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Five top tips for supporting the frail elderly in your congregation

So there’s an elderly person in your congregation (I’m guessing more than one). They don’t seem to get out much. Few other than the professionals pop in. What, as a brother or sister in Christ, can you do to help? Here are 5 ideas:

1. Ask them what they need

Elderly people are people first and elderly second. Most are lucid and quite able to make decisions about their own life ... it’s putting those decisions into action that is hard. So the key to good support is finding out what care would be the most useful.

2. Be practical

I recently asked an elderly neighbour how I could help. “Could you come in regularly to straighten the cushions and seat covers please?” came the reply. I could hardly believe my ears! Could that be for real? But all day every day that lady sits and stares at empty armchairs in her living room and the fact that they looked messy bothered her. One simple act that takes just a few seconds of my time makes her view one of a pleasant living room rather than an unkempt one. Not every elderly person will ask for that – some may find it hard to ask for anything - but it may be that something small, simple and practical makes all the difference. Dusting, ironing, shopping or gardening can be invaluable.

3. Be spiritual

Being elderly can mean getting to church is tough. A lift may help but for some just leaving the house once a week is way too hard. But lots can be done to deliver notice-sheets, provide sermon or service recordings (on CD) and ensure that large-print Bible-reading notes are available each quarter. Home communions (where 4 or 5 members of the congregation not just the minister come to visit) can be great times of fellowship. And there is no reason why a housebound person can’t host a Bible study group or prayer triplet as long as other members are willing to chip in making the coffee and tidying up afterwards.

4. Be family

Often what frail and elderly people want most is someone to talk to. The simple act of popping round for an hour – preferably with a couple of sticky buns - can lighten the most difficult day. Or a phonecall can do just as well ... what better way to use that half-hour commute?

5. Be fun

And finally, holiday clubs don’t just need to be for the kids at church. Themed activity-weeks can be great for the elderly too. Trips to local places of interest can be put on. The church hall can be flung open for music afternoons, flower-arranging workshops, dances, talks by engaging speakers, home cooked meals, watching the footie and fun board-games all surrounding a great gospel message. Many housebound people will be able to manage to come for a ‘special morning’ – maybe bringing their elderly non-Christian neighbours with them (you’re never too old for a spot of evangelism) - but even if they can’t, the fun can be taken to them by team members popping in with a meal to be reheated, a CD, a board game and a bunch of roses.

A duty of care

One of my favourite people in the world is a little old lady down my road. She’s 87, housebound, in constant pain and utterly reliant on carers (paid and unpaid). Her days largely revolve around her somewhat overweight cat and the television (In The Night Garden and Heart Beat being particular favourites). Yet a more vibrant human being you are unlikely to find. Her sharp wit, political opinions, biblical reflections and engaging stories of years gone by never fail to bring a smile to my face. And if I am having a hard day, I like nothing better than to curl up on one of her old armchairs and soak in her advice. She’s been alive more than double the number of years I have so it’s not a great surprise that she has mastered the sort of wisdom that still eludes me!

The trouble is, she is just the kind of person who news reports say we are failing here in the UK. While some elderly people receive excellent support, others it seems have to endure standards of “care” that indicate that the old and infirm are barely seen as human by some. A saddening and sickening fact.

The Bible encourages us to aspire to much higher standards of care when it comes to the elderly. It acknowledges that old age is a time of vulnerability (Psalm 71:9). And encourages all people to honour their parents (Exodus 20:12) – including setting a precedent for caring for them in their frailer years (Genesis 45:9-11). It was the custom of the early church to tend to the needs of widows who had no family of their own (1 Tim 5:3-8). And we are all exhorted to support any fellow-believer in need as part of the natural outworking of our faith (Matthew 25:31-46), not forgetting to look to the needs of unbelievers too (Luke 10:25-37). Which all in all means that Christians are called to be passionate about supporting, honouring and encouraging the many in our churches and communities who have age-related struggles.

When the duty of care falls on a small minority, the burden can be immense. We shouldn’t be naive about the pressures that can bring. But when shared out among a community of believers, the duty can become a joy. In our next post, we’ll be looking at some practical hints on how to do just that ...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American friends from everyone on the team of The Good Book Company.

"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever." (Psalm 107:1)

Wow.

This is a double-rainbow, where the rainbow in the sky reflects off the water to create another rainbow arc in the sky.

"O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens." Psalm 8 v 1

The Moral Abyss: because there's no such thing as neutral

A prominent headteacher has described teenage culture as a “moral abyss”.

What’s interesting, and important, is that Dr Helen Wright didn’t describe the culture her girls are growing up in as a “moral vacuum” (a phrase we hear, inside and outside churches, fairly often). And so Dr Wright is, probably without realizing, touching on a crucial and often-forgotten aspect of the biblical doctrine of sin:

When we turn away from God as our moral authority, we always turn towards something else.

There’s no such thing as neutral—nature abhors a moral vacuum. Our morality is always directed and defined by something. That something should be God. If it isn’t, it must be something else—and the something else won’t work.

So Jeremiah talks about turning away from the “spring of living water” (God) and turning to try to drink from “cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2 v 13). In Romans 1 we find that the “turning to” is part of God’s judgment for “turning away” from Him (Romans 1 v 28).

We see this most starkly of all at Jesus’ trial. The crowd demand for Christ to be crucified, and ask for Barabbas, a murderer, to be released to them (Luke 23 v 18-25).

They don’t only not choose the Lord of life—in doing so, they do choose a bringer of death.

In the UK, we seem to be further from Christian morality than we have been for centuries.

And we haven’t replaced Christ’s authority with a vacuum, where we’re free to choose how to live, what morality to breathe. We find ourselves in an abyss, where we’re trapped by the consequences of what we longed for, damaged by the very culture that we chose.

So far, Dr Wright, I’m right with you. But how sad that your conclusion is that “only education could break the cycle”. Education can do many things. But it can’t save us from ourselves, our choices, our sinful society.

For that, Dr Wright, you need forgiveness for the “turning away”. You need to be “turned to” a God-directed morality and culture.

You need the Son to die and rise for you, you need the Spirit to dwell and work in you. You need the gospel.

Education is not the saviour from the moral abyss. God is.

Six steps to moving offices

So how exactly do you move 25 awesome team members and 50 tonnes of books from New Malden to Epsom? Roughly like this …

Repeat 350 times … with intermittent breaks for Chinese takeaways, cans of Coke and the occasional nap.

Next week… a glimpse of the new offices!

An Englishman in New York (and other US states)

I’m on my first trip to the US, and I’ve been spending lots of time with Christians here—pastors, elders and more “ordinary” believers. And it’s so interesting to observe how as brothers and sisters we are in many ways alike—in faith, in language, in (some) history. And yet we are in some ways so very different, too.

So, from my massively scientific research of eight days on this side of the Atlantic, taking in one small group, one pastors’ conference, two church services and a heap of meetings, I am not-so-confidently making these generalizations:

• US pastors are confident. They expect the gospel to work, so they plan for church growth.
• US Christians are positive. They say what they appreciate about something first, and are quick to see the good in a talk or a resource.
• US evangelism focuses on reaching church-goers. There is a huge job of "inreach" to do, because there are a lot of people in church on Sundays who think they’re Christians, but are probably not.
• Bible-teaching evangelicals are much more cautious with their forms of gathered worship.
• Evangelical reformed preaching is not always as clearly expositional as in the UK, working through a passage and getting hearers’ heads stuck into Scripture. But it is usually pretty passionate.
• US Christians seem very open about their Christian lives—quick to share their struggles and failures, and ask for prayer and help in their Christian lives.

With each of these observations, I want instinctively to follow with a value judgement: to say “US Christians are better than UK Christians for this reason”, or “British believers do this or that better than them”.

But I’ve been struck that actually it’s far more helpful to ask: How are the characteristics of this Christian culture likely to help their growth in godliness and bring glory to Christ, and how are they likely to hinder it?

We all have characteristics, national traits and different ways of doing things. But because we are sinful, they can be used in self-service, rather in serving the Lord.

You’ve probably seen a church which is great at getting doctrine clear (helpful), but the same impulse means it can be quite dry (hindering). Or a church which engages everyone emotionally (helpful), but which therefore struggles to be rigorous in its handling of Scripture (hindering).

So as I experience America, rather than a clear “This is great” or “This is not great” black-and-white view of what I am experiencing, the question I’m trying to ask of the churches I’m seeing and the Christian culture I’m observing is: how do their characteristics help them glorify Christ, and how might they hinder them in glorifying Christ?

And then comes the harder part for anyone: to look at each of the characteristics of our own Christian culture, our own church family, and ourselves, and say: What are we like? Are we prepared to let others tell us what we are like? How does what we’re like help us glorify our Lord? And how do we need to be watchful for the ways in which it might stop us glorifying Him?