iRetire4Him Show 152: Don't Move to Florida - The Mindset Shift You Need to Retire to Purpose

Jim Brangenberg: Hey, welcome to a special edition of iRetire4Him. You know, I often get a chance to interview people on this show covering how they're living out their faith in their retirement. I would like to ask you, our iRetire4Him an audience, to recommend some of your friends and family, people that you know of in your community, that have rejected the idea of the American dream of retirement and have embraced living out their faith in their retirement, their days being full of meaning and purpose. Please email me jim@iwork4him.com and make recommendations. That's Jim at I work the number four him.com.

Now, here's what I really wanted to say besides that today on iRetire4Him, I wanted to say one other thing. You know, we're getting close to 2026. We're just a couple of months away, and iRetire4Him is a mentality that needs to be adopted by literally 50 or 60 million retired believers across this country. I would like to put this book, iRetire4Him, in your hands for free. Just pay the shipping and handling.

Inside this book Martha's dad and myself wrote, here's what it can look like for you to live out your faith in your retirement, whether you're quitting your regular day job and starting a new job because you still need to make money but you wanted to do something you love, or whether you don't need to make money anymore. You're a fully funded retired missionary, and so you're going to volunteer full-time somewhere or volunteer some of your time somewhere. Or maybe you can't work any longer, but you live in a neighborhood. So here's some things you can do.

One of the big things we suggest at iRetire4Him is that you do not sell your house where you have lived for the last 40 or 50 years and move to Florida, Arizona. We totally recommend that you go on vacation to Florida, Arizona for a month, a year, or whatever, so you can get outta the cold and the snow if that's what you've gotta do. But do not destroy the family relationships that you've got. Do not neglect to use all of the relationships and the influence that you have in the town where you've lived for the last 20, 30, 40, 50 years, maybe even 70 years.

It is an absolute disaster when retired believers bail on their families and bail on their communities to go to the south because the weather's nicer. Believe me, when we live in heaven, the weather will be fantastic. It's just a few years away. Don't go and move away because then you only see your kids and your grandkids a week a year. They need to see you every week. They need you to be involved in their lives. Please don't sell your house and move to Florida. They don't need your vote anyway, if that's what you're thinking. I gotta go to Florida 'cause it's a great. It's a great state.

I lived there 20 years, but your home state where you live needs you more because your family is likely somewhere nearby, and the people that know you are somewhere nearby. Inside the book iRetire4Him it really talks about the biblical basis for the paradigm shift that we need to take from believing that the American dream of retirement is a biblical reality - but it's not- and shifting that paradigm to realize that the Bible never calls us to check out and go on vacation for 30 years. We are called to live with meaning and purpose until our pulse stops!

And iRetire4Him will give you the encouragement for that. This is not a theological book. This is a perspective from somebody who was retired. My father-in-law, Ted Hains, has now gone to be with the Lord, but Martha's dad talked about - in here, there's stories of him living out his faith in his retirement, and he talks about how he tried to just go on vacation. And my mother-in-law, Elaine said, you are getting boring, Ted. You need to go find some purpose.

And he did for almost 30 years of retirement. Okay, 25 years of retirement. Then I share my perspective on what does it look like? What are some ideas? One of my, one of my greatest ideas, I believe the Lord gave me, was, if you really wanna move, move into a neighborhood full of young families, because you know what? The desperate need in this country is old people, or as I call 'em in this book- because of a friend named Grant Skelton giving this idea - chronologically superior people, moving into neighborhoods with young families.

Why? Because those young families don't often have access to grandparents, maybe not even access to their own parents because of divorce and destruction of the family in this country. Move into a neighborhood, not with a bunch of other old people 'cause they all get cranky. You need to move into a neighborhood full of young people 'cause they desperately need you to help teach them. And we talk about that in this book as well.

So iRetire4Him, it could be a small group study if you say, Hey, we need 10, 12 copies, we'll just charge you the shipping and we'll get 'em in your hand so you can use 'em. We had a small group out of North Carolina do this last year and they had a great time. We're even willing to, Martha and I are even willing to call into your small group via Zoom and share some things directly with you. No costs. We just really wanna pass this message on. So please consider contacting us on our website. IRetire4Him.com, or iWork4Him.com.

Or you just email me jim@iwork4him.com. We'll send you some books just for the cost of shipping. Get this into the hands of all your friends who are gonna retire next year. Give it to 'em as a Christmas gift. It doesn't even cost you anything but shipping. That's incredible. But read it yourself. Be encouraged. God has such a deep plan for your retirement years. Start planning those now.

I know you know what you retired from, but do you know what you're retiring to? iRetire4Him is a mindset that we all need to have. I'm Jim Brangenberg. I think you're awesome. And I really am encouraged that this book could transform your life, of course, 'cause it's full of scripture, but because it's the mindset that God wants us to have. Till next time, just remember, as long as you got a pulse, you have a purpose. And if you're not dead, you're not done.