Rydal Park, a retirement community in Jenkintown, was recently featured by The New York Times in an article titled “No Religion? At These Faith-Based Retirement Communities, No Problem.”

The article centers around faith-based continuing-care communities in the U.S., the residents of which mirror America’s growing spirituality and waning religiosity.

“They don’t want to limit the population that moves in, so they have to walk this line,” Ms. Tweeten, who has been advising older people for 17 years, said. “To sustain growth, they’re focusing not so much on religion as philosophy.”

HumanGood, the nonprofit that runs Rydal Park, was founded by Baptists and Presbyterians in the 1950s and still identifies as faith-based, the Times said. Sharell Shippen, director of spirituality, said HumanGood communities aren’t necessarily Christian.

“The way we see spiritual service has evolved,” she said.

An excerpt from the article:

At Rydal Park, the company’s campus in Jenkintown, Pa., a majority of residents are Jewish. A rabbi is on site on Friday evenings for Shabbat, but there is also a priest for Catholic Mass on Sundays. A HumanGood campus in California held a Wiccan service at a resident’s request. And the spiritual needs of agnostic and atheist residents — a presence in all HumanGood continuing-care communities — are not overlooked, either. “If spirituality for you is a nature walk, we’ll walk alongside you,” Ms. Shippen said.

Choosing not to participate in HumanGood’s spirituality programs is also an option. “You can engage or disengage,” Ms. Shippen said. As at Shell Point and Enso, there is still plenty to do.

For the full story, you can click here.

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Photo: Rydal Park