Faith through aging eyes gives us the vantage point of seeing things through the lens of experience. We want to give advice that will prevent an unwelcome outcome to a chosen path. Well-meaning as we are, we usually find unsolicited advice to be perceived as criticism. Then there is what we see as an answer that has served us well. We want to give another person the benefit of our wisdom. But what is this person’s question? If he has no question, our answer will fall on deaf ears.

How do we live in such a way that we become a catalyst for questions?

This becomes a heart wrenching challenge when the answer we are aching to give our loved is how loved they are by God. We have found an effective model of how this can work in ministry when church outreach partners with a government program.

Our county Department of Aging had identified residents that were totally alone. No one visited them as they had burned all their bridges to people. Learning of this we, as a Senior Adult Ministry, said we wanted to visit these abandoned ones. When asked why, we said, “Because that is where Jesus would go.”

Respecting the separation of church and state protocol, we agreed not to go with a primary agenda of evangelism. Instead, we proposed that we would go and ACT like Jesus until the person we visited would ASK why we kept coming even when we were not given a warm welcome. Only then would we TELL.

There is no law against answering a question, even when the answer is your own statement of faith.

Yes, Jesus is the Answer! But what is the question?