I was struck quite recently, as a very amateur military historian, by the death of the only two surviving ‘Tommies’ with eye-witness accounts of the 1914-18 war.
For as long as they both had strength, they loved to visit schools and talk to children about the things they had seen. One of them majored on the theme of peace and reconciliation and children were fascinated by his experiences and listened, perhaps because they spoke with eye-witness authority. Young people will listen to senior citizens — indeed, the Bible seems to tell us that this is the way faith is passed on from one generation to the next (Psalm 78.4). I am not basing a theology of youth work on two old soldiers, but I have begun to wonder about the way we select and train those who work with young people.
Gifted oldies
In most areas of ministry we look for two things — gifting and availability. If someone is good at leading groups we ask them to lead a home group. In our church we have some very good young home group leaders and we have some very good mature leaders and both sorts lead groups that span the full age range of the church. You will find some excellent children’s workers in their early 20s and I have seen excellent work done with children by those in their 70s. In schools, children are taught by those whose ages range from 22 to 65 and a good teacher is not judged by age, but rather by the interest they create in their material. If a person has the time to give to a work in the church and they are gifted, then we are delighted to see them fulfilled in their service and age is not the primary selection criteria.
