The ministry we forgot? Why caring for the elderly matters more than ever

Anne-Louise Critchlow’s Slowing Down is a gentle call to rediscover the quiet power of pastoral care. With warmth and wisdom, she honours the often-overlooked ministry of supporting the elderly says Eliza Bailey.

Reading Anne-Louise Critchlow’s Slowing Down (Instant Apostle) is a genre-defying experience, containing elements of devotional bible study, personal memoir, and instructive exhortation. Critchlow’s purpose is to support and encourage those in pastoral ministry, and, in particular recipients of the ‘gift of ‘helps’’. By ‘slowing down’, she argues, believers visiting those who are ill or ageing will be less tempted to offer ‘quick fixes’ and more likely to listen, resist ambition, and embrace the quiet kindness of doing small things for God in support of others. In short, for Critchlow, the act of ‘slowing down’ is akin to learning humility, understanding that we are limited in this life, but ultimately that ‘we can rejoice in what God gives us to do’, even the inconspicuous, unglamorous things.

The shelves of Christian bookshops are hardly bursting with content on pastoral ministry, perhaps least of all ministry to the elderly, which makes this book feel all the more timely and necessary. At a time when headlines are filled with the struggles of unpaid carers in an often uncaring system, Slowing Down will feel like an oasis for those who have long served elderly loved ones and community members in quiet faithfulness. Better still, Critchlow’s style is simple and unpretentious, often conversational in tone, making her work easily digestible – something that will be appreciated by her target audience, who are notoriously ‘time poor’.

In spite of its brevity and straightforwardness, however, Slowing Down is not light on content or lacking in depth. The topics tackled range from disappointment and discontent, to serious illness, to death - a range Critchlow is able to engage with due to her own rich and moving life experience. In a recent article for Premier, Critchlow writes about her initial reluctance to move from ministering to younger people to a focus on care of the elderly, and explains how she has learned through this work how