Updated status

 

This blog entry is the first time I’ve missed my Monday at noon posting deadline. I have a good excuse as my wife and I were delayed yesterday on our return flights from our week in Bolivia. It was a wonderful trip where we worked with the Amistad Mission orphanage in Cochabamba that we have supported for over 25 years. We were honored to be a part of a quinceañera for five of the 15-year-old girls. I’ve included a couple pictures—one of Susie and me with one of the girls at the festivities and one at the orphanage of us with one of the children.

Back to the book! I think the book should be about 150-200 pages, which works out to between 50,000 to 60,000 words. I've drafted 52 pages and 17,500 words which puts me at about 25% of the way through the first draft. That is a bit depressing, but I like knowing how much work is left to do. If I can average a chapter a month (10-12 pages) during school, I should be able to complete the first draft by next summer and a solid draft by the end of the summer. If I self-publish or find a publisher that will move quickly, I’m hoping I can have the book in print by the end of 2027. That is aggressive, but I’d rather push hard and have this resource available sooner rather than later. I obviously need your prayers!

Below is the current outline with the latest status of each chapter. I’ve added a few chapters based on your feedback and what I learned while writing. Specifically, I’ve added one chapter in the first section on our purpose (thanks, Tricia and Dan), one in the second section on changing plans, and two in the last section on people who don’t want to retire or may not be able to and on health. I also ended up moving the material from the chapter on the secular view of retirement into the first chapter on the basics of retirement as there was too much overlap to support two chapters. 

• Introduction (drafted: https://www.billcatchings.com/2026/07/draft-of-introduction.html 10 pages, 3,312 words)

The first section develops the biblical basis for what retirement should and should not look like.

1. Retirement basics (drafted: https://www.billcatchings.com/2026/08/draft-of-chapter-1-retirement-basics.html 9 pages, 3,107 words)
2. Biblical view of work (drafted: https://www.billcatchings.com/2026/07/chapter-on-biblical-view-of-work.html 10 pages 10 pages, 3,361 words)
3. Biblical view of retirement (drafted: https://www.billcatchings.com/2026/08/chapter-on-biblical-retirement.html 11 pages, 3,940 words)
4. Leisure: God’s Gift or Satan’s Snare (drafted: https://www.billcatchings.com/2026/06/draft-of-chapter-on-leisure.html 12 pages, 3,910 words)
5. Idleness (drafting) – The Bible may not have a lot to say directly about leisure, but it does have a lot to say about idleness and sloth. There is no sunset clause that says once you turn 65, idleness is fine. How does biblical idleness compare with rest and leisure? This chapter will heavily rely on Proverbs and a New Testament parable or two.
6. Purpose (researching) – Much of our view of retirement comes down to what we see as our purpose in life. As Christians, we need to see our purpose based on what the Bible says. We will first look at our general purpose, what is true for everyone. We then look at the specific purpose for each of us based on how God created us and the set of circumstances in which He placed us.

The second section presents a walkthrough what a spiritual plan for retirement might look like 

1. Spiritual plan – Most people have a financial plan for their retirement, even if that is only based on some online retirement calculators. Few Christians have a spiritual plan for their retirement. I know I did not but now wish I had. What might such a plan look like and how can you construct one? This chapter will attempt to answer those questions and lay the groundwork for the next four chapters.
2. Start with a sabbatical – Retirement, like going to college, is one of the few opportunities in our lives where we can start over. To best take advantage of this opportunity to restart our lives, I recommend starting retirement with a sabbatical. One of the best pieces of information that I was able to get from other Christian books on retirement was from Jeff Haanen’s well worth reading book, An Uncommon Guide to Retirement: Finding God’s Purpose for the Next Season of Life. Haanen recommends starting retirement with a sabbatical rather than diving straight into whatever might come next. This chapter expands on that idea with personal experiences of my own and others.
3. Time to spare (and share) – One of the biggest changes when we retire is that we have more time. We all have experienced taking some time off from work to get things done around the house and at the end of that time we are disappointed at how little we accomplished. Stuff, good and bad, fills the available time. We need to be purposeful about what we spend our time on. Certainly, some of the time can be spent on leisure. We can share some of the time with our family and friends. (Arguably, we would have been well served to have a better balance of such activities in our lives before we retired!) One use of that time we tend to overlook is service. We no longer have the excuse that we would help with some ministry if we had time.
4. Finances (researching) – This book is not about the financial side of preparing for retirement. There are already lots of such resources (such as from Dave Ramesy) that cover this topic well. However, dealing biblically with money once you retire is worth examining. Spending our savings rather than accumulating them is a real shift in our mindsets. Importantly, what should our giving look like? I’ve heard some people say things like since they have already tithed on the money they saved for retirement, they shouldn’t have to do so again. Or, that in retirement they no longer can afford to give to the church or charity. The chapter will also look at our inheritance. When is saving for retirement, delaying it, or growing our children’s inheritance just another way of “building bigger barns”? 
5. Changing our plans – All plans need to change and the Bible has some prominent verses about our plans. Such changes are particularly common as we age. What we are able or want to do will change over the years. What retirement looks like when we are 65 will probably very different than when we are 85 and certainly when we are 95. We are also much more likely to be faced with things like the death of a spouse, health problems, or a diminution in our capabilities.  

The third section discusses the issues that folks may encounter in their retirement.

1. When we don’t want to (or can’t) retire – Today, retirement in our sixties is the normal way of things. By the time you are in your sixties, if you haven’t retired or don’t have concrete plans, people wonder what is wrong with you. Family can begin to pressure you. It feels embarrassing to admit you enjoy working or that you can’t afford to stop. 
2. Changed identity (researching) – Our identity is commonly tied up in what we do. If you ask the typical person to list five words to describe themselves, most of them will be about what they do. Ten or twenty years ago, I would have a said (in no particular order) I was an entrepreneur, Christian, husband/father, technologist, and cyclist. I’m no longer an entrepreneur, I’m still good with technology though it is not the passion it once was, I’m more of a grandfather than father, and I don’t cycle nearly as much as I used to. Retirement and age have changed my identity. The key is to use our relationship with God rather than what we do to more clearly define our identities. As with much in this section, it’s best to start doing so before we retire.
3. Renegotiating marital roles – We tend to view retirement as just life without the hassle of a job. So, rather than going to work five (or more days a week), we are free to do whatever we want with that time. Especially in the case of a couple where one of the spouses did not both work full-time, that spouse typically dealt with running the house including making meals, etc. What does retirement look like for that spouse? Does that spouse continue doing all of those things while the retired spouse enjoys a life of leisure? Roles need to be re-examined when the other spouse retires. What biblical principles should we apply in those circumstances? Put another way, if the husband retires does he get to just hang out around the city gate while the wife continues to be the ideal Proverbs 31 wife?
4. When spouses retire at different times – Related to the previous chapter, but probably worth its own chapter, is how to deal with one spouse retiring significantly earlier than the other. How should roles and responsibilities reflect the reality of one half of the couple being retired? Yes, I know can sleep late, but is that a good idea if my wife needs to get up early to work?
5. Health: A crucial retirement resource (researching) – We often think of money as something we need to save up for our retirement and then carefully shepherd during retirement. Our health needs to be thought of similarly. Waiting until we retire to think about our health is like starting to save money for retirement in our sixties. That is better than never doing so, but it is very difficult to make up for that lost ground. If we are having trouble walking when we retire, that long delayed trip to Machu Picchu isn’t going to happen. We cannot prevent physical decline, but we can slow it. We need to be preparing as early as possible for what we want the last ten years of our lives to be like. It is almost impossible to think correctly about retirement, especially the latter stages, without taking our health into account.

Appendices (these are all in progress as I do my research)

• Additional books and resources – A list of books, websites, and other resources I found helpful (or not) with a short synopsis of each to help readers decide if they want to look at them.
• Bibliography