Picture a flower garden with every color, shape, and size in it, each plant adding something of its own. That’s a fair picture of Crescendo, a ministry focused on people sixty and older.
Crescendo equips pastors, ministry leaders, and others seeking to help older adults take part in the work of God’s kingdom. Its approach is holistic and rests on biblical models, historical evidence, and current studies of aging. Those studies show that living with purpose and giving yourself to others goes hand in hand with spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational, and emotional well-being. Some Crescendo resources are for anyone who wants to minister with this age group. Others are for people sixty and older themselves, inviting them to keep living full lives with God and each other.
The population Crescendo serves is large and growing. Since 2011, about 10,000 people a day in the United States have turned sixty-five, and that pace will continue through 2029 (Pew Research Center, 2010). Within that larger Age Wave, the country is now in what’s called Peak 65, when from 2024 through 2027, about 11,200 people a day are turning sixty-five (Alliance for Lifetime Income, 2024). By 2030, about one in five Americans will be over sixty-five (U.S. Census Bureau), and in Canada the share will be about twenty-two percent (Statistics Canada). Older adults also attend church more often. In Pew’s 2023–24 survey, about forty-three percent of adults seventy-one and older said they attend religious services at least monthly, compared with about one-third of all U.S. adults (Pew Research Center, 2025).
Crescendo has grown into a living ministry shaped by many people, conversations, prayers, and opportunities. It hasn’t always grown the way the team expected, but new life has kept showing up, season after season.
How It Started
Crescendo began when its founding team, Evelyn Johnson, Debbie Blue, and Alan Forsman started talking about lasting purpose and holistic, missional discipleship. A vision took shape: the later years of life could be a time of purpose, growth, contribution, and deepening faith, as well as a time of transition.
The team tested the idea in a breakout session at Midwinter. That led to a pilot project, which Michelle Sanchez, then executive minister of Make and Deepen Disciples, approved in the summer of 2016.
In August 2016, six coaches and three leaders met to start shaping what would become Crescendo. On November 19, 2016, Alan Forsman and Lynn Black led the first Crescendo-style seminar in McPherson, Kansas. It focused on ministering to, with, and for people sixty and older. Five pilot events in three conferences followed over the next seven months. Each one taught the team something and helped it decide what to do next.
In the summer of 2017, Sanchez approved Crescendo as an official part of Make and Deepen Disciples. The ministry officially launched at Midwinter 2018, where attendees received a copy of the book Crescendo: An Ascent to Vital Living, a gift from Covenant Living Communities. By then, the name and logo were new, purple had become the ministry’s color, and the team had affirmed SPICES as its framework for holistic discipleship. SPICES stands for spiritual, physical, intellectual, community, emotional, and service. Crescendo was becoming a community as well as a process.
Building the Ministry Together
Crescendo has been built on relationships from the start. New coaches and resource specialists joined the original team, and today the team of twenty-five serves all regions. These are unpaid ministry partners who give their time, experience, wisdom, and gifts.
Spanish-speaking coaches were part of the ministry from its earliest days. Over time, Crescendo services in Spanish were offered throughout the Covenant, in the U.S. and internationally.
At first, the focus was on gathering clusters of churches in one location for Crescendo seminars. A typical seminar lasts ninety minutes to two hours. In the first three years alone, Crescendo reached more than 180 churches.
A seminar was never the end of it. Follow-up workshops took up topics such as SPICES, mentoring, biblical justice, spiritual growth, and imagining the future. Downloadable studies stretched the reach further. A biblical exploration of SPICES became available in 2018, followed by studies on mentoring, grandparenting, and caring for aging parents.
Staying Connected
The team stays in touch through annual retreats, which have become important times for inspiration, equipping, visioning, team development, and mutual support. Regular conference calls, and eventually Zoom gatherings, keep that connection going between retreats.
Crescendo also found new ways to communicate. It launched on Facebook in 2018 and developed an app in 2020, which gave people another way to get resources. Today, more than 600 people follow Crescendo on Facebook, and more than 2,100 people have downloaded the app.
When COVID Changed the Plan
When COVID hit, the team was suddenly taken “off the road.” For almost two years, seminars, team meetings, and retreats all moved online.
Crescendo adapted. Retreats moved to Zoom, and seminars and workshops were offered virtually. The Connector Network came out of this time. Connectors in local churches became people a coach could resource virtually, and in Zoom cluster gatherings of Connectors led by the coach, churches began resourcing one another.
The experience was a reminder that ministry doesn’t always unfold the way anyone pictures it, and that a change in plans can open up possibilities no one had seen.
Leadership Changes and the Justice Journey
In 2021, Debbie stepped aside from leadership, and the team created a more formal leadership team in which members took on specific responsibilities. Alan and Evelyn served as co-leaders.
That same year, the Crescendo Team joined the Antiracist Discipleship Pathway, a cohort focused on racial righteousness led by Love Mercy Do Justice. Twelve team members completed the two-year experience, and a closing retreat became the foundation for the first Crescendo Justice Journey, held in Charleston, South Carolina, in March 2023. Participant input led to three more Justice Journeys through 2026, this time for people sixty and older across the Covenant instead of only team members. Participants travel to Charleston for each event. The ministry was growing in depth as well as size.
Participants have described what the journey meant to them. “The journey was both a sobering and wonderful discipleship experience for us,” said Steve and Darlene Thulson of Littleton, Colorado. “It expanded our understanding and moved our hearts.”
“This journey deepened my understanding of being a descendant of enslaved Africans,” said Eunice K. Johnson of Turlock, California. “I can see how directly linked my Black History narrative is to American History.”
Seminars, Workshops, and Conversations
In its second phase, Crescendo’s approach changed. Instead of mostly gathering clusters of churches, seminars increasingly took place in individual churches.
One example is Centennial Covenant Church in Littleton, Colorado. For the past five years, its Crescendo team has hosted a Sunday evening event every quarter, drawing forty to fifty people sixty and older. “After connecting over dessert, people have appreciated practical talks or panel discussions on topics such as intergenerational relationships, life’s ‘fourth quarter pivots,’ finding fresh calls to serve, and end-of-life issues,” Steve Thulson shared. “A few game nights, some with the church youth group, have been fun. We’ve also provided several short-term small groups focused on grandparenting, aging faithfully, and other areas of vital living in this season of life.”
Crescendo Conversations came next. These informal sessions run sixty to ninety minutes and give people an easy way to meet Crescendo before they attend a seminar or workshop. They’re a place to start exploring what purposeful, holistic living as a missional disciple might look like.
Crescendo also expanded its virtual presence. Virtual conferences and webinars began in 2022, and by September 2026 the team had held six. They covered growth in each area of SPICES and specific concerns such as aging in place, end-of-life issues, and storytelling.
Reaching Further
A vision has emerged for an intergenerational Justice Journey in the future. Workshops and a retreat for people sixty and older are also being designed to encourage intercultural growth.
Crescendo is also reaching beyond its usual circles. International trips were added in 2025 through Merge Ministries, and the first one, to Thailand, is planned for October and November 2026. These on-site trips invite people to listen, learn, and engage, and to see the world from new perspectives.
A New Season
Since July 2025, the team has been planning for Evelyn to transition out of leadership, which has meant some reorganizing and a search for new leadership.
Dr. Steve Wong stepped into the Crescendo leadership role on October 1, 2026, as part of a part-time position as Coordinator of Adult Discipleship with Serve Locally. Steve has been on the Crescendo Team for eight years, four of them on the leadership team.
This ministry has never depended on any one person. It is led by those who are willing to put in the work, build relationships, and make room for something new.
Looking Ahead
Looking back, the team can see many seasons in Crescendo’s story. Looking forward, it hopes the next generation will plant new seeds, tend what’s growing, and make room for new blooms. To God be the glory!
