Boomers for the Big Guy

Like Kathy Lette and Damir Dokic, Bernard Salt—Australia’s Favourite Demographer and Numerate Woman’s Crumpet—is generally good for a quote. He happens to be the only reason I go near The Australian’s weekend business section. Last week, he made a connection between two pieces of information that most of us already know, and gave us the heads-up on where revival in Australia might just be coming from. I think he’d be as surprised as the rest of us at his new title: Bernard Salt, Instrument of God…

First piece of information: the church skews old. Bernard says this is because people are more likely to worry about what God thinks of them as it gets more likely that they’re going to have to answer to Him.

Second piece of information: Australia’s population is ageing, or more precisely, old people make up an increasingly large proportion of the Australian population.

In this case, one plus two makes a really good marketing opportunity for the church. All those Baby Boomers have finally been convinced they need to think about superannuation; it can only be a matter of time before some of them concede that they may eventually die. And at that point, we’ve got ‘em!

So, all you evangelists out there, here’s what I suggest:
1) Enough with the hipster relevant-ism. You’re not going to win 55 year olds with in-depth knowledge of skater culture. Try brushing up on cholesterol medications and time-share investments in Queensland.

2) You might want to see if someone can re-write the lyrics to ‘Emotional Rescue’ to something a little more worship-friendly. Lots of your target market didn’t actually grow up in the church, and the last time they engaged in crowd karaoke was the last time the Stones toured, so it should make them feel right at home.

3) Can somebody go check that we’ve got hearing aid loops in the auditorium and hand rails in all the loos? And stop putting the bible reading up as orange text on a white background – I can’t read that, and my vision’s 20-20.

Bernard even had a suggestion as to how we could smooth out the age-spread in the church. He thinks God should apply some sort of discount rate on the basis of age – so the prayer of a 25 year old is worth two or three from a 75 year old. Now wouldn’t that make for some great stories? ‘I remember, when I was a lad, you could get a Porsche with two sentences tossed off during an ad break - and I didn’t get stopped by a red light until I was 32! But these days, honestly, I had to pray for a month just to get my tinea cleared up – and don’t even get me started on the parking spots…’