50 plus blog is produced by a team of 10 writers, it’s a weekly blog that is published every Thursday. Eddie James co-ordinates the blog and is looking for a few more writers – interested?
We are encouraging the churches involved in level 1 and 2 events to broaden their activities to include community service (such as the Besom) and also to involve teams of men of all ages. It is important to show a wider spectrum of activities in the CVM presentations and also to encourage the church members to be involved in all age teams. Besom works in large geographical areas, e.g. across a city and across all denominations, so that small churches and individuals can be involved.
We are also looking for specialists and advocates to speak on behalf of the lonely, vulnerable, sick and the old. For example men in old people’s homes need activities such as invitations to football matches and pub quiz nights. A recent survey showed that men in homes were not being stimulated mentally or spiritually as they were outnumbered by women and felt ignored by the overworked staff. Many churches are not aware of this and don’t invite the men to their services. We need to encourage the older men who are housebound.
Another important and urgent area of communication to the churches is reaching the ‘Boomers’. The Boomers were born between 1944-64 and are the last generation in the UK to have a background of the life of Jesus. Many have left the church as they found it boring, unadventurous and irrelevant. Roger Standing in his book ‘Re-emerging church’ has researched this and I have found that the few churches that are focused on the Boomers are alive.
It looks as though we will need many advocates as the public sector becomes underfunded and overstretched during this recession. Jesus commanded us to preach and heal. Word and deed.
So far I have outlined only 3 areas:
– Social action
– Care for the elderly
– Adventure for the Boomers
but I am sure that this is only the start.
A big thank you to Mike Bartrop, Steve Martin, Kevin Cruise and Dave Lodge for their encouragement in this venture. And of course a big thank you to the blog team.
