…and the Importance of Keeping them Together

 

Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist Carl Jung, son of a poor rural pastor in the Swiss Reformed Church, is credited with popularizing the phrase “the two halves of life” when describing the transitional swing that happens for most people, usually between 45 and 55 years of age. Those of us in 50+ Ministry frequently use the descriptor, “the second half of life,” that has morphed over time from Jung’s phraseology.

It is a crucial concept for today’s generations.

Richard Rohr (Falling Upward) puts it this way: “The container (i.e., life’s first half) is not an end in itself, but exists for the sake of your deeper and fullest life, which you largely do not know about yourself! Far too many people just keep doing repair work on the container itself (life’s first half) and never “throw their nets into the deep” (John 21:6) to bring in the huge catch that awaits them (in life’s second half).”

Herein lies the problem. Much of today’s organized church focuses on the “first half” while failing to inspire and powerfully engage the deeper and fuller life we yearn to know and experience in the “second half.” With a culture inside the church and out that is primarily youth oriented, we too quickly take a pass on the older generations. The generation gap increases. Conversation and relationship, real “family” that both young and old long for is missed.

And herein is the challenge. If you are a pastor/leader among second half people, you must not permit those of us who are older to slide into apathy and indifference. There is richness among us, connectivity to the past and the future that has high value.

If you are a young (45-69) or master (70+) elder, you also are responsible to take your place, not from the young, but alongside them. In a day when resources are hard to come by, we possess a wealth of resource in time, talent, life experience, biblical knowledge, healthy tradition and more that God intends to be given away to those who are both young and wise enough to ask.

It was Jung who also said, “One cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie” (The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche).

It is time for the organized church to be intentionally intergenerational. Join us in 2013 in bringing “the two halves of life” together, sharing life in Christ in The CASA Network Influencing the Generations conferences (with Fuller Youth Institute), presently scheduled for Murrieta (CA), Atlanta (GA), and Seattle/Bellevue (WA). Contact us for information on hosting an ITG conference in your church or area.

 

 

 

 

 

Ward