2023–2025 Mission Grant #17
Nurturing Faith for the Aging
Lutheran Ministries Media (Worship Anew) — $100,000
About This Mission Grant
Lutheran Ministries Media (DBA Worship Anew) is well-known and established in the Lutheran community. It already reaches thousands of people throughout the United States with its 30-minute worship broadcasts and Hope-Full Living daily devotionals. It takes God’s Word to a growing population of aging, unchurched, and those in desperate need of hearing the Gospel.
Worship Anew is rapidly growing each year and exceptionally positioned to reach a mass audience with the bold proclamation of our Lutheran doctrine through an expansion of printed and web-based resources. It seeks to nurture and strengthen the faith of aging adults by creating Biblical resources that address the concerns and difficulties of this critical stage of life.
This grant will help develop and continue to provide Gospel-centered resources to our aging population and many others.
Worship Anew says: "We are blessed to have our media center on the campus of Concordia Theological Seminary. As a Recognized Service Organization of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod and a member of Lutheran Services in America, Worship Anew shares the correct interpretation and presentation of biblical doctrine as presented in the Lutheran Confessions and articulated in the Book of Concord. Worship Anew comes alongside the mission of the LCMS to vigorously make known the love of Christ by word and deed."
More Mission Grant Photos
Looking through the pews of our Lutheran churches on a Sunday morning, it is tempting to believe the common assumption — that people do become more religious as they age. Unfortunately, that is not necessarily true. Church attendance among those born before 1946 declined 14 percentage points in the past twenty years, and attendance among Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) dropped 13 percent.
In 2019, 19% of adults age 65 and older reported they could not function at all or had a lot of difficulty with at least one of six functioning domains (seeing, hearing, mobility, communication, cognition, and self-care).
Many aging adults are deeply concerned about the welfare of their loved ones. Worship Anew frequently receives prayer requests for children and grandchildren who do not attend church.
Other aging adults are experiencing loneliness and isolation. In 2018, before the pandemic, 27% of adults over 65 reported feeling isolated. This isolation is caused by a number of things, such as the death of a spouse, the absence of or estrangement from children and grandchildren, or an illness that imposes limitations on mobility and/or the ability to communicate.
With the LWML Mission Grant, Worship Anew will expand the Broadcaster into a monthly magazine providing Biblical resources for the aging that: are easy to access and share, remove barriers to the Gospel by addressing their unique difficulties and concerns, and nurture and strengthen their faith. These resources will be available in print and online at no cost to thousands of individuals and organizations around the United States.
Worship Anew is well-known and established in the Lutheran community. Launched as Worship for Shut-Ins in 1965 with one pastor and one camera on one station in Toledo, Worship Anew has become a worldwide broadcast ministry. Having aired over 2,000 programs since 1980, Worship Anew has seen tremendous growth over the years. In addition to its 30 minutes broadcast, the ministry reaches thousands every day with Hope-Full Living, a much-loved daily devotional written for seniors, by seniors.
