration for elder members in Western societies due to commercial and economic factors. With the coming of the Renaissance, old age returned to favor, as renowned individuals like Michelangelo and Andrea Doria came to epitomize the ideals of living long, active, and prolific lives.

Between the sixteenth century and the third quarter of the twentieth century, Western ideas about aging underwent a basic transformation, spurred by the improvement of modern society. Aged and medieval understandings of aging as a mysterious part of the eternal order of things gently gave way to the secular, scientific, and individualistic tendencies of modernity. By the mid-twentieth century, older habitancy were moved to society's margins and defined primarily as patients or pensioners.

It would come much later, during the era of the commercial Revolution, that Westerners would embrace a more socialized, group law of care for the elder aged. Though often wee more than almshouses, so-called "care homes" began to appear in the 1800s scattered throughout Europe. By the 1930s the group protection Act in the United States began to provide compensated care for many older Americans. Consequently, over the past 170 years, in countries with the highest life expectancies, the average life span of adults has increased at a rate of 2.5 years per decade, or about six hours per day. Thus, while the group value of elder life has fluctuated over the years, its chronological postponement has steadily grown.

The basic allergy towards aging remains prevalent in most western societies where confronting the issues related to it are often ignored until necessity requires our attention. This task and its ensuing paper looks at the necessity of caring for the fellowship and spiritual needs of elder adults starting at the local level of church ministry.

An Aging Population

While most American churches continue to focus on youth programs and reaching out to younger generations, this traditional emphasis has come at the cost of neglecting the fastest-growing segment of modern society. truly we need youth ministries and children's programs as much, if not more than ever, but as statistics increasingly indicate, we just as urgently need an imperious plan for the intentional integration of older adults, especially confined adults, into the quarterly life of churches.

As we age, expanding disability and loss of mobility often lead to a decline in group networks and support. The supervene is greater isolation and decline in thinking health and quality of life. Interventions such as socialization, day care centers and senior centers are in part constructed to alleviate and delay such isolation through group activities and maintaining a group engagement with friends, family, and group volunteerism. But there comes a time, after a protracted illness, a stroke or some other life event--often an acute health problem--when many elderly habitancy find themselves prohibited from lasting to participate in their group groups.

With the onset of the third millennium since Christ, care for the elderly has come to be an ever-more pressing societal demand. Christian communities have the unique chance to lead out in addressing the needs of elder adults, starting with those listed on their church rolls. Jesus, the literal analogia fidei, set the scriptural accepted in Matt. 5:16 when he told his disciples to "Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." Augustine commented on this verse saying, "That light shines as the supervene of physical service, so that it is presented to believers through their embodied ministry." Christ's light shining through an embodied, "incarnational" ministry is an emphasis worthy of any church's consideration. What follows is one church's odyssey into the ambitious attempt to meet the demands of an aging habitancy by intentionally serving its senior adult members, specifically its homebound and local nursing home residents, as incarnational ambassadors of Christ.

An Age Wave

"Where there is no prophetic vision," says Prov. 29:8, "the habitancy cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law." Do we truly know what we are doing when it comes to ministering to the elderly among us? Based on available U.S. Census data, the fastest-growing segment of our nation's modern habitancy is habitancy eighty-five years of age and older. Due to such debilitating factors as ambulatory constraints, diminished eye sight, and varied other physical impairments, these citizens find themselves unable to get away from home without a great deal of extremely specialized (and often expensive) assistance. Among adults, aged seventy-five years and older, about 10% wish the help of other person to perform activities for daily living (Adls), such as dressing and eating. other 19% wish aid with "instrumental" activities for daily living (Iadls), such as shopping and money management. In a 1996 Geriatric community study of 878 non-institutionalized persons, 10.3% were classified as homebound aged sixty-eight years and older. The study went on to stop that being homebound statistically favors women, widowhood, depression, strokes, and inadequate group support.

According to a 2005 report, "Caregiving families (families in which at least one member has a disability) have average incomes that are more than 50% below that of non-caregiving families and in every state the poverty rate is higher among families with members with a disability than among families without." Such findings are not surprising as much as they are disturbing. The economic disparity related with the numbers of homebound and nursing home residents continues to stretch American families in difficult directions. The resolution for this imbalance has less to do with government action than with employing families to work together with churches to share the responsibilities of elder care.

The need for trained volunteers to involve seniors in Christian aid statistically speaks for itself. Intentionally utilizing active listening skills and practical ministry techniques for moral and spiritual edification, these invaluable seniors can be included as active, albeit off-site, members of local congregations. By virtue of their inclusion, the local church's widespread awareness of senior needs will not only increase, but will lead to a great working association in the community.

The following facts are important for churches and ministers to consider in determining their ministry stratagem. The composition of modern lower birth and death rates means that the senior adult habitancy will potentially double that of children by the midcentury. The United Nations habitancy group reported in 1999 that there were 593 million persons aged sixty years or over, comprising 10% of the world's population. By 2050, demographic prognosticators predict that this frame will triple to nearly two billion older persons, comprising 22% of the world's population. While these statistics do not necessarily suggest an epic Malthusian crisis, the numbers are nonetheless astounding. Win and Charles Arn, article the following statistics: Senior citizens in the United States, which are sixty-five years and older outnumber the entire habitancy of Canada. Since 1900, the average age of America's habitancy has risen by ten years, and since 1950, the amount of Americans living over the age of one hundred has multiplied more than ten times. Demographers task that by 2020 senior adults, sixty-five plus in the United States will relate more than 17% of the nation's population.

We might call these incredible statistics the rumblings of an "agequake" that is shaking the very foundations of everything we understanding we knew about our national demography. The composition amount of senior adults in the United States, sixty-five and older, numbered 37.9 million as of 2007, up by more than 11% in just the last ten years. Sadly, about eleven million persons thought about "non-institutionalized" and over sixty-five years of age live alone and about eight million of them are women.

These figures, along with the self-evident aging of our own congregation at Calvary Baptist Church, inspired a practical, yet far-reaching ministry stratagem to leverage our existing resources to meet the needs of an ever-growing elder adult population. In hopes of avoiding a "tsunami of negligence," Calvary set out to expand a Christ-like love towards those generations who have so faithfully served us in the past.

Motivated by Love

A basic problem for some seniors in Calvary's membership was a basic inability to attend weekly worship services due to immobility, poor health, and institutionalization. Taking the church's ministry into the homes and hospital rooms of our members was a practical means of along with them in the fellowship of our local congregation. Such is a homebound ministry based on the sound theological expectations of a caring God utilizing his church to meet the demands of an aging population. Theoretically, such outreach is crucial in holding up with the challenges of a growing church membership and a transitioning city population.

"The church does not serve the poor, infirm, or isolated elderly so much as it is called to a base life with them," writes Roman Catholic theologian, David Matzko McCarthy. "Breaking bread, breaking the bonds of isolation, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the imprisoned are aspects of the church's call to be God's people." The motivation for Calvary's aid came from grateful hearts that longed to priest as Christ, as if he was in our place serving the needs of others. Along with a important theological theme of incarnational ministry, the key in senior adult ministry is "inclusion" as an acknowledgment of the fact that many of today's homebound prospects were at one time active church members. The project's emphasis was not to serve out of pity or to assuage some group guilt, but to improve God's schedule using the theological understanding of incarnational ministry and the biblical idea of missional living.

"God's love imposes the promulgation of reciprocal love and the related obedience and loyalty."

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