Senior Adult Ministries

Join with others to explore your creativity, challenge your mind, and extend your capacity to care. Gain support for the journey ahead with other like minded persons. Meet new friends and explore new territories of the soul. Help us care for those who are frail and learn how to ask and receive help for yourself when you need it. Celebrate your whole life in this community!

Older persons are diverse and resilient and fascinating. We'd love for you to join us as we explore our maturity and deepen our faith together.

Thursday Fellowship Program
Thursday, 11 AM - 1:30 PM
The Thursday Fellowship Program has operated continuously for 31 years, and serves frail older adults who need a consistent, caring community with a shared lunch, entertainment, light exercise, music and special activities. We are operated by members of LOPC who care about seniors. Help plan and deliver programs, setup and clean up, and prepare the meals. Help recruit participation by LOPC members and residents living in local assisted living facilities. As Sylvia reminds us "God always takes time to come here on Thursdays." 

First Friday Forum
First Fridays at 1 PM
The Forum offers nationally prominent speakers on the first Friday of each month January through June. This is a very popular series and fills the room so come early for parking and a good seat.

Friendship Travel
Bus tours provide day trips to local places of interest, with historical, natural, artistic and spiritual significance. 

Widow/Widower Grief Recovery
This is a 10-week, closed group session using a national model which offers a structured approach for persons needing to work through their experiences of loss of a spouse, within a safe, healing environment.  

Tai Chi
Classes are led by a trained Tai Chi practitioner who was born in China and trained by a Chinese master here in the United States. Classes always begin with a Qui Gong warm up which helps students focus and breathe correctly. Tai Chi emphasizes concentration, correct breathing, balance, stretching, and serenity, and offers many health benefits. Many students attend regularly, but the instructor invites everyone to come and observe and join the class on a drop in basis as well.

Classes are available Mondays from 10 – 11 a.m. in Fellowship Hall.   Join us for this popular individualized practice. It’s OK to just show up!

Rossmoor Parishes
Operational since the 1990s, the Rossmoor Parish Structure nurtures LOPC members who live in the Rossmoor community and benefit from quarterly telephone contacts.  This structure may identify need for transportation or other interventions and offers members a way to care for one another.

The parishes sponsor social events such as luncheons and dinners for members. Get involved if you are a Rossmoor member.

Noteables
First established in 1991, the Noteables is a singing group of about 40 members. They perform often, especially during the holiday season, in a variety of venues, including at skilled nursing facilities, assisted living facilities, at Rossmoor events, and at the Lafayette Orinda Presbyterian Church’s Senior Center program where they are popular regulars. The group also is available to sing for memorial services. 

Chaplaincy
The Chaplain provides visitation in hospitals and sub-acute facilities, in assisted living, and to those who are homebound. The Chaplain is a member of the LOPC’s Congregational Care, working with the pastors, congregational care support staff, deacons, and the Senior Care Coordinator.  The Chaplain is active both within the Rossmoor community and the congregation as a whole.

If you know someone who needs chaplaincy services and/or visits, please contact the church office at  (925) 283-8722 .

Senior Care Coordination
The Senior Care Coordinator is available to meet with individuals or family members to help sort through the often difficult issues associated with aging, including finding appropriate home care or out of home resources, completing long term care planning, finding support for family caregivers, and helping families come to agreement on the various options.  

Guided Autobiography Project
This project was created to assist volunteers to act as guides for others who wish to tell their life's stories. Volunteers are taught basic guided listening skills and interviews are recorded. Interviews are reproduced on CDs, lightly edited and presented to the interviewee to give to the family. The project helps interviewees tell the stories of their lives, remember formative relationships, recall important milestones and explore the value of their own unique histories.

Targeted Community Partnerships
Senior Adult Ministries have partnered with several local community based organization whose activities area aligned with our overall mission.  John Muir's Caring Hands assigns trained volunteers to support one homebound senior over time. Lafayette's Spirit Van provides transportation to doctor appointments and the grocery store. The Alzheimer's Association of the East Bay provides education and support for caregivers.

For information about any of the above programs, please contact Barbara Whittingham.