When you’re 50+, if you haven’t already, sooner or later chances are you’ll hear new expressions from the medical profession relating to your body’s decline. For me it’s my bones, specifically my knees. I have run all my life and love to be jogging on the beach or in the woods or even the mindless […]
“Men’s Retreats” may be a thing of the past if a trend to call them “Men’s Advances” takes off! This spring men from my Dutch expat church (APCH) were again kindly invited to share fellowship, discipleship and worship with a similar church in Surrey (ICC). Initially there was a lack of take-up our end but […]
Our pastor resigned yesterday. He’s off to be a chaplain at Wheaton College in Chicago. Wonderful opportunity for him of course, but he’ll be greatly missed. When you’re 50+ it appears to me that transitions seem to happen faster and faster; even more so in an expat community when some 30% of the congregation changes […]
Is it possible to overstate the importance of a father? My father is 85 and finally showing his age as he copes with failing physical and mental abilities. Old age is not for the faint-hearted. Living overseas means that I cannot be with him as much as I would like but I think of him […]
Summer may bring the opportunity to cross borders and visit foreign lands. If you are based in the UK this means border controls to enter or leave the country where someone checks your passport. However, being based in The Netherlands, and holidaying in Italy by car recently, I crossed Dutch, Belgian, French, Swiss, German and […]
How do you get men in retreat? Ask them to join the quilt group; teach children’s Sunday School; or bake a quiche maybe? Seriously, I was thinking more of a spiritual retreat. Every year in Spring, our Dutch church is a guest of a church in Surry at their men’s retreat. It’s a wonderful time […]
“Get a house group going this Lent.” was the exhortation from the pulpit at my church eight years ago. I did and the mixed group I started is still running and healthy. Being an expat church group the membership changes every year and only 3 of the 10 original members remain but I thank God […]
New Year, new beginnings! It is not uncommon that some time between 35 and 55 there comes a point when the search for success gives way to the search for significance. Whether climbing the corporate ladder has proved exhausting, fruitless, pointless or successful and rewarding; or the rung you were standing on has been cut […]
Alleged child abduction by Roma in Greece and Ireland is in the media as I write. In light of those two cases it is not surprising that negative stereotyping of Roma is rife. How I wish I could take a Daily Mail and/or a BBC journalist to Cluj where a Dutch pastor and his wife […]
Do you find it easier or harder to take a stand as you become older? Should we become more accommodating, more understanding or more bold in our faith? I was a member of an industry-networking group. The demographic of the group was 50-plus, male and all were professional and some very highly respected in their […]
