This is a short video that our church filmed recently highlighting the opportunity and need for nursing home outreach. For those of you who have followed by blog for a while you know that my passion has been to reach into Long Term Care homes around our community. Ministering to the needs of residents is about more than simply singing a few songs or showing up on the holidays. Serving the needs of those in long term care means also reaching the community around them, including family members, staff and other volunteers. My prayer is that you will hear God’s call to give time, energy, prayer and resources in this New Year ahead to make a difference in the lives of those in the Long Term Care Community.
Month: December 2019
Our Special Muslim Friends
Last year we moved from a house along a busy city street to a planned community. We miss the hustle and bustle and choice of Latino, Asian and Italian food, but we are happy to live in a neighborhood where the people next door aren’t moving in and out every six months. We were also pleasantly surprised to learn that at least two of the other families on the street were Evangelical Christians like us. What we didn’t expect was to learn that the nice people who lived right across the street from us were Muslim. Now that almost eighteen months has passed since we began to unpack our boxes I have come to some startling conclusions.
The first surprising thing is that even though our Christian neighbors like us and we get along fine, it is the Muslims who are the easiest to talk to. Secondly they not only greet us with friendly smiles and small talk but also loaned us their pressure washer so we could clean our driveway. Then Christmas rolled around and guess who came to give us a beautiful tin of cookies at Christmas? You got it! What a blessing that our Muslim neighbors are now our Muslim friends! All of this has made me stop to reevaluate how Jesus looks at our Muslim neighbors all over the world .
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. Luke 2:10-12 KJV
If the angels were sent to Bethlehem today they would be probably waking up Muslim shepherds. Stranger still is that this idea is more than okay with God. Notice how in the story from Luke there was no special guidance given to the angels. They were not directed to find only folks who attended synagogue regularly. Instead they were sent to people who would be willing to have a conversation and do something about the news. Then consider the message itself. God sent a message of “Great joy…for all people.” Who better to send a missive on joy to than some shivering shepherds who had to stay up all night watching stupid sheep! Last of all God decided on people who He was certain were going to tell others. Christmas was not some sort of top secret “For your eyes only” communication. If God wanted to keep Christmas quiet He could have gone to the high priest or some of the higher ranking members of the Sanhedrin. They would not have agreed with the good news for everyone part of things so they probably wouldn’t have told a soul. But instead God chose shepherds and a carpenter and strange wise men from Persia to show His love to that night. Since the first Christmas the angels have passed on to us their job of good news telling. Maybe we should ask ourselves who God might be wanting us to tell tonight!
Praying for Others
And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ Luke 18:1-3 ESV
For the last 23 years in nursing home ministry God has helped me to learn a lot about prayer. Though you may have never set foot in a nursing home you will discover that prayer requests are remarkably the same everywhere. People in nursing homes battle with depression, fatigue and loneliness around the holidays like everyone else. As an outreach worker you often ask yourself; “What is my small faith in the face of such needs?” Jesus gives us some answers in the story that He told about a widow and a judge. 
First, she built a relationship with the judge by going to see him every day. Every day as he sipped his morning cup of tea, he would hear a knock. When he went to open his door there the widow would be again asking; “Give me justice in my dispute with my enemy!” Maybe he even began to anticipate her visit and prepare for it. In our case we pray, not to some uncaring local magistrate; but to our Father in heaven. He is loving, merciful and kind. Why not begin where the widow began? Why not come every morning with expectant faith; knowing that Jesus is eagerly waiting to hear our knock on His door. Learning to pray for others means persistently building our relationship with God and then trusting Him to meet their needs.
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