Posts by Ruth Preston
Intergenerational Living: A Story of Encouragement
For hundreds of years, families have taken care of their ageing loved ones, with most families housing children, parents, and grandparents all under one roof. Today, we are seeing people live longer than ever before. In Europe, for example, the number of people over 65 already exceeds those under 15. However, despite this, intergenerational…
Read MoreGod Works Spirit to Spirit
We recently had the privilege of speaking with Mavis, a wonderful woman of Christ who is humbly obedient to the call of the Lord, and one of our Church Champions. Working with the elderly in care homes and hospitals, Mavis shares God’s love with some of society’s most vulnerable people and we wanted to…
Read More5 Keys to Finding Purpose and Meaning in Lockdown
Finding purpose and meaning is, as the Bible presents it: God’s life giving plan for each one of his children. But during this time of isolation and shielding it’s hard to know, at times, what the answer is to the question “What should I do?” – or more importantly “what would God have me…
Read More3 Hidden Treasures of Lockdown
The Israelites, we read, wandered the wilderness for 40 years. With the benefit of scriptural hindsight, we can see the working hand of God on their situation, and the explicit lessons that the Lord wanted the Israelites to learn (Deuteronomy 8:2-3), namely that of humility and dependence on the providence of God. But in…
Read MoreThe hidden ‘coping’: have we forgotten someone?
Stoicism has sometimes been associated with a British ‘stiff upper lip’: enduring without unnecessary emotion. Getting on with it. The word comes from the ancient Stoics, who looked for inner resources to handle all circumstances. Inner bravery is something that many among us prize, and at this time there are older people in our communities…
Read MoreOne in 5 of us will live to 100. Let’s live it well!
Even before the most recent dire warnings about population decline, Ian Knox in his excellent book Finishing Well writes this: ‘There are vast numbers of statistics to show that a veritable army of us are old, which should encourage us to see, as we go on to look at our potential, what we might achieve…
Read MoreWhat does Summer look like for Seniors?
‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: Old men and old women shall sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets’. Zechariah 8: 4- 5 (ESV) Welcome to our ‘Faith…
Read MoreMobile Matinee
“How are you doing Moira?” “Awful, this is like a horror story.” “Are there any comparisons to your memories of growing up in World War 2?” “No – in the war we had a strong sense of community. People came together. This is dreadful! Not seeing family or friends, not able to…
Read MoreTwo-thirds of UK churches identify loneliness and isolation as a top issue to tackle post lock-down
The Allchurches Trust undertook research with over 600 churches in June, which reveals that churches in the UK are gearing up to tackle a huge surge of loneliness in their cities and communities in the social aftermath of lock-down. A huge 78% of churches expect loneliness and isolation to be one of the…
Read More