iRetire4Him 167: Building a Movement of Purpose-Driven Retirees

Jim Brangenberg: Your retirement years can be 30 years filled with meaning and purpose as long as you connect your faith and your retirement days. Welcome to iRetire4Him. I'm your host, Jim Brangenberg. Please check us out online, iRetire4Him.com. That's iRetire, the number 4, Him.com.

Something has stirred up our guest today. He's on fire for helping retirees find meaning and purpose and kingdom impact in their retirement years. Barak Strickland has soft launched the Refire Nation in 2026 out of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Barak is passionate about helping retirees see the future that God has placed before them, and it doesn't involve full-time golf, tennis, pickleball, or sea shelling.

Barak Strickland is a man on a mission, and he's back on the show to tell us what God's been doing in his life the last several years. Barak Strickland, welcome back to iRetire4Him.

Barak Strickland: Thank you, Jim. It's great to be back with you.

Jim Brangenberg: All right, so you were on the show about four years ago. What's the most amazing thing you've learned about God in these last four years?

Barak Strickland: So God is faithful, and He allows transitions to teach. Four years ago, when I talked to you last, I was a year into retirement from a 40-year career with the Air Force. I was trying to figure out what was next. I think at that time I was driving disaster relief supplies. But in 2024, my wife Victoria and I sold our home, all our possessions.

She closed her PT practice, and our plan was to live a nomadic lifestyle so we could be near our son, daughter-in-law, and our new grandchild in Texas. A month after we got there in December of 2024, my son got orders. That happens in the military. And so we weren't gonna move to Southern California with them, and so we came back to Ohio.

But that's a neat thing because we're at a different church now. We're doing new things, and we wouldn't be doing that had we not had that transition.

Jim Brangenberg: So God used that transition to do something way beyond what you could have asked or imagined.

Barak Strickland: Absolutely.

Jim Brangenberg: Yeah, imagine that, huh? He says He would do that kind of stuff. All right, so God is moving you in a solid new direction. As He moved you back to Ohio, He's laid something on your heart. Tell us what He's laid on your heart.

Barak Strickland: So when I got back here to Ohio, the first Sunday we were here, we went to Fairhaven Church, and my fleece was that if I met Pastor Paul Clark that day, that was God's confirmation we should be there.

And so we knew Pastor Paul and his wife Kay from 30 years ago in another church. And so we come out of the 10:30 service, and there's Paul Clark coming down the hall, and so we reconnected. And so I met with their small group leadership there and started talking about what was going on, and I said, "I really have a heart for retirees. Is there anything going on here with retirees?" And the answer was, "You need to meet Pastor Kirk Lothander. He's doing small group studies on repurpose in retirement."

And so I took the fourth cohort from him that he did, and then I co-led the fifth cohort with him. And then that grew into a new 12-week Flourish study at Fairhaven, where we combine Fuller Seminary's Flourishing in the Third course with the Repurpose Promise course. And so again, 12 weeks in all. And so again, this wouldn't have happened if we had stayed here. We wouldn't be going to Fairhaven. And so a new church, new opportunity, and God just led me step by step.

Jim Brangenberg: So I wanna hear about those. So first you had these Flourish groups. All right, but then you combined what you were doing there with what Fuller's was working on, which I didn't even know about their Third groups till you mentioned it. I love Fuller Seminary. I love... they've got some phenomenal things are going on there.

Talk to me about these Flourish group. What was your purpose behind these Flourish groups?

Barak Strickland: So it's really the meshing of those two six weeks. Flourishing in the Third from Fuller really sets the scriptural and scientific rationale for why we should flourish. And so it's based on Psalm 92 "Shall flourish in their old age and bear fruit." And so that's a great precursor to the Repurpose Promise, which is how to do this, and you end up with a plan in how you're gonna relate to God, relate to other people, serve people. And so it's a great one-page plan for your retirement. So those two together make a great experience for people.

Jim Brangenberg: All right, so that's fantastic. Great. We've talked about it. Now I wanna hear what did you hear from the people that went. When you started taking, 'cause you've had this on your heart as we talked, like I said, four years ago. You knew that there was a desperate desire for meaning and purpose.

You run into all kinds of retirees just like I have that are struggling. They're like, "Okay, I'm tired of looking for seashells. I'm tired of playing pickleball." Although some people really get addicted to that, by the way. But I'm just tired- ... I'm tired of not having meaning and purpose. What did you see as the outcome of these groups that you did at your church, at Fairhaven Church?

Barak Strickland: So I've always said the goal is not numbers, right? It's so easy to default to numbers. Oh, we had 30, we had 50, we had 100.

Jim Brangenberg: No, I didn't ask you about numbers. I didn't ask - I wanna know about outcomes.

Barak Strickland: That's what I'm saying. I'm saying I'm after life change.

Jim Brangenberg: Okay.

Barak Strickland: And so we have testimonials out of this. One of the guys for Flourish emailed me very early on and said, "If I can help in any way, let me know." And so I asked him to help clean up every night after this. He wrote me a wonderful testimony that he and his wife heard about this. It's been a blessing to them. They've connected with other people.

They know what they're gonna do in their retirement now. And so it's taking them from wondering what they were gonna do, to all the possibilities for kingdom impact that they now have in front of them. And they're one of our most active couples. They're gonna host a supper circle for us in June, and just have really dived in.

Another testimonial, a guy said he's been struggling with saying yes too much to people. And so he did an inward look through the Flourish experience, and he said, "I realize what is truly important to me," so he can start saying no to lower priority things. And so that was his experience out of Flourish.

And then another lady she said, "My life was already full of meaning," right? But Flourish provided essential clarity on what she wants to do in addition to that, and she's changed a little bit of direction. And so she really recommends this experience, even for people that already have some meaning and purpose, but really let God speak to them and maybe change what they're doing a little bit.

So those are three examples that I have in writing from the Flourish experience.

Jim Brangenberg: Will you, how would you describe the general feeling, the general attitude? No, that's not the right word I'm looking for. You get a room full of people, you're starting to take them through this. When they started the process, describe their emotions, describe their feelings as they started the process.

Barak Strickland: So I think there was a lot of tentative, "What is this?" We had done the promotion and so people might be a little wary of, "What is it really? What am I getting into?" Some of them we heard stories that their wives made them come- ... because they didn't know what to do. And it, I think it ran the gamut from really curiosity and what is this really to boy, I really need this, or my wife really says I need this. And so I think those were the emotions that were most prevalent.

Jim Brangenberg: Did you sense that they were frustrated before they got started, that they were frustrated because they just didn't know what God's plan was for them in their retirement years?

Barak Strickland: Some of them, yes. I think that some of them didn't even understand, and that's the beauty of the Flourishing in the Third, is that there's a biblical basis for this, that we should flourish. And so some people came into the room not even understanding that they are to flourish, and so that was the reason for that initial few weeks of study, because, God does want us to flourish. God does want us to bear fruit in our old age.

Jim Brangenberg: Yeah, Jesus said he came to restore that which was lost, and, or those who were lost. It's actually both. And you have to ask that question what was lost? Who lost it? Where was it lost?" And that's all back to the garden. In the garden, they lost perfect physical flourishing, mental flourishing, and spiritual flourishing. Jesus came to restore all of that, and yet we keep telling people who are retiring to go ahead and sit on the couch or go play golf and live a life full of meaningless existence instead of, "Holy smokes, now you got all this experience. Why don't you start investing that in the next generations?"

When people finish the classes, the Flourishing in the Third, describe their feelings and emotions then.

Barak Strickland: So we had an evening of celebration at the end where we ran out of time on testimonials, but we had several people come up and just talk about the experience and what it meant to them.

We had invited the spouses and we also had ... I think this is even more important because what I was missing was what to do with who I am. So I knew who I was four years ago, but I didn't know where to plug in, and so this is what it's given me as a place to serve. And so we had next steps. We had a two-page handout for them, and they could fill out if they wanted to do one-on-one, if they wanted to serve in certain ways, if they wanted to co-facilitate a study in the future, if they wanted to mentor.

So two pages, and so we've, we got most of the attendees filled that out, and we're doing the follow-up on that. So I know your question was about feeling and testimony. I think it's the next step that's so important where people get plugged in. And again, that was what was missing for me, and that's what we're trying to provide people in Refire Nation.

Jim Brangenberg: So just get plugged in the local church or get plugged in the local community?

Barak Strickland: No, this is, this has gone beyond the church for me already. And we're saying either within the church, there is a pathway for that, or in the community.

Jim Brangenberg: Beautiful. We're gonna talk a lot more about Refire Nation here in just a second, but I wanna just introduce everybody to the iRetire4Him Summer Initiative.

I've never done this before. I don't know if I'll ever do it again, but I'm really passionate about this. I have found, working with retirees across the country, that most of us have forgotten how to be good neighbors, and most of us have not had our neighbors over for dinner. I have a lot of people say to me "I wanna try and figure out how to get my neighbors to come to church."

And I always say, "Why don't you just invite them over for dinner first?" On a national basis, we're challenging everybody listening to this podcast to invite, host a neighborhood picnic this summer. It's selfish. Go ahead, do it, because it's the best food in America will come to your table. You provide something. You provide the meat, or you provide the drinks or whatever it may be, and invite people to bring their favorite side dishes or salads or desserts. And invite your neighbors onto your land, onto your property. Your rain option would be host it inside or put it in your garage or something like that, but get your neighbors on your property, enjoy some time with your neighbors, love on your neighbors, and make sure they know that you love on them, and take a picture.

And send that picture to jim@iwork4him.com, and you're gonna get entered into a contest worth $100 gifts. $100 worth of gifts will be sent at the end of the year. I've already gotten one entry. Know anything about that entry? I already know about one entry, and it inspired me to make this a national contest.

And it really is, because having a summer initiative and having a summer picnic is the greatest thing you can ever do for your neighbor. Get to know your neighbors. Summer picnic by iRetire4Him. If you need more ideas, just reach out to me, jim@iwork4him.com, Jim at I WORK, the number 4, HIM.com. All right.

So Barak, I wanna know more. You've taken all this. You've taken the flourishing, the third, and you've now branded it Refire Nation. Tell me about the establishment of Refire Nation. How many people do you have involved in getting that all accomplished?

Barak Strickland: So we had, my wife Victoria and I had thought about this for several months, and we were just observing the need. This is a huge need in our country right now. And so we said, "Hey, let's just draw a line, pick a date, and do something." And so we soft launched Refire Nation on 1 April, no fooling, and so we had a group of 16 potential co-creators. So these were local people that we knew and virtual people. Some of them I had met through the Third Round Table in Omaha in March.

And so we just gathered, and I shared the vision, I gave a time for Q&A, and then we just prayed together about this. And so I had three questions for those people. I said, "Do you wanna be a part of this? If you do, how can you contribute? And if you do, what does this have to do or result in for this not to just be another thing on your calendar?"

And so we had a dozen of those people come back to us-

Jim Brangenberg: Wow ...

Barak Strickland: saying, yes, they wanna be a part of this, and so they're our co-creators. Some of them are very active in planning and executing, like I mentioned the couple that's hosting our supper circle in June. And then some are advisors people like Steve Harvey out of Kansas City and other people that are just advising us because they've been on a similar path with nonprofits before. And so that's how this thing started just almost two months ago now.

Jim Brangenberg: All right, so that's a lot of people just at initial launch, and I love the fact that you're interacting with people all across the country at the beginning. So what is the vision for Refire Nation?

Barak Strickland: So our vision is simple, but it's not easy. So we wanna change the narrative from retirement to refirement. What does that mean? Here's what God gave me when I went through the Repurpose Promise. I meet with Him every morning, and one morning he said, "Barak, what is the difference between the word retirement and the word refirement?" And I said, "One letter, the letter T or the letter F."

T stands for temporary, so that would be retirement is temporary. F stands for forevermore, that's eternal. And so we're trying to change the narrative for people to move from retirement, which is temporary, to refirement, which is eternal, for kingdom impact.

Jim Brangenberg: I love that. That's pretty good. You can tell that's from God, 'cause that's pretty cool.

All right, retirement is temporary, and refirement is final. It's forever. It's f- it, it's fun and foolhardy, and all kinds of great F words that you could put with it. It's full of meaning and purpose. All right, so you've launched this. It is soft launch on April 1st. No fooling, I like the way you put that in there.

By the way, I had a grandson on April 1st, so it's not a fooling day. All right, so you're gonna start a virtual study, you're gonna start doing this w- I don't know what you're gonna call it. Are you gonna call it Still Flourishing in the Third ? Or what are you gonna call your new virtual study?

Barak Strickland: So we actually kicked it off April 8th. It was Refire in Acts, and it was focused on building up to Pentecost, which is may 24th this year. And so we actually just finished that today, this morning, with three couples, and we just looked at Acts 1 and 2, specifically looking at Pentecost, the new community, which is called the early church, and so it fit perfectly with what we're experiencing in our own lives in this new ministry right now. We're forming a new community, and so we wanna base that on biblical principles, and so that's that's the first thing we did with Refire Nation.

Jim Brangenberg: All right, but the purpose, I'm always looking for keywords. What were you telling them about retirement in that study? You're studying the first chapter of A- or the second, first and second chapters of Acts. I've read those many times. You don't hear a lot about old people in there. You do hear about experienced people in there. But talk to me what'd you learn?

Barak Strickland: So this is more for helping my author friend to, to encourage him in the establishment of the new community, being Refire Nation. So that's kinda the, how it fits together. It wasn't specifically for retirement. It was just to encourage him to do a book study, to launch the nation, to launch the new community. And so we really focused in on those things that the men in the men's study that I do, the teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, the prayer. It's what are those foundational things that help this new biblical community form? And so that's the basis of Refire Nation - the community, the fellowship that we're building.

Jim Brangenberg: And so what's next? What is the next thing for Refire Nation?

Barak Strickland: So a couple things. We're gonna build this out over the summer, and then in September I've said we're already outside of the church. We have this 12-week flourish experience in two different courses at the University of Dayton starting September 1st. And then also I've been privileged to be asked to speak at the National Presbyterian Older Adult Ministry Network National Convention down in Knoxville, Tennessee in September also.

And God has led me person by person, step by step, opportunity by opportunity. So those are just a couple of the bigger things that we have this fall.

Jim Brangenberg: So people listening in, they're like, "I wanna know more. I wanna get ahold of Barak. I wanna find out how do I do what he's doing in my city. I wanna know." So we're encouraging everybody, go out to refirenation.com, or in case you can't type .com, you could do refirenation.org. Or if you really are bored, you could do retire- ... refirenation.net I think you said, right? So you got it all. You got it covered. When they get connected with you, what are you looking, what kind of people do you want to connect with you right now?

Barak Strickland: We want people that are interested in connection, in learning, and serving. And so those are the three things we're focused on, and so we wanna build this community to connect peers. We want to build learning opportunities such as the Flourish experience and other things we have in mind, and then also to get people plugged in to the serving opportunities as we already talked about in their church or in their community. And we believe those are the core pillars of what needs to happen.

Jim Brangenberg: Why is it so critical for retirees to find meaning and purpose in their days?

Barak Strickland: So I think as you point out almost every podcast, our cultural view here in the US of retirement is broken. And so we pick on golf, we pick on sitting on the beach, we pick on pickleball. And that stuff is fine, but I don't think that provides the sense of meaning and purpose. And I'm talking to the choir here. We aren't wired for perpetual leisure. We're wired for purpose. And so when retirees take their pension or get their gold watch or whatever and walk out the door, they often face the identity crisis, the isolation, the loss of meaning.

And so what we're saying is the refirement movement is important because it gives retirees permission and a roadmap to say, "My best years of contribution aren't behind me, they're now and ahead of me."

Jim Brangenberg: Yeah.

Barak Strickland: And Jim, as you always say, if you have a pulse, you have a purpose.

Jim Brangenberg: And if you're not dead, you're not done. That one gets people's attention a little bit more. So really, when you look at... you probably know a bunch of people older than you and I, people that are in their 70s or in their 80s. When you see those people, those, as I like to call them, chronologically superior folks, investing their lives into others, it really impacts the kingdom, doesn't it?

When you see them investing in their communities and in other families, it really starts to change things, doesn't it?

Barak Strickland: Yes. Yes, and the people that are doing that are some of the most vibrant people that I know, and that's... people ask me, "Is this a Christian organization?" And I said, it's based on Biblical principles, but we wanna be so attractive that the world and those retirees that aren't believers say, 'Wow, what do they have?'" And I want to be that, that fire on a hill, if you will, that people are drawn to.

Jim Brangenberg: Yeah. I agree. And I tell you, I, I lived in purgatory for 20 years in Florida in two different homeowners associations. That's why I call it purgatory on Earth. If you wanna see what I mean, get a copy of I Retire4Him the book.

But what I saw was so many people in those retirement communities so miserable 'cause they didn't have anything. Everything that had meant something to them, they gave up so they could go live in Florida in a purgatory kind of association where somebody's gonna rule their lives and tell them how they could cut their lawn, shovel their driveway.

They didn't have to do a lot of that in Florida. But I just I just saw so much unhappiness. And I think that what you're doing, Barak, with the Refire Nation is going to bring joy to people. I'm sure you're already seeing it. In those initial couples, did every, did you see a joy factor increase?

Barak Strickland: Absolutely, and they have purpose now. They're connecting with other people that are like-minded, and it doesn't get any better than that.

Jim Brangenberg: No. You're a retired military guy. I imagine you know a lot of other retired military guys. There's military guys who have served and served and served and served and served and served, and they retire having served, how many years did you serve in, you said Air Force? I can't remember if it was Air Force or-

Barak Strickland: Yeah. Total active duty and civil service was 40 years.

Jim Brangenberg: 40 years. And then those people go and retire and they have a great pension, great benefits. But how many of them are floundering because everything that meant something to them is now gone? How, what's your conversations like with them?

Barak Strickland: It's interesting because what's happening is those kind of people have skills, and so there are a lot of non-profits in our area that need those project management or those financial management or those kind of skills. And so we're seeing some of those connections being made where there's a need and then a perfect opportunity for the skills and talents of somebody to come in and help meet those needs. That's what it's all about.

Jim Brangenberg: Yeah. That's fantastic. All right, if you wanna get ahold of Barak, check him out online, refirenation.com. Refirenation.com. Barak, what do you think God has in store for you next?

Barak Strickland: I think that we're just gonna build this thing out. He's led me step by step, person by person, opportunity by opportunity so far, and I expect Him to continue to do that. This is His ministry, and so I just wanna follow His leading and develop this out as He leads.

Jim Brangenberg: I appreciate that, Barak. Thanks so much for being with us today on iRetire4Him. And before we go from iRetire4Him today, I wanna encourage everybody to check out Patriot Mobile, patriotmobile.com/iwork4him.

Right now, you're makin' a payment for a cellphone. Everybody listening to this show is doing that. What does your cellphone company do with their profits? Most major cellphone companies are supporting things that we are all against with their profits. They're supporting things that are against the family, against children, so many other things, pro-pornography.

Patriot Mobile is a company based on faith, family, and freedom with US-based customer service, and they use the same towers as everybody else. Martha and I have been using Patriot Mobile for a couple years. We never noticed a difference. I encourage you, go check out Patriot Mobile now, patriotmobile.com/iwork4him.

If you sign up for them, they'll bless us, but it'll also be a blessing to you and so many others because your money will now be going to invest in things that are kingdom-minded instead of things that fight the kingdom all day long. You've been listening to iRetire4Him. We all know that we need meaning and purpose in our lives, and it's all so that we can get to the end of the road and say, "You know what? I retire 4 Him."