There is a theme emerging as our Fellowship grows older that does not seem to have a clear solution. I hear people my age and older who spend their time reminiscing about what they used to do for the Lord. They talk about things they used to do as though it was current events. And for the most part these fine folks could not do those activities even if they wanted to. Aging, believe it or not, forces us to change our behavior.
There are men I have talked to who are over 50 years old who think that they are called and that pastor will send them out to pioneer. I have met them in almost every church in our Fellowship that I have been. Others try to stay involved long after they ceased to be relevant or effective. In their minds they are very young. In their real lives they are grandma and grandpa with all of the aches and pains of old age and the responsibilities to their health and their families.
There are people who cannot get to every service who sit at home felling condemned and feeling forsaken and lukewarm. There are preachers whose answer to everything is to do what you did as a new convert. What a stupid thing to think and to preach. A 67 year old grandpa is not an 18 year old new convert. Duh.
I wish that our Fellowship would come up with a plan and a strategy for helping us who were the first wave to survive and even thrive up to the end of life or the Rapture. Prescott put Kris Hart on staff as a ministering pastor to care for the elderly in the Prescott church. I hope that that will catch on and that Kris will not be pulled to pastor somewhere else.
Very few people leave our Fellowship churches over false doctrine or pastoral failure. Some people simply fade away while they live out the end of their life on Earth. They don't go anywhere except maybe to be near their children. That's what I did.
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