Church Resources, Inc. was founded in April 1997 as a California non-profit [501(c) (3)] corporation. The initial focus of Church Resources was to help congregations prepare for the effects of mass aging in our society by training eldercare ombudsmen to help members of their congregations who were facing senior needs. This 16-month education phase had both positive and negative outcomes. On the positive side, Church Resources was able to observe directly the growing arenas of senior need in congregations. Negatively, Church Resources was unable to identify the critical mass of interest which was necessary if we were going to continue in the direction we were heading.

In response to this overwhelming lack of interest and vision for ministry to, with and by older adults, a member of Church Resources’ Board of Reference, Dr. Merton Strommen, suggested that we should “turn ourselves to the task of researching senior needs and allow data from congregations to act as an alarm clock to wake-up all expressions of the church.” In response to this suggestion and with the collaboration of Dr. Strommen, Church Resources began to develop a suite of Life Inventories that form the foundation of our research.