An elderly man in his 90s settled into the counter seat next to me at a vintage soda shop. Being Nashville, I assumed he was either moving here or visiting, like seemingly millions of others from across the country. So I asked.
“Neither,” he said with an understanding smile. “I’m a regular. I’ve lived here for over 70 years.”
We launched into a conversation that included a war story, a life spent as an engineer, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, a 70-year marriage to a wife he still very much loved but who was dealing with health challenges, Nashville’s evolution, and more.
I love talking to old people — I use that expression with deep respect. They tell the most interesting stories, saturated with hard-won wisdom.
My wife’s grandmother was born in 1914 and lived to 100. We talked about life during the Great Depression, America during World War II, her salvation, and her traveling the dusty backroads of Eastern Arkansas as a teenager with her pastor and his wife, hosting summer Bible schools in places like Stamps and Marked Tree.
Then there was the old man who owned a country store about 18 miles from where I live. I periodically rode my bicycle down there early on Saturdays to sit in rocking chairs and drink Sun Drop soda while peppering him with questions. His ancestor six generations back settled this land when it was Cherokee Territory. His great-great-grandfather fought at the Battle of Franklin.
He had lots of stories.
Unfortunately, there is a decreasing value placed on the elderly in Western culture. Research points to a growing hostility toward those beyond their 70s, who are increasingly seen as a drain on societal resources, a perspective that reduces people to commodities.
Mental health clinicians since the 1980s have surmised older patients are “beyond treatment.” A 2022 University of Oklahoma study found that older adults are systematically disempowered, devalued, and excluded from many aspects of contemporary society, with depression as a frequent result.
Sadly, in Canada, where assisted suicide became legal in 2016 under its Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program, half the deaths involve seniors who reported feeling like a burden to family, friends, or caregivers.
A 2025 Fraser Institute study estimated the government could save $922 billion (U.S.) in healthcare costs by 2047 if it expanded MAID to include “vulnerable groups,” among them the “retired elderly,” who cost the government more than they contribute in taxes.
As the study’s authors cautioned, “financially incentivizing MAID risks shifting healthcare priorities away from support, potentially devaluing vulnerable lives and fostering a troubling reliance on assisted death as an economic solution.”
Where Canada permits the elderly to choose death as a viable economic solution, the United States is drifting toward neglect.
The Budget Reconciliation Act of 2025 — the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — has several implications for elderly healthcare. Among them: the Act permanently blocks for the next 10 years a federal rule that would have required a registered nurse on-site around the clock in nursing facilities.
A 2024 review by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that approximately 75% of nursing homes already operate below recommended staffing levels.
Roughly 2.4 million Americans currently live in some form of institutional long-term care. By reasonable estimate, thousands of men and women who once sat in Tennessee Baptist pews now live in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. One of these may be your mother, a deacon’s wife, or your child’s favorite Sunday school teacher who led him to the Lord 20 years ago.
Who will help them prevent bed sores, render medical aid after a fall, quickly respond to infections, or protect them from wrongful death?
Here is where the church can — and must — disrupt the economic calculus with biblical direction, obedience, and compassion.
God’s expectation is that we honor the elderly. “Gray hair is a crown of splendor” (Proverbs 16:31). “Wisdom is found with the aged, and understanding comes with long life” (Job 12:12). “Stand up in the presence of the aged; show respect for the elderly” (Leviticus 19:32).
The Fifth Commandment directs us to honor our fathers and mothers — a directive both Jesus and Paul reaffirm in the New Testament.
Beyond recognizing the elderly, churches are positioned to serve them in tangible ways: cultivating intergenerational fellowship, taking members to medical appointments, adopting a local senior home, and supporting caregivers.
And pastors must be a cultural voice. Pro-life doesn’t only mean anti-abortion. The elderly need legislative protection, like the unborn, especially as societal pressure increasingly casts aging adults as fiscal liabilities.
The elderly in our pews and communities are not burdens to manage. They are the church’s most underutilized and overlooked resource. Who better to teach us how to persevere in faith than those who have persevered?
Not all education comes from books. Some of the best education comes from people who have lived history. Ask them; then settle in. You could be there a while.
And that’s perfectly fine. Old people tell the best stories. B&R