My cousin spoke with me last night, and recounted the story of her grandmother and grandfather who no longer attend sermons at their Nazarene church. There are aunts and uncles too, who helped to build the church, who are no longer even attending there. One was an assistant preacher, and he was basically run off. All of this because some upstart from a college in Colorado came in as pastor.
This man has taken the core group of Christians who started this church and has broken their hearts. Some he has shooed away. My cousin’s grandmother now attends only Sunday school. The loud rock music they call worship sent her husband away because he physically cannot sit in the service. It hurts his ears.
When my cousin’s grandmother told the pastor about this issue, the response was to only get louder and louder. My cousin says the church is filled with people her grandmother doesn’t know, all the old faithful Christians are gone. She says when her grandmother talks about it, she lowers her head and nearly weeps every time. This should not be, a woman in her later years mourning over her church.
“Put up or shut up old lady, that is what you get” has not been said aloud but has been said in action. These elderly people could teach the young so much, but they have been shunned and forgotten. What a disgrace, what discrimination. When a generation forgets it’s elders, it is nothing but sinful and shameful and wrong.
A poem I wrote a while back gives my feelings on the issue:
Shame on you
for proclaiming to the woman
seasoned with white silver hair
“we’re all about young families now”
and letting her miss church
the place where
she first believed
where she prayed at the altar
and repented once for all
where she learned
how to read her Bible
and sing sweet amazing grace
where her father took her arm
as she walked on rose petals
and red carpet
Shame on you
for pushing her out the doors
to the church
where her children
learned about Jesus
drawing on bulletins
dogs and flowers in crayon
during long sermons
while she whispered amen
nodding her head
where she watched
her children sing in vests
and pretty velvet dresses
with shiny black shoes
where she saw her boys and girls
dunk down in the tank
and carefully rise with water
streaming down their rounded
faces
the place
she gave faithfully
in Sunday school
and choir
dusting pews on Saturday
with oil and a cloth
playing the piano
and leaving bills
in the offering plate
Shame on you
for forgetting
the widow
who found comfort
in the place
where her fathter was
eulogized
and her son
prayed for in war
and her daughters
blushing in white
her husband
aging with her
week by week
finally coming after
years of prayer
before going home
to be with his Lord
she spoke up
you put her out
Shame on you.
I am a C...I am a CH...I am a CHRISTIAN 
Excellent poem.
I weep for yet some more faithful Nazarenes who have gotten thrown under the bus, figuratively of course. All for the sake of progress into the “new” Christianity.
The poem does stretch likely because I do not know when she joined the church, but this woman’s relatives helped build that church. One was the assistant pastor, and her children and grandchildren were married in that church. I lived with an aunt and uncle for 4 years, and that church is where I understood I was a Christian, I attended at a 5 year old. It’s where I learned many little songs in Sunday school. It’s where I heard the stories of Jesus and many old testament men and women. It was not a perfect church, it was one where people came for altar call again and again…though there might not have been change. However, I do believe many were sincere in their faith and still are Christians. I just cannot understand how someone can forget their elders! This is definitely a disconnect in churches these days, all about service (we’ll clean up a park…build a house…yet forget our own elders who are in need).
I would like permission to use your poem in a presentation to promote a ministry of congregational care for the elderly in our churches. The only word I’m not sure about is ‘you’ in “Shame on you” I would like to be able to change it to ‘us’ as I feel we all in many ways have been guilty of this attitude to the elderly in our churches.
I approve, you can use it. Please credit me by using the initials DML when sharing. You may edit to change the one word to “us.”