Ep 64: Resources for Celebrating Grandparents Day in Your Church.mp4: this mp4 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Isabel Tom:
Anyways, today I want to give you three steps. Make it simple for you. Three Simple Steps to Celebrating Grandparents Day in your Faith community. Why? Because I don't think I've ever been in a church or faith community that celebrates Grandparents Day or just celebrates grandparents, um, separately from Father's Day or Mother's Day. So I feel like now as the life expectancy, life expectancy of people has got lengthened, gotten longer, we have more grandparents out there and we really should find a way in our faith communities to honor grandparents in the Bible. In Second Timothy, it talks about how we should take care of our grandparents and take care of those who are, you know, let me just look up the verse because I can't memorize it. I think it's second Timothy five eight. Let me go. Okay. No, it's not second Timothy at all. It's first Timothy. So first Timothy five. It says, Let's see. Oh, okay. First Timothy five four. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn, first of all, to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents. So it talks about honoring our well, here, our our grandparents who particularly are widows. But anywho, I'm going to give you three simple steps so that you can celebrate and bring this up to the leadership in your church, or if you're part of the children's ministry department or the caring department, or if you are just a committed member to your church, then I think it makes sense for you to offer the suggestion of celebrating Grandparents Day.
Isabel Tom:
Whether you do it on September 10th or you choose another day. I think September 10th is a great day because you can use that holiday and talk to your pastors and whoever it is, even youth pastors, youth pastors and tell them, you know, it's Grandparents Day, this day. Why don't you recognize the grandparents in our faith community? All right, enough babbling. Let me give you the three steps. Let's go. So three steps. Number one in service, have a prayer. Offer a prayer specifically for grandparents. Pray for them. At my church, we have somebody pray every Sunday before the pastor preaches, before a pastor preaches. And it is not just a prayer for the sermon that God would prepare our hearts and open our hearts and minds and help us to focus on the sermon and to pray for the pastor himself or whoever's giving the message, but also to pray for people within the church. And so I think having a time where you're specifically praying for the needs that grandparents have and praying a blessing over them is a really great idea. I think it will remind them that they matter.
Isabel Tom:
And I think grandparents sometimes. I feel like grandparents, they want to be so involved and they really love their grandchildren and they love their children, but sometimes they can feel forgotten. Number two, So after you offer a prayer during service, which is really, really simple, if I can find some links, I think probably Legacy Coalition or somewhere out there must have ideas for how to pray for grandparents. So I'm going to try to link that in the show notes if I can find something. The second thing that you can do, or the second step of really honoring and celebrating grandparents in your faith community is to give them a gift. So at the church that I grew up in, which was a Chinese church, Chinese Bible Church in College Park, we would hand out a gift to moms and then also dads on Mother's Day and Father's Day, like it was always really kind of fun to see what the gift for moms would be. But what would you give to a grandparent? Right, that would be like different than a mother's Day gift or a Father's Day gift? Well, here you go. I got two great ideas, and they happen to be two products that I have. One is print out. I know you're saying print out like what we're getting in the piece of paper, but yeah, print out something called the fill in my fill in the blank fun printable and gift it to all the grandparents in your congregation.
Isabel Tom:
Why? Because the fill in the blank fund child. My childhood home edition is like Mad libs and it is just a way for the young and old to connect. And it allows a grandchild to be able to have fun with their grandparent, but it also gives the grandparent an opportunity to share more about their childhood and their childhood home and just a little bit more about themselves. And I really feel that grandparents and older adults in general just they need people to ask them questions about themselves rather than them always asking and paying attention to those who are younger than them, always being thought of as the mentor and like pouring into someone else. I think by asking grandparents questions about their childhood and helping them reminisce a little bit and remember allows them the opportunity to share their story with their grandkids, which is really special, but allows grandkids to also hear a little bit more about their grandparents. I also use that fill in the blank fun sheet for my grandkid investigators camp, so I'm going to put that in the show notes. Fill in the blank fun. You could print that out and give it to all the grandparents.
Isabel Tom:
And it's an activity, not just a gift that they're going to put on the shelf or maybe eventually donate or stick in the trashcan, probably donate, but something that they can use that will allow for meaningful interaction. The second gift idea I have is a printable that I created that can be framed or maybe you can put it on a piece of chipboard or something. If you're a little creative, there's got to be somebody creative in your congregation. But all you got to do is it's a printable and it's a celebrates their age and it says Your age is a sign of your strength and something worth celebrating. And it's a beautiful printable in color that can be printed out. And like I said, you can modge podge it onto something like a chipboard that could be used as like a little frame. You could get tons of people have lots of frames hanging around. You could go to a thrift store and buy picture frames. But this is another gift idea that when you give it to them on this grandparent's day, on a Sunday morning, or even if you deliver it to them, if they're not able to make it to service, wow. They are going to be like, wow, I'm I'm not forgotten at all. God loves me and this church loves me.
Isabel Tom:
I feel so special. So that's two gift ideas for you. You're going to, number one, do a prayer for grandparents during service. Then give them a gift because who doesn't love gifts? And those two gift ideas, I will put in the show notes. Again, it's a celebrate your age printable that I created. Or you could choose the fill in the blank fun activity that I have. And again, that's printable. The third thing that I think the third step in celebrating Grandparents Day in your faith community is to share with them a resource like you prayed for them, you blessed them, you gave them a gift. Again, a gift for them. And then give them a resource to help them to become better grandparents. And so I have a PDF printable again that you can print out and it is a handout that just tells them about the free Grand Monday night's programs, their webinars. They're free and they're held every Monday night by the Legacy Coalition is hosted by Barb Lorenz, who I know I've been on Grand Monday nights as a guest and it is a really great resource to support and encourage and equip. Grandparents answers all the questions like, I don't think there's any other resource like it that provides so much content that is really specific to grandparents and what they struggle with, what they, um, it's just really special.
Isabel Tom:
So check that out. I'll put it in the show notes, but hand them that resource and not only can you give it to the grandparents during service, but give it to the parents on that same Sunday when they pick up their kids from the children's program. So those are the three ideas, the three steps that you can take to to to celebrate Grandparents Day. Sorry about that. Number one, say a prayer during service. Number two, give these grandparents a gift. And then step three, share with them a resource which is the free the flyer that talks about all the different topics, sample topics that have been shared on past Grand Knight, Grand Monday nights, and let them know about that resource to support them. So I hope today's episode really helps you to know how to celebrate. Well, now you have no questions on how to celebrate grandparents in your faith community. Consider if you're listening to this now as I release it, consider doing this for September 10th. September 10th is a Sunday. So if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me on my contact page or reach out to me on Instagram at Isabel Tom and I'll be happy to try and answer your questions on how you can really celebrate and honor grandparents in your faith community.
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