Precious Friends:
Greetings! We want to remind you that Christian Concourse prints and distributes two large-print “hymn booklets” designed for use by the elderly and infirm, especially those in long-term care settings. Titled, Favorite Hymns of Grace and Hymns of Our Redeemer, they are 5 1/2″ by 8 1/2″ lightweight, large print, paperback booklets. Both include the words to different sets of 27 old-time favorite hymns. Each one includes a summary of the Gospel message and 3 pages of favorite, large-print scriptures. Every song has a relevant passage of scripture included at the bottom of the page. To provide accompaniment for all the hymns, we have produced an instrumental and a vocal CD. Also, on our website, you can listen to and download “.MP3” music files for both hymn booklets. Most of the packages that we send out, go at the request of volunteers who do nursing home ministry and activity directors (or other staff) of care centers who contact us by email, phone or letter.
These ministry tools are NOT FOR SALE! Our rule of thumb is that we will give the facilities as many as they need as often as they need them as long as we are able. The aim in the production and distribution of all of our materials is for the Christian spiritual benefit of the elderly and infirm. We are inviting you, our friends and supporters to help us put these resources in their hands. Let your church family and the staff of your local nursing homes know about us. Again, as our available means allow, we will send them at no charge via U.S. Mail.
As we print, collate, staple, fold, trim, count, pack and mail each of these little booklets, we do so with prayer motivated by compassion for the residents that the volunteers and facility staff on the front line minister to. We pray God’s blessing and the anointing of the Holy Spirit on their labor for Him.
Dear friend, don’t think you cannot make much difference for Christ in the lives of needy seniors! In a passage in the nineteenth century English novel, Middlemarch, by George Eliot, it is said that the effect one of the characters of the story had on those around her was incalculably wide reaching. Then the author goes on to say that “the good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts.” And, that things are not so bad for any of us as they might have been “owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” As we ponder the weight of these statements, we do well to think of all those who we have never met, will never know their names, who stack the fruit so neat at the super market, who wire the stoplights that save our lives, who assemble so carefully our favorite shoes made from Vietnam, who pray every night for people they only met in passing. Think about it…the list goes on and on…but God knows.
We have seen this reality played out over and over in nursing home ministry: a stranger who has taken it upon themselves to regularly visit some of the most ill in a local nursing home; a staff member who doesn’t need the money, but faithfully clocks in every day out of love and compassion for others; a resident in a nursing home who daily pushes her walker up and down the hall quietly, silently praying for each resident in each room and each staff member tending them; the volunteer who can’t sing or preach but wouldn’t miss calling a bingo game with patience and godly grace. We may not be heroes in others’ eyes, but we can place our little gifts in the hands of a big God. By our faithfulness in the small things that Jesus gives us the ability and opportunity to do, He can use them to impact the eternal destiny of people who will never know our name this side of Heaven!
So, thank you for your encouragement to this little ministry and thank you for your faithfulness to the Lord Jesus in doing what you can do! It all adds up in Glory!
“There is a lad here, who has five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?” John 6:9
Sincerely,
