Wisdom Conversations: opportunities for learning and sharing experiences of ministry with older adults to age abundantly.
Our Wisdom Conversations program has three components:
- Annual Virtual Wisdom Conversation
- AAMN Quarterly Virtual Wisdom Conversations
- AAMN-Parker Center Monthly Office Hours
- Annual Wisdom Conversation: Held the first quarter of every year
When faith communities focus on reaching young families, older adults can believe they don’t matter. Their service is now relegated to simply watching and waiting for the inevitable. Their opinions may be rarely sought; their stories and wisdom seldom heard.
Vital churches understand the importance of offering options to elders to deepen faith, spirituality and wholeness as well as opportunities to serve and lead.
The Parker Center’s Wisdom initiatives seek to provide a network of inter-denominational faith leaders (clergy and lay) from across the country who share their knowledge, wisdom, and experience for best practices, creative ideas, resources, and advice (when asked). We take the work we do seriously but not ourselves. We approach our work with joy, hope, and respect for one another.
Previous topics of our Annual Wisdom Conversation have included:
• 2024 – Mental Wellness and Older Adults: Challenges and Opportunities
• 2023 – The Power in Ministries with Older Adults
• 2022 – Wisdom is a Verb
Join the Abundant Aging Ministry Network (AAMN) by becoming a member of the Facebook group or emailing KMoeller@uchinc.org to receive information about the 2025 Annual Wisdom Conversation as well as the AAMN Quarterly Virtual Wisdom Conversations.
- AAMN Quarterly Virtual Wisdom Conversations
These one-hour zoom gatherings usually have one guest speaker on a specific topic with time for networking, sharing ideas, and Q&A.
Previous topics have included:
• Avoiding Scams, Cons, and Rip-Offs, Rev. Beth Long-Higgins, Parker Center staff
• Celebrating the Graying Church, author Dr. Richard Olson
• How Best to Support Caregivers, Rev. Darla Metz, Parker Center staff
• Ministries for People Experiencing Dementia and Their Caregivers with Daphne Johnston, Respite4All
• Ageism in Faith Communities, Rev. Beth Long-Higgins, Parker Center staff
- AAMN-Parker Center Office Hours
Office Hours—a one-hour open zoom forum for Abundant Aging Ministries Network (AAMN) members to talk with one another and with Parker Center staff about how they can best support the older members of their faith communities to age more abundantly–ask questions, discuss goals and strategies, share successes, and lament those initiatives that fell short. There is no planned topic. It is an open discussion with anyone who is present with discussion on any topic.
- September 19, October 17, and Dec 19, 2024
Wisdom Conversations Objectives
- Build connections with others who are engaged and interested in older adult ministries.
- Share from a variety of contexts for older adult ministries to stimulate creative thinking and connections.
- Offer resources and key concepts for participants’ ministry contexts.
Wisdom Conversations draw on the work of Mary Catherine Bateson (Composing a Further Life, 2011) who suggests wisdom is the accumulation of information and/or experiences that are ripened through continuing reflection over time during which we draw connections, find similarities and underlying patterns.
Wisdom is a process—a verb not a noun.
So how do we encourage individuals to engage in this process of ripening and deepening our relationships with the divine? What are the experiences of others who are called to work with older adults in ministry? And what is the role of community in this sacred wisdom growing work?