Ridgell's Originals

I have spent most of my life talking about Jesus and life with young people.  Mostly college students, but also high school and young adults.  I really have not spent much time with old Christians, but I am becoming more and more convinced we better start listening to our older saints if we want to have healthy, growing churches.

And yes I called them old.  Not senior saints, not 39ers, not even older.  Old.

And here is why we better listen.

I am rapidly becoming one.  Well, OK that may not be a good reason.  But I do actually think about what I have to offer the Kingdom and how that may change if God grants me another 20 or 30 years on this earth.  And much of what I am learning I am getting from old Christians.  And it is strong spiritual advice.

The Bible says to listen those who are older.  Read I John.  Or I Timothy.  Older men teach younger men.  Older women teach younger women.  Older widows on the ministry staff.  Elders teach the church.

Older Christians really care about the future of the church.  Not worship styles and making sure nothing changes.  I mean they really care about the generations behind them staying faithful to Jesus.  They want to see lost people saved.  Maybe it is more urgent because they have less time but they really care.

They understand priorities.  Most old Christians really are not afraid to die.  But being able to see death helps them focus on what really matters.  They get it.

Those of us who are younger need to see living examples of those that made it.  We need their stories of addictions defeated, marriages healed, and how God worked.  Those sweet, cute little old couples holding hands have weathered the storm.  And they made it.  They are living witnesses to God's goodness.

We need to hear how they made it.  What did they do to stay faithful to God?  What are the dangers maybe we do not see?  What would they do more of?  Less of?  What would they change?  What would they not change?

Their faith stories are inspirational.  There are great testimonies among our old.  We need them.

I know some old Christians get stuck in the past.  And some seem afraid to change anything.  Some of them act like a bunch of young, immature Christians wanting everything their way.

But not all of them.  Not even most of them.

We stand on their shoulders and we need to know how we got there.

They have seen it all and lived it all.  And they love God.

So find an old Christian to learn from -- and old may be someone twenty years older than you, or fifty years older.  But find them.

And then listen.

We better.

So thanks God for your old saints.  You have told us to let them teach us and we don't listen very well.  Help us to do better.