In his book Finish Life Like One of the Twelve (WestBow Press, 2025) Richard Morton asks, Where are the seniors? Why are they sitting in pews instead of being involved in active ministry? He blames the American Dream for this, the idea that after working hard all your life you've earned the right to sit back and enjoy life in comfort and ease. No more commitments, just play golf, travel, and throw away your alarm clock. Rick argues convincingly that this is not what the Christian Life is all about. That every believer, not just pastors and missionaries, are called to follow in the footsteps of Jesus right until they go to heaven. Rick frames his argument on the message of the Kingdom of God, which was the central teaching of Jesus and his disciples. He argues convincingly from Scripture that Christians today — all Christians — are called, equipped, commissioned and sent to do the same things that Jesus did: to heal the sick, cast out demons, and proclaim God's kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit. And he frames this not as a heavy burden but an exciting opportunity that believers who are seniors and retired can easily enter into. Rick also shares stories from his own life and the life of his wife Sharon to illustrate how God can use us to advance his kingdom. As a senior himself — he turned 70 as he was writing his book — Rick provides practical, actionable steps for entering into the ministry of Jesus, and into what he calls Radical Retirement — finishing the final years of your life like you are one of the Twelve. Ingrid and I feel every Christian who is a senior and retired should read this book. Some will be challenged by it, and a few may even be offended. Many however will be inspired to dive back in and start following Jesus again with renewed vigor and passion. A great way to make use of Rick's book in your church might be for a group of seniors to meet together once a week and work through it one chapter at a time. You can buy Rick's book on Amazon .

One of the great things Ingrid and I learned during the early days of the Vineyard is that you could ask people to pray for your healing whenever you got sick. And more often than not, you got healed. But you can also learn to pray effectively for your own healing, as the following story demonstrates. Recently I had been experiencing a sharp pain in my upper right chest whenever I tried to breathe very deep. This had been going on for several weeks, but not being a very mindful person I tended to ignore it. I also thought it might have something to do with the upper-body weightlifting I was doing. Perhaps it was only a muscle strain from trying to lift too much. Or maybe my heart is feeling stressed from lifting weights that are too heavy for someone my age (71) so maybe I should just dial down a bit. Which I did, but the pain didn't go away. And it couldn't be my heart, could it, since that's on the left side of my chest, not my right. So maybe it’s just a muscle strain, and those are no big deal and if left alone usually heal by themselves after a few weeks. Anyways, those were my thoughts as I continued to try to ignore my condition. But after about another week had passed, I finally decided one morning to pray for my condition. I placed my left hand on my upper right chest where the pain was located and asked the Holy Spirit to come and release God's healing power on my condition. At that moment several things happened. First, I suddenly recalled that I had experienced similar pains in my life several times in the past, and they had all been associated with having pneumonia, medically verified by a physician. "Of course!" I thought to myself, "I've just got a touch of pneumonia. How silly of me not to have recognized it!" But then I remembered that pneumonia if it is allowed to persist can permanently damage lung tissue, so it shouldn't be taken lightly. The next thing that immediately came to mind was that the pneumonia I was experiencing might have been caused, or at least aggravated, by certain lifestyle choices I had made lately. Nothing sinful, mind you—just stupid behaviors. So I resolved to try and change those behaviors if possible. But that still left the problem of experiencing sharp pain whenever I tried to breathe deeply. Then another thought struck me. In Hebrew as well as Greek, the word that means "breath" can also mean "spirit." So could my breathing problem be caused by a spirit? This idea hit me with the force of a revelation (i.e. with a feeling of certainty) so I thought it was probably a word of knowledge. Which meant that I needed to do something in response to receiving it. So placing my hand again on my right upper chest, I rebuked the spirit of pneumonia by saying "Spirit of pneumonia, I break your power over my body and command you to leave right now!" Then I took a very deep breath. And the sharp pain was no longer there. But I still felt a kind of dull ache in my right chest when I tried breathing deeply, so having driven off the demon that had been trying to get his claws into me — figuratively speaking, but literally true in ways our natural mind can't understand — I spent several minutes laying my hand on my chest and asking God to release his healing power to heal any inflammation in my lung tissue and damage my lungs may have experienced. After praying like this awhile, I tried breathing deeply and still felt the same dull ache. But fortunately no more sharp pain. So I resolved to keep praying like this for myself every couple of hours, hoping that through "soaking prayer" my remaining condition would progressively be healed. I did this three or four times that day, and then I forgot about it. The next morning I took a deep breath. No ache, no pain. And as of a week later my condition is still completely healed. What can we learn from this story? As John Wimber tells us in his book Power Healing , sicknesses often have several different contributing factors involved in causing them. These may include organic (functional) breakdowns of physical health, like wounds causing damaged tissue or through invasive viruses or bacteria; environmental factors like poisonous substances; social factors like relationship problems with others resulting in unforgiveness and hardness of heart; and various levels of demonic activity. Effective healing often involves determining which of these is the root cause (i.e. the most important or fundamental contributing factor) and dealing with that first. The root cause of a condition can sometimes be determined by careful listening to what the person you are praying for says, but more often it involves receiving a word of knowledge (a direct revelation from the Lord) as to what is causing the problem. In my case, the Lord used the word play of breath-equals-spirit to show me that I had to deal with the demonic element first before my condition could receive further healing. But if the Greek/Hebrew word for breath can also mean spirit, does this mean that pneumonia is always caused by an evil spirit? No, but sometimes it can be. And in this case, I think it was, based on the outcome of the way I ministered to my condition. Hope you find this helpful. And if you haven't read Wimber's book yet, I urge you to buy it and read it . Here are some other healing stories from our blog that you may find helpful in learning how to pray for the sick, the hurting and the demonized: Go look for a red bottle Praying for someone's back Faith for progressive healing Rejection and Abandonment Praying for a swollen ankle Healing and Old Age Faith, Medicine and the Power of God I have healed you Cheers, Mitch