He speaks with the authority of one representing Verizon and Best Buy for years. Recounting the stages of electronic evolution over the last four decades, he helps us to better understand why customer service, like many other parts of modern life, “isn’t what it used to be.”

                Finally, he ends by predicting, “When the Baby Boomers go, four things will go with them. You’ll never see them again: cable lines, land lines, flip phones, and . . . check books!”

                His small, target audience laugh with the glee of identification, nodding heads with understanding. How true! His prediction is well on its way to fact.

                But no one is laughing at the church business meeting attended by a mere two dozen. Roughly 80% of them are Baby Boomers. Five of the group were born before or during the Second World War; two of them after 1964.

                This Baptist church, like the Lutheran church that I attend in Portland, is comprised primarily by those born between 1946 to 1964. Their heads are gray; their gait is seldom spry; and their short-term memories fail too frequently and too fast.

                For the last 50 years, they have been the mainstay of many small churches, empowering them physically and financially. Now, they begin to acknowledge the ending of their generation, and they wrestle with how to cope and how to support their dwindling congregations. What will become of these families of faith that mean so much to them?

                Of those who receive the weekly notice of my next post, all but three qualify as Baby Boomers. In other words, my reading audience, you know exactly what I am saying from your own experience.

                How are you handling this inevitability which no longer merely knocks at your life’s door but has already entered? Are you laughing or crying, fighting or adapting, complaining or embracing?

                Perhaps you are avoiding the issue or denying it. How are you and your churches coping?

                I ask these questions, hoping that you will respond either on this platform or by email. Let’s support each other during this challenging time of swift and often confusing change. Honestly sharing our perspectives, feelings, and coping methods may bolster us through this stage of life.

                For instance, I am sure that there is a really appropriate Bible verse to use as an ending for this post, but I can’t think of it. If you can, please send it. I will be glad to hear from you.