iRetire4Him Show 127: A Retirement with Impact

Jim Brangenberg: You've tuned in to iRetire4Him, the voice and resource of the Retirement Reformation, an organization dedicated to you, the retiree who loves Jesus and wants purpose all of your days, especially the ones ahead of you. Hey, Bruce Bruinsma joins us today. He's the founder of the Retirement Reformation, online at retirementreformation. org, where we welcome you to check all of our resources out. And I'm your host, Jim Brangenberg.

Do you feel sidelined in Christianity, shoved off to the side, or off into a corner to hang out with other retired believers? Break through the invisible barriers and push back the lies of the enemy and thrust yourself back into the battle for allowing God to use you for kingdom impact on a daily basis.

If you're going to a church that makes you hang out with other retired believers, then insist they change and allow you to be in a small group with younger folks. or find another church that sees the incredible kingdom value you bring to the table. You are not dead, so you are not done. God is waiting for you to be willing to make a kingdom impact today. Bruce, the question is, to start us off today in this conversation on making kingdom impact, does your local church recognize the incredible value of retired believers in their midst?

Bruce Bruinsma: They're in the process of doing that. They recognize it by giving affirmation to past leadership responsibilities and activities, by sharing stories of things that have happened in the past that give honor to seniors. Occasionally, there will be something even more specific, but they got a ways to go yet. And so understanding there's two parts to that. You've got the church leadership to understand and to embrace and to bring into the activities of the church. And then you've got the seniors themselves.

So many of us have in fact accepted the role of being shoved aside, have accepted the role of nothingness. And so it takes some proactive thinking and processing to be able to move from the lonely couch to the active role in the church. There are so many needs as we look around. And so hopefully today, as we'll touch on some of those needs, it will prompt our audience to go I could do that, as we talk about coming alongside younger couples, coming alongside the youth in a mentoring kind of a role.

By the way, in that mentoring, interestingly enough, we've learned about the needs of mentoring in our churches and in our communities. It's not only the younger people, but it's also often there's those of us that are our age that are just spiritually immature, that need mentoring. Interestingly enough, there's some of our parents that need mentoring and we'll talk about that more in, in other ways. But the church is understanding that there is experience, there's knowledge, there's time, and there's resources. Now, how to use them and how to bring them together and to make it an integrated unit?

Our church is just launching an additional or a new men's ministry, and I'm anxious to see how that, on the first event on see this coming Sunday night, yes, They're going to have a burgers and brats thing for all the men to come together. I'm going to be fascinated to see how many older men are there and what roles they take just in conversation. And so between now and then I'm going to call a bunch of them and say, Hey, you need to be there and you need to exert some influence.

Jim Brangenberg: Yeah. Hanging out with the young guys. All right. So let's take the conversation, we've been talking in the last couple of podcasts about kingdom impact. So let's talk. What is kingdom impact?

Bruce Bruinsma: Kingdom Impact is the various ways that we embody the teachings of Jesus, we listen to the words of the Holy Spirit, and we put those into action to be able to help or to make a difference in the lives of someone else. Now that's when we say someone else, that can be a grandson, that can be a son or daughter, that can be a neighbor, that can be your doctor, that can be any one of the people that God puts you in front of to be able to make a difference in their lives.

Jim Brangenberg: So let's talk about, so that's a kingdom impact. So what's the role of believers in making a kingdom impact?

Bruce Bruinsma: We are the vehicles to do that. That's why God created man , to have a relationship with him and God brought his son into the world so that in fact we could have a model of what does it look like to represent the all powerful God in the circumstances of life. And so as we had talked about in a question, I think in one of our prior podcasts, where do you fit in the kingdom of God and active in being an influencer for change?

I have in front of me the latest copy of the Reader's Digest and on the back cover, there is a picture of Howie Mandel, and Howie Mandel is pointing down to his shoes. Skechers! And it's the Skechers ad, Skechers hands free slip ins, hands free, just step in and go. And it just occurred to me that is really the message that Jesus was bringing to those that he taught and that those that we are learning. Hey gang, as Christ followers, what we need to just step in and go. And we'll make a difference for the people that we serve and for ourselves.

Jim Brangenberg: We got to get Howie Mandela on the show now, Bruce, that's a great idea. Tell me - he's talking to kingdom every day - just step in and go by the way. Those Sketchers are really incredible. I tried some on the other day. You really can just step in. You don't have to bend over and fit your foot in. Okay. So we've talked about kingdom impact. We're talking about the role of believers in making a kingdom impact. The question, Bruce, then, can retired believers still make a kingdom impact? Are we done?

Bruce Bruinsma: Those of us that are 55 or 60 and older that the world calls retirees have the opportunity to have the greatest impact of any generation because we can impact people, we impact change, and we have connections of people that can impact change.

And so the opportunity that is there for us to fight loneliness, to be able to bring God's love and to reflect the fruits of the spirit, there has never been a group - we talk about the 48 million Christ followers, the 10, 000 people that are turning 65 every day, the impact that we can have is almost indescribable.

It was part of God's plan. Now we just need to find our ways to fit into it. And the role of the Retirement Reformation is to reform the thinking of that 48 million, to carry out God's plan, to be able to change our world and to bring it to a place of love, joy, and peace.

Jim Brangenberg: Wow. Talking about impact and people who impact, change and impact our culture. We got Joel Werdell coming. Now Joel is a part two of a show we did, I think it was either earlier this year or late last year. Peter from the Christian Association for Youth Mentoring was coming on to talk about his transition. He was transitioning for jobs and when we brought him on he's Yeah, but I still have my job.

But Joel Werdell is part two of that. He took that job. We're going to hear that in our next segment. And then we're going to come back and we're going to talk even more some practical ways to express living out the kingdom. You're listening to iRetire4Him. We'll be right back.

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Jim Brangenberg: Hey, welcome back to iRetire4Him. As we do in every second segment of the show, we always bring in a special guest, somebody that's living out their faith in their retired years, but Bruce, this doesn't look like we worked that out. The retired years doesn't seem like it fits, but Bruce, tell us about your guest and why he's on with us today.

Bruce Bruinsma: Jim it's so good to introduce you and our audience to Joel Werdell. And as I've just begun the process of getting to know him more deeply, appreciating the journey that he has been on, that he is on, that he will be on. Joel, give us the description of the organization that you're going to be leading. And what was the process that God used to be able to move you from your past work until your present in future ministry?

Joel Werdell: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for having me on and really looking forward to sharing about about CAYM,, the Christian Association of Youth Mentoring. It's been a process for me personally. I have been involved in nonprofits for about the last 20 years and mainly focused on youth and giving them resources. I was a small group leader for some high school kids for a while. And that got me fired up about just that kind of one on one or one to a few folks and getting to show up at things, showing up at events, showing up at different ceremonies, and just being an extra supportive adult.

And then got an opportunity to work helping get youth out in the wilderness, rock climbing, backpacking. And through that, we worked with some specific mentoring programs where it was a mentor and a youth. We got to take them out on some different types of trips, rafting and rock climbing, and saw and heard firsthand the stories of impact with the kids and also from the leadership at those organizations saying, wow, it works.

It can take a little bit of time for a bond to happen. And through your programming, through some of these trust and working together as a team, our mentors have created a lot of really beautiful connection with mentees through that. And that just sparked this fire in me to learn more about mentoring work to start a youth mentoring program at the time at the church that I was going to. And wanting to see what I could do to help as many churches as possible run mentoring programs.

And I think it stems a little bit from what I would say, you could call them kind of two crisis points in our society. One is youth lacking caring adults that are engaged and specifically outside, outside the home. They might have a parent or two parents that are engaged but the connectedness with other caring adults is really low. As a society, we just started to isolate and it feels like we're in a bit of a crisis. So there's so many young people that need someone to step up and care for them.

Jim Brangenberg: Wait a minute, Joel, is it a bit of a crisis or is it a huge crisis?

Joel Werdell: Yeah, every community that we go into, it does not take more than a few minutes talking with a teacher, talking with a social worker, talking with a community member. There are so many kids that don't have adults that show up for them. And we're talking the simplest thing, right? Maybe the school has a play, or maybe they're doing an event, right? They don't show up because they don't have somebody to take them there or they're just really missing out on other activities. So yeah, it is a full on crisis for sure.

Bruce Bruinsma: I know, Joel, in some of our conversations, looking at it from the perspective of the young person, but how are you seeing that this plays out from the perspective of a older person? I won't use the word senior. I'll just say older.

Jim Brangenberg: Chronologically superior. Remember that, chronologically superior.

Joel Werdell: Yeah. I like that one. I think being involved in the nonprofit world, the most valuable thing that you can give of yourself is time. Second, maybe is resources, right? Money, relationships, connections, but the most valuable thing is time. And realistically, a lot of the programs that we work with, the folks that have the most amount of time are people that are have a certain level of financial freedom right there.

They have some time available that they have capacity and margin to support other things, and they can maybe help lead a program help supervise the program. And meet with a kid for a few hours several times a month. It's not a huge commitment. But we're seeing folks that, as they're maturing and growing older, they have two things that are incredibly valuable. They have time and they have life experience. And they have connections. They have, we call it social capital. And for a lot of kids you can imagine they might not even have a parent to take them to a community event, call it a football game, could be some other, thing that's happening in the community.

One, just having another adult that could help take them to an event and share that experience, as well as introduce them to other people with connections. I look at my own life and had that with the community that I was in, in church. And with my network that my parents had, if I wanted a job as an electrician, my parents knew somebody and they're like, Oh yeah, and this guy will hire you.

Like that type of network is so impactful for kids, learning skills, feeling confident and then growing into that next phase of their life. And I think that does speak to the, what I would consider is the second crisis and really need is for Christians and the church to be involved in the community.

And this could be a delicate subject around churches and buildings and a lot of the investment in dollars that gets spent on a building and the resources there and then look at how much is spent out in the community, whether it's looking after the next generation growing up or folks that are really vulnerable or people that are in crisis, right?

There's so much need and we all can see how governments try, but they're not super effective. For example, social workers. We're talking three acts, four acts, a normal caseload. And they can't possibly help all those kids. They're completely overwhelmed, completely overworked and not paid really well.

Jim Brangenberg: And before we end this segment, Joel, and that's really the point is we've got a large audience, potentially 30, 40 million retired believers that are looking for purpose, that are looking for kingdom impact. How can they help you with your mission at the Christian Association for Youth Mentoring online at C A Y M dot O R G? How can they help make a kingdom impact?

Joel Werdell: Yeah, there are youth organizations and there's mentoring, youth mentoring organizations all over. And we basically help connect people to those organizations and we can get you plugged in. So if you're looking to mentor and we'd love it if you got involved, we have, there's thousands of organizations nationwide that would love you to come alongside of a young person. So that's like step number one. And if that doesn't exist, then we help provide all the tools and resources for you to start it up either at a church or through a non profit that's already working with youth.

Jim Brangenberg: So the best thing for them to do is to go to c a y m dot o r g and get started there with the research.

Joel Werdell: That's right. That's right.

Bruce Bruinsma: Joel, we just really appreciate the journey that you've been on and what you've learned from Peter and from others in that movement, but in your experiences and the leadership that you're going to be providing and listening to what the Holy Spirit has for you in the coming days, in the coming years. So we're looking forward to seeing you in Colorado Springs at an event we're going to have here in November, and we just really welcome you to this part of your ministry. So thank you so much for being with us.

Joel Werdell: You bet. I really appreciate it.

Jim Brangenberg: We'll be right back with more pn iRetire4Him.

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Jim Brangenberg: Hey, welcome back to iRetire4Him. Great conversation with Joel Werdell. Can't wait to see, Bruce, where the Christian Association Youth Mentoring blossoms under his youthfulness as he works with many of us who are in our retirement years, to move forward in getting involved and engaging youth across the country.

Bruce, you said something right before we closed out the first segment. That as retired people, as retired believers, we have the biggest opportunity of all around the world to impact people who impact change. And I'd like to add, to impact people who impact culture. Bruce, that statement on its own should just be like, there's the podcast for today.

But let's talk about some ways we can practically impact people who impact change to express the kingdom impact that's been made in our lives. Really that's what you're talking about doing, Bruce, is living out your faith and impacting other people who have a bigger influence.

Bruce Bruinsma: When does change take place? Change typically takes place when there is something new that, it could be something painful. It could be something unexpected. It could be something spiritual. The things that are in front of us , that God brings in front of us and that we respond to, that's the environment in which change takes place. So in people's lives that we know, younger people, young married couples, older married couples, couples that are been married for 40 years that are talking about getting divorced or going through difficult times of addiction or whatever.

It's those times of either pain or opportunity that we can either step aside and move out of the way, or we can step into and make a difference. And when we step into and make a difference, what we are doing is we are influencing the change that is either being experienced or called for or in front of the person or the groups that we're talking to.

We had a couple that Judy and I are friends with and she was in her last stages of life. Matter of fact, they had the bed for her into their living room and she wouldn't die. She insisted on living for probably six months longer than anybody expected. And so as we would go and visit with her, each time that we went, we would talk about a different subject and I would gain wisdom from her that she was learning during that six months of the last days of her life.

And we had the opportunity to counsel with her husband and to help him to understand what was happening and the preparation that they needed to make for what was to come when in fact she passed , and to give him some guidance in working with some very difficult Children. And so there was a circumstance where change was all around and we had the opportunity to bring love, concern, wisdom, insight, compassion, and perseverance all into that family experience.

And there are, we know that the amount of seniors where there is divorce and bankruptcy and these difficult things that are, that we see happening with younger couples are also happening with older couples. And so the call that we have, the opportunity that we have to make a difference is with the younger couples and with the older couples.

Judy and I've been married for 62 years. My goodness gracious, all the different things that we've been through and the opportunity to be able to share how we've navigated through them has just been a blessing.

Jim Brangenberg: So there's lots of areas of our life and areas of other people's lives and other people's society that we can make a kingdom impact. There's really no limit to where we can make a kingdom impact. But Bruce, when we make a kingdom impact, the enemy doesn't really enjoy that. He doesn't like us to be spreading what Jesus brought to the planet. What are some challenges we may face when allowing God to make a kingdom impact through us?

Bruce Bruinsma: In my experience, Jim, and I know you and I chatted about it, but Every time that we are, that I am growing spiritually, I'm taking another step in my spiritual understanding, my journey, I can expect that within a very short period of time, a challenge is going to come from the evil one sitting on my shoulder that is going to be whispering things into my ears that will keep me from that journey. Or we'll say that the journey that you're on isn't real. Or there will be a circumstance where I will have that opportunity to react like the old Bruce, not like the new Bruce, in my relationships with others.

And so to be aware that will happen as we continue to make, as we do make a kingdom impact. If you're not making a kingdom impact, those things won't happen. If you do make a kingdom impact, you can guarantee that it will.

Jim Brangenberg: But what are some of the rewards then? And so if there's going to be some challenges, what are some of the rewards that we may experience even on this side of heaven?

Bruce Bruinsma: For example, first of all, we can get rid of that feeling, that empty pit in us of loneliness that can be dispersed, and we can absorb the pit of relationship not only with our father, with Jesus through the Holy Spirit, but in new ways. With our wife, perhaps with our children, with our grandchildren, and with our friends.

There's, in every family, Jim, there are issues. And there are some issues that have been going on for decades. We've never had any idea how to even approach the subject, whatever it may be. But as we go on this spiritual journey and listen to the power of the Holy Spirit, the capacity to be able to step into that really difficult situation in a way that is God honoring and will bring new and different results is one of the greatest values. If we had a half an hour, I tell you Judy's story with her brother and sister, where she acted in ways that were just so God honoring and so God inspiring, creating a relationship and a family that had been totally broken.

Jim Brangenberg: Bruce, right now, this making a kingdom impact looks a lot like caregiving for you and Judy living through final stages of life. Did you ever imagine that God could use you in this role in your life?

Bruce Bruinsma: No, it was never a role that I imagined or did any self preparation for. Or we had discussions about. One of the things that it's been such a joy to discover during this process is to be able to start and at the middle and at the end of every single day to be able to affirm to Judy and she to me what we mean to each other and that we love each other. Just those simple words.

And so many couples have stopped using those words. And so it's, that has probably been the most important thing. The second is that every time I start to get, I start to get anxious when Judy gets anxious or I get a little, start to get a little edgy or upset, do I really have to do that again? And the Holy Spirit reminds me, yeah, you do, and you need to do it with love. And it's just Oh my goodness gracious. I didn't realize that, how good that was. I didn't realize what opportunity there was there. And so I think in many of our marriages and our relationships, we have that opportunity to see it through God's eyes and then to be able to act and communicate with his message through those fruits of the spirit.

Jim Brangenberg: Making a kingdom impact in every area of your life, no matter what you're doing, whether you're at the grocery store, filling up your gas tank, talking with your neighbor, walking the dog, going to church - you can make a Kingdom back impact wherever you go, and that's what this series has been all about.

Bruce, appreciate your leadership through all of this, and if you wanna find out more about how you can make a Kingdom Impact, Living a Fruitful Life is Bruce's latest book. You can find it online at retirementreformation.org. Of course, any of the online booksellers. Retirement reformation.org living a fruitful life.

You've been listening to, iRetire4Him with your host, Jim Brangenberg. We're the voice and resource of the retirement Reformation. Online once again at retirement reformation dot org. Bruce Bruinsma's been here with us. He's walking alongside you through retirement through all of his wisdom that he's experiencing it as he goes We're both Christ followers journeying from retirement to reformation so ultimately we can say iRetire4Him.