Living Parables: Honoring Volunteers Who Serve Seniors

What a volunteer offers to seniors is not incidental; it is essential. Senior citizens bring with them decades of lived experience: stories of faith, resilience, joy, loss, leadership, and love.

Living Parables

The theme "Living Parables" captures the truth that the work as a volunteer deeply matters. God still teaches the world through lived lives, faithful presence, and ordinary obedience. When Jesus wanted people to understand the Kingdom of God, He did not begin with abstract theology or complex philosophy. He spoke about seeds scattered onto soil, lamps placed on stands, shepherds searching for sheep, fathers welcoming sons, neighbors caring for strangers. These stories revealed that God’s Kingdom is often found in everyday actions quietly offered in faith. Parables were invitations to see God at work in ordinary faithfulness. A living parable is not written on a page; it is written in a life. Volunteers who show up consistently, listen carefully, serve patiently, become living parables of God’s grace. Every act of kindness becomes a quiet sermon without words and brings the Kingdom closer to those we serve.

Serving Orphans and Widows

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27, NIV)

James wrote these words to believers who already knew the language of faith but needed reminders that faith must be lived, not merely confessed. James named two groups that represent vulnerability across the lifespan: orphans and widows. Together, they remind us that God’s concern stretches from the youngest lives to those nearing the sunset of life.  

 Orphans and widows have literal definitions, but they also can be interpreted in a broader context to mean people who are alone. While we traditionally think of an orphan as a child, could that term not be used for a senior with no family to care for them? And while we may picture a young woman as a widow, people do not stop being a widow just because they grow older.

Never Alone

In my third book, “Never Alone: The Power of Family to Inspire Hope,” I discuss Jesus’ healing of a paralyzed young man in Mark 2:1-5. You may remember that four men brought a paralyzed man to Jesus but were unable to get through the crowd of people gathered to hear Jesus preach. So, they climbed on top of the house where Jesus was, cut a hole in the roof, and lowered the paralyzed young man down on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Leonard Sweet, an American theologian, suggests the paralyzed young man had no hope for healing and no hope for a family to care for him. The young man was abandoned and alone until those men brought him to Jesus. Sweet invites us to imagine Jesus turning to the young man and speaking one word the young man never thought he would hear again: “son.”

Sweet asserts this is the only time Jesus referred to another man as his son in all of scripture. But that word helped heal the young man’s need for family and belonging just as Jesus healed his inability to walk. And Jesus told the young man to “Get up, take your mat and walk,” and the young man did, ready to go home.

So, who are the orphans and widows we care for? For me, orphans and widows mean the vulnerable, those who need family or community, and those who need to be reminded of God’s ever-present love for them. And, caring for the vulnerable is not an optional spiritual activity; it is central to what God calls authentic faith.

The Buckner Story

James 1:27 shaped the heart of Robert Cooke Buckner long before there were nonprofit organizations or social services. Our ministry and our mission began in 1879 when R.C. Buckner answered a calling to serve orphans in post-Civil War Texas by opening Buckner Orphans Home.

From the early years, that calling was never limited to children alone. By 1881, only two years after founding the orphanage, R.C. Buckner advocated for aging ministers and vulnerable seniors. Buckner also started a series of gatherings called Old Folk Meetings, which included sermons, singing, and fellowship. Thousands of elders attended the first gathering, and soon they were replicated across Texas. Then in 1905, the first senior cottages were built on the same grounds as the Buckner Orphans Home. Children and seniors shared space, life, and community. Seniors sat on their porches and watched children play outside their cottages. Children visited seniors, helped with small chores, and learned lessons no classroom could teach. This was not an operational convenience; it was a theological vision: God’s family spanning generations, living side by side.

That vision turned into Buckner's first senior living community in 1954 in Dallas. One year later, in 1955, we opened Baptist Haven in Houston, which would later become Parkway Place by Buckner. We called them senior living communities because we wanted to develop a place of fellowship, not just fellowship between seniors, rather fellowship across generations and across different backgrounds.

Volunteerism Throughout Our History

Buckner International and our ministries serving children and families and seniors have never been sustained by buildings, budgets, or programs alone. From the beginning of our story, volunteers carried the mission forward with faithfulness and sacrifice. An unpaid board of directors offered governance and vision when resources were scarce. And our board remains volunteer-based to this day. Churches organized meals, celebrations, and special gatherings beginning in 1882 to bring joy into everyday life of those we served.

During epidemics like measles and the Spanish flu, doctors volunteered their skills so vulnerable children could survive and heal. Seniors themselves became volunteers, giving what they could in service to others. Dr. J.M. Holden was one of the first residents to live in those cottages I mentioned that were built next to the orphanage. Not content to just rest during his last chapter of life, Dr. Holden volunteered as a dentist for the orphans for 15 years until his death. Across generations, volunteers have embodied the living parable that says faith works through love.

Power of Volunteerism Today

It wasn’t until 1967 that Buckner established our first official volunteer program. But since then, our Volunteer Engagement program has become a vital way for those of us in this room to serve as the hands and feet of Jesus together. Volunteerism provides tangible ways to bring the kingdom of God nearer to those we serve. And as volunteers, you help Buckner to carry out our four pillars: protect children, strengthen families, transform generations, and serve seniors. Your help allows us to provide a higher level of excellence when serving. Let us always remember Psalm 71:18 in our hearts when we serve seniors:

“Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation.” (Psalm 71:18, NIV)

Scripture never treats seniors as forgotten or finished. Seniors are bearers of testimony, wisdom, and spiritual memory. Volunteers help ensure that seniors are not isolated but honored, heard, and valued. Through presence and relationship, volunteers help pass faith from one generation to the next. Volunteers expand the meaning of community beyond staff schedules and formal programming. Acts of service turn apartments into homes and neighbors into family. A shared ministry between staff, chaplains, and volunteers reflects the incarnational way of Jesus, which is to live out faith through physical presence and acts of service.

Small Acts of Service

In Luke 20 and 21, Jesus confronts leaders who misuse their power at the expense of the vulnerable. Immediately afterward, He draws attention to a widow whose faithful offering of two small copper coins goes largely unnoticed. He compares her gift to all the riches given by wealthier visitors to the temple, and he tells his disciples that she put in more than all the others.

“All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” (Luke 21:4 NIV)

Jesus reminds us that God sees what others overlook. He honors faithfulness that is quiet, unseen, and freely given. Many acts of volunteer service may feel small or routine, but they are deeply seen by the heart of God. You serve without applause or recognition. You show up when convenience would say stay home. You offer time, patience, and compassion as acts of worship. Faith reminds us that ministry belongs to the whole people of God.

What you do as a servant is not helping someone else’s mission; it is participating in God’s ongoing work.