Mid-Atlantic OAMNews
March
2003
This
newsletter is sponsored by:
Synod of the Mid-Atlantic, PC(
Sunnyside Communities
The Presbyterian Homes, Inc. of NC
Mid-Atlantic
OAMNews – is a monthly e-newsletter
dedicated to the promotion of spiritual health and well-being of older adults
and their families – offering information, resources, model ministries, stories,
and humor! Visit our web-site at www.synatlantic.org
and click on Older Adult Ministries. Jan McGilliard,
Editor
In this
issue:
St. Patrick,
Evangelist and Pastor
Upcoming
Events
A Sermon: “Defending Our Hope,” by Rev. Aaron Fulp-Eickstaedt
A Hymn: “Now Praise the Hidden God of Love”
Church/Community
Connections - A
Model
Cast
Me Not Off in Old Age, by Elaine Tiller
Love
as a Winter Grace, by George Gunn
St. Patrick, Evangelist and Pastor
As we enter
into a season of Lent, we pay tribute to Patrick the evangelist and pastor,
and his remarkable journey from boy slave to educated priest.
The person
we know as St. Patrick was born in NW Britain sometime around the turn of
the 5th Century. At 16 Patrick
was captured by a group of Irish slave traders and he came into the possession
of a chieftain named Milch. He was
put to work herding cattle in
“But after I had come to Ireland I daily used to feed cattle, and I prayed frequently during the day; the love of God and the fear of Him increased more and more, and faith became stronger, and the spirit was stirred; so that in one day I said about a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly the same; so that I used even to remain in the woods and in the mountains; before daylight I used to rise to prayer, through snow, through frost, through rain, and I felt no harm; nor was there any slothfulness in me, as I now perceive, because the spirit was then fervent within me.”
Patrick
dreamed of going home. Eventually he
escaped and caught a boat to
The prayer
life of the early
Blessed Three,
I come in humility,
I come by grace,
I come with confidence,
I pray in your name,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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Upcoming Events
March
20-22: Encircling
Care: A New Vision for Congregational
Caregiving,
March
31-April 2: Need a Winterlude?
Massanetta Springs Conference Center invites
you to God of All Ages: an adult conference for Bible study, fellowship,
shared meals, worship and song, rest, renewal and relaxation. Featuring Dr. J. Hayden Hollingsworth, M.D.,
retired cardiologist, longtime Bible teacher, writer, and storyteller. For information contact Laura Holbrook, Program
Director at Massanetta at laurah@massanettasprings.org Phone: 888-627-7774
May 12-16 at Montreat: Skills in Older Adult Ministry: Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow. Keynote Speaker:
Lois Hayman-El. Music leader:
Eric Wall. Workshops:
From Doing to Being…Come Care Through Clay…Telling Your Story…Older
Adult Needs Assessment…From Caregiving to Care-receiving. Visit the Montreat web site at: www.montreat.org for further information!
Plan Ahead! Mother’s Day/Father’s
Day Offering 2003
Please plan to honor your loved ones by:
·
Participating in this year’s
Mother’s Day/Father’s Day Offering in May or June
·
Celebrating Older Adults Month in May by planning a special
worship service, program, or activity.
- Order a free Older Adult Week Planning Guide from
Presbyterian Distribution Services at 1-800-524-2612, Item # 70250-03-717
or download from our webste.
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A Sermon: Defending Our Hope, by Rev. Aaron Fulp-Eickstaedt, Co-Pastor of
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A Hymn: “Now Praise the
Hidden God of Love" set to O Waly O Waly, #402 in the
Presbyterian Hymnal. Here are the words:
Now
praise the hidden God of love, in whom we all must live and move,
Who
shepherds us at ev'ry stage, through youth, maturity and age:
Who
challenged us, when we were young, to storm the citadels of wrong;
In
care for others taught us how God's true community must grow:
Who
bids us never lose our zest, though age is urging us to rest,
But
proves to us that we have still a work to do, a place to fill.
WORDS:
Fred Pratt Green (Acts
MUSIC:
O Waly Waly (English Folk Melody)
Words c. 1982 Hope Publishing Company
Church/Community Connections – a Model
In a
partnership with the Kent Hospice Foundation, the interfaith Chester Valley
Ministers Association (Kent & Queen Anne’s Counties on the eastern shore
in
Editor’s Note: To purchase
a copy of And Thou Shalt Honor, hosted by Bill Moyers, go to pbs.org
and click on “Shop PBS” – enter the title into the search line and you’ll
see the prices for this video. Price
for a regular video is $29.95 and DVD version is $39.98. Hardcover book is $24.95.
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Cast
Me Not Off in Old Age, by Elaine
Tiller
Over
the past 12 years, I have worked with senior adults in local congregations
in the
But a
sad, frustrating tendency often gets in the way.
Seniors frequently have to be convinced that they and older adult programs
are important enough to be part of the regular congregational budget and committee
structure, just like children’s work, youth work, family ministries, and single
ministries. I often encounter resistance
to the idea that the senior adult work should be planned and funded, too. Seniors often seem comfortable being an adjunct,
an appendage, a bump on the structure, rather than an integral part of the
congregation through its formal structure and budget.
Indeed,
seniors frequently dig into their own pockets to support their own programs,
thus defeating hope of senior adult work being owned by the total congregation,
rather than limping along as an add-on, important only to a few.
This
is out-and-out ageism from senior adults who feel unworthy and from others
in the congregation who minimize the value of senior adult work.
We pay heavily for such attitudes.
We lose the opportunity for the senior adult ministry to affect the
total life of the congregation and to be integrated into that life. We also lose the opportunity for young and old
to confront their fears of aging and to begin to accept their own aging and
that of others. When senior adult work
is not part of the education committee or another committee, important cross-generational
dialogues and programming are likely to be missed. Opportunities to learn from each other, to share
with each other, and to build bridges of friendships are lost.
A good
example of this cross-fertilization is a congregation that recently recognized
the need for their youth to study the Bible in order to teach Bible topics
on a mission trip. Fortunately, the
congregation soon recognized that the church members who knew the Bible best
were the senior adults. Each senior was paired with a youth for Bible
study, resulting not only in a good program but also in the development of
long-term friendships across the generations.
Denominations,
as well as individual congregations, also practice de facto ageism as they
downgrade or do away with their aging ministries and drop their offices on
aging from the official structure. At
this time in our history, when the congregations need to provide leadership
in faithful aging, including continued spiritual development, we have gone
in the opposite direction and cut out or downgraded our national denominational
work in aging.
Congregations
and denominations, meanwhile, continue to have a heavy representation of gray-haired
members who are pioneering long life for themselves and generations to come.
We need to support older persons, to assure them that they are not
cast off in their old age (Psalm 71:9) and to learn from the wisdom found
among the aged and understanding brought by long life (Job 12:12).
Elaine Tiller is the former executive director of Baptist Senior
Adult Ministries in Washington, DC
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Love as a Winter Grace, by George Gunn
Set your
wintering heart now on the highest gifts and I will
show you
a way that beats all.
If I speak with the wisdom of a passing generation and
with a
premonition of heavenly passages, but speak without love,
I will only pontificate or chatter aimlessly.
And if I have power to see into the future, to quote seers and sages, and to claim a guru’s knowledge; and if I have a legacy of faith which promises to remove mounting fears, but I share that knowledge and faith without love,
I
achieve next to nothing.
If I share my accumulated wealth and if I will my organs
to a host of grateful recipients,
but become a donor without love, I gain nothing of eternity.
Love in one’s later years demonstrates patience (tried)
and kindness (tested);
It
sees no reason for jealousy of competitors nor for boasting of great achievements;
it is not haughty nor dogmatic.
Love that has matured does not need to say, “We never
did it this way before”; it does not hold hands with anger nor does it harbor
a grudge forever; it takes no satisfaction in others failing, but rejoices
when perseverance prevails.
Love in the third age bears with its infirmities, believes
that life still has meaning, finds hope in every circumstance, endures in spite of dire predictions.
Love, in fact, never despairs. As for forecasts and folk wisdom, it will come
and go; as for soothsayers, they will grow silent; as for great books, they
will gather dust.
For our human insight grows dim and our futuring gets
foggy; but when the perfection of one’s worth and divine destiny is realized,
the dim will fade further and the fog-bound will drift away.
When I began this life journey, I spoke of fulfillment
and of possessions to be mine; I thought only of self serving and material
goals. I played a child’s game of hide
and seek.
When I came to midlife, I looked inward for meaning
and gave up my childish ways.
And now we see finding and losing, life and death, life’s
paradoxes; but soon we will behold each with new eyes, even as we are beheld.
Now we are broken and whole, strong and weak, diminished,
but in God’s good time we shall find our courage grown larger, a winter grace.
We shall watch the wake of our life with joy and accept our mortality
as God’s gift.
So a faith that the best is yet to be, a hope that embraces
memory, and a love of life, these three abide, but
the greatest of these is to love life.
Make love your companion.
George Gunn is a retired pastor living
in Banner Elk,