Christian Education for the Elderly and Their Life and Faith Story

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to find out how Christian education approach or model for the elderly can be emphasized by understanding the elderly's life story and faith story. This research can be differentiated from others in terms that it is an empirical one. Research findings on Christian education for the elderly in Korea have been deductive in that general principles from other disciplinary such as education, psychology, theology, sociology, and gerontology can be applied to Christian education setting without substantial verification and evaluation. Premises and applications have been suggested in many ways. However, this kind of research approach has not paid substantial attention to the elderly's real life situations (specific observations) which should be the basis of applications and premises. This research is an attempt to show how applications and premises can be drawn from and enacted through old people's life story and faith story. Only a small amount of quantitative or qualitative research methodology have been used in the field of Christian education in Korea. This research methodology can be listed as one of a few research in Christian education for the elderly in Korea using qualitative methodology. For this study, 6 people decided to participate. Interviews were done individually and in group. Each person was interviewed two times individually for one and half to two hours for each session. Group interviews were made two times; that is, one for preliminary meeting and one for report back. Also the findings were reported back to each interviewee. In-depth interviews were made with each participant two times. First interview was intended to know about their life story. For this interview, ten questions that were developed by McAdams (1988) were asked. Their stories about high ('peak') point and low ('nadir') point in each of childhood, youth, middle age, and old age were encouraged to tell. In addition to these 8 questions, two more questions such as 'turning point' experience and earliest memory in their life were asked. Aside from the 10 questions that were asked, any other stories they want to tell were well encouraged. Second interview was about their faith stories. For this interview, the 7 questions were prepared by myself. Out of these questions, 3 questions from Bible story and church life asked; "most memorable Bible story or verses", "Bible figure representing me", "what is faith for you?", "most happy church life", "most unhappy church life", "what is church for you?" And one more question: "what do you want for the future?" was asked. Interview data and participant observation memos were analyzed in three stages. The first step was to find appropriate words or phrases representing their life and faith stories. By reading each interviewee’s entire transcripts, words or phrases that were repeatedly used were selected to represent the meanings of their life and faith stories. Second stage was to find appropriate themes for those words or phrases. And, the third stage was to categorize or tie themes into grand themes. Three themes can be drawn from the elderly's life story such as family as a backbone for life, breakthrough, and happy childhood. Four themes were drawn from the participants' faith story such as God's grace, prayer partner, hope, and servanthood. After some discussions on the research findings, the faith community approach and interpretation approach for Christian education for the elderly in Korea are suggested. This study's limitations are also listed.