Men's Sheds

I came across an Australian book yesterday called The Real Men's Toolbox: a DIY health manual for men, by Tammy Farrell. I haven't had a change to have a good look at it yet, (I saw it in passing at a local bookshop), but it has some good things to say about men's mental health, and what's more, it introduces the concept of Men's Sheds, a significant movement in Australia.

On the Men's Sheds site they state: Problems with men's health, isolation, loneliness and depression are looming as major health issues for men. Men's sheds can play a significant and practical role in addressing these and other men's issues. Men’s sheds can help connect men with their communities and mainstream society and at the same time act as a catalyst in stimulating their community's economic activities.

The sheds appear to be focused more at older men, if the pictures are anything to go by, but by no means exclusively. They talk about mentoring younger guys; not only youths, but blokes in their 30s and 40s. What they're doing, in effect, is rebuilding what was normal in the old days, when men would get together as a matter of course and work on rebuilding, renovating, helping each other put stuff together, chewing the fat and drinking no doubt. With society having focused to such a degree on every man for himself and every family separate from other families, this natural approach to life has withered away. And brought with it issues such as those mentioned in the earlier paragraph.

The Men's Sheds site has a good deal of info on it, and several slide shows (rather than videos). Spirituality is part of the approach, though this isn't discussed from any particular religious point of view. However I get the impression Men's Sheds are varied in their style, and no doubt there's plenty of room for discussing life and death and all the issues in between.

Photo by Jim Vance

The death of an old person...

"The death of an old person is like the burning of a library." So wrote Alex Haley, the author of Roots, and other stories of African origins. ( Or, if he didn't write it, he 'borrowed' it from his African past, as the words are often thought to be an African proverb. )

It's quoted in an article on caring for old people - I make no apology for this being nine years old (nothing on the Net ever grows old!) - called Aging and Ageism: Can You Have One Without the Other? by Karen Henderson.

The author looks at our attitudes to old people: Everyone gets old. None of us should be surprised or angry; it's a fact of life. But what's also a fact of life is this: we don't treat older people as people. We treat them as a commodity to be used, abused and disposed of as we see fit. We somehow learn to raise our children; we try to give our pets a good life. Why can't we extend the same efforts to our older people?

The article isn't long, but it has plenty of good things to say about older/elderly people (they're always people who are older than me, by the way!) and the way we think about them, and act towards them. It's probably addressed to the inbetween generation - those who have elderly parents and growing children - but it's applicable to anyone, anywhere.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.com

Love those old people

Matt Chandler, who isn't an old person, led a church of 100 through substantial change - and now has a congregation numbering some 6000. There's a short interview with him here on the rev.org site. What I appreciated were these two paragraphs, though he has some other very good things to say too.

There were a lot of older people in the church, and here's what I did not do: I did not walk into that place and beat up old saints and demand that our way was our way and they could just deal with it. I'm mortified at how often it plays out that way. And I don't know what young guys think they're doing; I don't know how they think they're pleasing God by beating up people who have been nothing but faithful to Him.

So first I started taking all these old guys out—to coffee, lunch, and dinner—and the message I communicated over and over again was the same: We need you, we need you, we need you. I immediately started putting 20 year-olds together with older folks. "Hey, this guy can show you how to live life; he can teach you about the Bible, he will have you into his home…" There's a hunger among twenty-somethings for that type of mentorship. And at that point the old saints don't care about peripheral things any more. They're not arguing about music and style and whether I'm wearing jeans or not any more.

Vision

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new. 2 Cor 5-17 (NKJ)

Dan Southlerland says that in many churches this verse is presented in the 'Modern Church Perversion'. That is, it goes something like this:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is an old creation; new things have passed away; behold, all things have become old.

Southerland says that this version is 'especially liked in those churches who cling to the seven last words of a dying church: "We never did it that way before."

However, he goes on to say that churches who are vision-driven have a 'present-tense version of the verse':

Therefore, is anyone is in Christ, he is a renewed creation; old things keep passing away, and all things keep becoming new.

From Dan Southerland's book, Transitioning, leading your church through change, Zondervan 2000.