Elder Care Ministry

Rev. Tom Davis

A Note from Tom Davis: By the time you read this in the July’s GUMC’s Tidings, my daughter, her husband, and their children, along with my wife and I will be entering a new chapter as we travel the Yellow Brick Road toward Kansas. This journey was a sudden surprise and opportunity, but one that is bittersweet because it means leaving you all. Thank you, for the privilege and blessing to serve as your Director of Elder Care.

You are a special congregation and church; these are not words to flatter you, the proof is expressed in the article below. It reflects the thoughts and revelations that I have experienced because of your life together as Germantown United Methodist Church. It was written several months before my son-in-law and daughter asked my wife and I to join them in Manhattan, Kansas. The subject of this article became a challenge and a blessing in how to answer them.

Secrets to Finding the Abundant Life

In the two years that I have been here at Germantown United Methodist Church, I have stumbled upon the secret of living the abundant life. You know the abundant life? The one that Jesus talked about. He expressed it in John 10:10, when he gave us his mission statement, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come so that you may have life and have it more abundantly.”

The sad truth is, there are thieves that try to steal, kill, or destroy our lives.

Just recently, the United States surgeon general, Vivek Murthy warned about an epidemic of loneliness saying, “loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling it harms both individual and societal health. Loneliness has been associated with coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, dementia, depression, and anxiety.” And Dr. Murthy also expressed concern with the decline in church attendance over the last several years because such a decline increases loneliness and isolation.

Did you know that the life expectancy in the United States has also dropped? Life expectancy at birth in the United States declined nearly a year from 2020 to 2021, according to new provisional data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). That decline – 77.0 to 76.1 years – took U.S. life expectancy at birth to its lowest level since 1996. Hard to believe but 76 years old seems relatively young to me!!

So, you must be wondering, what about life and living it more abundantly?