Where Do the Old Rockers Go?

1 Corinthians 14:26-33

"When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up. If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God. Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people." (NIV)

Christianity is exclusionary, but church was never meant to be.

What do I mean by that? Christianity is exclusionary because we believe that there is only one way to Heaven, only one way to be saved. "Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’" (John 14:6 NKJV). No one comes . . . except through Me. That "except" is huge! There is only one way, through Jesus as a person’s Savior. No other religions, no other beliefs will do. Christianity is totally exclusionary. Christians cannot, by definition, accept other religions as being equal or even similar.

On the other hand, once a person becomes a Christian, life within the Church was meant to be fully inclusionary. Paul talks in 1 Corinthians 12 about the body: "Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good . . . Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it" (v. 7, 27 NIV). To each person within the body of Christ are given gifts of the Spirit to be used for the common good of the Body. This is God’s promise.

So what’s happened? Why has Church, for so many congregations, become an us-four-and-no-more proposition? In fact, why have, in many, many cases those who have reached greater maturity (translation: gotten older) been shut out of their ministries in favor of younger (less experienced) people? Where has the joy and flavor of being multi-generational, multi-ethnic, multi-anything gone?

In other words, where do old Christian rockers go? (And no, I’m not talking about the kind of rockers that you sit in on the front porch of the Cracker Barrel. I’m talking about Baby Boomer musicians.)

My disclaimer in all this is that I’m a Baby Boomer musician, so, in a sense, I’m talking about myself and my friends. Years ago, when we were younger, we submitted ourselves to the leadership and training of older musicians and were grateful to do so! The songs we sang weren’t always of our choosing, but the experience we gained as musicians and Christians was invaluable. We were also encouraged to develop our own music ministries which we did quite successfully. As we all matured, we were looking forward to the day when we could step full time in music ministry . . . only to find that there came a point (and we weren’t that old) when the church leadership decided that only "young folks" should be on stage. Somewhere in the process of church culture changing, we got lost.

And now we are in our prime as musicians. We have great voices, skilled fingers, and a wealth of knowledge about what works and what doesn’t for music . . . and we’ve been left out. Completely left out. For some of us, there are part-time opportunities. We may be allowed to lead worship occasionally or to back-up a much skinnier, younger worship team. But our wrinkles and grey hair simply aren’t "cool" enough to be allowed on the stage anymore.

Dick Van Dyke at 90 -- There Is No Such Thing as "Old"


The Church has no idea what it’s missing! For example, in my secular job, I am the director of seven performance groups, ranging in age from kindergarten through eighth grade. More than half of our student body participates. Last year, my girls’ show choir was ranked #1 in the state of California in their competition division. For the past three years, I’ve written musical plays which have been performed at my school and highly acclaimed by the adults who attended the performances. I have trained and practiced and I know what I’m doing as a musician. I know how to make good music.

More than that, as a Christian, I have grown tremendously. I know how to listen to that still small voice of the Spirit, even while I’m leading worship. I know how to combine songs so that a beautiful theme is created. And I know how to make meaningful worship without click tracks and pre-recorded background. It took a lot of years of practice and prayer to get where I am. But most churches are uninterested in even talking to me because I’m closer to retirement than diapers.

Where do aging musicians go?

And it’s not just about musicians. Our denomination (and perhaps others) frown on placing pastors into churches if that pastor is over 40. That means, a church often gets a senior pastor with 10 or fewer years of experience. Wouldn’t someone prefer a pastor with more than 20 years? Not so. Why? Because of the mistaken idea that an older person can’t relate to younger people. (However, that’s not necessarily true. Just ask my students. They’ll tell you I’m the coolest person they know. Go figure.) Relating to culture and people isn’t about age; it’s about mindset and perspective. I spend a lot of time with younger folks and in order tolearn what’s important to them. That’s what all Christians should be doing, listening to each other regardless of age, culture, or race.

The Church is losing so much by segregating the young from the old. It’s time we took back our churches and began to integrate our congregations and our ministries so that each one can participate. There’s more than enough time and opportunity for everyone to participate. And we would be stronger for it.

© 2016 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Body Shaming

Proverbs 16:31



"Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained in the way of righteousness." (NIV)

There’s been some discussion of late about the state of Carrie Fisher’s body and the effect of aging that can be seen. (For those of you who don’t know, she’s staring as Princess Leia in the latest movie of the Star Wars franchise.) Ms. Fisher has been through a lot, including overcoming a drug addiction, having a child, and restarting her career in a field other than acting. Personally, I think she was very gracious to return and reprise her role. Regardless, as Ms. Fisher and I are similar in age, I have thought a lot about the body shaming and her response. We put too much emphasis on looks in this country.

My paternal grandmother married young. My grandfather, from the beginning, could be mean when he was thwarted. Like most narcissists, he believed that life’s purpose was in getting all he could for himself. Even near the end, he would have preferred to have another smoke rather than spend time with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

My grandmother lived with this man from her marriage until her death. Near the end, she spoke with me and regretted the years she had given him. But she had stayed true to her marriage because honor and commitment were more important to her than happiness.

My grandmother was, even as a teen, only marginally beautiful. In the ensuing years, she worked initially as a restaurant server (in those days, called a waitress). She would work twelve hours or more six and seven days a week, beginning her shift in the hotel coffee shop and ending in the great dining room. She could carry ten hot dinner plates on her arms (a feat that always marveled me). She brought her meager earnings home every time, not spending a cent on herself, because my grandfather would take his weekly pay in Friday night and come home Saturday morning broke. She saved enough money to pay cash for a small house and continued to save throughout her life.

When my grandparents followed my parents to California, my grandmother took a job as an upholstery seamstress. I don’t know how many times the large needles pierced her hands and fingers, but she worked fearlessly and long hours. She had to; there was no other income coming into the family. My grandfather continued his habit of drinking up his pay on the weekends until he retired.
 My grandmother was finally able to retire, but when, in the 1970's, the bottom dropped out of the economy, she had to take another job, this time as a manager of a trailer park in the desert. The job gave them a roof over their heads. Even though it was a small single wide with only a swamp cooler (and summer temperatures averaging about 110 ), she continued to work hard. She was in her early 70s.



Finally, she was able to retire. The few pieces of property she had been able to salvage from the economy drop were sold and she bought a small mobile home in Bakersfield for herself and my grandfather. While there, she began attending the church where my family attended and it was at one of those services that she accepted the Lord as her Savior. She spent all of her free time reading the Bible and praying. She finally realized that the love she had been seeking all these years was guaranteed in a relationship with the Lord Jesus.

My grandmother wasn’t, by the world’s standards, beautiful. But by God’s standards, she was magnificent! She had wrinkles, gray hair, and gnarled hands, the result of hard work for many years. Up until the end, her body was strong from all of the manual labor. Her mind was sharp from much use. (Even in those last years, she could add in her head a column of numbers faster than I could input them in a calculator).

My grandmother never worried about make-up or hair styles. She had neither the time nor the money to spare. She dressed clean, neat, and modest. When she went Home, she had only a few pieces of jewelry. Her clothing was barely fit to donate to the homeless. She had spent her life being honest and hard-working, rather than beautiful, and I so honor her for that.

The American culture—the American Church included—puts the wrong emphasis on outward appearance and focuses too much on trying to look and stay "young." As Christians, we are trying to look like the world in order to attract the world and we are suffering for it! God tells us that gray hair is a crown of splendor. Why? Not because one simply becomes old, but because "it is attained in the way of righteousness." People who are older than us have lived longer and may know how to better live righteously than we do. The apostle Peter wrote: "In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders" (1 Peter 5:5a NIV). Those who have neglected to listen to elders have lost so much. Older doesn’t mean non-relevant. Older means wiser, if only for having had more experience.

Body shaming in America needs to stop. Fat doesn’t mean stupid. Old doesn’t mean outdated. Ugly doesn’t mean irrelevant. "Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel—rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the 1incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God" (1 Peter 3:3-4 NIV). As Christians, we need to put aside outward appearances and seek out the treasures that lies within a person’s heart and soul. We may fail to find a hidden treasure if all we look at is how a person appears.

© 2016 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.