I'M RETIRED - NOW WHAT DO I DO?

I'm retired!  Now what do I do?  When some people retire they fall apart.  They go into depression.  Some retirees end up in the hospital.  They don't know what do do.  Work has been their life and if they don't have a hobby or retirement plans, they're lost.

Fortunately that was not my experience.  I had several ideas and things that I wanted to do.  The first thing that I did was treat myself to a new set of golf clubs.  The clubs that I owned, I had purchased in 1964.  I figured it was time to purchase some new ones.  I played three games, with my new clubs, wrenched my back at the third game and never played another game.  I eventually sold those clubs.  After my golf games ceased to be, I tried my luck at salmon fishing for a few years.

 Yes!  Dan caught this 26 pounder

Since I had worked with seniors, I  thought that maybe I would conduct workshops or seminars for churches, sharing about ministry to seniors.  I had two such in the fall of 2000, one in the Vernon Alliance Church, Vernon, BC and one in the Oliver Alliance Church, Oliver, BC.  Those seminars began with a Friday evening session, followed by several sessions on the Saturday. There was some interest in doing a weekend in Calgary, but I realized that I would be subsidizing these weekend events with my pension income, which I could not afford.  So I dropped that idea, as much as I enjoyed it. 

At the beginning of my retirement, we kept our distance from Sevenoaks Alliance Church for a few weeks.  On Sundays we attended a different church each Sunday.  We did that hoping that our successor would connect with the seniors.  There was one problem.  Even though I had submitted my resignation letter in January, a pastor to seniors was not hired until November.  So, with the approval and blessing of the Sevenoaks senior pastor and the board of elders, we returned to Sevenoaks Alliance Church and have been there ever since.  It has been stated that a pastor, particularly a retiring senior pastor, should not continue to attend the church where he served, but attend another church.  We were pleased that we were welcome to continue to be a part of the Sevenoaks church family.

Within a few months of retiring I began to receive the occasional invitation to preach for a Sunday or two in different churches, when their pastor was away.  Since retiring I have preached in six different Alliance churches, two of them Chinese Alliance.  I've also had the privilege of speaking in a Mennonite Brethren Church, an Independent (Non-Denominational) Church and a couple of Baptist churches.

One of those Sundays, that I was asked to speak, ended up, a couple of months later, launching me into my first interim senior pastoral position.


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