David Nakhla 0:34

We urge you to avail yourself of the resources you'll hear about in this episode. As always, we welcome your ideas and feedback, and we hope that your work is blessed by the content that you hear. Now let's get into this next episode.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

It's good to be here with you all today. And I thought the way I wanted to start is just by saying thank you for giving your time to be here today. I'm very thankful that all of you are here. Some of you I've worked with on some very challenging diaconal cases. So sometimes it's nice just to be able to see you, shake your hand, and uh make a connection there. I'm also uh thankful that there's presbytery diaconal committees. So yesterday I was reminded when David was presenting the history of how we got to this point and all the diaconal summits that have happened, but just the design of the local church, then the presbytery diaconal committee, and then CDM. Then, if you think about it, uh the Committee on Ministerial Care begins in 2017. It's reformulated from the Committee on Pensions. And at that point, more responsibilities are given to it. And in many ways, in a partnership with uh CDM, we're looking to care for ministers in that way. So we, in a sense, walk into a situation where CDM has already done so much work thinking out what do we want Presbytery Diaconal Committees to do. So you could say we're lucky, but in God's providence, um, it's the table was set for us by the time we had to start trying to think through how to care for ministers. One date to keep in mind is 2019. I believe that's the official year that uh CDM began giving $25,000 out of their budget to CMC. It's designated for the care of ministers. And so each year we partner with them and we share this is what we've been doing, this is how much we've distributed. The goal of that fund that we've worked out with CDM is that they're going to give us $25,000 a year until we reach a point where there's about $100,000 in reserve to care for ministers at that point. Currently, that reserve sits at about $47,000. And just to give you another number, uh, in this year, uh, with the $25,000 distributed to us, uh so far, we've allocated almost $17,000 of it to ministers for different needs throughout the OPC. There's another need looming that I could see we end up spending all of the $25,000. But as you might know, in your own cases, things happen, and sometimes the need uh either gets bigger or goes away. From my standpoint, I think Presbyterian diaconal committees are just essential. If we're thinking about how to care for ministers, if you imagine a pastor of an evangelical church or a non-denominational church, if they have a diaconal need and the local church can't help them, they are stuck. They have nothing. Um, and if you look at the way the OPC is set up with Presbyterian diaconal committees and then denominational committees, there's multiple layers of support to help ministers and really all of our members, but in this case we're focusing on ministers. One of the tasks that I do for ministerial care is when new ministers are ordained into the OPC. I try to have a conference with them just to talk about ministerial care and the other things going on. And I would say, especially the wives, are shocked to hear. So there's diaconal care that's set aside just for us if something were to go wrong, and they feel so encouraged, these young couples as they're entering ministry. And sometimes guys are transferring in from other denominations and they're like, this is fantastic. I never knew that I had something like this. And so they're encouraged as well. One of my observations, since I've been involved with this since 2020, I cannot believe the level of complexity of some of the diaconal work that is needed for ministers. And if it wasn't confidential, I could actually invite a few people in this room up with me. And we could say this has been a really challenging case. And so part of what I wanted to say this morning, I think I've already said thank you, but thank you for being willing to wade into difficult, challenging situations sometimes that ministers will find themselves in. So we set up yesterday, we set up this model where what's set up is there will be a minister with a need, and we want that minister to go to the diaconal committee. And that's the model. That's what we would like to see. Sometimes a minister will fill out the diaconal form from our website and hand it in, and I'll say, Hey, guess what? This is great, but we need to talk to your diaconal committee and help them to get involved. And that happens several times. And the pattern overall works pretty well. But I also wanted to share with you that we do, uh Ministerial Care Committee does have one exception to that policy where we ask to work with the diaconal committee, and that is in a counseling case. So if a minister approaches us and says, I have a personal matter, a confidential matter, and I'm not, I really don't want to share with my uncle church, and I'm not even really sharing it, comfortable sharing it at this time with my presbytery, then in that case, we will grant them some support. But even then, in the counseling application form, if you're asking for counseling, this is the way I, this is the way we've worded it on the form. So they're asking for counseling support. We say CMC ordinarily partners with Presbytery Diaconal Committees in providing financial assistance to ministers. Is this request for counseling one you would prefer to be kept confidential from the PDC and seek reimbursement only from CMC? If so, please explain. And so there are, there have been a handful of cases where ministers have said, yes, uh, we would prefer this to keep confidential at this time. If you're wondering how often this happens, in the current year, 2023, eight different ministers or members of their family have sought help where we're giving support to them. Over half of the time, the Presbytery Committee is aware of the issue. But there's a few, there is a small handful where they are confidential as well. And I would just mention if you're thinking about it and you run into a minister that has counseling needs, I want you to think about what our denominational committee, CMC, can do for you in two ways. One is that obviously there are finances there. So if you look at your Presbytery Diaclon committee and you have finances, but you think you might need more, then of course approach us and we can partner together and figure out how to pay for it. But I think almost as important or more important is that we are willing to help with referrals. Sometimes the hardest part is finding the right counselor that's gonna match. And there's some basic questions we ask, like what is your approach to counseling, or what kind of counselor would you like to see? And then also, in some cases, we're very removed from resources. So are they willing to do video counseling or are we gonna have to find somebody in person that's closer? Sometimes the persons that's in closer is not ideal, but we we just try to figure it out as we go. And then also with that, I would say, I don't know how to put this, but testing, especially for kids in ministers' families. Insurance does not always cover testing, but if you think about things like uh intellectual disability or autism, different things that occur could could occur in a minister's family, insurance doesn't always like to cover testing because it's expensive. It's typically $1,000 or more. So if you become aware of a minister and perhaps they have a child in their family that needs some sort of testing for a challenge that they're facing, think about talking to us not only about how do we pay for this, but how do we find somebody to help test? And our committee and specifically I will do my best to help you find the right resource in your area. I think I'm gonna pause there and just ask: are there any questions at this point about uh diaconal support and counseling support for ministers and their families? Yes.

SPEAKER_05 9:22

So in our presbytery, there's a one committee per ministerial care and another committee for diaconate.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

How does that relationship we work at the presbytery level that we vote for? The question is that there's some presbyters that have both a ministerial care committee and a diaconal care committee. So, how do those two committees work together? And ideally, those two committees are working together and they're communicating to one another so that if the ministerial care committee discovers a diaconal need, then they're coordinating with the diaconal committee to take care of that need. I would also love to see that same ministerial care committee, not that we're talking about that now, but if they find out that there's a financial need for the minister, it may have to do with their compensation. So perhaps they need to be talking to the visitation committee or the candidates and credentials committee or whoever has takes care of those sorts of needs as well. I think your committee, the diaconal committee, you often discover the need, and then you have to think through what are we going to do with this? And sometimes it's not just the local church that you're working with, but it might be another committee in your presbytery that you should be working with as well. Good question. Another question, yes.

SPEAKER_05 10:36

This may be similar to what we're saying, but our our presbytery does have a ministerial career care committee chair with the PDC. But we see no lapidation. So that's what we have to decide which way to go. So at one point we we were called up a member by who was probably maybe not going. Ministers go to the Ministerial Care Committee, and other needs go to the PDC, but I think I was the way that's not quite accurate, it's about that clean. So just kind of wondering is this because it's a little bit newer at the presbytery level, we're still trying to map out which goes where? Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

I think so. So this is related to it's trying to clarify the boundary between the ministerial care committee and you're saying, hey, we have a fairly new ministerial care committee in our presbytery, so how is this gonna work between us?

SPEAKER_05 11:31

Yeah, uh I I've been told in the past that if a minister has a need, then they want to go to the ministerial care committee. Other diaconal needs that are uh people in the body, just your average person, and it goes beyond the local diaconate that goes to the PDC. But it sounds like there you go, it's not quite like that.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

I wouldn't I would not say that, no. I I would say if it's any sort of a diaconal need or mercy ministry need, the diaconal committee should be caring for that. I don't know every presbytery, but I know your presbytery, the presbytery of the Wisconsin and Minnesota. And the way that's set up is the Ministerial Care Committee and that presbytery should be contacting their pastors on a regular basis just to provide standard care. If a diaconal need or mercy need arises out of that, it's either going to come from the minister or that committee to you, or it should come to you. Yes.

SPEAKER_08 12:26

From Philadelphia Presbytery, we've started joint meetings with the committee on missionary oversight, or uh ministerial oversight. And I mean the boundary doesn't it's not clear cut. And you know, we find that sometimes the challenge from the GAPM committee is how do we get the information, how do we uh you know get into the minister's meetings and things, and if we become aware of it, fine we'll address it, but how do we just become aware of it sometimes in the first place? Um you know, we're finding that there's there's such overlap there in terms of the type of questions and things come up that we didn't really expect, but if we've already established the liaison, then it just works so much better because they can say, hey, listen, we should talk about this. We can I was I mean, the the letter that we sent out, you know, August or whatever. I mean, that was like manner from heaven, you know, because we can talk about a lot of those things, and it seems like we're reinventing the wheel on some of this stuff, but we need this information and the fact that these committees are working on that. So for us, we're gonna continue that on a recent year basis. Not really with a goal to say, okay, we have some certain things to solve, but really just to continue to maintain the dialogue.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Can I put you on the spot for a minute? The letter that we sent, in what way did it help you?

SPEAKER_08 14:03

A, the practical resources that you identified, and you know, where you know, if we are involved in a situation, maybe trying to help a retired person or somebody, you know, with wanting to point them to some specific resources or tools that you could evaluate, uh, you know, there was great there. Also, again, just this continued relationship of knowing that you're at the denominational level and also at the presbytery level, and there's some of your committees that are working on this. Um to me it was just tremendous encouragement, but it was really a practical thing for us.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Mike.

SPEAKER_10 14:52

Do you all help ministers that are under disabled?

SPEAKER_00 14:57

As long as they are a member of the Presbytery, they are eligible for help. Unless we hear something, because we would hear it from the Presbytery Diaconal Committee, right? If they said you need to put the brakes on this, we would listen to them. But they're not automatically ineligible, in my view.

unknown 15:12

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_10 15:14

We've actually had some cases in the Presbytery of Southeast where the data committee is immediately upon the pronouncement of this point or member here. Your income specs are being impacted. But I'd also want to know for them to y'all so they can figure out how to restructure their finances.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Absolutely. And that actually leads me into something I was going to talk about next, unless there's more questions. And yes.

SPEAKER_06 15:46

Are deacons allowed to serve on the committee on ministerial care?

SPEAKER_00 15:50

It's a good question. We actually had one not that long ago, Andrew Stafford from the Presbytery of Ohio, and then he needed to rotate off for personal reasons, but we'd love to have another deacon or two or more on the committee. And we don't have those rules about if they become an elder later when they can't be a host.

SPEAKER_06 16:08

Do you think do you think this group here might be a good group out of which you might recruit as dealers?

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Be warned. You've been warned. Related to uh Mike's question and point, one of the resources of our committee is called the voluntary financial planning team. Meaning that we have several uh financial planners and other financial experts that can are volunteering their time to help ministers with financial challenges that they may be facing. It might be as simple as making a budget or paying off debt, or it could be more complicated. Uh it might be a very complex financial situation. They are there to help. The minister can apply for that directly from our website, but it would be just as easy for somebody uh from a Presbytery Diaconal committee to point them out to us or connect us to them, and we'd be happy to meet with any ministers uh that might have it. In fact, two members of that team are here today. Uh Ken Vandermollen is on our committee and he's on our volunteer financial planning team, and then Greg DeYoung, two rows behind, is also on that committee. Then I would also mention our FAIR program. We've been trying to promote this. Uh, FAIR is an acronym for financial and retirement evaluation, and I want you all to be aware of that as well. We've tried to make our ministers know about it, but it's for ministers age 45 and older. Our committee will pay for a full financial plan to be developed for that minister to have a plan for retirement or what needs to happen for them to be able to retire. Uh it's done by Ronald Blue Trust. Uh to do that plan in its full form is about $1,500. Our committee will pay for it as long as the minister commits to turning in all the paperwork and participating in the program. It's typically about five or six hours of a minister's time to do it, but you can think about how just a few hours can make a huge difference in that minister's life. So as your diaconal committee interacts with ministers, you might it might trigger for you and say, I think this guy needs a better plan, or I think he needs to have a plan. And if that's the case, I'd encourage you to let us know or let him know about this opportunity. And then one last thing that I would mention as a resource to you all is that we do have a care coordinator for Ministers' Wives, Annika Fesco. She works part-time for us, and she has a monthly newsletter. She does a prayer, a monthly uh prayer Zoom meeting with Ministers' Wives, and there's other ways that she's trying to reach out to ministers' wives because our concern is that they're often isolated. So if you learn of a situation where a minister's wife might uh need a connection or you sense they're isolated, um, one diaconal need that you can connect them to is to Annika Fesco. Her information is on our website, opccmc.org, but you can also just contact me and we can help with that connection. I have one other thing to share about, and then we're gonna shift gears a little bit. That has to do with some of my work with Presbytery Diaconal Committees. We've bumped into this situation where it's a usually a retired minister and they don't have a lot of funds, but they have great medical needs. And the question becomes: do they have an objection or does their family have an objection to accepting state uh assistance or government assistance for that case? And I do not today have for you, this is what should always happen, but I did want to make you aware that our committee asked uh David Van Droonen of Westminster Seminary in California just to write an article summarizing the theological issues involved with accepting state aid of different kinds. And so that can be found in the ordained servant. Who here has access to the ordained servant? Does everybody access it and can read it? That is in the April and May issues. It was a two-part series on thinking through matters of receiving state aid. That same article is also available in its full form on our website. But I just would encourage you to read that article. You don't have to agree with everything that he says, but I think he brings up all of the things that would need to be thought through if you're facing a diaconal situation where state aid is involved. So this afternoon session, the idea will be to talk about the Obadiah Fund and really about our retired ministers and widows for a bit. And at different points in this seminar already, we've had chances to hear about retired ministers and widows and how to care for them. So hopefully, this will help to collate that and bring everything together to some degree. I think I started my last time by saying thank you, and I'll start at this time also thanking all the Presbytery Diaconal Committees here who contact the retired ministers and widows at least once a year, and you do that for the Obadiah Fund. We don't want to send out a love gift to a retired minister or widow unless we know they've been spoken to and checked in with. Because as nice as the love gift is that we're sending, we're more concerned that the diaconal needs of the retired ministers and widows are being attended to. And we don't know that unless you, as a committee, are contacting the retired ministers and widows in your Presbytery. I also recognize that that can be tricky because ministers move in retirement, so they may be a member of your presbytery, but they might live across the country. And we've had to sort out those sorts of things all the time. So to the degree that you're working on that and trying to stay in contact with them, I would just say thank you for your work. Just to provide you with a couple numbers related to the Obadiah Fund, there's 120 retired ministers and 36 widows that the Obadiah Fund serves with the love gift. There are more than 120 retired ministers, but for the Obadiah love gift, we've said that they need to have 10 years of service in the OPC and have retired as an OP minister to then be eligible. So you may have retired ministers in your presbytery that are not eligible, but we would still encourage you to be in contact with them even if they're not about to receive a love gift. From the administration of the love gift, when we do that in the spring, it is helpful when we send it out, usually in January. It takes a little bit to get all of the love gifts sent out. So to the degree that your committee can help it, we try to say if you could complete your calls and contacts within six weeks, that would be our preference. I realize that's not always possible, but that would be our request. And I just wanted to give you an update on this year so far. So we did the love gift this past year, and there was $131,500 that we distributed in annual love gifts, and then $12,800 that was sent out in specific diaconal support. So total Obadiah disbursements, Obadiah fund disbursements for this year, 143, 144,000, a little over that. So we happen to have some financial planners on our committee, and they look at the size of the fund and they look at the amount we're dispersing from it, and they say you're dispersing too much. And currently a 4% of our 2.4 million Obadiah fund would be about $96,000. So you can hear how about 50% a year over is what we are right now. So I'll get to that more in a second. But one of the issues we're facing is when we receive thank you notes from people for the love gift, they're saying things like, Thank you, this is gonna help me update my hearing aids or dentures, or they say something else like that, that is just incredibly fundamental to how they're living. So for us to say, Well, we're gonna lower the love gift or discontinue the love gift, it's it's a really difficult thing for us to do that because we believe that these funds are meeting actual diaconal needs that they're not necessarily declaring to you. And I found this again and again that diaconal committees do this diligent work. The retired uh minister or widow says we're doing fine, everything's great. Then you find out later how they use the love gun. It's like, oh my goodness, this is their need. And so I think we we're facing real challenges there in uh retired ministers and widows not always being forthright with the things that are going on in their lives. And I think as we proceed in this hour, I'm I'd like to talk with you more about it and think about that more, but just want you to mark that in your head. What I want to say about it now though is it's don't count that as your fault. Like you've somehow not asked the right question or something like that. Sometimes they're just, for whatever reason, not gonna tell you. So the question then is how to think about it, how to think it through right now. But I also wanted to mention one of the things our committee has determined if we can figure out a way to increase the size of the Obadiah Fund, probably about to twice its current size, that would give us an opportunity to continue with the love gift and have more room for diaconal disbursements, which to me is the real heart of the Obadiah fund, is to address diaconal needs of ministers and widows. So it's ready to go for them. And so we are thinking through how to approach different people and ask for more funds to enter the Obadiah fund. I say that to you as diaconal committee chairs, if you know of somebody that we should be contacting, or if you know of a church that says, hey, we think this church has a real heart for this, and they might take up an offering for the Obadiah fund or whatever. If you have ideas for who might be interested in helping the Obadiah fund grow, please let me know, uh, either by email or just catch me after my presentation.

SPEAKER_03 27:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

When you're talking about increase doubling the size of the whole fund, uh what what's the uh is there some kind of projected estimate of how many retired ministers there will be in the next generation?

SPEAKER_00 27:46

We have done some work on that. We think that it might increase slightly the number of retired ministers over the next 10 to 20 years. But not dramatic. But not a dramatic change. Just due to the nature of the size of the OPC. There's just a the the number of ministers that pass away and are entering retirement remains relatively steady. The issue that we're facing with the love gift isn't an increase in the number of retired ministers, but really inflation, uh, that money does not go as far as it used to. So we actually received a communication from a presbytery asking, can you please increase the size of the love gift? Because the ministers we're caring for, we know that that's not addressing sufficiently their needs. And so our response was at this time, based on where we are, we can't really increase the size of the love gift, but please help us identify those diaconal needs. If we can find concrete things that somebody needs help with, then we can use diaconal funds and support them that way. I'm gonna yes, I'm gonna go ahead. I was gonna say, I'm gonna pause for questions, so this is a good time for a question. If you don't mind me asking, where are the funds getting out? Is it in an interest growing account? It is in an interest growing account. So uh the we also oversee the OPC 403B retirement plan, and it's basically adjacent to those funds. So the same way that our retirement funds are being invested, they're being invested in the same way and in a fund in that that uh you can withdraw funds and not receive penalty. And then uh our treasure's actually here. I don't know what percent, but about 10% of our fund is also invented invested in the OPC loan fund. So we keep a portion of it basically in a longer cycle with the loan fund. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 29:44

Has the CMC uh considered involving the PEC in as needs come from Bobadia as it should become aware of, have we considered actually inviting the PEC to be involved in that care of that retired minister or widow with their own funds, not not requiring more from the So I would say to date, when we receive diaconal requests, my experience is that in fact the Presbytery Committee is uh invested in their own ways.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

And I would say it's rare that uh our committee is the only one contributing to a particular diaconal need. It's kind of a cool example of how this was originally set up with CDM, where there's local presbytery and then CMC level of support. Yes.

SPEAKER_07 30:35

Yeah, I understand what you're saying that you can't always take the retired minister's word that they really don't need the function. And yet I do know of some that are presbyters like had that earlier, they are donating it elsewhere, while others that go so heavily rely on that are so great for it. So is there a way that we can let you guys know? Uh do you do you do you not send it to certain people, or does it always just send out every retirement minister?

SPEAKER_00 31:02

That's a good question. We have some people, we have a short list. It's not a huge list, but we have a short list of people that have told us that they really don't need the love gift and they'd prefer it to go to other needy ministers. And so if you know people that should be added to that list, we would happily add those names. That's a that's a tough question. I I would say only if you have a strong sense that what they're telling you is they really don't have a need, or they've given you some data, like you know, I have a really large retirement and I don't need this. But if they're just telling you they don't need it, I would be cautious. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 31:44

So the early years of the Opa Dia Fund was managed by the Committee on Dad Ministries, and obviously all of us desired for it to be managed diagonally, right? We would love for it to really be to the benefit of those who really need it, and those who don't need it, you know, take a pass. And so we went through several iterations.

SPEAKER_08 32:05

And one of the years we basically said, we said to the planetary diagram committee, we asked them all to go out and do that work. Can you ask if people need it or not? If they do, they will respond, you know, that type of thing. Well, not all the PDCs responded. Some said some did respond. They said, Yeah, these ones probably don't need it, these ones do. On the flip side, others said, Well, others didn't respond. So then we said, Well, if they're not responding, then we're not gonna not give it to them, you know, we're not gonna sniff their people because they're not giving the work. So so those predatories who didn't do the work, who people they didn't respond to, they all received it. And the predatories who did respond and said, Are these people don't need it? Those guys didn't receive, it was just a mess. And so it's been very difficult. And that's where it finally came to let's just give graded by age. You guys have graded by age by age, yes, yes. They're older, they get more, they're younger, they get less. The widows get the most, and uh, and that's just kind of been where things have landed. But I agree that if you specifically know that someone does not need it, and they say they don't need it, they don't need they don't need the cell phone.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

And I would say that the love gift in some sense greases the wheels. Yeah. So if they have a reinforcement, here's a check, here's some money that's actually entering my bank account, they understand, okay, there's there's a there's more room, there's there's a way for more to be added here if needed.

SPEAKER_05 33:49

I guess the question I have is if the open diaphragm is not able to meet in a healthy way, meet all the needs.

SPEAKER_08 33:59

Is it possible like for a need to go back down to pressure and like back down to the open churches and see if there are any because we've discovered even if if people know the need, then they will get it. But if they don't know the need, they just know things fine. And this is the first time I've heard that the open diet fund is from a healthy standpoint, is spending more than it's needed.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Correct. But I would say what your question is, is actually we're already doing that. I we only are fulfilling needs that the Presbytery Diaconal Committee is giving to us. And they the ones that I'm thinking of anyway, they have already investigated the local and regional parts. So we're working together on a final solution. And I wouldn't want the message to be to any of you that we don't have money. We do have money and we do want to support needs, but we're just concerned about the long-term sustainability of the fund. So please don't avoid telling us about a problem if you know there's a need. Okay, hand in the bag.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

I thought we all the same monetary amount uh for each uh person. I didn't know that they were uh can you clearly tell us so that we don't put our foot in our mouth when we talk?

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

I think I probably already have.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

This may help you. When we send out our letter in January asking you to do this work, I think we'll include this information again. But if you want to record it now, here it is. Um for ages 65 to 70, it's a $500 love gift. For ages 71 to 80, so anybody in their 70s, the gift is $750. If it's somebody in the 80s, in their age 81 to 90, it's $1,000. And then if they're older than 90, it's $1,250. And then widows also automatically receive $1,250. It's a good idea anyway, but then you don't have to ask widows their age, which is nice. So uh Jeremy.

SPEAKER_08 36:16

I'm pretty sure we can look this up, but for the sake of the discussion, does any portion of the thank offering go to them? So any anything that you guys receive are just gifts from individuals or contributions from churches?

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Correct. Yeah, worldwide outreach are the three main program committees, um, home missions, foreign missions, and Christian education. And we're I'm I personally have no interest in that changing. I I like the way that the thank offering is and and what it means. But we do need to think through ways to give to Obadiah too. All right, if we've run out of questions, then I have something for you all that I want to, I would call them three suggestions slash challenges. I know that your Presbytery Diaconal Committees have been given a lot of work, but uh, or a lot of good ideas. But uh, as it relates to retired ministers and widows, here's my three suggestions. Uh, number one is to try for those retired ministers and widows, as best you can, try to make an assessment of the resources they have available to them. And I don't just mean financial resources. What level of social support is around them? Does their family live near them? Do they have a local congregation that's really supporting them? And I don't have a fancy system, but it'd almost be like if you could give them a ranking between zero and a hundred and say, this is this person's ranking for how strong we think their social and financial supports are. I think that's gonna help you start to clarify the opposite. The ones that don't have a high score or a strong social support, those are the ones that you know as a committee, you're gonna have to spend a little more time attending to them and paying attention to them. But it begins with trying to make an assessment about where a particular retiree or widow is. And I will say I'm thankful when when I run into some many retired ministers and widows, they almost without effort, they're talking about all the different things they're doing and all the ways they're engaged and things are going really great. And I think that's fantastic. But then I can think of some other situations where that's not the case. And to the degree that we can pay attention to those, um, I think that's part of that James 1 pure and undefiled religion is paying attention to widows and orphans. And I think to me, that context is about those that otherwise don't have good help or good support around them. So that's the first challenge is try to make an assessment about your retired ministers and widows. Who are the ones that might need more help? The second one is harder, and that would be make a plan to visit each retired minister or widow in person and not in a coffee shop, but in their home. This goes back to the first time I noticed this lesson was in my when I was in Wheaton. There was there was a single lady there. The deacons probably asked her about every other week how she's doing. She's like, I'm great, everything's great, no problems. Something happened where they the deacons finally went to her home and they saw how she was living, and the house is in disrepair. I don't think the kitchen sink was working, and they they could have been there and done 10 little things to help her out that they would have never known unless they actually walked through the door of their home. I don't know exactly what I'm imposing on you by asking you to do that. Maybe it's really obvious that there's a way to visit all the widows and retired ministers in your presbytery, but it may not be. And it may not necessarily be someone on your committee. It may be asking an OP pastor that's the closest nearby. Um there's a lot of retired ministers in Florida. I know that there's some guys in that presbytery committee. I don't think anybody's here from that presbytery committee, but I'm guessing that they would be willing to help you with a visit and say, hey, this person lives here, would you be willing to just pay them a visit and see how they're doing? I think there's I realize that you've got a lot of work to do, so I almost feel bad saying this, but I really do think this is an essential part of caring for our retired ministers and widows to see where they are. Or even if they're in a retirement community like Quarryville or something, to go into there, be in their room, see how they're doing. Oops, just dropped my phone. Um and then if I were to give some suggestions to go along with that visit, here's what I would be looking for. I would be paying attention to their personal hygiene and appearance. Does it appear like they're getting themselves dressed every day? Um do they appear to be making meals for themselves? Or do they have some sort of meal support like meals on wheels or a meal train or something like that? You can probably tell without visiting them, but all the same, try to assess their transportation needs. Um, are those being met? Are they able to get to church when they need to, or is it a grocery store or pharmacy or other places they need to go to? Assessing what their relationship is to the local church or local congregation where they are. And then I think there's if you just look around their yard, and maybe if you use their bathroom and you just see notice a couple things about where they are, does it appear to you like this is a livable situation, or is there something that maybe even their eyesight is missing? Um, or maybe they need somebody to clean their house regularly for them, or whatever. But if you go there, you can begin to see some of those things. And this is gonna be the last one, is maybe the trickiest, the biggest gray area, but as you're in their home, how is their cognition and memory and and things like that? Does it seem like they're functioning at a normal rate for where they're trying to live? I think I forgot to mention, but I'm assuming somewhere in there is you you know their connection to their family and how close their family is nearby. So to me, that's the biggest ask that I'm putting on the committee. But then the last thing would be, the third thing would be through the Obadiah Love Gift, we're asking you to contact retired ministers before we send out the love gift. But if I could choose, I would increase the frequency of that so that you are in contact with your retired ministers and widows, say three to four times a year, or whatever you think is right for your committee. Uh but I think a more frequent contact is going to create a stronger relationship and maybe even build some trust for when the time comes where they need to share something with you, or they might think of you more likely for seeking support. So those are my three suggestions. Visit more frequently, visit them in person where they're living. I already forgot the first one. Oh, yeah, and making an assessment about uh how strong their social support is around them. All right, are there any questions about those suggestions or any comments or thoughts about them? Is there anybody, is there a committee that has a practice of visiting all the retired ministers and widows in their home currently? Okay. I I wasn't sure. So thought I would ask. Yes, personally, I would love to see our disbursements for needs and DACL needs to go way up in the Obadiah fund because my sense is the needs are there and we just aren't finding them right now.

SPEAKER_09 44:23

Give me an I'll give you an example. We received a request from a minister about his mother who was married to a minister that passed away, and she was struggling with some repairs in her home to visit that person, and there indeed was a need for repairs in a home. But I also talking to her, found out that she had money, and she also had land, and she had other structures on the land, and she didn't want any help because she could sell, so it was you know, she could sell a piece of her property, so go visit. Sometimes family members are looking for help genuinely, want uh their mother or father to be taken care of, but they have their own money.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

And as you pointed out, without unless you did the physical visit, you would not have understood the level of resource that she had available to her in that particular situation.

David Nakhla 45:24

Thanks for joining us. Go to our website, thereformdeacon.org. There you will find all her episodes, program notes, and other helpful resources. And please make plans to join us again next month for another episode of the Reform Deacons podcast.