The sermon titled 'Relational Elderly Care' by Michael McCurdy emphasizes the importance of caring for the elderly based on biblical principles. It references a seminar hosted by Kevin Swanson on family-based elderly care, which provided an overview of different approaches and highlighted the biblical mandate to honor and support the elderly. The sermon discusses the importance of wisdom gained from older generations and the role of the church and family in integrating and caring for the elderly. It also touches on the practical aspects of elderly care, including North Carolina laws regarding family caregiving, and stresses the need for the church to prepare for the growing elderly population by considering resources and support systems. The speaker encourages seeking wisdom from the elderly and highlights the societal challenges of elderly care while advocating for a proactive, biblically grounded approach.

Let's pray. Let's pray. God, we thank you for this day you have set aside to worship you. And God, we pray that this is also worshiping you to talk about care of elderly. By your grace, by your goodness, you will have many of us grow old.

And may we grow old worshiping you, loving you, and serving those that you give long life to. So we thank you God. May you be praised. Amen. Amen.

Alright, so thank you. So in November, Michael McCurdy and I went to Colorado to a tennis seminar that Kevin Swanson hosted in his home on the care, on caring for elderly. And he calls it relational family-based elderly care. And it wasn't a seminar that just answered all the questions, it did everything. It was really a foundational seminar.

There were seven messages. It was really just an overview. He's considering doing a conference on this at some point, so that may or may not happen. It was really an overview and introduction. He had several people, seven speakers come in that spoke on several topics.

All those topics are on this handout of what was talked about. Michael and I are not going to cover all these. We're giving you an overview of that overview. I'm going to be doing a little bit extra from this on just a biblical foundation for elderly care. Thankfully here, I don't believe that I have to convince anybody that the Bible, that God talks about this, but we still want to make sure we have that foundation.

You're going to hear from us primarily on these topics, talking a little bit about nursing home. I'll mention quite a little bit more on that. I gave a message on that a little while ago, so I'm not going to delve into it. You'll hear us talk about nursing home and care of people in our homes primarily. But also what I want you to hear when we say that we're not saying, I am not saying, Michael's not saying, it's not the position of either of these churches that you have to, that is the command that you take care of elderly people in your home or even your parents.

One, when it comes to parents, the numbers don't work out. I have 14 children. I can't live with all of them. So just from that standpoint, you know that the command, there can't be a command there that you have to take care of your parents in your home. But there are biblical principles that we need to see on how we care for the elderly.

So I'm going to talk about some biblical foundation, cultural review a little bit. Michael's going to talk about a little bit more on the pragmatics of it. There's going to be time for questions. Please, we're not here as experts. We went to this seminar looking at this to see where are we, what do we need to be thinking of.

There are there's here, There are people here that are much further along this curve on thinking about this than I am. Michael is further along the curve than I am on this. Of course, the Browns are further ahead and we know other people that are further ahead on this curve. So we're not at ground zero, But in many ways I feel like I'm in ground zero when I see all the different options that you need to be thinking about on how you can care for the elderly. So you can look at this and all the different things that will bring to light the different areas that we did talk about.

What I want to just focus on, I'm going to talk about here in a little bit, is the biblical section. I'm going to talk about it a little bit. When you see this, here are the foundations for this that you need to think of. Biblically honoring, no matter what we do, it has to be biblically honoring. Relational, not by themselves.

Family incorporated. So when we go to the nursing home, no matter what we do in ministry, one of the things that we love is that we're doing it together. We're incorporating the whole family, whether it's caring for the elderly, nursing home, whether it's at Griffin's, whether it's at the abortion clinic. Now what we're doing, we're looking to incorporate our family. And I'll talk about more of that in age integration here.

Cross-generational for age integration. And family and church, there are jurisdictions that do play here. There are jurisdictions that do play here in family and in church that I'm not, neither of us are going to really get into heavily here. Just know that there are jurisdictions here of how we help out one another as families and as the church helps out one another. On your other handout, on one side you have the verses that I'm going to use.

I'm not expositionally going through all of those, but verses that I'm using for the biblical foundation. There's plenty more. Your favorite one's probably not on here that you would use for that, but there are plenty more. A couple of other lists that Michael may go through a little bit on levels of care time commitment and a good list on the back that one of the speakers gave us on how you evaluate how you have non-family living with you, which is real good. I don't know if Michael's going to go exactly through that list, but that's real good to consider.

So let me start out with the biblical foundation for elderly care. Now they said, I'm so thankful I'm not talking to people, I have to really be convinced of this, but we do need to make sure that we are settled on this. So just going through these verses, I'm going to focus on one area, but just help lay down this foundation. Exodus 20, 12, fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. Leviticus 1932, you shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man and fear your God, I am the Lord.

Isaiah 117, and maybe the people at Hope can help us more with this application as you went through this not too long ago. Learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. Jeremiah 7, if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever." John 19, fantastic passage. Here we have our Lord Jesus on the cross taking on the wrath of God, taking on the wrath of God for our sins, extreme pain, and who is he caring for? His mother.

When Jesus therefore saw his mother and a disciple whom he loved standing by, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother. And from that hour, that disciple took her to his own home. First Timothy 5, a long passage on the care of widows and the qualification for widows, which does play in to church jurisdiction. And in James 1, 27, pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Where I want to focus though is in Proverbs. I want to focus on the area of wisdom. I'll combine these two a little bit. But I'm going to read for you Proverbs 1. You see all throughout Proverbs, of course, wisdom.

I'll read Proverbs 1, 1 through 7. The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity, to give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. A wise man will hear and increase learning, And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel. To understand a proverb and an enigma, the words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

We are told in Proverbs 4-5 to get wisdom and get understanding. Here's the tie to this, Job 12-12. Wisdom is with aged men and with length of days understanding. We are commanded to get wisdom, get understanding. God tells us in the book of Job, one way that he does that is through the elderly, through the aged people.

I am putting forth that if we want to fear the Lord and not despise wisdom, we need to care for the elderly. That's a place where I feel that not just the public, but Maybe the church is despising wisdom and not getting wisdom and getting understanding. Thankfully in our churches we are seeking wisdom through other areas. We seek wisdom through the sermons that we have, through counselors counseling each other, fellowshipping with one another, through family, through extended family. We seek it through parents.

But if we do not seek the wisdom of the elderly, We are missing out a big area. Missing out in a big area here. I need continued mentoring. My children need to see how this continues throughout life. I want to read to you a passage here on talking about how we're missing out on this.

And some of the mentality that we have, we can all rail against some of the mentality that's out there with the care for older people. But we're really missing out, and I really want to hone in on, we're missing out on an opportunity for wisdom. Wisdom that's being just warehoused in these nursing homes, wisdom that in some cases I'll even say is warehoused in RV parks, assisted living centers to some extent. Wisdom that may be being housed in my own parents' home because I'm not actively seeking their guidance in areas. But we have an opportunity though to be proactive in helping get that wisdom out of them.

This book is called Life Lessons for my papa. One of the speakers there, his wife wrote this, had to do with her father that lived with him and lived with him until his death. And it doesn't paint a rosy picture of how hard the work is. The work is hard. The work is hard.

I haven't gone through it. Others here may have. I have not. But the work is hard. I don't wholeheartedly commend the book.

There are some theological things that she gets a little wrong. Some people Mike and I were talking about. We both read it. Some people that she references that we would not have any agreement with. But there are a lot of practical things in here that were helpful.

I just want to read just a little of our page here of one of her conversations she had with a friend to help us with seeing some of this wisdom and blessings we're potentially missing out on the story she tells. Talks about her friend's mom that's a snowbird from Florida and has an attached apartment that's built on her daughter's home on Long Island. This older lady, she's able to stay part time there on the island and be with her six grandchildren, daughter and son-in-law, right there with the family. It is a beautiful setup and a wonderful working relationship with three generations working side by side. Speaking with her and sharing our stories, she told me how she told her daughter that under no circumstances was she to take care of her or her husband should they need full-time assistance.

She instructed her daughter to put them in a nursing home because she did not want to be a burden to anyone. While her intent may be noble, I found myself speaking a strong word to her, which surprised me. She said, you don't really get to make that decision. You don't know what life lessons God may want to teach your children and your children's children should he lead them to care for you in their own home. The plans and purposes of life are God's business.

Even if you can no longer contribute physically or emotionally to your children, that doesn't mean your life has no purpose. You may be robbing them of a blessing. We are robbing ourselves, generally in this society, of a blessing, a big blessing, a blessing of wisdom that God tells us to go get, a blessing of understanding that God tells us to go get. We have lots of practical application. We've gotten just a taste.

It's a wonderful taste. But my own self, I've gotten a wonderful taste in this church, if it's not from Bill and Mary Brown or Kay Laughlin in the home of McCurdy's and I don't know everybody else's situation. We've gotten some good taste of this, of wisdom, of understanding, of not letting that waste away and us having to retry this over and over again. We've gotten some sweet taste of this. I know with my children, they've interviewed their grandparents on both sides extensively and I'm constantly seating them with questions to ask.

Even instead of me asking a question of my parents sometimes, I want them to see me interacting with them, asking them to go ask the question or encouraging my parents to tell stories about this or that. My dad has always been my chief financial advisor, my dad's always been my chief gardening advisor, he grew up as a farmer. We can all tell stories about our parents, no matter whether they're Christians or not, thankfully mine are, of wisdom that's there to go get. And I am conscious that not all elderly are able to give verbal wisdom and instruction. We're at the nursing home, week in and week out.

Most of them, maybe 90% of them, you're not able to have a real good conversation with, as far as two-way. And they're saying the same story week in and week out, asking the same question week in and week out, telling you the same things week in and week out. You're having to reintroduce yourself week in and week out, but there is wisdom to be gained there. Even if they tell the same story week in and week out, reintroduce themselves week in and week out, all they can do is smile week in and week out. They still have gifts, especially the children of God that are there.

I am convinced they still have gifts that they can share. Even if it's just a smile at this point, even if it's just a grunt, even if it's just being there, somehow we sing familiar hymns all the time so that their eyes might light up because they'll remember something. That's not the place from the learn the latest Getty song. That's the place for them to hear the old familiar hymns that they're so familiar with and their eyes light up. And you know that they're worshiping God and that's an encouragement to you.

Because they've been taught when they were younger. You don't know if they're saved or not. I'm not saying they're saved. I don't know if they're Christian or not, but their eyes light up from these sweet memories of how they were taught when they were younger. So there is wisdom to go get.

It doesn't mean at all that their worth is diminished and at a minimum we need to fear God in honoring the agent and taking care of the least. We're doing that on both ends now. I'm so thankful for that and we have a ways to go. The least before they're born, the least towards the end when the world wants to cast them off and I'm going to start weaving in, it's not just the world, it's the church. The church is casting them off.

Kevin Swanson said this primarily about his church. He wasn't talking about the church at year-end. He was talking about his church. He was very open, very humble man in being open. He says, in this area, I feel like my church has just been playing church all these years.

It's time for us to grow up. They're further ahead on the curve than I am than probably our church is in thinking about this and thinking about their budget and how they're going to care for widows especially. So Let's go get wisdom and let's go get understanding. So talking a little bit more about the seminar now, some things about that. I'm going to go through some stats, some things that we talked about.

Most of this is from this point on, is from this seminar. And then Michael will come up in a few minutes, talk about some more things. But just some numbers to throw out there. Last year there were 42 million people, 65 and above. In 2020 there'll be 80 million.

Since 1950, roughly 57 million abortions. So this generation that's retiring or that's 65 and over, change my language a little bit, that's 65 and over, they've either directly, or they've either directly aborted 57 million in this generation and encouraged it for the following generation. And during that time also the birth rate's gone down 43%. So not to base what we do on fear, not to base it on fear at all, want to base what we do on the worship of God, the honor of God on biblical basis, But that's unsustainable. That is unsustainable.

Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, it's just not sustainable when you look at that. And so something has to happen. And what needs to happen is the Christians need to take the lead in these areas. Yeah, I mean, I'm all for it's into church's position. I haven't necessarily talked with Jason or Dan or Scott on this.

This is James talking. The money's there. I'm not saying we can't use Social Security or Medicare. That's not my position. People have paid into it in many of these areas.

But we need to be prepared for it not being there. And it doesn't sustain people anyway. Last year we were at a nursing home, before the one we're at now, that shut down. You saw the effects of people living 100% off Social Security and Medicare. It is ugly.

It was ugly. Sweet people, sweet people that we got to know and got to have in the church on a regular basis, but it is an ugly life. It's not a nice looking life. This is a $2.4 trillion industry. Kevin put out there as a challenge, is there any way the Christians can relieve about a trillion of this and be a blessing to society?

We know it's unsustainable. Can we be a blessing to society, whether they recognize it or not, a blessing to our government by relieving the system of a lot of the pressure that's on it? Very similar to what we've done with homeschooling. Very similar. If all those millions of people that are now homeschooling went back in the school system, they wouldn't have the money to take care of that.

But they're still getting our tax dollars. And whether they admit it or not, it is a blessing to them that we homeschool from the tax dollar and also from the people that, Lord willing, are being produced by homeschooling. Whether they admit it or not, may it be a blessing, but maybe there are ways that we can help with that. Just from a monetary standpoint, that's not the reason why we do it. Just stacking up some statistics.

The reason why, Lord willing, any of us would do anything is the worship of God and the honor of God for the praise of His glory is why we would do it. Today, there are seven times the number of people living at home, living alone compared to 1900. Living alone, wasting away before TV, longing for relationship. We see this at the nursing home, wasting away in front of the TV, longing for relationship. We see the benefits when we're around people, when we're around either our parents, grandparents, older people.

They love it to have people around, but they're wasting away alone, whether it's in their home or a nursing home. They really don't have any joy or fulfillment or worth. They're just waiting to die. That's all they're doing, Just waiting to die so they don't feel like they're a burden on anybody. Waiting to die.

And all of this for about, Mike has some statistics on it, all this for about $5, 000 a month for a half a room. Wow. I'll take $5, 000 a month and give them a whole room in my house and a whole apartment. But I'll take less than $5, 000. But it's pretty amazing what people are willing to do because they feel like there'll be a burden to society.

This is a form of the breaking down of the family and society in general. It's breaking down the character of the next generation. This is taking postmodernism to where it would go. Everybody's doing what's right in their own eyes. We know it didn't go well for Israel.

It didn't go well for us before God redeemed us. We recognize that now. And it's not going well for society. They're doing what's right in their own eyes. From this standpoint, hey, I don't want to hurt anybody.

I don't want to lay down any rules. I don't want to say what's right or wrong or anything. And this feels good to me. So I'm just going to die by myself and I'll let my parents die by themselves or I'll let this widow go off or we'll just separate them together in this home all by themselves and age segregate them, things like that. They're doing what they can.

Just forget about it. Put it behind the doors and try to pretty up and forget about it. And it's not going well. In our churches, we focused on the sufficient of scripture in every aspect of life, especially in our homes and churches. I really believe, and I've believed this for a couple years, and I've mentioned it to Jason a couple times and to others, I really believe the next big shift in our churches is true age integration where we have the elderly more about us.

And it's going to happen one of two ways. By God's grace, it's going to happen by me getting older and all of us getting older. So it's just going to happen. And we've got to be prepared for that. And I'll be thankful for that.

It's not that I'm pressing for that day to happen, whatever day that age is, But it's going to happen. But I pray it happens before that. I really, really, really do. I really do. I pray it happens before that with parents coming in.

We've seen the sweetness of that in a couple homes around us, whether it's the Browns and McCoury's, we've seen the sweetness of that. It's a sweet thing. Or if it's widows or widowers or orphan older people that have literally no family around. One lady that talked to put this list together. That's what she does in her family.

They specifically have older people living with them for extended periods of time that have no extended family. None. There are plenty of those orphans out there as well. And there's ways to find them. But I believe this is the next big shift in our family.

So hopefully we see the importance of elderly among us at church. And one area that I know, Reformation Church, where Kevin's a pastor and elder there, where they're ahead of us, they're way ahead of us on considering this from a budget item for their church. Their goal, they're not quite there yet, is to have 25% of their budget set aside for benevolence, but another 25% set aside for care of widows and orphans and to care for that. And we've danced around the edges. I can say that.

I'm a deacon before you, so this is partly me of continuing this conversation of what we might do. I'm not saying that's where we have to be at 25%, but it needs to be a heavy consideration of what we're doing. We need to plan for it and not just wait for crisis mode. That's part of caring for the elderly is, for some of us, it may be crisis mode. Also, when we get that phone call, we have to just jump on it and take care of it.

But is there any way we can catch a vision to try to help out and plan to help of how we might operate as a church on caring for one another or within our own families too thinking about it. One way that Michael and I were talking about is, he's done some of this before, some previous work he's done, is collecting resources that people need. It's expensive. When you need stuff right away, if you need a special bed right away or walkers, wheelchairs, whatever else there might be, preparation for ramps in people's homes or whatever it might be, stock up on that kind of knowledge and resources and have an eye out for those kind of things. I'm not telling everybody to do that.

These are just ideas, but definitely ideas as us as a church to talk with Jim as a deacon and Jason that, okay, let's see if we can have our eyes open for these kind of things and as a church find a place to store things like that and be thinking about how we're really going to care for one another. I want to finish up my little area here with just a little comparison to help us think through this. One of the speakers started on, I'm going to round out a little bit more, on a comparison on why we would care for the elderly, the same comparison to why we even homeschool. There's a lot of parallels there between why anybody would even homeschool and why they would care for the elderly. And I'm not saying that you have to care for elderly in your home.

Once again, I just want to reiterate, I'm not saying you have to have somebody in your home. But we must think about how we're going to take care of people. And as a church, we're going to have more people in our churches. And it's going to take encouragement. It's going to take the whole church encouraging one another, strengthening one.

These can be very tough times. These can be very, very tough times, especially depending on how long they're in your home, how you care for them. Yes, there's opportunities to bring in help, but still they can be real tough times. We're going to be able to help out one another and look for one another and really be able to talk honestly and openly with one another. But here are a couple of comparisons.

In the nursing homes and in these other retirement villages in general, absent of any biblical instruction. There's no biblical foundation for why they do anything. Yes, they may allow churches to come in once in a while like us, but generally there's no biblical foundation. We're proposing homeschooling in this opportunity for worship of God in all of life, to help them continue worshiping God in all of life. People say, leave it to the professionals.

The professionals, the doctors, the nurses, the CNAs, professional buildings. Leave it to them. They know. Well, at home, family's more engaged, possibly looking at things, seeing things day in and day out, more engaged, more observant, has a lot more into it emotionally. The big one is group age segregated.

Group age segregated in all these places, retirement villages, nursing homes. Whoever said, I don't know, I have no idea where nursing home ideas started. I didn't look it up. Someday I might, or I might just maybe one of you know. But whoever thought that the best thing to do with 30 dementia people is to put them all in the same home, right?

30, 90-year-olds, 50, 100, right? There's a new home here in Youngsville just for dementia people. I'm sure it started out just, hey, this makes the most sense from an efficiency standpoint to take care of them. You have all the experts in one place, We can do it all in one place and take care of them instead of individualized, relational-based, family-based elderly care. Not saying that they're getting horrible care.

They're getting maybe the best that the money will allow for them to get care. But who said that that would be the best? That's the same reason why we homeschool. I don't know everybody here, but the same reason why at least my family and at least the ones I know of here homeschool. Pure efficiency.

Everyone gets up at the same time. Everyone eats at the same time. Does the same things at the same time. Freedom's taken away. Institutional behavior.

To me, that sounds like prison. Right? We'll joke about the schools being like a prison, the prison buses and all that. But really, you see it there. You still see it there.

It's dehumanizing, this hospital living that's there. There's one lady, one of the speakers there, she has an organization called Pioneer Network. And what they're doing is trying to go into these homes. I'm not saying that we need to take everybody out of these homes. They're going to be there.

They're going to be there. But what they're trying to help with is going into these facilities, these nursing homes, residences, assisted living residences, and help turn them into homes. Help them be more like a home instead of a hospital. Instead of giving them bibs to wear when they eat, give them napkins to use. And instead of some institutionalized looking hallway, put some nice pictures up there like you would have in somebody's home.

They're transforming these places. The nurses' stations, the doctors' stations, instead of having all these files open everywhere, hiding behind doors and cabinets and make it look nicer. I know if I had to go to the doctor It might help my nerves a little bit when I have to go to the doctor if it didn't look so institutionalized. But help it. Help them feel like they're at home.

There's one place you mentioned out in Kansas or Nebraska where they actually put doorbells on their doors. And you have to ring the doorbell or assisted living. Not everybody in these homes need 24-hour around the clock care. There are some there that can walk around just fine, Just fine. And can host people in the rooms just fine.

Anybody that's spent, I've said anybody that's spent time in a nursing home or just around grandparents, know the joys that can happen when the family structures around and together. Talk about the breakdown of the family. We spent a lot of time, thankfully, the last several years talking about the breakdown of the family, fathers, mothers, children. And we've heard, we've seen some wonderful examples of here again, and we've heard some preaching on grandparents' roles in that. But we're also, they have a great role to play.

They can be very helpful, but we need to go get that wisdom and then see about how we're going to care for them. In the institutions, they really stop learning. We need lifelong learning. We need to continue to learn. We're at the nursing home.

One of the reasons we're at the nursing home is to evangelize, but we're also there because there are dear brothers and sisters there that we need to encourage. These are people that need to be encouraged. They are brothers and sisters. They have to be slower. Their mind may not be there.

They may not be able to contribute an extended teaching time at church. They may not be able to contribute in some of those ways in our church body. They may not even be able to pray anymore out loud. But there are still brothers and sisters that need to be encouraged. There are still brothers and sisters that all of scripture applies to.

2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 still applies to them. They have not been made complete yet. The Savior is still keeping them and will keep them until He completes them. And we're there to help them and encourage them. God has created these people in his own image.

He's created all people in his own image. From conception to death, we're to honor all people. 1 Peter 2, honor all people. There are people. We try to separate them out, just like we do at the beginning of life with abortion.

There are people, because they're behind a door somewhere, whether it's a nursing home, assisted living, or in their own home somewhere, wasting away. In the fear of God, I recognize my need for godly wisdom, the command to get wisdom and understanding, so let's not let this opportunity pass. Just like, thankfully, I'm standing on the shoulders of my parents who started homeschooling in 1984, And they didn't have a lot of resources then. I pray that my children get a stand on my shoulders now, or our shoulders as a church, for later generations. I'm not going to get this all right.

They haven't seen it done yet, really. They're going to be rookies at this. I'm going to be a rookie at getting older. There are going to be rookies at taking care of elderly. I'm a rookie if I get the opportunity to take care of my parents or Rebecca's or help any of your families in caring in whatever way that might look like.

So let's not let this wisdom waste away in this opportunity that God gives us. You've seen some of the stats. I gave you some stats. Michael is going to come up now and talk more about some pragmatics and practicalities here on this and then we'll open it up for questions. Like James said, I'm going to talk about some pragmatics, some practical issues.

When you, anytime the discussion comes up about taking care of elderly people in the home, I think they're generally speaking, there's several categories of questions and concerns that people might have. One of those would be just practical issues of care. Questions like, you know, can I really do this? You know, do I have the training? Do I need training?

You know, is my house equipped to be able to care for people? So there's practical issues of care. Another category of where questions and concerns might come up might be with money. Money. How in the world can we afford when I'm barely scratching by to pay the bills right now, how can we afford to take care of someone in the home?

Now again, like James said, by no means are we experts. However, I will say that during this process, I personally have had some of my own concerns relieved, and even to the point that I'm seriously considering family caregiving for my own household. I'm looking at like a five-year plan so we're kind of moving in that direction as a house and intentional in that direction. At the conference, James mentioned one of the ladies. Her name was Marie Fila.

And what she is doing, she's actually doing family caregiving in her home. And she has, right now, she has an elderly gentleman in the home. She went through a screening process for him to come into the house. He has become, best I could tell, they've incorporated him into the family. He's there for the you know for whatever activities the family has.

He's there as part of the family and she gets paid to care for him. Now the thing is, the thing is this is not just about making money. I'm gonna talk to you about, I'm gonna try to relieve your money issues, money questions. But it's not just about making money. She talked about numerous, numerous benefits to her home.

For instance, there's a completely, and James hit on this, a completely new dimension to cross-generational discipleship. You have the wisdom from the older generation, And you have training for the younger generations. Think about in your household, if your children and you were caring for an older adult in the home, what kind of character training skills, what kind of spiritual character building would be taking place. I want my children to serve the elderly. I want them to grow up serving selflessly and caring for the elderly.

Think about practical skills too. Just practical skills. Practical skills of caring for people, physically doing the work, of caring for people in the home. And you add to that the fact that you're loving on someone who needs love, and you're fulfilling the biblical mandate to care for the aged, and add on top of that, on top of that, monetary benefits to the household economy. And she described it as a win-win all the way around.

In fact, it was convincing enough to me that, again, I'm seriously considering it for my own family. So my goal here today, my goal is basically I want to relieve some of the questions and concerns that might pop into your head that you would have about caregiving in the home. So that's my goal for today. I'm going to begin talking about North Carolina law. North Carolina law.

Basically there are three types of caregiving environments. Three types of caregiving environments. I'm going by the most common terminology that I've found for North Carolina. The first level, these are the big caregiving environments. In North Carolina, they're called adult care homes.

Adult care homes. These are the nursing homes, like Hillside, like the Carolina House, and of course there are strict licensing requirements for that sort of thing. If you want to go for that, please do. But I'm not going to be focusing on adult care homes. That's the first level, that's the big ones.

Now, one step down from that is what's called family care homes. Family care homes. Now these are homes that have two to six residents. Two to six elderly people that you're caring for residents in the home. These are non-family residents so if you you know in order for you to have a family care home you're not going to this is in it this is in addition to any family you might be taking care of if you had six two to six non-family residents in the home that's called a family care home a family care home also requires special licensing I think that I think that's what the Shively's are wanting to do.

I could be wrong about that. I think that's what the Shively's are wanting to do. They're wanting to open a family care home. I have some information on that if that interests you. Maybe long-term for us but not right now.

That's not my focus. So that's not my focus either. Now take one step down from that. One step down, I think the most common terminology is family caregiving. I think it's sometimes referred to as shared living.

This is what you and I would be doing in our homes. I could have those terms wrong, but This is what we're talking about, okay? Catherine Goldman, she's the adult services supervisor in Wake County. And I had an email exchange with her last week. I had put in a phone call and I was asking specific questions and so we had an email exchange about this.

And here's what I said to her. I said the reason I called was to get some information on family care. My understanding is that the law allows for the care of one person in the home without having to go through all the licensing procedures. I read somewhere online that we could care for one senior in addition to any family members we might be caring for in the home. And my question was whether or not that is truly the case.

If we have an elderly parent in the home, can we take care of an additional person without having to go through licensing?" And she responded, she says, that is correct. You may care for a relative in the home as well as one non-relative. If you plan to care for more than one non-relative in your home, you will be required to go through the process to obtain Family care home licensure. Okay, so that's what we're talking about. That's family care giving.

She pointed me to a website, a very valuable resource. I'll give you the web address if you want to write it down. It's www.tjaaa.org. Triangle, I don't know why they name so hard, but it's Triangle J Area Agency on Aging. TJAAA.org.

And I want to read to you what it says here, because I want you to hear it one more time. This is on the website. According to North Carolina general statutes, if you provide care to only one non-related person in your home, you do not have to be licensed as a family care home. If you provide care termed activities of daily living to more than one non-related person in your home you must be licensed as a family care home. All right this this is the law that Kevin Swanson was focused on.

This is what Marie Fila is doing in her house And this is where I think that we have the greatest opportunity for our own homes. It keeps the home a home, doesn't turn it into an institution, doesn't turn it into a business, and it provides the greatest opportunity for spiritual and economic benefit to the household. Alright, so that's North Carolina law. That's the basic law, there's more, but that's the law that we're talking about. Now I want to switch gears here and I want to talk about levels of care.

I want to talk about levels of care because one of the concerns that people have when you start talking about caring for the elderly is are we equipped, can we handle caring for the elderly in the home? So we're gonna talk about levels of care and I'm gonna start at the base. I'm gonna start at the very bottom. I'm gonna start with independent living. Independent living.

This is where you're providing maybe just room and board to somebody in your home. In independent living, you're not providing any kind of personal care whatsoever. Anything that would be termed activities of daily living, you're not providing that. They know they can still do all that stuff. They can still bathe themselves.

They can still you know brush their teeth, all that kind of stuff. They can do all of the activities of daily living. In North Carolina, that is not considered caregiving. If you are providing room and board in North Carolina, it's not considered caregiving. Here's another quote from that same website.

It says, if you provide only boarding, in other words, a room and meals only and provide no care as identified above, then you may house as many individuals as you can safely accommodate and as zoning allows. Okay? Now, okay, just so you know, I spoke with a representative from the Carolina House. They have an independent living area in heritage. People are paying $1, 500 to $2, 000 a month to live there.

Okay? Alright, so let's say you meet a senior that's a Christian, a widow, Fits the bill. You go through the process of getting to know that person. There's a process. You go through the process of getting to know that person.

On James's handout, this is the, that's the process right there. Process to evaluate having non-family live with you. There's a process. And right at the top it says pray. You need to be praying about this.

You need to go slow, know the law, and then you begin to move through this process of getting to know the person. After you've worked through the process, and I'm not going to go through every detail on there, but after you've worked through the process and everything looks good, you talk to that person about maybe coming to live with your family. And you talk to them about things like, you know, this is, we want you to be a part of the family. We want you to be there for family worship. We want you to be there for meals.

We want you to come to church and be a part of our church family. Things of that nature and you can talk about money too. They're going to want to contribute something to the household. I know for our own home, Kay's not here right now, but when we talked about this just with Kay coming in, she's family, she's not non-family. We talked about family vision.

We talked about what it means to be productive in the home. And she's contributing to the household economy what little she can. And I'll be honest with you, I'm just telling you straight up, it is a benefit to have her in the home in more ways than one. There's spiritual benefit, there's character issues, character benefits to the children, there's just benefits all around from a personal relational perspective, but she has actually benefited the home with what little she provides financially. We are actually, to be honest, we're actually saving money with her being there.

And we can talk about how all that works, but anyway that's that's for room and board. That's what I'm calling the first level of care. It's not really caregiving. All right, let's go to the next level here. The next level I'm going to call companion services.

Companion services. Now that would be a common term that's used most of the health care services use some term similar to that. They provide companion services. Centerpiece, home care and companion services. I think they're out of Fuqua or somewhere down there.

Here's how they define companion services, okay? Now see if you can do this. You ready? Companionship. Company keeper.

I'm going through just the list of things. I don't know what company keeper means, but that's what they do. So companionship, company keeper, light meal preparation, medication reminders, light Light housekeeping, prescription pickup, laundry, errands, companion visiting, this has to do with you know if they go to the hospital or rehab centers and incidental transportation like transportation to appointments and community events. Now raise your hand if you think you can do all that okay you're already doing all that that's the point you're already doing all that that's companion services. Center piece charges $17 an hour for those services.

Stay at Home Senior Care charges $19.50 an hour. And most of those people are self-pay. They just pay for that out of pocket. I don't see any reason why that's just part of family life. You bring somebody into your home, That's just part of family life.

We're already doing that anyway. We're already doing that anyway. Anybody here can provide that level of care. Now the next level, the third level that I want to talk about, I'm going to call personal care services. Personal care services.

And this is where you're moving into the assisted living level. Where people have trouble with the normal activities of daily living. Like eating, getting dressed, bathing, going to the bathroom, moving from a bed to a chair, Walking. These are activities of daily living. This is, at this level when you're providing personal care services, you have moved into, for the best I understand, you're moved into the assisted living level of care.

Okay? Now people who get this kind of care in their homes are paying 18 to 21 dollars an hour. If they move into an assisted living facility, either family care homes or adult care homes. Hillside, for instance, for a shared room is $2, 700 a month. For a private room is $3, 300 a month.

The Carolina House starts at $2, 950 a month. By the way, Carolina House is mostly self-pay. Okay, now you have to determine what level of care that you can handle for your home. You have to make that determination. I think for my family if we bring someone into our home I think we're going to go as far as we can because that person is going to be family.

It's not just about making money. They're going to be part of our family. The whole point of the conference was that the time is coming when that might be the only option for many people. So he was talking about, remember, he was talking about, you know, the money's not going to be there in Social Security to handle all of those who are coming of age, in retirement age. And so you have Social Security going into the red while at the same time the numbers are booming and you don't have the younger generation providing the financial support to the system.

It's coming down to some degree and so for many people that's going to be the only option. So they're already right now cutting back on Medicaid. So the security is going to dry up. People are not going to have the money to pay for nursing home care. And the time might come when they don't have much to contribute to your household either, financially.

And the whole point of the conference is that our churches need to, look, there's a train coming down the track. We see it coming, it's going to be here, we need to be prepared. Okay, we need to be prepared. After personal care services, you move into more skilled nursing care. Skilled nursing care, this is where you move into the medical level, includes also therapy, things of that nature.

For now, for now there are still ways for this to be done in your home. This can be done in your home. Hillside, if they go to Hillside and receive nursing care, skilled nursing care, it's $165 a day for a shared room. $185 a day for a private room. The Carolina House has an Alzheimer's memory care area.

It starts at $4, 525 a month and goes up. There are companies, companies that do in-home nursing care. I don't know all the prices to all of that. It's expensive, but there are ways to get it paid for. So you thinking for you, if you had someone at this level in your home You would provide the assisted living care You would be doing a lot of that okay, You would work with the doctors in lining up the nursing care.

And the church would be your support for respite care. This is where the church needs to have a plan. You know, have people in the church ready and willing to go serve someone else. Give them some respite. Give them some time off, time to rest, and go serve someone who really needs help.

Now the final level of care is hospice. This is the terminal stage. Your job at that point is basically just comfort them in their final days. I don't know a whole lot about that. All I know is that's the final level of care.

And again, you have to determine what level of care that you can handle in your home. Part of the process of talking to someone up front is saying, look, we can do this, this, and this in our home, But if you happen to progress past that, you may have to go somewhere that's better equipped. But then you still love them, you still treat them like family, and you be there for them as much as you possibly can, wherever they're at. They're family. They're coming into the family.

This is not just about making money. It's about caring for God's widows. James 1, 27. It's about God setting the solitary in families. Psalm 68, 6.

It's about seeing someone in need and providing what they need. James 2, 15, and 16. By the way, I don't think that you should bring anyone into your home that you would not be willing to care for for free. Money is not the primary motivator, but it shouldn't be a hindrance either. It shouldn't be a hindrance either.

So remember what I told you my goal was it was basically just to try and relieve some questions and concerns you might have about caregiving in the home. Money should not be an issue, should not be a hindrance. And when you understand the levels of care, then you can determine what your family can handle that shouldn't be an issue either. Okay, now Before I end, I have a couple things I want to show you. For people who are elderly folks who are low income, we'll say they don't have a lot of money.

Low income, depending on what program you're looking at, means, generally speaking, under $1, 200 a month, give or take. Okay, low income, under $1, 200 a month. Nicole, I don't know where she was at the other day, but she picked these up for me. These are programs through Medicaid that provide special assistance for various different scenarios. I want to just show you a couple of them.

This one, this is called the special assistance Medicaid. They have one very similar that's in its special assistance in home where this is a government program where the government actually pays a monthly check for the person's care in the home. Okay? I'm not saying it's real easy to get it. That ties to the doctor's prescription, the application for the care and so forth.

I'm not saying it's all that easy to get it. I'm just letting you know as of right now, there is assistance available for people who are low income. If you don't need that, fantastic. There's another one I just want to point out here. This is called CAPDA.

This is community alternative program for disabled adults. This is a Medicaid waiver that cares for people at a nursing home level care in the home. And it actually, it pays money. Through this program, you would receive money to care for the person in your home. Okay, this again, this is for low income people.

If they're, you know, they have to look at their assets and monthly income and all of that. One more resource I want to point out to you I went over to the Senior Center in Wake Forest this is a fantastic resource fantastic resource called directory of resources any It has anything in here you need. If you have questions and concerns, I called, this is resources for seniors, I called this number down here, the information and referral line, they were extremely helpful. Extremely helpful. And in fact, these are the people, they actually handle the, I want to say it was the CAPDA waiver, It may be the other one.

Anyway, they handle one of those through their office. Extremely valuable resource. You know, you can pick one up at the, you know, where the senior center is in Wake Forest, right behind the Carolina House, right across from the library. So you can you can pick these up in Wake Forest. You can look at mine today if you want to look at it.

You can write that number down if you want to write the number down. A very valuable resource. They're there to help people who call in. This is a very valuable resource. It has anything, any questions you might have, you've got an avenue to find the answer to your questions.