WHAT CAN THE ELDERLY/OLD FOLKS DO AT THE CHURCH? How can the aging, the older, the senior saints do in the congregation?
Here are some real practical "ministry-ideas of service" for you to consider:
- You could open your home periodically for a young couple/college students/other members for a home-cooked meal & a time of fellowship.
- You could write personal letters/encouragement/thank you cards to folks/families in the church.
- You could personally write and keep contact with your missionaries.You could open your home and have a weekly/bi-weekly prayer meeting for the church members.
- You could go online & take free courses on biblical counseling so as to be trained and equipped in God's Word to address any issue of life with the Bible.
- You could make a weekly phone call to each of the women & mothers at the church to encourage them, strengthen them, pray with them, share a verse with them, and ask how you can pray for them this week.
- As you are exercising and walking you could take a handful of tracts and hand them out to folks, put them on car-doors and 'evangelize'.
- You could get a stack of books on various topics about God, Christ, the Spirit, salvation, holy living, end-times, pastoral ministry, and read them all and then pass them on to others.
- You could arrive early at your church each Sunday and be a greeter and warmly welcome every person that comes into this building with a smile!
- You could be a prayer warrior - 1 hour in the morning for the preacher’s sermon preparation; 1 hour in the afternoon for the members of the church; 1 hour each evening for the gospel growth, revival, conversions, maturing of saints.
Isaiah 46:4 -- Even to your old age I will be the same, And even to your graying years I will bear you! I have done it, and I will carry you; And I will bear you and I will deliver you.
Dear older precious saints, Spurgeon preaches:
“Do not let the young people catch you indulging in melancholy [depression], sitting in your chimney corner, grumbling and growling, but go about cheerful and happy, and they will think ‘how blessed it is to be a Christian’ [when they observe you!]...
If you are surly [grouchy, crabby] and fretful, they will think the Lord has forsaken you; but keep a smiling countenance, and they will think God’s promise is fulfilled.
You can lead us to heaven if you have got heaven's sunlight on your face; but you will not lead us at all if you are snappy and ill-tempered, for then we shall not care about your company.
Make yourselves cheerful with the people of God, and try to live happily before men; for so will you prove to us—to a demonstration, that even to old age God is with you, and that when your strength faileth, he is still your preservation.”
So then, Precious Aged saints: what a model to follow! We need you!
