Caring for the Elderly & Shut-Ins

In this episode hosts David Nakhla and deacon Scott Pearce talk to Rev. Richard Shaw & Rev. Don Buchanan, two seasoned pastors who have spent much of their ministry serving the elderly and shut-ins. Rick and Don share best practices for visiting, helpful hints and their years of experience with the elderly.

Co-hosting this episode is Scott Pearce, deacon at Church of the Covenant in Hackettstown. Scott is the son of OPC pastor Rev. Ron Pearce. He is a lifelong member of Church of the Covenant OPC in Hackettstown (where his dad recently retired after serving as pastor for 40 years and the only church he has ever known.) Scott has lived, moved, and otherwise had his being in northwestern New Jersey his whole life. Scott was ordained as a deacon November 2016 (five years ago and serves with four other deacons.

Rev. Richard Shaw was born in Flint, Michigan, but has moved around all his life from the time he was eleven years old, due to family situations. He has been married to Lois for 46 years now and has four boys, and nine grandchildren. Richard was raised in Independent Baptist churches until he attended seminary at Biblical in Hatfield, PA. He pastored OP churches in Bridgewater, South Dakota, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Abilene, Texas, and Roswell, New Mexico. In 2004, he returned to Pennsylvania to be near his wife's elderly parents and became a chaplain with ACTS Retirement-Life Communities, Inc. and served as a chaplain at Spring House Estates for twelve years until he retired in 2016. He and his wife are members at First OPC in Perkasie where Richard is on the Session with Pastor MacLaren and when called upon he teaches Adult Sunday School, preaches occasionally (at both the Perkasie church and at other venues), and do pastoral visitation. 

Rev. Donald Buchanan is a retired minister of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He was born in Shelby, North Carolina.  He is a graduate of King University in Bristol, Tennessee (1966), and Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia (1969).  Don and his wife Anne have four adult children and 19 grandchildren. He pastored churches in Pulaski, VA, Sunnyvale, CA and La Mirada, CA, and labored as an OPC foreign missionary in Egypt and Cyprus).  He also served as General Secretary of the Committee on Foreign Missions (1983-1990).  He retired in 2012 but has worked since 2013 with Westminster (CA) OPC in their ministry to a local senior care facility. 

Referenced in this episode: 

• James 1:27
• Matthew 25:40
• Wrinkled But Not Ruined by Dr. Jay Adams

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