iRetire4Him Show 149: "Refiring" as the Body of Christ

Jim Brangenberg: Your retirement years could be 30 years of purpose-driven, fully funded ministry, years of making impact in ways and places you never imagined. Welcome to iRetire4Him, and I'm your host, Jim Brangenberg. Please check us out online at iRetire4Him.com. That's I retire the number four him.com.

It's starting to happen... something Martha's dad dreamed about when he launched iRetire4Him within iWork4Him almost 12 years ago. People in their forties and their fifties are realizing that the American dream of retirement doesn't apply to believers. That dream is actually a nightmare and it actively holds millions of retired believers in retirement prison all across our country.

We were made to live with purpose, our faith impacting all of our days. We were given a promise that the Lord numbered our days from before we were born. When did that promise get changed to "the last 30 years of that time, we will be on perpetual vacation letting the kids do all the ministry work?"

We need to live on purpose based on the promises God has given us all over scripture, and that applies especially in our years after 55. When we turn 55 or 65, nothing magical happens except that we are older and wiser - hopefully - and have a lot of experience to share. Today. John McCarthy joins us from the Cincinnati, Ohio, area to talk about the ministry he leads, purposepromise.org. John, you're only 45 years old. Why do you care what 65 plus age people do with their time? You're a long way from there.

John McCarthy: Yeah, Jim. Thanks for having me. It's been a highlighted component of what we do on a larger scale, which is helping people discern their vocation, really creating an intentional life plan that they can then integrate with their work plan and loving work, and through that work at the Purpose Promise that we've just had the joy to get to do with the Lord and with the community, I just, my eyes were open to the problem around, as you talked about, the shaping of retirement and how unbiblical it is and how really the body of Christ has a unique opportunity to lead well in the formation of discernment, in the formation of vocation in the last season of life. And I'm fired up about what God's doing and being a part of this.

Jim Brangenberg: So did you grow up in church?

John McCarthy: I did.

Jim Brangenberg: So when did you decide to become a follower of Jesus?

John McCarthy: Yeah, it was really in my early twenties. I had some great experiences throughout my teen years, leaning into retreats and had many kairos moments in those seasons where I got to experience Jesus just through what I'd now say is the starting of the formation of the contemplative muscle.

And that was awesome through my high school journey. Then I really met Jesus in understanding what a surrendered life would look like during my college years as I was then leading some of those retreats, ironically, is where I met him and developed a deeper passion for him.

Jim Brangenberg: That's fantastic. I love that. And I love the fact that even though you grew up in the church, it was still, you were in your twenties before you went all in and said, yeah, this is what I'm gonna do. So growing up though, weren't you always... the shift of the conversation on retirement, weren't you always told that the American dream of retirement was actually biblical?

Isn't that what you've been taught? You're only 45, but you've been listening to, you've been working for 25 years already. Is that your perspective?

John McCarthy: Early in my life, it was baked into what I was experiencing and I'm a big believer in the creation of retreats and helping people discern vocation and other things that really looking through our memories and really crafting our own unique beliefs on what we believe as opposed to adopting what the world will tell us. This is a continuation, I believe, the reality of Romans 12:2, you know that we're not conformed, but transformed by the renewal of our mind, that by testing we can discern what is perfect, pleasing, and acceptable in God's will.

And there's just so many things that we're taught mostly environmentally, Jim, about a lot of components of our life that we then craft our life towards. But I don't think there's any bigger one than this misnomer that's not biblical at all around vocation being in three different chapters: our pre-work, preparation for vocation launching, and then our work in it, and then our retirement.

And it's just part of the American realities that we've created our education system up around and that many families actually drive towards. And now I can look back and say, wow, that conforming belief is driving so many people into a lackluster vocation when they're in their career and also a lackluster retirement.

Jim Brangenberg: And misery. I'm gonna say misery. I lived in Florida for 20 years. I've seen a lot of people who lived all their lives through their retirement years, and they get there and they're miserable because all of a sudden they have no meaning and purpose. So what is, without using big five syllable words, 'cause you've got a tendency for really fancy words- I love that. But just for the sake of your host being extremely simple, what do you feel is the actual biblical theology on retirement?

John McCarthy: Yeah, I'm gonna point to an early reference, maybe not a direct reference, but the reality of what we experience is when Israel is in its early ages, in the Old Testament, God's chosen people literally rise and fall based on the transfer of wisdom.

You can go back through the Old Testament, you can see where there was a good king that set up a successor and transferred wisdom, then we saw Israel thrive. And then on the other side of it, we would see that when there was a poor king, Israel would just go down in the dumps and really have a hard season.

And so that, that model of transfer of wisdom is so key, so catalytic. And you know what we don't see if we believe that the last season of our life is about sitting on a beach somewhere? Wisdom transfer. And God's graced us with these gifts to grace the body, right? To, to build up the fellow believer.

And I believe that the conforming view of retirement is nowhere near what God says, which is great pleasure, and that is about transfer of wisdom. And we know that obviously wisdom is richest in those latter days of life.

Jim Brangenberg: And why is that? Why is wisdom richer in our latter days of life?

John McCarthy: I love teaching this in earlier generations because we live in the age of information, Jim. It's wild, but today, statistics would tell us today, wherever you're listening to this, today, you will take in more information than somebody that lived and was born in the 1920s would take in in their whole life. Crazy.

So we have all this information coming at us, but we're losing the muscle memory of taking information and criticizing it, being able to think through information to take it to knowledge, and then taking knowledge and saying, where does that apply in my life? Or does that not apply to my life in making it wisdom?

And so it's the application of knowledge into life and experience that actually turns it into wisdom. Obviously the individuals that have had more experience in life have the more opportunity of taking knowledge into wisdom. That's the discernment process. So there's this great gift in your latter years of life and your latter years of what we call is "refirement" as opposed to retirement, of having a lot more wisdom just simply because of the reps you've had in life, right?

Jim Brangenberg: It just comes - you've experienced life, you've screwed up a lot. I say a lot of my wisdom comes from I screwed up. Hopefully a little bit of it came from me seeing other people screw up and learning from their mistakes, but most of the wisdom I've got is... yeah, been there, done that. I can write the book.

In fact, I have written a book and I'm glad you brought that up, John, because I wrote a book about retirement. And I'm not retired, but I wrote it alongside my father-in-law who at the time was 88 years old. He wrote his stories of living out his faith in retirement. I wanna tell everybody listening today for any donation made to iWork4Him, I'll give you a free copy of iRetire4Him and I'll sign it and we'll get it sent off to you. Go to iWork4Him.com. That's I work the number four him.com/donate. Make any kind of donation and we'll send you a copy of iRetire4Him.

Just put it in the notes when you make the donation, love to get a copy in your hands. I'd love to get you a set of copies for you to go through it in your small group or in your Sunday school class because in here, inside iRetire4Him, a ton of ideas on how you can practically live out your faith in retirement, whether you continue to work, go back to work, move intentionally into a neighborhood that isn't a retirement neighborhood. And I got a lot to say about that.

John, you know, there's a move across the country of people realizing that retiring and moving to Florida or Arizona or Texas is a lousy long-term solution because of all the drawbacks, like missing your family, being surrounded by a bunch of cranky old people who also lack purpose, and living in a homeowner's association, which is like purgatory on earth. What are you seeing out there in the ministry work that you're doing?

John McCarthy: Yeah, I think it's a reshaping of what wealth is and what wealth transfer is. We've heard this terminology of wealth transfer and wealth comes in a lot of different ways. First we obviously think about our daily bread, and I think interestingly enough, the Lord really addressed the different versions of wealth in his prayer that he teaches to his disciples, and that we now recite as the Lord's Prayer.

He talks about daily bread, but then he talks about motivation: lead us not into temptation, right? So what are we motivated to pass on? What is actually our motivation each and every day in retirement or in different seasons? Then he talks about relational wealth. The whole "our Father" Lord's Prayer is "our father," it's not "my father." And it's about community. It's about making sure that you're creating legacy in the most important relationships that you have.

And quite frankly, just moving off to Florida or Arizona, as you've mentioned, that doesn't necessarily always do it because it takes a lot of quality and quantity of investment of time in order to have relational impact and wealth. And then obviously the spiritual wealth component. And we know that because of what we believe in our worldview, but there's new habits and new rhythms that can be taken on in a season where you've got more time, maybe even a little bit more money, to be able to build into what the Lord's speaking into your life in order to "refire" well, and that kind of regrouping on what wealth is and thinking about wealth transfer, I think is a really good component of what a healthy "refire" can look like.

Jim Brangenberg: I just was having this thought and I just - is it any wonder in this country today, John, that our northern cities are struggling? When you look at the majority of cities in our country that are really struggling, they're struggling with all different kinds of things, that's where the most people have moved away from when they retired and moved to the south.

All of that aged wisdom leaving instead of people getting involved in the political process and helping improve the city they're living in, they're moving away and abandoning those northern cities. You could list 10 northern cities and go, wow, how many of the wisdom transfer of Christ followers to the South impacted each of those cities?

It'd be interesting to see in Detroit, Minneapolis, New York City, you just keep going and going. I understand. I grew up in Minneapolis. The weather's not great in the middle of January. It's just not a nice place to live, but it's an amazing place. But how can we fix that? John, you keep saying "refiring." What do you mean when you say people should be refiring not retiring? What do you mean?

John McCarthy: Yeah, as the Lord often does, when you're in one lane and you feel called into it, he often co-opts you and moves you into another lane. And that was the case for me, Jim, is I was really focused and really excited about answering the call to help people recraft how to intentionally look at work as a form of worship and discern vocation, finding careers that they love, finding jobs that they love. And we were going along doing that.

And I kinda created with a couple others this Purpose Promise, which is a retreat mechanism to help people really distill the most important components of their life on impact and then bake that into their vocational planning. We were certifying a number of guides on this process. It's a discipleship business. And a few of 'em were in this season of "refirement" as opposed to retirement. They were on mission, they were looking to transfer their wisdom, have legacy, and you'd leverage their gifts in new and fresh ways. So they were fired up about this process, but like three of 'em came to me in corresponding months and were like, you know what we need to do?

We need to create a retreat mechanism, a vocational discernment tool, for the age group that we're in. Because what happens is you go from your vocation identity into this retirement philosophy and you lose a lot of yourself. A lot of your identity that was baked in the previous season of vocation and work is now totally shifted. And they said, and these are highly aware, God-fearing, rooted Christians, they said it was a huge struggle. And so they prompted my heart on this and I started doing research and I couldn't believe, Jim, what I was finding out of what you document on, iRetire4Him so well, is that there's all this gray divorce.

'Cause all of a sudden you got a husband and a wife who don't know each other coming back together. They're trying to have purpose, but they don't even know how to find it. You've got all this mental health issue, depression, anxiety, 'cause of the identity loss. You've got all these real, real issues, health issues. And I had no idea. And I thought, man, what if the body of Christ could be a catalyst in this? And that's when we launched this "refirement" ministry.

Jim Brangenberg: And it's not, what if the body of Christ could help here? The body of Christ was designed to fix this stuff. The body of Christ was designed to impact culture. As believers, everything about us should be changing that, that sanctification process and everybody around us should be benefiting from our faith, whether they believe in Jesus or not. That's the kingdom of God. That's that fragrance from our lives that impacts other people.

And the decisions we make in retirement impact so many and I keep going back to I just hadn't even thought about the fact that our northern cities are struggling. But I also see that, when we move away - so my parents did it. I lived in Minnesota. My parents moved to Arizona when they retired, and for 28 years, I had interacted with my parents a week, a year. Because they were literally couple thousand miles away. How sad is that for the grandkids?

My nieces and nephews don't know their grandparents very well. My kids didn't know their grandparents very well, and now my parents are 91 and 92, and my parents don't know my kids very well. They don't know my grandkids very well because they moved away. But one thing I do know, John, is that our money matters and our money talks, and that's why when we buy our cell phone service, it shouldn't be with one of these name brand companies that are the big names, because their monies, their investment dollars that they put in are invested in things that are the opposite of what we talk about in following Jesus.

You need to find a cell phone carrier, John, that believes in Jesus, that actually wants to support faith, family, and freedom. Patriot Mobile would be a great place to do that, John McCarthy. patriotmobile.com/iWork4Him, they got all the same towers. They use all the same equipment, but when they make money, it goes to support faith, family, and freedom.

John, I can tell you this: there's a lot of peer pressure out there for people 55 plus. Literally every time you go into a room, they're going, Hey, when are you gonna retire? What are you gonna do when you retire? What are your retirement plans? How are things getting up? How do we get retirees or pre-retirees to fight back against the peer pressure, 'cause there's a lot of peer pressure.

We all thought peer pressure would end when we got outta high school, and honestly there was a lot less peer pressure in college, at least for me than there was in high school. But how do we eliminate the peer pressure of retiring and the constant thought of vacation for 30 years and retiring and shift it to what's your plan for living a life full of purpose and meaning?

John McCarthy: Yeah. I think this is a cliche answer, but it starts earlier on. We need to teach people that they are uniquely made by God for a unique purpose that doesn't have to look like their neighbor or the rest of the world. That's exactly what Romans 12:2 is talking about, but we live in this environment that's just like the Joneses. It is really pervasive and it's getting worse and worse every day because of social media realities. And this is the way to to reformat that, Jim, is by changing the conversation, so that people will say, you know what, I'd rather look like that, somebody that's on impact in every season of their career, right?

It's not like you just hit 55, 60, 65, and then you're thinking about impact. You should be thinking about that from day one when you start discerning vocation. And so my hope is that the Lord is really fueling a movement right now in the body of Christ that says, no, listen, your worth is in me, and your identity is unique, and when you call on me and when you learn how to hear my voice about how I uniquely made you and you walk in that place, you will not toil, and you will be provided for.

And that's been, I'm a student of that, Jim, I'm not just, I have not arrived at any destination and it's hard work, but it's beautiful work to be able to discern that with the Lord's voice. And my hope is the body can be catalytic and is just because of things we're doing like this today.

Jim Brangenberg: When you look at purposepromise.org and the mission of Purpose Promise, specifically with people 55 plus, what do you have for them specifically as you're developing your website, as you're, as this ministry is growing and expanding? If somebody's 55 plus, they're like, I wanna pursue meaning and purpose in my retirement years, when they go to purpose promise.org, what kinda resources are you gonna have out there for them?

John McCarthy: Yeah, ways for them to remap some of those norms that are so conforming. So most of these are packaged retreat mechanisms, usually with a low barrier to entry. A lot of people can't just go away for days, so they're mostly 30 to 45 minute per day retreat mechanisms that are best done with a certified guide, somebody that is living in that space that has learned the discipleship tools to walk with them.

The retreat mechanisms, there's not rocket science here, Jim. It's based on the theology of who God says we are, our unique identity and the psychology, which is very similar to what you'll get in therapy, it's cognitive behavioral therapy, right? It's based on: our memories create our beliefs, our beliefs create our thoughts and our feelings, and our thoughts and feelings become our attitudes and our behaviors and our decisions in life.

And so you mesh that with theology and the beauty of our mind and the way it actually operates in our cognition and then just reframe it, and look at the truth of what God says. Then what happens is habits come about, Jim. And that's the beauty of all of these retreat mechanisms is people develop new habits of looking at themselves, of looking at the world, of developing self-care, of, we call it refired with the spouse. How do I want to care for my spouse, if you're married? And really just create an intentional life plan and refirement that will guide your attitudes and beliefs and behaviors on how you actually spend it.

Jim Brangenberg: And you kept saying retreat and I'm thinking we get to go away, you're leading retreats. And you're like, you're talking a daily personal retreat, which is, it's great because getting away for weekend is tough at times. Plus it costs sometimes, can cost a lot of money. I love the fact that you're encouraging people to just get away a little bit every day and that's what your materials get.

I know that as this podcast comes out, you're continuing to refine things, but we encourage all of you to go out there and check out the website purposepromise.org and see the resources as they develop and get in touch with them, and maybe you could become one of those certified people to help others go through the same program.

Because if we're going to transform our country and change the way we think about retirement, that's the NLT version of Romans 12:2, it's gonna take a tidal wave of people from one coast to the next in order to be able to shift that thinking. So John McCarthy, thanks so much for appearing here on iRetire4Him, thanks so much for your work. I can't wait to interview you 20 years from now to figure out all the things you've learned between 45 and 65.

John McCarthy: Thank you, brother. I know I'll have more wisdom. And I'm excited about that day. But until then, I just really appreciate gleaning from great folks like you that are living it out.

Jim Brangenberg: Wow. Thanks, John. You've been listening to iRetire4Him with your host, Jim Brangenberg. In this retirement phase of life, I want my life to be full of meaning and purpose, so I say iRetire4Him.