A Guide Towards Pastoral and Lay Care of the Mental and Emotional Problems of the Elderly

Part of my ministry experience involved being a chaplain to over 250 senior citizens for seven-and-a-half years. During that time I realized the inadequacies of preparation I had in Bible college and seminary to deal with the issues of this age group. This led me to the Institute on Aging at the University of Washington where I took over 200 hours of courses in aging. Much of the material in this project comes from information gained in those sessions. This is still true today, six years after I concluded that ministry. One of the areas in ministry to the elderly that needs addressing is the pastoral care of the mental and emotional problems of the elderly.
This project intends to answer the question of how to minister to this particular age group when they suffer mental and emotional illnesses. In the process we will also answer the question of how to minister to the adult children of this age group when their parents experience these illnesses.

This project best fits the category of critical issue research. The critical issue is that the elderly is the fastest growing age group in the United States and that there is little Bible college or seminary preparation given to help pastors adequately meet the needs of this age group. The vast majority of clergy (70 to 80 percent) have received no seminary course work on gerontology-related topics. This is supported by my own conversations with clergy ministering to the elderly in institutions here in Washington state. In 1989 a survey of 113 accredited seminaries in the United States, 59 percent offered courses dealing with the concerns of older persons. One interesting study of 160 Midwestern pastors found that those who were self-educated in continuing education classes about seniors had more knowledge of the needs of older persons than the 30 percent exposed to seminary course work. This project will answer the question of how to provide an adequate resource for the pastor and the lay caregiver so that they may adequately minister to the elderly in the areas of their mental and emotional problems.