Maturing Adult Faith Formation Part 1
Leader Article
In this article by Richard P. Johnson, Ph.D., begins by saying the average age of today's Catholic is rising; clearly the average age of the people in the pews is rising! Certainly there are some parishes where the average age is younger than others, but by contrast there are others where the majority of parishioners are already retired. Because of this advancing chronological giftedness, church leadership is often tempted to ask the question: How are we to sustain our mission and ministries with so few younger parishioners? Perhaps this is the wrong question. Perhaps a more salient question might be: How can we use and share the harvest of wisdom resident in our more senior parishioners to extend our mission and ministries? Such a shift moves us from a mentality of scarcity to a mentality of abundance.
