Retirement
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Click on the study title or article you’d like to see:
Study 1: FINDING SIGNIFICANCE IN RETIREMENT
Article 1: Finishing Well
Study 2: TAPPING RETIREES FOR MINISTRY
Article 2: Retirement: Retirees May Become Ministry Cutting Edge
Study 3: GIVING YOURSELF AWAY DURING RETIREMENT
Article 3: What Your Retirement Planner Doesn’t Tell You
LEADER’S GUIDE
Finding Significance
in Retirement
Retirement may be the beginning of a second career.
Just hearing the word retirement conjures images of playing golf,
going on a cruise, or playing with grandchildren. While leisurely
pursuits bring a certain amount of satisfaction, many retirees are
finding they want more—to spend their latter years in significant
service to a cause greater than their personal pleasure. Most people
want their lives to matter as they look down their final path.
Decisions about retirement should be made before you settle into a
routine that becomes too comfortable to change. Why choose a
deliberate path of service in retirement? How does God want you to
use your talents and life experience? How do you find significance
in the kind of work that God would have you do? These are the
questions we’ll be discussing in this study based on a CHRISTIANITY
TODAY article by Christine J. Gardner.
Lesson #1
Scripture:
Matthew 6:19–21; Romans 12:4–8; Galatians 5:13; Ephesians 5:15–16
Based on:
“Finishing Well,” by Christine J. Gardner, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, October 5, 1998
LEADER’S GUIDE
Finding Significance in Retirement
Page 3
PART 1
Identify the Current Issue
Note to leader: Prior to the class, provide for each person the article
“Finishing Well” from CHRISTIANITY TODAY magazine (included at the
end of this study).
If you haven’t already heard, 77 million baby boomers (those born
between 1946 and 1965) are on track to become senior citizens in the next
two decades. That means that approximately one quarter of the people in
the U.S. will be of retirement age—when they can stop working if they
choose, collect social security, qualify for Medicare benefits, and get senior
citizens’ discounts at just about every chain restaurant in the country.
While these perks are helpful, increasing numbers of people are eagerly
looking forward to retirement for completely different reasons. Some are
even hoping they get downsized from their current jobs to free them up to take early retirement
and get on with what they would prefer to be doing with their time: helping others.
Benevolence has taken on new meaning in recent years. Terrorist attacks, earthquakes,
hurricanes, tsunamis, and the regular crises in our own churches and communities have
created immense needs. But as people have responded with their time, energy, and money,
they’ve gotten a taste of what it’s like to truly make a difference in peoples’ lives. Those who get
involved are usually hooked because of the contentment service brings. Many want to do more
for those in need, and retirement is seen as a wonderful opportunity to do this work.
Then there are those who aren’t sure they can or should try to find a second career at their age.
They are uncertain what they would do, or how they would go about doing it. But both groups
want to spend their later years doing something significant; to look back on their lives and feel
that their choices about how to spend their retirement were good ones. Paul tells us in
Ephesians 5:15–16 to be careful how we live, making the most of every opportunity, because the
days are evil.
Discussion starters:
[Q] How would you describe your parents’ view of retirement? What activities or rewards
are/were associated with their post-work years?
[Q] Were their views common to others at that time, or did they choose a more
unconventional retirement? Explain. What effect did their views/lifestyle have on your
emerging concept of retirement?
[Q] Describe the images that routinely come to mind when you think of your own retirement.
Do you envision most of your time going toward individual pursuits, or do you think you
would be giving out a lot to others?
[Q] What influences have had the greatest impact on your thinking about retirement thus far?
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[Q] How would you explain the dominant message about retirement coming from the larger
culture? Why do you think it gets framed this way? What are the main forces that shape
this message?
[Q] What significance does the emerging baby boom generation have for the renewed interest
in finding significance in the later years of life? Can you see any potential downside to this
search for significance?
[Q] Imagine a new law was passed that required every able-bodied person to continue
working until they were physically or mentally unable to do so, regardless of age. Would
you continue doing what you did in your career, or would you change the type of work
you perform? Explain.
PART 2
Discover the Eternal Principles
Teaching point one: Personal pleasure has its limits.
Ask the average person what comes to mind when they think of retirement and most will frame
their answer in financial terms—for good reason. As more companies stop funding pensions,
rumors about the demise of social security swirl, and healthcare costs take an ever bigger bite
out of most people’s paycheck, people are afraid of getting to retirement age and not having
enough assets to live out the rest of their lives. In other words, we feel insecure about the
future. This insecurity causes us to spend an inordinate amount of our time and energy
accumulating and consuming goods for our own pleasure and security.
Read Matthew 6:19–21. Jesus’ words cause us to pause and examine our motives for “storing
up for ourselves.” Although we need material goods to live, we are called to look beyond what
we need to ensure that our heart is in the right place. “For where your treasure is, there will
your heart be also.” In other words, the common notion that retirement is primarily a time to
pull back and pursue personal pleasure is misplaced. Retirement is a time for engagement, and
pleasure can be replaced with contentment if our time and energy are well spent. Gardner says
many retirees “have already achieved success in their careers; now they want to achieve
significance.”
[Q] Do you feel you have saved or will save enough financial assets to carry you through
retirement and old age? Why or why not?
[Q] Does the thought of working well into the retirement years to ensure your financial
security appeal to you? How much money is enough?
[Q] Give some examples of both kinds of treasure Jesus referred to in Matthew 6: those we
should store up and those we shouldn’t. What does this mean for practically living our
daily lives?
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[Q] Why should Christians be concerned about achieving significance? What constitutes a
significant life when compared to a life poorly spent? Give examples.
[Q] What role models can you think of that have lived a life of significance? What inspires or
motivates you in their example? What have they taught you about the process of growing
old?
Teaching point two: Understanding your calling will provide clarity on the type
of work you are to do.
Each Christian has a general calling, which is to be like Jesus. This means that whether you are
a pastor or a factory worker, you are called to live a life devoted to God that shines forth his
truth and character in word and deed. You are called to do this whether in your place of
business, your neighborhood, within your family, or on the mission field.
Each of us has also been given gifts, talents, and interests that make up our individual calling
from God. This is our unique way of doing God’s work by using what he has specifically given
us. The contentment we find in this work is not dependent on whether we get paid or receive
recognition, but rather that we are being obedient to his calling to use these gifts, talents, and
life experience to serve others.
Contrary to popular views on retirement, we are not called out of the world in the later years of
life. We find our true identity as God’s people in the world that God made. This is expressed
through living a life of service to others. Read Galatians 5:13. We were called to serve one
another, and the only way we can effectively do that is by engaging with other people. Too often
retirees voluntarily step out of the mainstream of life, marginalizing themselves, instead of
staying squarely in it and seeing that they have much to contribute.
[Q] What aspect of your general calling do you find most difficult to practice?
[Q] What obstacles keep you from being as faithful as you would like? How could you
practically begin to remove those obstacles from your life?
[Q] If you could construct your own retirement with no restrictions on money, time, or
location, what would it look like? Why would you choose to do this? How would it add
significance to your life and those you are involved with?
[Q] What cultural factors can you identify that seem to marginalize older people and the
influence they might be able to have on others? What do you think can be done within the
local churches to push against these forces?
Teaching point three: Engaging in the work God has for you creates purpose
and significance.
Read Romans 12:4–8. The exercise of your gifts, talents, and skills in service to others is not
only personally gratifying but also helps to build up the body of believers. By virtue of more life
experience, older adults typically have a wealth of experience to share.
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Some will choose to fulfill their calling in the sphere God has them in right now. Others may
choose a more radical alternative. Many retirees are finding their later life work in missions.
Gardner cites a survey of 600 evangelical boomers, sponsored by Finishers Project, which
showed that 61 percent would like to retire early and pursue a second career. Fifty-four percent
say they would consider a second career in missions.
Regardless of location, finding significance in your retirement work requires combatting fear of
failure. Many retirees buy into the stereotype that they are too old to make changes or that their
best plans will not be realized. But the only way to discover what you really want to do is to
begin experimenting. The real question is not, “Should I be using my retirement to serve
others?” but, “How can I faithfully pursue the work God has for me to do?”
[Q] Identify at least one talent or skill you have that you would like to pass on to others. How
could others potentially benefit from this? In what ways could this build up the body of
believers in your church? What other avenues might allow you to practice this skill or
talent?
[Q] Have you ever considered using your retirement as a second career in missions? What
does or doesn’t appeal to you about this option?
[Q] What are your views on change in older age? Do you think older adults are as capable as
younger people of making significant changes in their life? Why or why not? Do certain
changes have to be modified for older adults? If so, how?
[Q] If you were asked to give a three-minute speech on the major obstacle to finding
significance in retirement, what would be your core point?
PART 3
Apply Your Findings
Finding significance in retirement is largely a result of choices. Christians must resist the
message of the surrounding culture that says retirees should simply care for their own affairs
and let the real work of the world be done by younger people who are faster and more
productive.
Gardner quotes Nelson Malwitz, founder of Finishers Project, who says, “As you hit 50, you no
longer count your years from the time you were born, but you count the amount of time you
have left. The big idea has to do with finishing well.”
[Q] The biggest hurdle many retirees face is finding the type of work that best fits them. To
help you discover this, make a list of all the skills, talents, experience, and interests you
have. How have people affirmed you in these areas? If you are not sure, ask some trusted
people to give you feedback.
[Q] List your options for how you might begin implementing what you’ve found out about
your individual calling. What ministries within the church would be appropriate outlets
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to test your suitability for this work? What other options outside the local church might
be good to investigate?
[Q] Write out any stereotypes or biases you may have about retirement. See if you can
discover where these misguided notions of retirement came from. What can you do to
restructure these beliefs so that they no longer serve as obstacles to finding significance in
the way you use your retirement years?
[Q] If married, how might you blend your individual gifts, talents, and experiences toward a
common cause?
—Study prepared by Gary A. Gilles, adjunct instructor at Trinity International
University,
editor of CHICAGO CAREGIVER magazine and freelance writer.
Recommended Resources

ChristianBibleStudies.com
-Acts: How to Have an Eternal Impact
-Becoming a Follower of Christ
-Discovering and Using Our Spiritual Gifts
-Why God Gave You Gifts

Don’t Retire, REWIRE!, Jeri Sedlar, Rick Miners (Alpha Books, 2002; ISBN:
0028642287)

Half Time, Bob Buford (Zondervan, 1997; ISBN: 0310215323)

Live Your Calling, Kevin and Kay Marie Brennfleck (Jossey-Bass, 2004; ISBN:
0787968951)

Too Young to Retire: 101 Ways to Start the Rest of Your Life, Marika Stone, Howard
Stone (Plume Books, 2004; ISBN: 0452285577)

Women Confronting Retirement: A Nontraditional Guide, Nan Bauer Maglin, Alice
Radosh (Rutgers University Press, 2003; ISBN: 0813531268)

The Finishers Project, http://www.finishers.org. The Finishers Project provides
Christian adults information, challenge and pathways for discovery and processing of
opportunities in ministry and missions—short-term or as a second career.
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ARTICLE
Finishing Well
After achieving success, early retirees are finding significance in second-career
mission assignments.
By Christine J. Gardner, for the study “Finding Significance in Retirement”
Nelson Malwitz was having a midlife crisis. At 50, he was at
the top of his game. As corporate director of chemical research
for Sealed Air Corporation in Danbury, Connecticut, the company
that invented Bubble Wrap, Malwitz achieved seven patents for
plastic foam technology. He served as an adult Sunday-school
teacher at Walnut Hill Community Church, a congregation he
helped found. He had a wife, Marge, and two teenage sons,
Jonathan and David, who loved him. But something was missing.
Then he remembered Urbana.
The year was 1967. Raised in the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination,
Malwitz was 21 when he attended the InterVarsity student missions conference in
Urbana, Illinois. Reflecting the idealism of the time, Malwitz wanted to change the
world, so he committed his life to missions. But family, career, and mortgage
payments soon got in the way.
Now with a view from middle age, Malwitz decided to revisit his dream and pursue
a second career in missions. But he quickly found missions agencies were unprepared
for a skilled professional in his fifties. “It was so difficult to get in, and I had no idea
where the point of entry was,” Malwitz says.
Gene Shackelford, a friend from church, had a similar experience. At 59, he retired
as a vice president of Union Carbide. He and his wife were active in Bible Study
Fellowship and participated on his congregation’s missions committee, but it took
them three years to find a position in missions. “I thought, That’s way too long,”
Malwitz says. “The task is way too difficult for people to get a significant second career
if the missions infrastructure is not ready to take people.” So Malwitz decided his
contribution to missions would be to encourage others from his generation to consider
second careers in missions and to help them through what he calls “the missions
minefield.”
Malwitz founded Finishers Project in 1996 ([email protected]). “As you
hit 50, you no longer count your years from the time you were born, but you count the
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amount of time you have left,” he says. “The big idea has to do with finishing well.”
Like Malwitz, who calls himself “the generic evangelical baby boomer sitting in the
pew,” millions of boomers, identified as those born between 1946 and 1965, are
approaching retirement with their nests empty and their 401(k)s full. In 2001, the
leading edge of the 82 million-strong group turned 55, for an estimated total of 21
million boomers 50 years or older. Malwitz has determined that 4.6 million of them
are evangelicals. If 1 percent is interested in missions, 46,000 individuals could be
available for ministry.
They are the healthiest, wealthiest, and best-educated retirees ever. These
evangelical boomer “finishers” (or “second-halfers”) may want to start second careers
in missions. They have already achieved success in their careers; now they want to
achieve significance. Their idealism—as well as their skills and money—could help
revive flagging North American missions.
Search For Significance
Michael Darby, a senior vice president at Shearson Lehman, had been a
stockbroker for 30 years, and his wife, Elizabeth, had owned a retail store for 13 years
when they started feeling burned out. “We didn’t have the joy of going to work like we
used to,” Michael says.
A teaching cassette by television preacher Charles Stanley about discovering God’s
will and a job offer from a friend at Focus on the Family prompted the Darbys to
consider career opportunities in ministry. A visit with friend Bruce Wilkinson at Walk
Thru the Bible confirmed their call to missions.
But panic quickly set in. They had a business to liquidate, a house to sell, and a
career to conclude—but at least their children were grown and they had no financial
debt. The Darbys decided to let God take care of the details. “If it’s his calling, we’re
not supposed to worry about those things,” Michael says. “We’re just supposed to
obey.”
In 1991, Michael retired early at 54 and Elizabeth, then 49, sold her store so they
could work with CoMission, a cooperative effort by 80 organizations to teach Christian
values in Russian public schools. After short trips to the country, the Darbys joined a
team from Navigators to live in Rostov, Russia, for a year to disciple new believers.
The Darbys exchanged a home on the Florida coast for university housing with no hot
water, infrequent heat and electricity, and a view of a garbage dump; but they
considered themselves blessed to have rediscovered God’s purpose. Now living in
Georgia, the Darbys are working with Navigators on a new program to help other
finishers determine their giftedness.
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Ken and Pat Kingston assumed they would retire one day and move to Florida or
Arizona. But retirement came sooner than they expected when Ken, a middle-school
teacher in Crystal Lake, Illinois, for 29 years, had an early retirement option at age 59.
In 1991, they seized the opportunity to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming
missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators.
The Kingstons believe God orchestrated the timing. Pat’s mother, who had been
living with the Kingstons, had died a month earlier. Their youngest son married the
previous summer.
But credit card debt concerned them, along with leaving their four grandchildren,
all of whom lived within two blocks of their home. Ken’s pension helped, but the
Kingstons still had to raise support.
The Kingstons “adopted” many new grandchildren in Lima, Peru, where Ken used
his experience as an educator to start a school for missionary children while Pat served
in the Wycliffe office. After six years, the Kingstons returned home for a year, but they
now are packing for a three-year assignment in Kenya. “[Retired] people are traipsing
around the country in RVs,” laughs Pat. “I think that would be the most boring life I
could ever imagine.”
Both the Darbys and the Kingstons achieved success in their careers, but they
wanted something more. Bob Buford would say they sought significance. Buford,
whose book Halftime (Zondervan, 1994) is the unofficial guidebook for finishers, says
that for retirees who choose service over leisure, “the payoff is blessedness.”
A recent survey of 600 evangelical boomers, sponsored by Finishers Project,
indicates 61 percent would like to retire early and pursue a second career. Fifty-four
percent say they would consider a second career in missions. Eighty-one percent want
to be able to serve with their spouse. “They want to leave a legacy,” says Rod Beidler,
director of international recruitment for Navigators.
Missions Dilemma
As early retirees search for significance in the second half of their lives, some
missions leaders are wondering whether self-absorbed boomers are willing to make
the costly sacrifices necessary to serve in overseas ministry. But with the leveling off of
church commitment to foreign missions, agency leaders may have few alternatives to
draw in a significant number of fresh missions candidates.
The Mission Handbook (MARC, 1997) indicates that by 2000, more than 1 billion
people still will not have heard the gospel message. Yet as the world’s population
increases, North American mission efforts have not.
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“Basically, we’ve plateaued,” says Jim Reapsome, founder of Evangelical Missions
Quarterly, commenting on the current numbers of full-time North American
missionaries. By contrast, the number of short-term missionaries—on assignments as
short as two weeks—continues to rise.
There are more available missions positions than qualified candidates to fill them.
TEAM is recruiting for 700 positions. Wycliffe has 1,500 openings. Servant
Opportunity Network, a computer matching service for retirees, lists more than 6,000
available jobs with more than 200 missions agencies.
Ralph Winter, general director of Frontier Mission Fellowship, estimates nonWestern missionaries will outnumber Western missionaries in the next few years.
Missions experts point to the new ranks of cross-cultural missionaries from
developing-world congregations as the result of centuries of missionary commitment
from the Western church.
But in North America, the church’s financial support of missions is steadily
declining. According to Money Matters: Personal Giving in American Churches
(Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 10-15 percent of Protestant church budgets
goes to foreign missions, roughly half the amount of what it was in the 1950s. The
State of Church Giving Through 1992 (empty tomb, inc., 1994) estimates that
Protestant church members each gave only $20 to foreign missions in 1991, compared
to $164 spent on soft drinks and $103 for sporting goods.
“[The church] is losing its zeal,” says Larry Walker, southwest regional director for
ACMC, which assists its 1,000 member churches with their missions programs. “The
older generation understood missions more.” He says pluralism and materialism have
changed the missions climate.
Christina Accornero, a board member of InterServe and Finishers Project, believes
the church needs a missions revival. “We’re going through a crisis in missions,” she
says. “Especially Americans, we’re pretty comfortable with our things. There are many
missionaries coming home on furlough who don’t want to go back.” Finishers Project
could be the catalyst for revival. “I think it’s a test—a God-directed test—to see if we
are open to a new movement of the Spirit,” Accornero says.
Overcoming Obstacles
Missions agency leaders agree that they need to update their processes to
accommodate boomers. Malwitz, as a test to see how agencies would respond to a
finisher, forwarded the name of Indiana financial consultant David Ober to two dozen
missions agencies. Sixteen of the agencies made no effort to contact Ober. Eight sent
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standard information packets—data geared to recent college graduates, not older
professionals with concerns about health insurance and financial planning.
Navigators’ Rod Beidler says that when he started receiving calls from finishers
looking for second careers, “we didn’t know what to do with them. We were caught
very much by surprise.”
Ed Lewis, a recruiter with International Teams, says finishers know the primary
need to spread the gospel worldwide. “They are up to the challenge and want to get
involved,” he says. “We don’t want to put unnecessary obstacles in their path. And I
think maybe, right now, we’re doing that.”
Mike and Linda Green, of Jupiter, Florida, shared a desire to use their skills in
communications technology to further world evangelism. In 1994, Mike retired early
at 58 from a 30-year career as a nuclear engineer and started his own business as a
software consultant. Linda, then 49, worked as an editor of an online financial
publication. Their passion for missions had been fueled by Urbana, which Mike first
attended in 1957 and they both attended in 1996. But the missions agencies they
approached would not accept them because they both had earlier been divorced—
twice for Linda and once for Mike, while he was a Christian.
Mike and Linda applied at six agencies, all of which turned them down. Most
agencies terminated their applications early in the process. “Some just come right out
and say, ‘Sorry, we can’t have divorced people as part of our organization,’ ” says Mike.
One agency said they “had to limit their damages, so to speak,” he says. The Greens’
worst experience involved a missions agency that accepted them after numerous
interviews, but later retracted their offer after a staff member threatened to leave if the
organization hired a divorced couple. “It was painful at times,” Mike says.
Culture Clash
Both boomers and missions agencies are anticipating a clash of cultures. The
attributes of boomers that make them so appealing—spiritual and emotional maturity,
professional skills, and financial security—may also create problems that could hinder
missions objectives.
The largest cross-cultural adjustment a boomer may have to make is between the
corporate and nonprofit worlds, especially if the boomer has left a leadership position.
“If a finisher is a high-powered, CEO-type, he’s not going to be prepared to sweep the
halls,” says Winter.
Some finishers may expect a leadership position in missions, Lewis says, but it will
take time for them to gain credibility with career missionaries who may feel
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threatened by finishers who seem to use missions as a hobby. He believes more
finishers such as Michael Darby—who had no qualms about leaving a management
position in finance to work as part of a discipleship team in Russia—are looking for a
respite from the responsibilities of leadership.
Others, such as the Kingstons and the Greens, may want to use their professional
skills in missions, but it may mean they will have to serve in a support role. If they are
not wealthy enough to support themselves on retirement income alone, they may have
a difficult time raising support. “We view missionaries as people going into hardship
posts, maybe wrestling with cockroaches,” says Art McCleary, a finisher who left a
career in human resources to work for Senior Ambassadors for Christ. “But when they
are in an office setting in the West, it is difficult to see them as missionaries.”
Mike and Linda Green finally found computer positions with the Caleb Project in
Littleton, Colorado, but they recently had to withdraw their acceptance because they
could not raise enough support. After 15 months of raising funds, the Greens had only
15 percent of their combined first-year support. By contrast, Mike’s oldest daughter
and her husband, who are leaving to plant a church with a Mennonite missions team
in Albania, have raised their full support. Mike and Linda Green sold their house in
August in anticipation of their move to Colorado. “We’re back at square one in many
ways,” says Mike.
Another potential area of frustration is recruitment and training. Finishers say the
hiring process is too slow, taking several months to several years before a candidate is
accepted, trained, and has raised support.
In most cases, finishers are mature in their faith but have not had the formal Bible
training required by most agencies. TEAM, for example, requires 30 semester hours of
Bible classes for its full-time missionaries. Finishers Project is looking to develop a
“Bible SAT” to accommodate those who are biblically literate but may not have the
college transcripts to prove it.
The lack of a foreign language could also hinder a finisher’s effectiveness in
missions by limiting options to support roles in the United States or reliance on an
interpreter.
But altering the training requirements to meet the needs of boomers is an area of
serious concern for Winter, who sees a growing “amateurization” in missions. “I don’t
care if you have a Ph.D. in marketing, [a finisher] still needs to know what missions
is,” he says. Otherwise, they will just be “sand in the machinery.”
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Drive-By-Missions?
Despite the eagerness of missions agencies to retool their processes to attract
finishers, some missions experts are skeptical. They fear finishers could change the
focus of missions by demanding short-term options, disregarding indigenous
leadership, and posing a threat to career missionaries.
Winter believes finishers will not want to spend their last years of life overseas,
instead choosing “drive-by missions projects.”
“For the most part, short-termers have given up trying to make a contribution to
missions,” Winter says. “It’s kind of an expensive education, and almost a futile way of
conducting missions.”
But short-term missions opportunities could help finishers verify their
commitment to longer-term assignments, says Paul McKaughan, president of the
Evangelical Foreign Missions Association.
Missions experts herald the growth of indigenous leadership in missions and
express concern over whether a new corps of Western finishers may be
counterproductive to internationalization. “The role we played in the past is not the
role we will play in the future,” says McKaughan. “We will not be calling the shots
from the West.”
Ruth Tucker, visiting professor of mission at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School,
says, “Our fix-it-upper mentality—that we can do it—it’s passe.” Finishers Project is
“wrong-headed,” she says, if nationals are not consulted first.
Bill O’Brien, director of the Global Center at Samford University, says finishers
need to know the church in the Two-Thirds World is prospering, with an estimated
1,000 sending agencies and more than 40,000 missionaries. North American
Christians still have a pivotal role to play in missions—especially in the training of
national leaders—but O’Brien says finishers need to understand they are the students
in this process.
The agencies’ eagerness to court finishers could be perceived as a slap in the face to
career missionaries who bypassed opportunities for profitable careers. “Oftentimes,
missionaries are a little bit offended by the fact that these people come in and ‘haven’t
paid their dues,’ ” acknowledges Malwitz. “However, they’re just going to have to get
over it.”
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Historic Opportunity
Despite the concerns, Finishers Project is taking advantage of a historic
opportunity. Plans are under way for an adult educational video, a toll-free number
with information on job availabilities, and a finishers magazine. The idea is spreading
around the globe: Malwitz has received calls from boomers in Canada, Germany,
Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and Taiwan who want to start their own Finishers
Project.
Thousands of boomers are approaching retirement and want a second chance to
make a difference in their world; but a problem could arise if significance, not service,
becomes their goal.
O’Brien warns that boomers’ desire to become finishers should have more to do
with meeting missions goals than their personal goals. Missions is “not just a flash-inthe-pan that gave me a warm, bubbly feeling because I felt significant for a minute,” he
says.
North American missions need the energy that comes from a new corps of
impassioned missionaries. Finishers need to find significance in their retirement
years. But finishers must move from the pursuit of personal fulfillment to fulfillment
of the Great Commission—sharing the gospel with a world desperate to hear—if they
want to use their life skills to nurture a young, but growing, church.
—Christine J. Gardner
“Finishing Well,” by Christine J. Gardner, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, October 5, 1998
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Tapping Retirees for
Ministry
The church’s view of retirees may determine their involvement.
As the baby boom generation approaches retirement, increasing
numbers of educated, capable, and eager adults will be seeking
ways to use their accumulated skills in the church to minister to
others. Some will volunteer, but the vast majority will only rise to a
task if challenged. Church leaders must give serious consideration
to how they might understand and use the skills and experience of
these older adults.
How should the church view the aging process? Do older adults
represent a largely untapped resource? How best to use this vast
resource for building up, encouraging, and guiding the body? These
are the questions we’ll be discussing in this study based on a
CHRISTIANITY TODAY article by Andy Butcher.
Lesson #2
Scripture:
Genesis 3:19; Job 12:12; Psalm 92:12–14; Romans 12:4–8; 2 Corinthians 5:19–21; Hebrews 12:1–3
Based on:
“Retirement: Retirees May Become Ministry Cutting Edge,” by Andy Butcher, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, June 16,1997
LEADER’S GUIDE
Tapping Retirees for Ministry
Page 10
PART 1
Identify the Current Issue
Note to leader: Prior to the class, provide for each person the article
“Retirement: Retirees May Become Ministry Cutting Edge” from
CHRISTIANITY TODAY magazine (included at the end of this study).
Our view of work greatly influences our view of retirement. For most
people, work is seen as a means to an end, but this isn’t the view of
Scripture. Read Genesis 3:19. God pronounced a curse upon mankind
after Adam and Eve’s sin. But it is not work that is a curse; God had
previously told them they were to keep the Garden. Rather, the curse is
the burden of providing for oneself in a world that has turned its back on
God.
We must resist the misguided idea that work is largely negative. Besides providing a livelihood,
work gives us dignity and purpose. In it we find fulfillment, learn obedience, and acquire
eternal values. More importantly, God views us as partners in the work he wants to do on earth.
Read 2 Corinthians 5:19–21. We are his ambassadors to accomplish his will. Our work, whether
done in a church setting or within the wider society, is an important means by which we glorify
God. Nor does work stop once we retire. Nowhere in Scripture do we see the mandate to stop
being productive or useful for the kingdom just because formal employment stops or a person
reaches a particular age.
Discussion starters:
[Q] How would you describe your view of work? If positive, what aspects of work enrich your
life? If negative, what aspects of work cause you to think this way?
[Q] Who are the people who have most influenced your current view toward work? Explain
how they have affected you either positively or negatively.
[Q] What associations do you consciously or unconsciously make between work and
retirement? How much of this association is drawn from the culture at large and the
message it carries about retirement?
[Q] Why do you think that most of the talk about retirement among the middle-aged and
soon-to-be retirees revolves around financial planning? Why are the equally important
topics of purpose, service, and calling largely omitted from discussion? In what ways
could the church address these issues?
[Q] Discuss the concept of work not being a curse. Why is it so often portrayed as such, even
in the church?
[Q] Work certainly involves hassles and stress. How can we honestly acknowledge the hassles
involved without denying the benefits that also accompany meaningful work?
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[Q] Why do you think so many people today are unhappy and unfulfilled in the types of work
they do, inside and outside the church?
PART 2
Discover the Eternal Principles
Teaching point one: The aging process is to be celebrated.
American society maintains certain stereotypic and often negative perceptions of older adults.
This has come to be known as ageism and can be defined as prejudice or bias against older
adults. This is widespread in popular culture and unfortunately extends to areas of the church
as well. The process of aging is often seen as being out of step with the youth-oriented values of
efficiency and productivity. So we give the important work to younger people and the menial
jobs to older adults. Not only does this action fail to recognize the valuable talents, skills, and
life learning that older adults bring to relationships, but it marginalizes the retiree and may
communicate that their most useful years have passed.
But this is not God’s view of aging. Read Job 12:12. Wisdom is found among the aged and
understanding comes with a long life. These attributes cannot be formed without the passage of
time and the accumulation of life experiences. In many cultures the aged are the most revered
of all members in the community. They are the ones younger members go to for guidance. The
Psalmist tells us in Psalm 92:12–14 that the righteous will “still bear fruit in old age, that they
will stay fresh and green.” In other words, older people deserve to be treated with dignity and
viewed as having skills, knowledge, and ability that others in the community need. The older
person’s attempts may not be as efficient or expedient as a younger person’s, but they should
still be viewed as useful contributions. These skills are assets the church needs for building up
the body and providing guidance to the young.
[Q] What stereotypes of aging are you prone to believe? How do these stereotypes affect your
interaction with older people?
[Q] What has influenced you most in the formation of these stereotypes: family upbringing,
portrayals of older adults in advertising and the media, peers, or others? Give examples.
What can be done to push against these erroneous views of aging and older adults?
[Q] Are you aware of any ageism against older adults within your church? If so, give
examples. How do you feel about these instances? If you are not aware of any ageism
against adults, explain the possible reason for its absence.
[Q] How would you define wisdom as it is used in Job 12:12? How are wisdom and knowledge
different?
[Q] What enables an older person to have wisdom but not necessarily be knowledgeable
about a particular subject? In what ways could your congregation, and especially young
people, benefit from the wisdom older people might bring?
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[Q] How does giving meaningful work to an older adult extend dignity to them? What do we
risk by not extending meaningful work to older adults in the church?
Teaching point two: Retirees are valuable assets to the church
Read Romans 12:4–8. Everyone has been given at least one spiritual gift by God and has
accumulated numerous talents, skills, and life experiences that could be used in service to
others. The exercise of your gifts, talents, and skills in service to others is not only personally
gratifying, but also helps to build up the body of believers. By virtue of more life experience,
older adults typically have a greater wealth of experience to share.
Too often churches do not consider the energy, giftedness, and continuing effectiveness of
retirees, let alone their experience and wisdom. This oversight is a combination of the larger
culture’s bias against older adults and the older adults’ willingness, in many cases, to be left out
of the central work of the church. If retirees feel that they are no longer useful in the church,
many stop trying. Yet this is a waste of one of the church’s greatest assets for encouraging,
guiding, and healing those who need what retirees can offer.
[Q] In his article, Butcher cites a worship leader who says, “Seniors are a largely untapped
resource for churches.” Do you agree with this assessment? Why or why not? If you agree,
explain ways churches could better utilize retirees’ talents and life skills. If not, explain
why you see it this way.
[Q] What effect do you think it has on retirees when they are repeatedly and exclusively asked
to perform menial jobs within the church, like folding bulletins and hosting the
refreshment table?
[Q] What are the main obstacles to giving older adults opportunities to minister in more
meaningful ways? Do you think most older adults would like to assume more
responsibility if given the opportunity? Why or why not?
[Q] To what extent should pastors and other church leaders take the lead in setting the stage
for older adults to be more active in meaningful ministry opportunities? How much
responsibility should retirees take in making their needs and skills known? How might
the two parties work together to ensure that talent and skills are not being wasted?
[Q] On what kinds of issues could older adults instruct younger ones within the church? How
do you think members of your congregation would respond if a program or ministry was
organized that offered older adults as mentors to younger ones? What obstacles might be
present? How could the church work around these obstacles?
Teaching point three: God can use retirees to minister to people in unique
ways.
When age and life experience are valued as assets, the ministry possibilities for retirees within
the church are limitless. Many of these opportunities may be best suited for someone older and
with more life experience. Butcher states that because older adults have gone through “life
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passages such as retirement, the loss of a spouse, and the empty-nest syndrome,” they may be
better equipped emotionally to help others through these events than those who only know
these transitions from afar. For similar reasons, it may also be true that retirees can most
effectively reach other older adults with the gospel.
Another stereotype of older people is that they are set in their ways and resistant to change.
While it is true that longstanding habits are difficult to break, let’s not assume that older adults
aren’t capable of or even interested in change. As Christians, both old and young alike should
continually strive to be more like Christ on a daily basis. Read Hebrews 12:1–3. We all run the
same race, regardless of age. An interest in spiritual growth is just as applicable to older adults
as it is to others.
[Q] What types of life issues (other than those mentioned above) might older adults be more
effective at helping others with, as opposed to younger people? What makes older adults
more suited to address these issues? Is it possible to help someone without having gone
through a similar situation?
[Q] Do you think older adults are more or less resistant to significant change compared to
younger people? What types of change tend to be more difficult for older adults?
[Q] In what areas—that we don’t recognize because of stereotypes—might older adults be apt
to change?
[Q] If you were speaking to a group of retirees and wanted to challenge them to use their
talents and life skills to encourage, build up, and guide others in the church, what would
you stress most in your message?
[Q] How would you respond if retirees felt they were too old or “out of touch” with
mainstream society to minister to others? In what ways do you think older adults tend to
feel out of touch? How might this cause them to marginalize themselves?
PART 3
Apply Your Findings
Everyone has a need to be engaged in meaningful work, regardless of age. But having a clear
sense of purpose is perhaps never as important as in the retirement years. In The Call: Finding
and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life, speaker and author Os Guinness sums it up
well: “Deep in our hearts, we all want to find and fulfill a purpose bigger than ourselves. Only
such a larger purpose can inspire us to heights we know we could never reach on our own. In
each of us the real purpose is personal and passionate: to know what we are here to do and
why.”
Many retirees are ripe for ministry and most earnestly desire to do significant work in peoples’
lives. Helping them find the right fit for their skills and abilities in a local church should be
taken seriously by staff members. This will give retirees a sense of purpose while tapping into a
rich, but often overlooked, resource to build up and encourage the local body of believers.
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[Q] Do you have a clear understanding of how you would like God to use your skills and life
learning to minister to others? If so, write it out to make it concrete. If not, make a list of
possible skills and areas of interest. Who might you begin talking to at the church or at
another organization to help you begin to use these skills?
[Q] What obstacles keep you from initiating service to others in the areas of your interest or
strength? How might you begin to remove those obstacles? From whom could you use
help?
[Q] How might you break down unhelpful assumptions about work? About older people?
Retirement? Service to others?
[Q] If you tend to marginalize your own abilities, how might you resist that tendency and
instead initiate service in at least one area of ministry?
[Q] If you could envision how you would like to be using your gifts and skills one year from
now, how would this look? What practical steps need to be taken to achieve that vision?
—Study prepared by Gary A. Gilles, adjunct instructor at Trinity International
University, editor of Chicago Caregiver magazine and freelance writer.
Recommended Resources

ChristianBibleStudies.com
-Acts: How to Have an Eternal Impact
-Becoming a Follower of Christ
-Discovering and Using Our Spiritual Gifts
-Why God Gave You Gifts

The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life, Os Guinness
(W Publishing Group, 2003; ISBN 0849944376)

Courage & Calling: Embracing Your God-Given Potential, Gordon T. Smith
(InterVarsity Press, 1999; ISBN 0830822542)

Half Time, Bob Buford (Zondervan, 1997; ISBN 0310215323)

Here I Am: Now What on Earth Should I Be Doing, Quentin Schultze (Baker Books,
2005; ISBN 0801065453)

Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, Parker J. Palmer
(Jossey-Bass, 1999; ISBN 0787947350)

Live Your Calling, Kevin and Kay Marie Brennfleck (Jossey-Bass, 2004; ISBN
0787968951)
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Page 15

Vocation: Discerning Our Callings in Life, Douglas J. Schuurman (Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company; ISBN 0802801374)
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ARTICLE
Retirement: Retirees May Become Ministry
Cutting Edge
The church needs to tap this amazing resource.
By Andy Butcher, for the study “Tapping Retirees for Ministry”
As uprisings go, it was quieter and more genteel than the
average student protest, but the goal was no less revolutionary
and ambitious—namely, the overthrow of the youth cult in the
church and the world.
“The future belongs to the aged, to the old people,” churchgrowth specialist Win Arn told attendees at the North American
Congress on the Church and the Age Wave. About 120 pastors
and senior-adult ministry leaders gathered in Colorado Springs
for the five-day conference.
The “gray summit” was staged by LIFE (Living in Full Effectiveness) International,
an Arcadia, California, ministry for senior adults that Arn, now 73, founded in 1990
after a stroke led him to conclude that “hospitals know a lot about nutrition, exercise,
and therapy, but nothing about God.”
Further research on recovery led Arn to believe that “widespread ageism” exists in
churches, with many offering no, or woefully inadequate, ministry to older adults.
Arn and his 46-year-old son, Charles, believe churches are missing out on both a
huge potential volunteer force within their walls and a large mission field outside by
ignoring senior citizens. LIFE’s goal is to “sound a bugle to wake up the church to the
opportunity that is available in adult ministry.”
Attendees, primarily people older than 50, heard that the focus on youth in most
churches simply flies in the face of demographics. The rising “age wave” is apparent
from estimates that two-thirds of all people who have lived to 65 are alive today, and
the over-65 age group in the United States is growing three times more rapidly than
the population at large.
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ARTICLE
Retirement: Retirees May Become
Ministry Cutting Edge
Page 2
Growing Population
With the age wave beginning to break as the first of 76 million U.S. baby boomers
turn 60, Charles Arn said churches must adopt a new paradigm in reaching older
people beyond existing senior ministries that seldom are more than “happy time travel
clubs and potlucks.”
Church leaders were urged to recognize and tailor ministry to five distinct adult
groupings within their congregations: emerging adults 18 to 30; young adults 30 to
50; middle adults 50 to 70; senior adults 70 to 80; and elderly adults 80-plus.
Seniors are a largely untapped resource for churches, said workshop speaker Jim
Hughes, director of senior-adult ministries at Skillman Church of Christ in Dallas and
professor of aging at Abilene Christian University.
“Most older adults have a yearning to do something significant with their lives
before they die,” Hughes said. “They don’t want to be served, they want to serve.” Yet
many churches look to younger people to fill significant roles, leaving older adults to
such trivial tasks as folding bulletins.
Open to the Gospel
Hughes also challenged research traditionally used to justify an emphasis on
ministry to the young, which rationalizes that a vast majority of them make a
commitment to Christ before adulthood. “How many churches do you know that are
targeting older adults for evangelism?” he asked. “Older adults will receive the gospel
and be responsive just as easily as any other age group if you are sensitive to who they
are and where they are.”
While conventional wisdom says older people are more set in their ways, they
actually could be more open to change than the young, Charles Arn said. Through life
passages such as retirement, the loss of a spouse, and the “empty nest” syndrome, they
face more of the major stress points at which people are typically more open to
personal change.
Keenagers and West of Fifty are among the creative names participants reported
they used for senior ministry groups in an attempt to avoid that most offensive of
three-letter words: old.
“Becoming an older adult is not an affliction or a disease,” said Mel Kimble,
director of the Center for Aging, Religion, and Spirituality at Luther Seminary in Saint
Paul, Minnesota. “We should help people to grow older, not old—with meaning and
hope.”
—Andy Butcher
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ARTICLE
Retirement: Retirees May Become
Ministry Cutting Edge
Page 3
“Retirement: Retirees May Become Ministry Cutting Edge,” CHRISTIANITY TODAY, June 16,1997.
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LEADER’S GUIDE
Giving Yourself Away
During Retirement
Great contentment can be found in giving away your time, talents,
and life learning to those who need it.
Not many people initially think of retirement as a time of giving to
others. More often retirement is associated with leisure. But in
God’s economy, there is no retirement. Those who end formal
employment still have a calling to fulfill within the church body,
and it is not a marginalized role within the church.
How can retirees view their roles in the church body as vital links to
meeting important needs? What does it mean to give yourself away
to others versus living for yourself? What is our motive for this
selfless act of using our time, talent, and skill for the benefit of
others? These are the questions we’ll be discussing in this study
based on a CHRISTIANITY TODAY article by Lynn Miller.
Lesson #3
Scripture:
Psalm 92:12–14; Luke 12:48; Romans 12:1–2; 2 Corinthians 9:11–12; Titus 2:1–8; 1 Peter 4:10
Based on:
“What Your Retirement Planner Doesn’t Tell You,” by Lynn Miller, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, March 6, 2000.
LEADER’S GUIDE
Giving Yourself Away During
Retirement
Page 5
PART 1
Identify the Current Issue
Note to leader: Prior to the class, provide for each person the article
“What Your Retirement Planner Doesn’t Tell You” from CHRISTIANITY
TODAY magazine (included at the end of this study).
Retirement and contentment seem to go hand-in-hand. Instead of
punching a time clock every day to grind out a paycheck, a retiree is the
master of his or her own schedule. For most people that exchange brings
some degree of contentment. The thinking behind this tradeoff is: I’ve
worked hard, saved my money, and now it’s time for me to enjoy myself.
But enjoyment in retirement can easily be whittled down to pursing only
personal interests. Is this the way God intended us to live out the golden
years of our life? What happens to all the skills, talents, and life lessons
that we’ve learned? Couldn’t these be seen as valuable resources that could be used to help
others in need?
Read Psalm 92:12–14. God’s Word tells us that older adults can still yield fruit in their later
years. This promise represents both a prospect for retirees and a valuable resource for the
church. It is even more relevant today as increasing numbers of older adults are living longer
with a better quality of life. This also means greater numbers of people can pass on their skills
and learning to help others. Many retirees are capable of contributing years, even decades, of
significant service to their church. If retirement is viewed as an opportunity for growth and
service, then faith will be strengthened and lives enriched.
Discussion starters:
[Q] What aspect of retirement do you currently enjoy or look forward to most? Explain.
[Q] What do you miss or anticipate missing least about employment?
[Q] Do you have a strong desire to continue working in a paid capacity after you formally
retire from your current career? If so, what would you like to do?
[Q] If you were allowed to restructure how people work, save, and retire, what changes would
you make to our current system? What do you think works well and what needs to
change?
[Q] What messages does our current system of retirement send to young people who are 20,
30, or even 40 years away from retirement about work, leisure, service, etc.?
[Q] Why do you think there is such a strong assumption in popular culture that retirement is
synonymous with leisure?
[Q] Why does work have negative connotations during the retirement phase of life?
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[Q] In what ways can you envision retirees being used more effectively in your church? Do
you think there is a vision among the church leadership for utilizing those in the church
who are retired? Why or why not? What could be done to increase that vision?
PART 2
Discover the Eternal Principles
Teaching point one: Wise stewardship of your talents and life learning is not
optional.
Read 1 Peter 4:10. In this passage we see that we are responsible to use the gifts God has
uniquely given to each of us to serve one another. We are called stewards of these gifts. A
steward is someone who manages another’s affairs responsibly. In other words, God gives us
talents and gifts not primarily for our own benefit but to be used in service to others. Also
notice that the verse does not specify any age limitation on being a steward. Older adults are
just as responsible to wisely use what God has given them as are younger people. In fact, older
adults actually carry a heavier responsibility because they have lived longer and as a result
accrued more life experience, skills, and insight. They are then responsible to manage that
reservoir of resources well before God.
When talents, gifts, and life skills are viewed in this way, retirement opens up a vast
opportunity to share these skills and abilities with others. There is no biblical mandate that
instructs us to cease meaningful work whenever an adequate pension enables us to do so. We
may end our regular employment, but that does not mean we end our service for the cause of
Christ.
[Q] What is your concept of serving others? Being up front? Serving in the background?
When you do serve, what types of tasks do you gravitate toward?
[Q] In the article by Miller, he makes a bold statement when he says, “I believe I should
organize my life as if it were something to use up, to give away, to expend.” What parts of
yourself might be easy for you to give away? What parts might be difficult to give away?
[Q] How do you respond to the idea that as an older adult you are more responsible for what
has been given to you than a younger person? Does this seem contrary to popular
stereotypes of retirement? If so, how would you summarize the dominant attitude toward
retirees in our culture?
[Q] Does it surprise you that Scripture makes no distinction between those who are older and
younger as it relates to service in the church? Do you think there should be distinctions in
service between the young and old? If so, what might these be?
Teaching point two: It is a blessing to offer yourself as a living sacrifice.
Read Romans 12:1–2. Christians are repeatedly exhorted in Scripture to keep leading
productive lives as members of the body of Christ, which means continually giving themselves
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over as a living sacrifice in the service of others. Miller states it this way: “Our lives are to be
billboards of God’s grace that will be seen by others as they speed down the freeway of life. We
are to be displays of the everlasting lovingkindness that we have received from God, displays
for those who need to receive it to be whole and alive.”
Who better to model the love of Christ than mature older adults who have lived through far
more successes, failures, and temptations than most young people? That is why Scripture
instructs older people to teach the younger (Titus 2:1–8). The passing on of this knowledge is a
blessing to those who receive it.
[Q] Many older adults shrink away from being in the mainstream of life’s activities. Why
might this be the case? Do you ever feel marginalized by the larger culture? The church?
If so, how? Do you ever marginalize yourself or downplay your abilities? If so, how does
this typically happen and why?
[Q] Many working people throw themselves into their careers to the extent that they don’t
know what to do once they retire. What do you think it means to keep leading a
productive life in retirement when productive was defined almost exclusively during the
work years as career?
[Q] Miller says that “Being an offering means being willing to take some risk.” What kinds of
risk might be associated with giving yourself away to others? What kinds of risk might be
scary for you as you contemplate giving yourself away?
[Q] The concept of the older teaching the younger is an age-old tradition that is not exclusive
to the church. How well do you think the church is applying this principle to guide
younger believers?
[Q] How could your church do a better job of encouraging older adults to get involved with
younger ones? Would you find this type of mentoring or teaching appealing? Why or why
not?
Teaching point three: The motive for giving yourself away to others is
gratitude.
Retirement provides an opportunity to practice stewardship in a way that few working people
at church can match. This type of selfless giving of one’s life should be seen as not only an act of
obedience but also a form of worship. Stewardship of gifts is retirees’ way of expressing
thankfulness to God for all that has been given to them.
This act of worship does not go unnoticed by God. Read 2 Corinthians 9:11–12. He says that
you will be “enriched for your generosity” as you supply for the needs of the saints. The general
principle here is the more we give, the more we will get from God, and the more we get, the
more we are expected to give. There is an ongoing sense of stewardship for what we are given.
So, when you acknowledge that your gifts must be used for God’s work, others are blessed, God
is honored, and you are enriched through the process. That undoubtedly will bring a sense of
contentment about how you are spending your retirement years.
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[Q] Although time is a valuable asset for anyone, why is it especially precious to retirees?
[Q] Does the fact that the past represents more years than the future create a sense of urgency
for how you use your remaining time? Why or why not?
[Q] Are you more aware of your choices than you were ten years ago? What criteria do you
use in making decisions to do one thing and not another?
[Q] Do you agree or disagree with the statement that being a steward of your gifts and
abilities is an act of obedience? Explain.
[Q] What might you feel at the end of your life if you had chosen to ignore this prompting to
give your life away to others while you still had the chance? Would you have regrets? Why
or why not?
[Q] What specific gifts, talents, abilities, and life learning are you thankful for?
[Q] Are there other skills or abilities that you would have liked to have developed or learned
earlier in your life? If so, what are they? What would keep you from learning them now?
[Q] How would you like to use one or more of your current skills toward helping others inside
or outside the church in the near future?
[Q] Does the fact that God will bless you (now and for eternity) for your generosity to others
motivate you to become involved in their lives? Why or why not? If not, what is your
primary motivation for service?
PART 3
Apply Your Findings
Time is perhaps the greatest asset available to those in retirement. As so many in our culture
rush through their lives only to arrive at the next urgent obligation, retirees have been given the
gift of time in addition to multiple talents, skills, and life experiences that are waiting to be used
to minister to someone who needs them. The main question is: How will you spend this time?
Miller frames the same question in financial terms: “Why would you go to all the trouble of
developing career skills and financial resources to save them up for a comfortable retirement
for yourself? Church treasurers don’t take your offerings to the bank and put them in 20-year
certificates of deposit. They put them in checking accounts because they plan on using them.”
The goal of retirement is not to accrue more financial or personal pleasure assets but to use the
ones you have already been given wisely. Read Luke 12:48. Much is required of those to whom
much is given.
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Giving Yourself Away During
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Page 9
[Q] What area of ministry could you see yourself becoming involved in as a means of giving
yourself away to others? Who might you begin talking to at the church or in another
organization to help you assess their needs and their level of interest in using you?
[Q] If you were to organize a media campaign in your church to recruit and train retirees to
become involved in giving away their time, talents, and skills to others, how would you
present the opportunity to them? What core concept would you use to convey the
importance of serving others with what God has given them?
[Q] What are your goals for the next year as they relate to serving others and using your
talents and skills for God’s kingdom? How would you like to see these grow over a threeyear span of time? Five years?
[Q] What one major goal would you like to help accomplish for God’s kingdom?
[Q] In what ways could you begin specifically praying for God to open doors for you to use
your skills and abilities in the near future?
—Study prepared by Gary A. Gilles, adjunct instructor at Trinity International
University, editor of Chicago Caregiver magazine and freelance writer.
Recommended Resources

ChristianBibleStudies.com
-Acts: How to Have an Eternal Impact
-Becoming a Follower of Christ
-Discovering and Using Our Spiritual Gifts
-Why God Gave You Gifts

The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life, Os Guinness
(W Publishing Group, 2003; ISBN 0849944376)

Don't Retire, REWIRE!, Jeri Sedlar, Rick Miners (Alpha Books, 2002; ISBN
0028642287)

From Success to Significance: When the Pursuit of Success Isn't Enough, Lloyd Reeb
(Zondervan, 2004; ISBN 031025356X)

Half Time, Bob Buford (Zondervan, 1997; ISBN 0310215323)

The Journey from Success to Significance, John Maxwell (J. Countryman, 2004;
ISBN 140410111X
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LEADER’S GUIDE
Giving Yourself Away During
Retirement
Page 10

Live Your Calling, Kevin and Kay Marie Brennfleck (Jossey-Bass, 2004; ISBN
0787968951)

Too Young to Retire: 101 Ways to Start the Rest of Your Life, Marika Stone, Howard
Stone (Plume Books, 2004; ISBN 0452285577)

Women Confronting Retirement: A Nontraditional Guide, Nan Bauer Maglin, Alice
Radosh (Rutgers University Press, 2003; ISBN: 0813531268)
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What Your Retirement Planner Doesn’t Tell You
Save in order to give your life away, not to retire comfortably.
By Lynn Miller, for the study “Giving Yourself Away During Retirement”
In the movie Out of Africa, the lead character, Baroness
Blixen, returns to Africa from a visit to Denmark. Her Muslim
servant, Farah, meets her at the train station. Upon seeing her,
he asks, “Are you well, Msabu?” She replies, “I am well, Farah.”
She then asks him, “And you, Farah, are you well?” Farah
replies, “I am well enough, Msabu.”
I am well enough. What an amazing statement of
contentment. And in our time, how rare a sentiment.
Periodically, business magazines run “comparative salary surveys” describing what
people in various jobs are paid on average. The implied question for readers is “Are
you paid well?” What a great response it would be to say: “I am paid well enough.”
Wouldn’t it be healthy to be able to answer the question How big is your house?
with “It is big enough”? Or your TV: “The screen is large enough.” Or your church’s
membership: “Our church is big enough!”
Contentment in life is a biblical goal. The apostle Paul said he had “learned to be
content whatever the circumstances” (Phil. 4:11). And the letter to the Hebrews
encouraged its readers to keep their “lives free from the love of money and be content
with what you have” (Heb. 13:5).
Contentment is indeed a biblical goal, but not everyone sees it in terms of having
enough. Certainly the commercial world doesn’t. The dominant message of most retail
advertising is more. Now 15 percent larger! screams the streamer at the top of the
cereal box. Have you ever seen a product advertised as being Good enough or Large
enough?
No business sector is more affected by the drive to “get more” than the financialplanning industry. Just read the advertisements for mutual funds: “Higher Returns
With Us!” is the message, not “Our returns are enough.” The easiest way in the world
to scare financial planners out of their wits is to respond to their question—Will you
have enough money for retirement?—with Farah’s answer: “I will have enough.” They
argue that since there is no way to predict the future accurately, one can never be sure
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there will be enough. But the underlying problem is not that one cannot accurately
predict the rate of inflation or the rate of return on your investment; the problem is
that contentment has been left out of the equation.
Life Is a Gift—Give It Away
There is a difference between most financial planners’ thinking about retirement
and my own. I don’t think of retirement at all, at least not in terms of idle comfort. The
alternative to retiring comfortably is not to retire uncomfortably, but to live as an
offering to God and of God. I understand my life as a gift that is managed so that I can
afford to give it away at any age. I believe I should organize my life as if it were
something to use up, to give away, to expend.
In the late 1980s some denominational leaders asked me to produce study
materials on the biblical subject of firstfruits. My congregation gave me three months
to focus on this study, which eventually became a small study book titled Firstfruits
Living. And for the last eight years I have conducted hundreds of seminars and
workshops across the United States and Canada.
Occasionally a financial planner will come to me after a seminar and say, “You’re
out of your mind, telling people that they need to calculate their retirement needs
based on ‘being content with enough.’“ I respond by saying that we must be thinking
of very different goals when we think of what enough is for. Financial planners usually
admit that they are thinking of “enough” in terms of retiring comfortably, being able to
do all the things one wants to do, take all the cruises you have ever dreamed of, living
comfortably in a retirement community in a warm climate.
This kind of thinking suggests that comfort has become a synonym for
contentment and a benchmark in financial-planning calculations. Comfort seems to be
measured by the ability to eat out once or twice a day, hire someone else to do house
cleaning, and fill the hours that used to be taken up by productive work with
recreation. Eating out and playing golf are not wrong or even unproductive (I enjoy
both myself). But in my late 50s, they are not what I am thinking about when I think
of retirement.
In 1985 a doctor friend of mine, who was then 55 years old, told me that in five
years he was going to do something different with his life. Actually, it took him six, but
in 1991 he and his wife went to Calcutta, to serve as a mission agency’s country
representatives. They planned to stay three years, but didn’t come home for six years.
And they didn’t come home permanently. At this writing, this couple and his brother
and sister-in-law are building an elementary school for girls in an Indian village. Now,
there is an offering of a life that has multiplied in its ability to give life.
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Like my friend, I am planning on giving my life away. I used to need to be paid to
spend time on a project or task. What I want to do in my “retirement” (and what I
have already started doing) is to give away the time that I used to charge for. I want to
manage my life so that I can say yes to the opportunities to help someone else. So
instead of retiring, I’m planning on switching from managing my investments to
disbursing my abundance—to serve somebody else.
This idea did not originate with me. This is what the apostle Paul said to the
Romans: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your
spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1, NRSV). That’s my life plan, to present myself as a living
offering, holy and acceptable to God. Holy, not because I am a paragon of spiritual
virtue, but because I have set apart and separated the purpose of my life from what it
used to be, from the cultural norm. Paul addressed the same issue with the church at
Ephesus. After telling them what God had done for them, he told them why: “So that
in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness
toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7). Our lives are to be billboards of God’s grace that
will be seen by others as they speed down the freeway of life. We are to be displays of
the everlasting lovingkindness that we have received from God, displays for those who
need to receive it to be whole and alive.
This kind of grace was extended to me in the summer of 1970. After almost ten
years in the U.S. Navy, two at the University of Washington, and a flirtation with the
flower-child culture of the late 1960s, I was at a crossroads. No matter where I turned,
there seemed to be nothing but dead ends. At the age of 30, I found myself married
with two small children, no job, and because of my involvement in the student strike
of 1970, no future even as a college student.
And that is where I first saw a display of the surpassing riches of God’s love. My
wife’s parents had invited us to come and stay with them in Ohio if we ever needed to.
We arrived in Ohio in one of those legendary hippie vans, flower decals and all. I
expected to receive exactly what I deserved—the usual admonition to get a haircut, a
bath, and a job—from this man who was not only my father-in-law but also head
deacon of the Zion Hill Church of the Brethren.
What I received from him instead was a display of the immeasurable riches of
God’s love for us in Christ Jesus. He took me into his life like I was some long-lost son.
He spoke not a word about how I needed to change to suit him; not a word about the
long hair, bad language, smoking, or even that gaudy old van parked in plain view of
his neighbors. Like the God who loved us “while we were yet sinners,” my father-inlaw gave me a display of “everlasting lovingkindness.”
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Paul states the calling of those who have been so graced: “For we are God’s
masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things
he planned for us long ago” (Eph. 2:10, NLT). My father-in-law’s calling was to live out
the purpose for which he had been created in Christ Jesus—which was, at least in part,
to bring even this longhaired, hell-bent, hippie-freak son-in-law into the kingdom.
Paul also said that God gives us “the firstfruits of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:23). This is
God’s offering to come and dwell within us and empower us as his masterpiece. God
the Holy Spirit is with us and makes our lives the offering that Paul calls the firstfruits
of the Spirit. Having given us everything we need to become fully alive and available in
Christ, having given us the three offerings that will set us free—Christ’s death,
resurrection, and the Holy Spirit—God calls us to be his fourth offering and to extend
that freedom to the rest of the world: “He chose to give us birth through the word of
truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created” (James 1:18). Our lives
are offerings both from God and to God.
But an offering must be given. It is not something that you keep for your own use.
You don’t put something into the offering plate and then after the service take it out
again for your own use. Being an offering means being willing to take some risk. For
the past 2,000 years, most of humanity has walked right past the Cross and looked for
salvation elsewhere. But God is willing to have his sacrifice on our behalf “rejected and
despised” because someone somewhere will say yes to Jesus. That is the risky business
that God is in.
Think about it in terms of your own life, especially in view of retirement. Why
would you go to all the trouble of developing career skills and financial resources to
save them up for a “comfortable retirement” for yourself? Church treasurers don’t take
your offerings to the bank and put them in 20-year certificates of deposit. They put
them in checking accounts because they plan on using them. Unless your church has
no mission and no local expenses, during the coming week the past Sunday morning’s
offering is going to be used up in the ministry of the church. It is same for the gift of
our life. It is something to be used up in the ministry of God.
Making your life an offering accomplishes something else. It is probably the best
way to “prove” to God that you meant what you said when you made your confession
of Jesus as Lord and Savior. Right in the middle of his fundraising letter to the
Corinthians on behalf of the church in Jerusalem, Paul urges them: “openly before the
churches, show them the proof of your love and of our reason for boasting about you”
(2 Cor. 8:24, NRSV). Later he says that this offering to them is the proof of their
obedience to their own confession of the gospel of Christ (9:13).
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The proof then produces thanksgiving. “You will be enriched in every way for your
generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; for the rendering of
this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many
thanksgivings to God” (2 Cor. 9:11-12). The motivation for financial accumulation for a
more comfortable retirement is to “get more to have more.” The motivation for living
as an offering is to “produce more to prove more”—and to overflow in thanksgiving.
That is the foundational difference between stewardship and economics.
Stewardship is an act of organizing our lives so that they show how thankful we are for
what we have received; it is not manipulating God to get more. Stewardship is a form
of worship that offers thanks for the grace of God; it is not a financial exercise that
pays the bills of the church.
Extravagant Living
There is no end to what you can do when you decide that your life is a firstfruit
offering of God for a world that needs to know him. In 1976 I met a man who was
teaching welding at a vocational school on the edge of the Kalahari Desert in southern
Africa—at the age of 72! He was a widower, and rather than sit around in a trailer park
in Florida playing cards and waiting to scope out the newly-arrived widows, he
decided to make his life an offering to those who needed it. He was good at welding,
they were not. His gifts were what they needed. He lived in a mud-wall, thatched-roof
hut and was having the time of his life. He wasn’t always comfortable, but he was
always useful and never bored.
In recent years my wife and I have traveled to Honduras annually to stay for a
month or so. Last year, after the devastation of Hurricane Mitch, we helped with the
rebuilding. But mainly we want to be there as an offering to the growing Christian
church in that needy but generous country. Here is a country where churches meet
Sunday evening instead of in the morning because even those who manage to get jobs
sewing Levi’s jeans or Fruit of the Loom T-shirts cannot support themselves working
only six days a week. It takes seven working days to get by when you are making $1.89
a day. In spite of that poverty and the ravages of the hurricane, these are the most
delightful and hospitable people we have ever met. We go there to be an offering, but
we receive much more than we give.
Of course, making our lives an offering does not happen by accident. It takes
planning and management. It takes stewardship. (A retirement worksheet is available
at www.ChristianityToday.com/ctmag/features/retirement.html.) It isn’t difficult and
it certainly doesn’t take a bull market, a large inheritance, or even an early investment
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in anything.com. If your life is complex, however, it might take the advice of a good
financial planner.
If, indeed, you seek professional advice, make sure your adviser understands that
your financial goals are not based on comfort or idleness, but that you intend to make
your life a firstfruits offering for the redemption of others. Make thanksgiving the
motivation behind your financial plan—thanksgiving for what God has already done.
Use “content with enough” rather than “more, just in case” as the benchmark. Plan to
save enough to give your life away, knowing that in doing so you will receive much
more.
That is the way it is with God. We bring our offerings on Sunday to worship God,
but we have already received much more than we are able to give. God is an
extravagant giver of his grace. Whatever we do as an offering to God, we do because
God has already been an extravagant offering to us, and promises to continue to be
involved in meeting our needs and directing our paths.
When I see what God is doing with people who take those crazy journeys trying to
be an offering to someone else, I wonder if it isn’t possible to say that God is happy; he
uses us. Just as God used the death and resurrection of his Son and the Holy Spirit to
set us free, God also uses us when we freely offer ourselves to him. Thanks be to God
for his indescribable gift!
—Lynn Miller is a traveling stewardship teacher for Mennonite
Mutual Aid of Goshen, Indiana. He has written Firstfruits Living and
Just in Time: Stories of God’s Extravagance,
both published by Herald Press.
“What Your Retirement Planner Doesn’t Tell You,” by Lynn Miller, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, March 6, 2000.
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