Friday, November 9, 2007

Preparing for Elder Care

The Sandwich Generation: Stress from Parents Stress from Kids

I spoke earlier tonight at Horizon Community Church about how to best care for our elderly relatives, friends and church members. There was a nice group of people in attendance that ranged in age from 50 to 75.

Many had already started to deal with elderly parents and relatives. Several were asking questions about estate planning, long term insurance, ways to discuss financial issues with elders, and how to buffer the shock of becoming dependent again after being independent.

As we plan our curriculum for 2008 I am committed to having sessions on these and other timely topics. Education can assist us in facilitating good, open discussions with out family and ways to avoid family squabbles.

What topics would you like to see covered in our next year? (Other than how to correct a golf slice and ways to putt better.)

Finances
Long Term Care
Facilitating a Family Council with elderly parents
How to decide when to enter a retirement home?
Sibling rivalry
How to deal with elder resistance and anger?
Other Issues?

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Great Article by Pastor Pete Scarrero


I have been recommending Janet Hagberg's book on the stages of spiritual growth for the past year. I recently read a great book by Pastor Pete Scazzero who "Hit the Wall" of burn out and frustration before discovering the need for activating his inner life of prayer and meditation.

Below is an article sent to me by an old friend from Columbus, Buff Delcamp. Read and notice the difference between it and the article by Dan Gilliam protesting a church that canceled prayer meetings that focused on the inner life.

Gary Sweeten

JOURNEY THROUGH THE WALL
by Pete Scazzero

I meet many believers (and churches) today who are stuck at a wall. Some are discouraged. Others have dropped out altogether. They often fail to see the larger picture of the transforming work God seeks to do in them at their wall. The disorientation and pain of their present circumstances blinds them. And they feel unsuccessful in finding other companions for such a journey.

What most don't understand is that growth into maturity in Christ, both for us as leaders and for us as church communities, requires us to go through "the wall."

The wall: stages of faith
Throughout church history, great men and women have written about the phases of this journey to help us understand the larger picture, or map, of what God is doing in our lives. In The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith (Sheffield Publishing, 2005), Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich developed a model that includes the essential place of the wall in our journeys. The following is my adaptation of their work.

Note that each stage builds naturally upon the other. In the physical world, babies must grow into young children and then into teenagers who become adult men and women. In a similar way spiritually, each stage builds on the ones that go before it.

An important difference, however, is that we can stagnate very easily at a certain stage and choose not to move forward in our journeys with Christ. We refuse to trust God into this unknown, mysterious place.

Let's take a look at the stages:

Stage 1: Life-Changing Awareness of God – This stage, whether in childhood or adulthood, is the beginning of our journey with Christ as we become aware of his reality. We realize our need for mercy and begin our relationship with him.

Stage 2: Discipleship – This stage is characterized by learning about God and what it means to be a follower of Christ. We become part of a Christian community and begin to get rooted in the disciplines of the faith.

Stage 3: The Active Life – This is described as the "doing" stage. We get involved, actively working for God, serving him and his people. We take responsibility by bringing our unique talents and gifts to serve Christ and others.

Stage 4: The Wall and the Journey Inward – Notice that the wall and the inward journey are closely related. The wall drives us into an inward journey. In some cases people feel compelled to move into an inward journey that eventually leads them to the wall. It has rightly been said that the perhaps 85 percent of evangelicals do not get through the wall. Often our image of God doesn't allow for such a difficult experience.

Stage 5: The Journey Outward – Having passed through the crisis of faith and the intense inner work necessary to go through the wall, we begin once again to move outward to "do" for God. We may do some of the same active external things we did before (e.g., provide leadership, serve, and initiate acts of mercy towards others). The difference is that now we give out of a new, grounded center of ourselves in God.

Stage 6: Transformed by Love – God's goal, in the language of John Wesley, is that we be made perfect in love, that Christ's love becomes our love both toward God and others. We realize love truly is the beginning and the end. By this stage, the perfect love of God has driven out fear (see 1 John 4:18). And the whole of our spiritual lives is finally about surrender and obedience to God's perfect will. For most of us, the wall appears through a crisis that turns our world upside down. It comes, perhaps, through a divorce, a job loss, the death of a close friend or family member, a cancer diagnosis, a disillusioning church experience, a betrayal, a shattered dream, a wayward child, a car accident, an inability to get pregnant, a deep desire to marry that remains unfulfilled, a dryness or loss of joy in our relationship with God. We question ourselves, God, the church.

We discover for the first time that our faith does not appear to "work." We have more questions than answers as the very foundation of our faith feels like it is on the line. We don't know where God is, what he is doing, where he is going, how he is getting us there, or when this will be over. On a certain level it is correct to say that walls come to us in various ways throughout our lifetimes. It's not simply a one-time event that we pass through and get beyond. It appears to be something we return to as part of our ongoing relationship with God.

We see this, for example, in Abraham waiting at the wall for 25 years for his first child with his wife, Sarah, to be born. Later God led him again to another wall – the sacrificing of that long-awaited son he loved, Isaac, on an altar. Regardless of how we get there, every follower of Jesus at some point will confront the wall.

The best way to understand the dynamics of the wall is to examine the classic work of St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, written over 500 years ago. He described the journey in three phases: beginners, progressives, and perfect. To move out of the beginning stage, he argued, required the receiving of God's gift of the dark night, or the wall. This is the "ordinary way" we grow in Christ. A failure to understand this is one of the major reasons many start out well in their journeys but do not finish well. How do we know we are in "the dark night"? Our good feelings of God's presence evaporate. We feel the door of heaven has been shut as we pray. Darkness, helplessness, weariness, a sense of failure or defeat, barrenness, emptiness, or dryness descends upon us. The Christian disciplines that have served us up to this time "no longer work." We can't see what God is doing and see little visible fruit in our lives.

This is God's way of rewiring and "purging our affections and passions." He does this so we might delight in his love and enter into a richer, fuller communion with him. God wants to communicate to us his true sweetness and love. He longs that we might know his true peace and rest. He works to free us from unhealthy attachments and idolatries of the world. He longs for an intimate, passionate love relationship with us. God's desire is that his will truly be our will. Failure to understand and surrender to God's working in us at the wall often results in great long-term pain and confusion. Receiving the gift of God in the wall, however, transforms our lives forever.

Pete Scazzero is author of the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (Integrity, 2006), a groundbreaking work on the integration of emotional health and contemplative spirituality in our discipleship and formation in Christ. He has also authored The Emotionally Healthy Church (Zondervan, 2003), winner of the Gold Medallion Award for 2003. For tools on leading an emotionally healthy church, go to www.emotionallyhealthy.org


Add your 2 cents worth on these stories in comments or by mail

gsweeten@cinci.rr.com



Dualism in American Society

Damned if your Do
Damned if your Don't
(Also posted on my Brave Heart blog)

In psychology and counseling we can "Double Bind Messages" by a big name, suggesting the cause mental illness in kids from those kinds of homes. Our kids must be getting more confused and mentally stressed by the week by the "Double Bind Messages" in our culture.

TV, radio, music and government agencies are getting more aggressive and bold about promoting genital sex. Some schools want to distribute condoms to pre-pubescent girls. Despite research to the contrary, they say that condoms will prevent sexually transmitted diseases such as genital warts, gonorrhea and AIDS. That is a strong "Go for sex" message.

At the same time schools and law enforcement agencies warn kids against hugging, patting and other "Public displays of affection". Kids are being expelled weekly if they are caught anywhere hugging, even at a sports venue. (One kid was punished for hugging a friend who had recently lost his mother!)

No wonder kids are having mental and emotional breakdowns at record rates. Depression rates are skyrocketing among youth. Girls are especially vulnerable. Is it because women no longer know what is right or wrong?

Genital sex, along with secret abortions by teens, was strongly promoted by the Clinton Administration's head of Health. The court system and government bureaucracies will not allow schools to dispense an aspirin but will offer brightly colored condoms and birth control pills without parental knowledge because, "They are going to do it anyway".

Sex is now called "hooking up" because it is OK to share genitals without sharing one's heart, soul or commitment to care. Sharing and caring are forbidden but sharing genitals is inevitable in the jargon of modern values free education.

Is hooking up forbidden or only hugging?

Some school systems are building "Homosexual only schools" so young people with that issue will not feel "disrespected or put down".

Is there any wonder why school levies fail time after time? Do you want to support such irrational social and cultural disasters? Why do so many people in the educational industry want to destroy younger generations on the altar of personal "freedoms" and yet forbid healthy interactions?

The Fourth Great Awakening is upon us. What the world needs now is "Love sweet love" and that is what we have. The world also needs the wealth of wisdom and values we bring to the table. By modeling and teaching about marriages and family life filled with hugs, pats and caring we can model a better way for the future.

We need families and churches that hug and teach hugging. We need small groups that celebrate a full range of generations and male female relationships with no confusion about what is right and wrong.

We need Seasoned Believers to write articles, letters to editors and books about living a life full of commitment and family values. Tell your politicians and school boards you want this downward spiral stopped.


We need 4 hugs daily to survive emotionally, spiritually and physically
We need 8 hugs daily for emotional, spiritual and physical health
We need 12 hugs daily to thrive emotionally, spiritually and physically


Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Prayer is Forbidden by Church Leaders


One reason I am "Unleashing Seasoned Believers" is summarized in the story . It was sent in Dan Gilliam, an old friend from the 1980's. It reminds me of similar stories I hear over and over that far too often, the most seasoned, experienced, wise, biblically grounded, well balanced and dedicated Christians are being quashed and stifled by the churches they have loved and supported for years or even decades.


That is not always true, of course, but there is a "spirit of control and fear" in many congregations. These churches have an immediate, reflexive "NO! response" to any desire for freedom to minister, lead or influence others.

Church Cancels Prayer Service

So I heard from a bird this week that a certain Christian church in a Western state recently made the decision to cancel a small prayer and meditation worship gathering because it did not fit within the parameters of their philosophy of spiritual development and programming. Sounds familiar.

This gathering did not fit the church's philosophy and programming from day one. Ironically, that's why it was started; to provide a place and time for church members (including the church leadership) to grow in their relationship with God by expanding their personal and corporate practice of prayer and mediation.

The wheels were in motion to cancel (it) months after it started. It wasn't so much a matter of small numbers, though the small attendance figures were a problem for some from the beginning. It was more that the "program" of the silent gathering was un-programmed. (It) allowed for the possibility that someone might think something to themselves and assign an aberrant message to God.

Hmmm. After all, we really can't know for sure that God is speaking to us unless someone is reading the Bible to us, preferably someone ordained by an approved Bible College. God would never give each of us the ability to learn to hear His voice (like sheep know their Shepherd's voice) when he has clearly given us preachers to tell us what God thinks and to explain to us how to interpret the ancient words he gave to Moses, Jesus and Paul.

All religious people know that silence is a gateway for Satan to come in, therefore it is best if we never wait in quiet before the Lord (except by ourselves at home for our private devotions) when we can safely worship God with clanging cymbals and amplified gongs.

That would be bad. So, it really is best that this prayer and meditation gathering got canceled rather than attended ... In the long run it was going to hurt the church. Prayer can do that, especially if we don't really want God's input into how we do church. (Edited)

Enjoy Life,

Dan Gilliam

www.dangilliam.net

Well, what do you think? Is it dangerous to actually allow people to seek God and respond to His voice? Maybe they are right and the people cannot be trusted.

Monday, November 5, 2007

What Do You Think About Boomer Believers?


This blog hopes to assist the many men and women who are dissatisfied with their current spiritual situation. Most have been involved in church and para church groups for two or three decades but have grown weary of pew sitting or volunteering to do the same old boring things they had always done. They came to me for counsel because they wanted more out of life in the Spirit.

(Photo: Three Seasoned Believers discussing how to unleash Boomers.)

Peggy Lee's song, "Is that all there is?" is the theme through many of their stories. A refrain I heard, "I helped run a large, creative company and made a lot of money but now I want to serve the Lord and 'give something back'".

When I asked about the things they could do at church I got the same answers: "I can sit on a boring committee, teach Sunday school and donate. And, of course, I can attend and sit still while some guy half my age tells me his opinions about the world."

What are you seeing in your city, town or region? Are the Seasoned Believers satisfied with their level of spiritual involvement and creativity? Are they treated like old fogies whose time has come and gone? Are the often bored?

Write and tell me what you see, hear and want to have. The ball is in your court.

More from Loving Deb Smith


While Karen and I were out of town we received the following note from Michael Cristiani, one of the heroes along with Rick and Barb Hine of the creative and interconnected blog for Deb Smith and her family. Read and look at the photos.

These men and women were mostly college students when Karen and I opened our house and heart the hordes coming to faith in Christ in 1970, 71, 72 and 73. Tom Smith was called at that time to head the new Christian Student Fellowship Ministry on the campus of the University of Cincinnati. He met and married Deb and they developed "The House of the Carpenter". This experiment in communal living had rooms and real love that became a center of Revival for Cincinnati in the Seventies.

Now those "kids" are mothers and fathers, grandparents and business owners, church leaders and engineers, politicians and preachers. They have been "SEASONED" by life's realities. The love, truth and power offered them at the House of the Carpenter soaked into their DNA. Most God and His people in many and varied ways both inside and outside formal ecclesiastical systems. But, they began their faith walk as revolutionaries so finishing that way is no surprise.

Hello, Dear Ones!

Today, November 4, 2007, is Deb Smith's 54th birthday. In remembrance, there is a new entry on Loving Deb Smith. It notes that today is Deb's birthday, and includes a link to a new photo album, Celebration of the Resurrection, which contains the photos used during the Mt Vernon and Cincinnati Celebrations.

There is also a small photo album (thanks to Randy Moody) of pix from the dinner and fellowship at Vineyard Community Church in Cincinnati. If anyone else took pictures during the weekend of the 20th-21st that they would like to share, please send them to Loving Deb Smith
and they will be added to the album.

Your constant kindness and love are the Good News!

All Glory to God!
--
MANY BLESSINGS!
Peace and All Good!

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all encouragement, who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God. For as Christ's sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow. If we are afflicted, it is for your encouragement and salvation; if we are encouraged, it is for your encouragement, which enables you to endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is firm, for we know that as you share in the sufferings, you also share in the encouragement. (2Cor 1: 4-7)

Seasoned Believer Poster Children


I am always looking for "Poster Children" who exemplify Seasoned Believers who came to faith a couple of decades ago and have been serving God with faithfulness, verve and fire ever since. They are getting better with age even when the bones ache and eyes require trifocals.

Jim and Mary Buchan are natives of Ohio from the Columbus area. Jim followed his father into the legal profession for several years but it did not seem to fit after he met Christ. Mary became a nurse and her compassion led her into an interest in healing the whole person. It was not long before they followed the Heavenly Father into Pastoral Care and Teaching. (Mary's photo is on the right.)

But here is the interesting part. Jim and Mary are both very creative in the arts. Mary is a gifted musician and song writer who plays the guitar and sings her own creations and others in a soft and caring way. Jim is a very good writer and editor whose insights into publishing have led him to produce books, magazines and articles for several Christian publishers.

Now Mary has put out a web page to publicize her ministry of holistic care, counsel and consultation through combining the word, worship and wisdom from medicine and nutrition. I logged in and listened to her presentation on YouTube and I was impressed.

She is an of a Believer that has gained and depth of God's call through work, rearing a family and seeking God. Mary glorifies God and brings her talents, gifts and wisdom together in a holistic manner. Mary's website for her music ministry: www.marybuchan.com

Jim has helped many famous and not so famous people write and publish their insights. You can contact him at BuchanJ@aol.com