I shall be addressing a religious service at Marling Court, Hampton, on the 30th of this month. This is my thinking as I prepare for that.
An elderly congregation will include able-bodied people of sound mind, but it is also likely to include a significant proportion of dementia-sufferers. More than 30% of people over 90 in the UK have dementia, and the proportion of those in institutions is likely to be higher. Preaching to people in old folks' homes must therefore allow for the fact that many of one's hearers will have problems with understanding. Speaking of hearers, the UK also has some 10 million people who suffer from hearing-loss, another cognitive problem. As with any mixed congregation, excessive accommodation of one group could make other people feel bored, patronised, puzzled or frustrated.
People with cognitive problems are likely also to have diminished ethical faculties. Their consciences will be weak or non-existent and, thus, their culpability low. They will resemble children below the age of reason, perhaps capable of mild mischief but not fully aware of right or of grave wrong. While the elderly need an experience of God as much as younger adults, many of them will be closer in spirit to babes or angels than the rest of us. They will probably not need haranguing about excessive guilt.
Participants in a care-home service may not have been selected from only among the baptised, let alone the devout. Care-assistants may bring anyone to the service who expresses a wish to attend, as well as those incapable of expressing any wishes. I do not believe, however, that a preacher at such a gathering could reasonably raise the matter of the necessity of baptism for salvation; he or she must rely on the Spirit's blowing where he will.
In my other studies, I am keen to suggest that planning for sermons and homilies should (after suitable prayer) not begin with a definition of what the preacher wants to say, but should consist of an identification of the preacher's desired outcome from the preaching-event. Preaching in a religious service is not just supposed to be about imparting a message to the congregation. It must also function as part of an act of worship, giving glory to God in its own right and enabling all participants to render him praise. Thus, every sermon or homily must glorify God. However, it must usually do more than that.
Perhaps the most welcome message of Christian revelation is the extent of God's love for each of us, not least as manifested in our Lord's death and resurrection. A reasonable objective for a preaching-event in a care-home might be for the listeners to feel something of this divine love. However, those with impaired faculties will have enough trouble realising who and where they are, without also having to cope with the transcendent and the metaphysical. A person who cannot recognise their own relatives by sight is unlikely to be able to perceive a God who is usually hidden. Maybe talking is not enough. One could suggest that practical action and a benign attitude could wordlessly convey divine love to those with dementia. If kindness is shown to someone by other people, then the recipient of such charity may actually attribute their resultant happiness to those who are being so nice to them. God may well not come into it.
Some members of a geriatric congregation, if not actually asleep, may have their senses so impaired by the afflictions of old age as to be barely conscious. Does the preacher simply give up on conveying God's love to such people? Does the homilist behave as though some of the people they are addressing are effectively behind a transparent but soundproof screen? Is all that he or she can do is smile benignly, hoping that at least a visual message could get through (at least to those who are not among the UK's two million sufferers from sight-loss)? Well, the preacher's message differs from other communicators', in that it is God's word which, we are told, has a life of its own (cf. Hebrews 4: 12). We can perhaps be confident that the proclamation of holy writ has a sacramental quality which could even transcend cognitive limitations. Such a supernatural (almost irrational) objective - that the word of God should be proclaimed in the presence of those who may not grasp it - could be among the preacher's goals, though we have still not tackled the need to convey God's love through more conventional methods.
In most religious services, the preacher does more than just speak some words that they (may) have prepared. They could greet and/or bid farewell to the congregation, and they will convey their attitude to the sacred through the way that they perform rites and use prescribed formulae. The whole liturgy is thus homiletical, even down to the way that routine prayers are prayed, thanks expressed and practical announcements given. People leading services in care-homes are thus proclaiming the Gospel (or failing to) from the moment they walk through the institution's doors. However, there is still the actual sermon to write, the hymns to choose.
So far, I have acknowledged that I shall be preaching through a thicker-than-usual wall of incomprehension, but that my message is potentially one of exquisite beauty and power, my objective the most altruistic - that my audience experience divine love and, through its workings, salvation. I would like to assume that the very proclamation of a scripture-passage might bring graces that cannot be measured. Bible-reading may not suffice, though. There is more that can be said and done to this audience which is arguably more captive than any other. What do we know about old people that might help us get through to them?
I spoke to Ms Laura Shalev-Greene, head of volunteering at Kingston Hospital, London, and a so-called dementia-champion, who said that people with dementia may forget who we are or what we say but they may remember how we make them feel. Rev John Eze MSP, Catholic chaplain to the hospital, said that one's task was simply to convey the peace of Christ (a variant, I'd suggest, of the love of God). On the Alzheimer's Ministry website, Dr Diana L Walters advocates the use of multi-sensory methods. She claims that "research has shown that ministry to people with dementia increases their sense of well-being" even if they can't remember such ministry. She understandably advocates a sympathetic approach to dementia-sufferers, with care taken to ensure that one's speaking is easy to hear and understand. Her 32-page Remembering The Life Of Jesus includes pictures and objects, among the latter a piece of lamb-skin. Pieces of straw are used to evoke the manger at the nativity, and a (presumably imitation) pearl is used to illustrate Matthew 13: 45 and 46.
Although there may be a commercial interest in selling the above-mentioned book (not a bad motive in itself), I think it reasonable to infer that people with cognitive impairments can be effectively reached through media other than the spoken word. These can include pictures, objects and sounds other than the human voice speaking - instrumental music and song, for example. There could also be a role for smell, appropriate tactile contact (such as holding hands), costume, role-play and/or dance.
Dr Walters' book has several coloured drawings of Christ which are reminiscent in style of the illustrations in Jehovah's Witnesses' publications and in children's bibles. Such images could be used to reach Christians of any denomination, though, to Catholics, a crucifix or effigy of the mother of Christ would be even more familiar and evocative; to Orthodox, an icon would appeal. It occurs to me that, as well as recognising pictures, old people may be able to relate to a large-print version of words such as "Jesus", "love" and "peace". A picture of a dove may also evoke peace or even the third person of the Trinity, though it could just look like a pigeon.
Let us say that, for my first presentation to the residents of Marling Court, I assemble a few visual and tactile aids, and that my objective is somehow to impart God's peace and love to my audience. How am I to prepare for the verbal (spoken) part of the service? Well, I am happily not bound by any rubric and propose to assemble some materials and practise with them. After that, I hope to update this webpage. Thank you for reading.