“I know there are older people who might like me, and me them, but generally speaking, it appears older people naturally go up in age and inward in focus. I do not think there is an intent in them to go downward in age and outward in focus.”

This insightful statement by one of our Millennials has given us older members of the Catch something to think about. This is a transformative challenge. And for those of us of the age to qualify, there is, most definitely, a tendency, as we get older to pull inside and become more private — more isolated, more protective of ourselves. It’s dangerous out there and we are slowing down, not so quick on our feet, and we tire more easily.

Besides, it’s harder to make sense of the world around us. It takes a good deal of effort to understand another generation that is of a different time and age. They have their own language, their own humor, and they play by a different set of cultural rules. Those of us who are older could work at this, but the prevailing assumption is “Why? Why bother? We’re not going to be around much longer anyway — it’s their world, they’re going to have to fend for themselves. We’ve already put in our dues. Our world was hard enough to navigate, but we’ve earned the right to kick back and take it easy now, so don’t bother us. We’re done. We shouldn’t have to work that hard anyway.”

This is a seriously ineffective and I dare say unChristlike way to think. To checkout now is to surrender to the enemy. We have life to live and battles to fight to our dying day, and even evidence that there will be more battles to fight in heaven (Revelation 22:14-15). And we have something to learn from and give to younger generations. They are headed for danger, unequipped. We have what it takes to equip them.

If you think you’re done, may I kindly and gently see you to the door?

Believe me, you won’t be comfortable here, because we’re not giving up or giving in. We are giving out, and we are seeking ways to connect with younger generations that we might be used of God to find out what turning grace outward means in this day and age. Not what it might mean, or what it used to mean, but what it means now, to everyone, everywhere.

This is transformational — transforming what it means to go upward in age and inward in isolation into going downward in age and outward in connection. That is a true transformation out of “boomeritusness.” Not up and in, but down and out.

The cure for “boomeritusness” is transformation.

See, I am doing a new thing!

    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness

    and streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:19).