Sunday, August 21, 2005

 

Rethinking Retirement

The standard thinking today is that one works hard for 30 to 50 years and then retire at, say, 65 and then the "fun" begins.

However, the Bible has no real concept of retirement. Only the priest seems to have a place for retirement (Num 8:25). Presumably one turned from a busy bee into a mentor and/or manager and then finally advisor to mentors/managers?

Fortunately, our church is trying to push volunteer ministry as a retirement goal. In the secular world there are groups like SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives), but they all deal with one topic (one specific ministry or service).

All too often our churches are focused only on religious element of life but Christ is about all of life not just church attendance. So men need to look out for all of life for their family especially as they raise their children. And when one turns into a retiree, the focus should be to mentoring and coaching and teaching the younger generation on all aspects of life. Since today's generations are much smaller (i.e., less children and less grandchildren) than previous ones, the retirees have less direct relatives to help out which means they should have more room (more time) to help out those who lack family "help." With fragmented (divorced or unmarried) families all around, retirees can help single fathers as well as become substitute fathers in single mother families (the only risk would be love blossoming between the retiree man and single mom).

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