Prior to becoming Outreach Pastor at Greenwood Community Church in Denver CO, Pete practiced dentistry for 23 years. He has an M.S. in Counseling Psychology, studied in seminary, and his newest book, The Intergenerational Church. Pete will join with Chuck Stecker in Atlanta in helping ILC participants unpack the power of intergenerational ministry in today’s church.
Read Pete on Baby Boomers & New Realities in Today’s Church.
SMALL BITESProvided by CN Building Adult Ministries Resource Center
It was a dark and stormy night………..and I was gripped with “downsizing fear” as I understood this was all too real. Our beautiful home would be sold. Feeling stunned, I didn’t tell anyone for a while, except for my closest friend who would be listing it for us. Three weeks later, at our Thanksgiving table, we told our family. A month later, on Christmas Eve, we told some close friends with whom we have shared that special evening for the past ten or so years.
On Christmas Eve morning each year, my friend (the one who would be handling our sale) and I drive to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco and purchase freshly cooked crabs and freshly baked, still warm from the oven sourdough bread from Boudin’s bakery across the street from the Wharf. It’s a delightful tradition! Since we always patronize the same crab station, the men who cook, clean and crack the crab recognize us each year and begin our early morning forays with complementary bread bowls of delicious steaming clam chowder. Arriving home by 10:30, my friend goes on her way to set up her Christmas Eve crab feast and I do the same at my house. Likewise, for the fourteen to twenty friends and family members at our table, it has become a Christmas Eve tradition to attend church service, then share the wonderful crab feast, exchange a few gifts and enjoy each other.
Announcing that this would be the last Christmas Eve in this setting was somewhat emotional for all of us. Of course, my friends and family were very sympathetic and supportive and we all agreed it would not be our last Christmas Eve together. Even at that rather painful moment, we began to plan ahead to meet at our home in a place as yet unknown and continue our beloved Christmas Eve tradition.
MENU
Cracked Crab Platter
Sourdough Bread
Caesar Salad
Asiago Cheese Ravioli
Molten Chocolate Cake
RECIPES
Cracked Crab Platter
1 Pacific Dungeness crab per person, cooked, cleaned and cracked
Party ice
1 lemon, cut in half
3 or 4 lemons, cut into wedges
Curly leaf parsley, snipped into sprigs
Butter (tea candle lit individual butter warmers)
1 or 2 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
Cocktail sauce (supplied by the fish market, purchased or homemade)
Large platters with sides
Remove the crab from the wrappers and rinse under cold water. Spread on a sheet pan, pat dry with paper towels, and squeeze the juice from the half lemons over the crab. Toss to coat.
Place a layer of party ice on the platter or platters. The platters need the sides to hold the melting ice water. (I learned that the hard way!)
Place the crab pieces, claws and bodies, on the ice.
Stud with lemon wedges and garnish with parsley sprigs.
Place small bowls of cocktail sauce at various spots on the table.
The butter warmers are available at Bed, Bath & Beyond and come 2 to a box for a very reasonable price. It’s nice to have one at each place. They do double duty as the butter warmer and candlelight for the table! Place about 1/4 of a butter stick and a thin slice of garlic in each warmer. Light the candles about 20 minutes before dinner seating. The butter will bubble and make a tasty dip for the crab. At the grocery store or an import shop, bibs and crab crackers with picks are available. It’s a good idea to have an abundance of these items for your guests.
Since I am usually busy with Christmas music in the church services, I purchase a large pan of a ravioli entrée from a local restaurant and serve it in a chafing dish on the table or from a sideboard.
Many Caesar salad recipes are available on the internet from the Food Network.
The freshly baked sourdough bread is a wonderful accompaniment to the meal.
The molten chocolate cake mix is available from William Sonoma stores and is very easy to make. It can be mixed ahead, placed in buttered ramekins and refrigerated. The cakes take only about 20 minutes to bake. I like to start them as we sit down to dinner and ‘aromatize’ the air with the delicious baking chocolate. Each person gets his or her own hot molten cake with mini-scoops of eggnog and candy cane ice cream and steaming cups of decaffeinated coffee.
A meaningful tradition……
I will find out this Christmas what form it will take!
Tip: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
…..to give you a future and a hope…………Jeremiah 29:11
In his book, Run with the Horses, Eugene Peterson recounts the story in which William Stafford was once asked in an interview, “When did you decide to be a poet?” He responded that the question was wrongly put. “Everyone is born a poet—a person discovering the way words sound and work, caring and delighting in words. I just kept on doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is why did the other people stop.”
To put it another way, Stafford was doing what everybody starts out doing, being human. And he didn’t stop.
This week, I met 18-month-old Joshua, running up and down the hallway outside our home, entertaining his gramma, conquering new territory, and delighting in the repetitive sound and shape of ‘first words’ as they echoed in the passageway. He was ‘being’ human.
With Stafford’s quote still on my mind, little Joshua made me think. It occurs to me that ‘being’ may well be one of our greatest challenges as we age. There was a time when we were excited about ‘being,’ like Joshua. Is it still true for us today, like Stafford?
When did you decide to be? Most often when we hear this question it doesn’t stop there. It goes something like, “When did you decide to be a pastor? An architect? A farmer? A teacher? When I was young, I wanted to be a cowboy, a policeman and a pilot. Worthy ‘want-to-be’s,’ but when I grew up, these wants faded as the process of ‘being’ continued.
Maturing has to do with being and becoming. The Apostle Paul spoke of arriving at “mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). I still have miles on this score. Some days I think I am breaking up rather than growing up. That’s when the Apostle Paul and William Stafford and Eugene Peterson and little Joshua all remind me that today is my (and your) opportunity to be a child of God becoming a mature Christ-like human.
The question is not am I becoming? The question is who am I becoming? In summary, let’s just agree that life’s second half is not a good time to deteriorate, to only think in terms of what we have been. This is an absolutely key moment in time in which God wants us to be and to become. Perhaps William Shakespeare (Hamlet) may have been thinking about us when he wrote the immortal line, “To be or not to be, that is the question.”
When did you decide to be? If it has been a while and life’s sharp edge maybe now is a good time. As you do, stir the glowing embers of two or three of your peers and leave a light on for the next generation.
CASA NETWORKHilton Marietta Hotel and Conference Center
Atlanta, Georgia
What if all generations came together to “do” church?
What if old and young were equally valued?
What if we decided to share faith and life together?
IT WOULD BE REVOLUTIONARY!
Calling Christian leaders of all ages to gather together at the Better Together Conference!
Click here for more details
Amy Hanson PhD, is a very busy woman. She has served as the active adult (50+) ministries director at Central Christian Church in Henderson, NE, for 5 years, has taught gerontology at the college level, and regularly conducts workshops and presentations related to aging and older adult ministry. She is a member of the CASA Network Writers Panel, a popular speaker and author of the new book, Baby Boomers & Beyond. Amy lives Omaha with her husband, Jon, and is a mother of two children.
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FREE to all CASA Network partners! A brand new resource. It’s like going “back to the future.” Interesting stories and information. Easily duplicated in color or b/w in your church office as a handout for small groups or SS classes. Personalize your own Events page insert. Use the first issue this summer in your church. Quick. Easy. Target audience: 45+ and beyond age.
Download and view the first issue now!
Download an editable Word document to use as an insert for your ministry’s specific details.
Provided by CN Building Adult Ministries Resource Center
Some people have trouble with all those shall and shall not’s in the Ten Commandments… Folks just aren’t used to talking in those terms. So, in middle Tennessee they translated the ‘King James’ into ‘Jackson County’ language… no joke (posted on the wall at Cross Trails Church in Gainesboro, TN).
(1) Just one God
(2) Put nothin’ before God
(3) Watch yer mouth
(4) Git yourself to Sunday meetin’
(5) Honor yer Ma & Pa
(6) No killin’
(7) No foolin’ around with another fella’s gal
(8) Don’t take what ain’t yers
(9) No tellin’ tales or gossipin’
(10) Don’t be hankerin’ for yer buddy’s stuff
Now that’s plain an’ simple.
Y’all have a nice day!
Provided by CN Building Adult Ministries Resource Center
• A church is ageist when it regrets the inability of the old to climb the stairs to the sanctuary, but fails to provide accessibility.
• A church is ageist when it takes public pride in the “new young families” who are attending church activities, but takes for granted the “old folks” who have supported the church through many years.
• A church is ageist when it forgets its active old members and leaves ministry with the old to the retired minister on the church staff whose task is to visit the shut-ins.
• A church is ageist when it assumes that old people no longer want leadership roles.
• A church is ageist when it acts on the assumption that in order for younger people to become involved in the church the active and able old members must be expected to step aside.
• A church is ageist when it makes plans for an “older adult ministry” without consulting the ones to whom and with whom they plan to minister.
• A church is ageist when it “honors” the old but treats them in a condescending and patronizing way.
• A church is ageist when it puts all of the hearing aids in one pew, down front.
• A church is ageist when it assumes that old people will always resist change.
• When older adult ministry is planned without the involvement of older adults, that’s ageism.
• When a church believes that the only way it can be innovative and growing is to have older adults step aside, that’s ageism.
• When a church fails to make its facilities accessible, that’s ageism.
• When a church hires staff for other age-group ministries or provides them a budget but ignores ministry with older adults, that’s ageism.
• When church leaders believe they know what’s best for older adults without consulting them, that’s ageism.
• When church leaders regularly ignore issues of aging and older adult concerns in their sermons, hymn selections, and prayers, that’s ageism.
• When church leaders focus solely on young families and ignore older members who have supported the church over a period of many years, that’s ageism.
Dr. Richard H. Gentzler, Jr. is the Directorof the Center on Aging & Older Adult Ministries at the General Board of Discipleship in Nashville, Tennessee. This article, Is Your Church Ageist, appeared in the fall 2006 issue of Center Sage.
Rev. Steve Clifton joined the staff of First Baptist Church in June of 1996. He is the 50 and Better & Adult Administration and Assimilation Pastor. He also is the team leader for all adult ministries at the church. A native of Tennessee, he has served churches in Arkansas, Tennessee and Florida.
Steve graduated in 1983 from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro with a Bachelor of Music degree in Church Music. Additional Christian Education studies have been completed at Williams College, Walnut Ridge, Arkansas; and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.
Steve is married to the former Laurie Baker of Birmingham, Alabama. They have two children, Caleb and Sarah.
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JOHN HECK has retired from the CASA Network Board of Directors after having faithfully served for twelve years. John also was one of the Board representatives to the Board of Total Living International during CASA’s affiliation with that organization.
Born in a small Illinois town, John and Ruth have lived in foreign countries and different areas of the United States. John has given much of his life to fundraising and estate planning for Christian ministries, first as a missionary in Japan, then later with Seattle Pacific University, Fuller Seminary, Pomona First Baptist Church, and for seventeen years as Director of Planned Giving at Atherton Baptist Homes in Alhambra CA, where he and Ruth currently reside. John and Ruth have been married over 40 years.
John continues his supportive interest in the ministry outreach of CASA Network and looks forward to any opportunity he can to further the cause of inspiring and equipping the Church for ministry to and through adults in life’s second half.
If you would like to express appreciation for John’s contribution to all of us who’ve been blessed through his ministry in helping guide CASA Network, go to the gocasa.org home page and click “Get Inside the Network. Then post your message.