Encouraging Aging Voices to Sing

This is part two of a series on music ministry in the nursing home. Some of these principles will work both in your nursing home ministry as well as with the senior ministry at your church. Be blessed.

Breaking up New Ground

 

Hosea 10:12 Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you KJV

“Fallow comes from the old English word for plowing, and refers to the practice of leaving fields unplowed in rotation––when a field lies fallow, the soil regains nutrients that are sucked up by over-planting.”  Vocabulary.com

One temptation as I grow older is to abandon certain of the fields in my life. Those fields have so long been unproductive that it scarcely seems worth the effort to continue to hope for any sort of fruitful harvest. But God has an entirely different idea. God says that today is the exact perfect time to stop moping around the house, get the plow out of the barn and break up that fallow ground.

Do you have some fallow fields in your life? God has not created us to lie fallow forever. That fallow time is coming to an end and it is high time to cancel the pity party, hitch up the plow to the horse and get to work. There is still something that God has in mind, but we must do our part because there will still be the harvest that He has promised!

Encouragement for Aging Voices

Music Matters Passing the Torch

This summer, the Olympic flame will be carried over the distance of 20,000 kilometers throughout Brazil by 10,000 runners till the flame is finally lit in Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. That run will not be about who is the fastest or who the best athlete is. That race will be about carrying the torch until the flame is lit. Nursing home ministry is in same type of race. We are not in competition with other people or other churches. It is time for new hands to take hold of the torch and new legs to run the next lap.

The work of music minister in a nursing home is not widely recognized but we who are involved on the front lines see how God uses songs to reach hearts in ways that nothing else can. Music matters, not because it is trendy but because it is created by God. Music matters because it connects generations and gives us joy. Music matters whether we sing a Sunday school song or an ancient hymn. Music matters because it has the capacity to encourage, strengthen, awaken and minister God’s peace in troubled situations.