Home-based Elder Care in a Family Economy
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.” John 19:26-27
One of our primary goals at Christian Family Eldercare is to follow God’s design to bring the blessing of elderly to the church and family, honor to seniors, and optimal care for “least of these” (Matt 25:40). Sadly in the traditional nursing-home based method of eldercare, seniors are sometimes cast out of society due to the “burden” they place on the lifestyle of today’s American family. At times we find a family culture that is “too busy” to care for aging parents, or families that are not harnessed with the tools to care for seniors. These dynamics have effectively separated seniors from family and church. Christian Family Eldercare seeks to integrate relationship into eldercare on a personal, biblically-honoring, family-oriented level.
While many in the Church are actively taking on this charge, we strive to restore family and Church to their God-intended role by caring for elderly as the weak and vulnerable in our society. We seek to re-integrate seniors into our everyday life, including the Church, extended family, society, and overall life dynamics. Moreover, we support multi-generational interaction, effectively knitting the generations together, and restoring honor and wisdom transfer in our culture. Optimally this occurs in a relationship-based, family-focused, Christ-centered, home environment.
The costly institutional model is unsustainable and can be replaced with a decentralized, family and Church driven relational design, modeled after principles in God’s Word. For those families in the right season of life, alternatives to the traditional nursing-home model exist, not only to return seniors to loving home environments, boosting care, honor, and life to levels unknown in institutions, but lowering costs significantly, preserving seniors’ inheritance for future generations.
Numerous Christian families around the world currently provide basic care for a senior or two in their home at considerable lower costs than nursing homes, all while fostering relationships, improving quality of life, building a family economy, and integrating the elderly into every aspect of daily life. Also, synergies exist for Church leaders to partner with families to care for Church widows and for Christian home health care to supplement a family’s care as needed to sustain home-based models. Join us as we encourage and enable these exciting opportunities.