Source: Christian Today, October 1, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Churches are being urged to take the contributions of older members seriously or run the risk of facing a \u201csilver uprising\u201d of discontent from seniors in their congregations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The warning comes as the United Nations marks Thursday, October 1 as the International Day of Older Persons<\/a>, dedicated to recognizing the role of older people across the world. In the UK, the US, and other Western countries, populations are aging, with many more people reaching retirement age and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now Chris Spicer, a UK-based preacher and teacher with more than 50 years of experience working with Christian communities and learning centers throughout Europe and North America, has written of the dangers of churches not making use of older people in their congregations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In [a 2025 book] Living Life in the Last Lane<\/a>, Spicer warns, \u201cAs long as church leaders equate age with ability, they run the risk of fueling a silver riot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot that an army of placard-waving grey-haired protestors is about to picket church buildings. But rather than suffer in silence, maybe it\u2019s time for those old warhorses tired of being hitched to an ageist agenda to respectfully air their grievances and speak out against those entrenched ideologies and their unfulfilled aspirations regarding life in the last lane.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As an example of ageism, Spicer, who has lived in Portland, Oregon and Peoria, Illinois, explains, \u201cWhen middle-aged worship leaders are \u2018encouraged\u2019 to step aside so as to be replaced by their young counterparts for no other reason than to look \u2018relevant\u2019 and \u2018cool,\u2019 then the future is flawed. When being cool overtakes being Christlike, Christianity has stepped onto a downward spiral of no possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read the full story.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Just for fun, may I introduce you to my favorite old guy still encouraging all ages? Check out Rodney Norman<\/a>, self-styled comedian, philosopher, joy-sparker, and friend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Christian Today, October 1, 2026 Churches are being urged to take the contributions of older members seriously or run the risk of facing a \u201csilver uprising\u201d of discontent from seniors in their congregations. The warning comes as the United Nations marks Thursday, October 1 as the International Day of Older Persons, dedicated to recognizing … Continue reading World: Could the Church Face a \u201cSilver Uprising\u201d?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14828,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14827\/revisions\/14828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}