IN THE worship band that I sing with at our monthly family service, the ages range between 18 and 80. Worship connects us and we make a “joyful noise” together; but I guess that our weekday lives are fairly different — and, probably, our spiritual lives, too.
With that in mind, have you ever wondered about the times and experiences that your older fellow worshippers have lived through, and about what differences these might have made to their beliefs, spiritual practices, and relationship with God?
Each generation also comes to later life differently. So, is there anything useful we can say about being older?
First, we can consider what we currently know about the phase usually labelled “retirement”, which can now be longer and more varied than for previous generations. For many, there is time and opportunity to enjoy new or rediscovered activities. For others, though, there are greater responsibilities, often involving care of both the younger and older (the so-called sandwich generation). Retirement itself may prove elusive when continued working is a financial necessity.
A number of 20th-century expectations around retirement, such as adequate pensions, housing, social care, and supportive family structures, now appear to be less reliable, creating what some gerontologists term “precarity” for older people.
Second, in today’s culture, both the experience of ageing and of faith are changing rapidly, and are markedly different from when our current cohorts of older people were younger. The present worldview has expanded to include non-religious forms of spirituality as well as a majority of nones (those who answer “none” to survey questions asking for religious affiliation).
For example, self-realisation — consciously creating your own identity and purpose — and self-authorisation — asking “does this work for me?” rather than “is it true?” — are replacing previously trusted authorities, institutions, and career paths, along with many old certainties.
In particular, concerning matters of faith, today’s elders grapple with significant challenges to the understanding of religion and its practice into which they were socialised. At the same time, we need to know more about the growing numbers of the newer generation of seniors who define themselves as “spiritual but not religious”.
FROM my own observations, and from the studies of others, I see that faith in later life can be active, changing, and challenging.
Faith has great capacity to develop, given the opportunities that retirement affords: for some, a greater amount of time, and for all, the length and variety of experience to draw on. And, we observe, older people of faith are usually keen to grow in their life with God, to hear more of their calling at this stage, and to develop helpful spiritual practices and disciplines. Those who have lost track of faith can find retirement a trigger for exploring it again, often prompted by challenging life events or changed circumstances.
Contrary to popular thought, older people do not generally become more narrow-minded, or reach a plateau and stop growing intellectually. Neither do they sail on into a serene old-age faith. The journey into older age brings as many questions as answers. These involve exploring the nature of their encounter with God; prayer more as contemplation than intercession; quiet reflection and “being” becoming more important in worship and devotion than words and doing.
The challenges of old age, particularly in relation to health and mortality, can prompt a more questioning faith, and this is sometimes unwelcome and misunderstood by faith leaders. Older people may need help to draw deeper on the resources of faith, such as a greater familiarity with scripture, recalling earlier experiences of faith and answered prayer, and the discernment of God’s voice, as well as access to sacred spaces, music, and worship. Such spiritual assets, valued by all, can help older people especially as they wrestle with the difficult experiences and circumstances that often accompany ageing: loss, diminishment, harms, and hurts that have accumulated.
However, the faith of later life also often includes liberation, greater confidence in one’s faith story, and the desire to give something back to the world, society, or particular communities. Intimations of mortality, handled well, will often prompt decluttering, simplification, and forgiveness and reconciliation if needed. The practice of gratitude and prayer for others and global situations can increase, even as material circumstances and other capabilities decrease.
EARLIER research into faith in the context of ageing tended to see its development as a series of stages, as was the prevalent way of describing adult development in general. Those who have received ministry training may recognise the work of James Fowler (1981) who identified adult faith stages as: accepted faith, examined faith, and complex faith — the last being typically experienced after mid-life and a wider experience of living.
More recent conceptions of how faith develops, especially later in life, rely on more dynamic notions and less on linear stages.
These include seasonal metaphors, with older age representing autumn and winter in Living in the Autumn of Life by George Lings (BRF Ministries, 2024); movements of spiritual formation that are reprised from mid-life onwards, as suggested by Henri Nouwen et al in Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit (SPCK, 2011); variants on the Jungian concept of the two halves of life — journeys “outward” and “inward”, as explored by Richard Rohr in Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the two halves of life (Jossey-Bass, 2011); and old age as the final third of life, as suggested by Walter C. Wright in The Third Third of Life: Preparation for your future (IVP, 2012: the De Pree Centre in Pasadena offers a free five-session course based on the book).
I believe that we are moved on in spiritual maturity through incorporating new spiritual interpretations of our experience into our perspective on life. Such changes can be small or large — as we take in new teaching, for example, or cope with events that are expected (such as retirement), or unexpected (bereavement), or radical (such as a conversion experience).
We are helped in our reflection and interpretation by continuing to notice God’s presence in everyday life. Indeed, we will struggle to grow unless we take time to reflect and develop a sense of how God has spoken and continues to speak in our lives. This relationship is unique, and constitutes the inner work of ageing. It sits well with the idea that growing older is essentially about becoming more ourselves, and journeying towards God in whom we have our being.
INVESTING in faith-development in later life also helps make sense of both the benefits and disadvantages that retirement can bring. An evolving faith enables the transformation that the Bible urges us to pursue in order to know as we are known: to continue to develop in relationship with God and others; to find meaning and purpose in our retirement; to become more like Jesus and grow in maturity in our faith; and to play a part in God’s Kingdom and mission by responding to new callings.
Although the idea of “serenity” can be misplaced when thinking about older age and its challenges, it struck me recently that the “serenity prayer” has much to offer: it is helpful to recognise what can’t be achieved at this stage, but also what can be (and how to do it) — and have the wisdom to know the difference.
First, acknowledging that some things are no longer possible might be less to do with capabilities than timing and opportunity. We cannot alter past events, and so need to find a way of dealing positively with regrets, unfulfilled ambition, and the paths not taken: our “unlived lives”. Losses, disappointments, even tragedies can spur spiritual learning given the right perspective and support. (Pastoral care and spiritual direction can be useful here.)
In our lives with God there are many things that can be redeemed, so reflection and reframing are the key elements of an ongoing faith. Many respondents in my doctoral research on later-life spirituality noted that reflection was a necessary antidote to rumination (worry). This could be done in the form of reviewing the story of their lives so far, and was more potent when shared with others, such as in a small group, or with prayer partners, or just informally with friends.
The value of conversations on topics that help participants make sense of later life and appreciate its God-given meaning and purpose was demonstrated in a workshop programme run by PSALM (Project for Seniors and Lifelong Ministry), led by the community theologian Ann Morisy in London from 2002 onwards (but not currently available). The programme enabled reflection on a wide range of concerns for seniors, in order to combat fear, worry, and withdrawal from social life.
SECOND, and thus equipped with a more mature sense of our spiritual selves, we are better placed to see what remains open to us, or how to effect changes to reach new goals, or respond to vocations and adventures previously unimagined.
Psychologists recognise a rounding out that can come with ageing personalities as we let go of outdated ways of life. Such individuation can also involve greater tolerance of others through recognising our own mistakes and weaknesses, especially if, with God’s help, our faith enables a greater openness. We may thus progress to what Richard Rohr describes as discovering in the second half of life the contents for the container that we spent our first half building.
Third, the wisdom to avoid (or work through) regret and embrace change in the circumstances given to us will allow another great potential characteristic of later faith to emerge: that of giving back. Harvesting the fruits of lives well lived usually involves sharing them, something that people often remark on in retirement courses.
Our travels in “wisdom country”, as Margaret Silf calls it (The Wisdom Years: A spirituality of ageing: reflection and ripening, harvest and homecoming; DLT, 2025) result from experience plus reflection, grown into fruitful spiritual maturity if we have the courage to live it out. Giving away our lives in service and legacy is our response to God’s mercy and grace, and can involve participating in peace-making, bridge-building, empathy, for example.
So whether the impulse is to be a contemplative or a Caleb, questing to take on a last battle, giving away and simplification can be hallmarks of a later faith.
Giving away can also be done more deeply as we age, according to Ronald Rolheiser in Sacred Fire: A vision for a deeper human and Christian maturity (Image, 2014). Giving away our older lives in service comes first, but in much older age we should consider how we are called to “give away our deaths”: that is, showing by example that this last phase of life, however long or short, can be a kind of final letting go. This involves acceptance, with grace and without bitterness, of a final leave-taking that must be faced eventually by everyone.
Dying well, Rolheiser suggests, is a gift to loved ones who accompany us on this last part of our journey. Beyond the grief of our departure, they can in turn better appreciate, understand, and be blessed by our life and death.
THE 2009 research paper Mission Shaped Church for Older People by Church Army and the Leveson Centre, concluded: “Engagement with, and the valuing of, older people is a sign of a healthy Church.” So how can churches go about further valuing and helping the later-life faith journey?
An increasing amount of published and online material is now available, and there are more organisations focusing on older people and their faith and spiritual care, not least the growing Anna Chaplaincy movement. There is much spiritual work to be done for the benefit of older Christians but also for others to whom they relate.
Principally, we need more opportunities to enable meaningful conversations with and between older people, and the discernment of their ongoing ministries.
As communities, churches would benefit from investing in supporting seniors in their significant life-changes and transitions: obvious ones like bereavement, illness, retirement, grandparenthood, or moving to residential care; but also, for example, when an older volunteer steps down from a long-held responsibility or activity.
This need not place an additional burden on churches. Rather it is a matter of facilitating older Christians in serving others or exploring their faith. Older people value the deeper application of faith that can grow from what George Lings calls in his book small “meet-up groups”, where committed reading and sharing together create a mutual ongoing development of spiritual growth and helpful practice.
Above all, we need to expect continuing growth and vocation, since faith is a lifelong journey. The challenge is to find ways to explore with older church members, whether new to faith or long on the road, where they are in life and in their spiritual responses to experience.
Supported well, later life and older age can be experienced as gifts rather than as burdens. God has given us all the days of our lives to be shared with him and others, in all their ups and downs. Older people of faith can literally show the way to others: not only with purpose but a more rounded sense of self, with interests beyond themselves, and a self-acceptance and forgiveness that comes from journeying with a living God.
Dr Joanna Walker is a former Bishop’s Adviser on Adult Education in the diocese of Guildford and previously a lecturer in the Department of Educational Studies at University of Surrey. She is currently editor of Christians on Ageing (christiansonageing.org.uk)