On a flight not long ago, I sat next to a mom with a young son, a little seat-kicker named Bobby. It was clear that I was not going to get much work done, so I introduced myself to both of them, and she prodded the little tow-head to greet me. Which he did: "Gee, mister, you're old!"
Yes, I thought, and if you keep talking to people this way, you're not going to have that problem.
A few months after that, I was with a group of my old college buddies. We get together for a long weekend every year. Most of us are pastors so it's also a chance to talk shop and swap dreams and hurts. Each year we try to have one unusual experience, and that year we all took surfing lessons at Cowell's Beach in Santa Cruz. I still think of us as just a few years out of college, adults in the prime of manhood still mastering our crafts. But I got another glimpse of reality when one surfing instructor muttered under his breath to the other one: "I guess it's AARP day at the beach today."
Yes, I thought, but I guess it's not "Big Tip day" at the beach today.
All of that to say I suddenly find myself in a season that can be described as middle-aged only if I'm planning on living to be 110.
I find myself thinking—with a consistency and a sense of conviction—about the next generation of pastors and church leaders like I never have before.
Many people have noted that there is a "brain drain" of the brightest and best of Christian young people. A decreasing number of them are entering church ministry.
A historian friend, Jim Singleton, expressed the situation recently in stark terms. Around 1950, 10 percent of all Phi Beta Kappa college graduates became ordained clergy. Today, it's less than one tenth of one percent.
It's important to note that being a pastor is no holier than any other career (except maybe NFL replacement referee). But where spiritual communities are thriving, the opportunity to lead them tends to be highly prized. This is decreasingly the case.
There was a time when pastors were often recognized in their surrounding communities for their education and spiritual influence. Newspapers would sometimes print Sunday's sermon. That is no longer the case.
This loss of status may not be altogether bad. Being a pastor shouldn't be pursued because it's high status work. God does not require educational credentials or high IQ's to carry out the work of the kingdom. The New Testament records Jesus' followers being "ordinary, unschooled men." However, if the church becomes the kind of movement that people do not want to lead because it ceases to be a vital force of good, we have a legitimate leadership crisis. And we see signs of that on many fronts.
Writer David Briggs noted that the percentage of people in congregations led by someone age 50 or younger declined from 49 percent in 1998 to 42 percent in 2007, what researchers for the National Congregations Study called "a remarkable change in only nine years."
The clergy age gap is particularly noticeable in mainline churches. In that same span of time, the average age of clergy in white, mainline Protestant denominations increased from 48 to 57, the congregations study found.
The United Methodist Church has over 16,000 clergy, but fewer than 1,000 are under 35. They are not the only such group. At current rates mainline churches are going to quit requiring an M.Div. and start mandating botox. Seminaries overall are experiencing decreasing enrollment and increasing financial problems.
It's not just mainline denominations facing a recruiting crisis. Many high-visibility churches are asking related questions.
At the Willow Creek Leadership Summit this past August, Bill Hybels spoke candidly and movingly about agreeing with the elders on a time frame around his own pastorate and retirement. The Crystal Cathedral has faced difficult succession challenges. A culture that changes with increased velocity has spawned churches that change with increased velocity, which has intensified the need for new leaders who can launch vital new churches as well as new leaders who can transition long-standing churches.
What's worse is that if church leaders age, churches age. The study noted above found that in the nine-year span, congregations went from having 25 percent of their attenders 60 and over to 30 percent of attenders 60 and over. The graying of the ministry means the graying of the church.
While Proverbs says that gray hair is a crown of righteousness (and I am as in favor of that verse as any in the Bible!), the Bible is also full of young leaders who cannot wait to do wonderful things for God.
Pastor/author Adam Hamilton asks, "How do we recruit people who could go to law school or medical school but see church as the best place to make positive differences?"
What are the critical dynamics needed to raise up a new generation of great church leaders?
Ask
In his landmark study of social capital, Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam wrote that the number one reason people give when asked why they volunteer is: "Somebody asked me." And the number one reason non-volunteers give when asked why they didn't volunteer is: "Nobody asked me."
When my group of friends were in college, we were all deeply impacted by a red-headed professor of Greek named Jerry Hawthorne. He taught us, laughed with us, ate donuts with us, and told us jokes. (He was a terrible joke-teller, inevitably cracking himself up way before the punch line, which he would inevitably stumble over, and then whack in the ribs whoever sat next to him in an effort to induce laughter. We adored him, but we tried not to sit next to him.)
Dr. Hawthorne was one of those people with whom you were reflexively ashamed of doing less than your best. He was humble to the point of insecurity, and yet he challenged us to our core.
I can remember numerous times when we sat around the table at the student union and he would point that long bony finger at us—"I know you could enter into professions where you might make a lot of money and receive much prestige. But I think some of you should become pastors. You ought to hone your mind, and develop your gifts, and devote your life to helping lead and shepherd the church."
Then I left the Midwest where I grew up and went to Fuller Seminary in California where I got an M.Div. and a degree in clinical psychology. I expected that I would go into clinical work. But I turned out to be a terrible therapist. That's when Dr. Hawthorne's words continued to resonate at a deep level in my soul. I'm not sure I would have pursued the ministry track if he hadn't planted that seed when I was in college.
His words came back to me recently when I was talking to a young woman who had graduated from a wonderful college and was wondering what to do with her life. I told her this story and that she too ought to consider if her own greatest contributions might happen in the church.
As I talked with her, I realized in a fresh way how deeply grateful I am for my own calling. It was spiritually generative to now pass on the torch that had been passed on to me. I realized how often I am in a position to invite or challenge young people to pursue this line of work. It struck me that—just as we often talk about having an elevator speech to lay out the vision of our churches and organizations—it is wise to have an elevator speech to describe for a young person the vision of devoting their life to the church.
Model
People don't randomly seek out vocational paths that they think will lead to ministry. There are few higher motivators to pastoral life than seeing pastors who have a Teddy Roosevelt-like exuberance for the ultimate "bully pulpit." The best way to communicate great joy in pastoral work is to actually find great joy in pastoral work.
My second year in seminary I met a pastor named John F. Anderson, and he asked me to work at the church he led, just 10 hours a week. He was one of the most fun men I had ever met. ("The 'F' is for Frederick," he used to say, "As in Frederick the Great.") I didn't just work at the church he led; I got invited to be part of his life.
I vividly remember being at his home, and laughing so hard at some goofy aspect of life and ministry that I would literally be lying down on the floor in tears. (And this was before anyone had even heard of "the Toronto blessing.") It was his joy, more than anything, that drew me into the desire to share ministry. I had no idea I was meeting a man who would believe in me so much he would change my life.
John asked me to preach. When I got up to preach, five minutes into the sermon I fainted dead away. Boom. I just went down. I told John afterward, "I'm so sorry" (especially because it was a Baptist church not a charismatic church where you get credit for that sort of thing). "I'll understand if you don't have me preach again."
"Don't be ridiculous," he said. He had me preach again. I fainted the next time, too.
I was quite sure that would be the end of my preaching. But he said: "I'll have you preach again next week. I'll have you preach until you quit fainting or it kills you. I'm having the platform carpeted, just in case, but you can't quit."
I just got a letter from that church—asking if I'd preach for their 75th anniversary. John is long since retired. The current pastor wrote: "People here still remember you [I thought that was nice, until I read on]—as the fainting preacher."
So I'm going back there to preach—I'm planning on fainting again, just for old times' sake.
I am grateful beyond words for this life. For how God is with me in this life even though so often I fail him and am inadequate. I cannot imagine a more fulfilling life than serving the church.
Communicate The Main Want-To
Many studies around the clergy crisis focus on problems like low compensation. Pastoral salaries are an issue, but never the main issue. One of our young leaders just told our team this past week about his sense of God's calling on his life to launch a new, innovative, bivocational, social enterprise/local church on a model that would allow 50 percent of all giving to go beyond the church. It will mean significant sacrifice for him and his wife and their young family. Most of us around the circle were older than him; all of us were challenged by his willingness to risk and sacrifice.
Churches need to find ways to be generous, to help their pastors with education and other benefits. But the reality is that often churches in older denominations with the largest financial packages and benefits are the ones most suffering from a lack of young leadership. Young leaders do not mostly want security or safety. They want opportunity, relationship, freedom, and impact.
The best way to communicate the great joy in pastoral work is to actually find great joy in pastoral work.
One writer put it like this: "Young adults don't want to save the church. They want to save the world. If we can show them that they can save the world through the church, and pour in resources and efforts to all ages from babies to geezers, we can show that the church can be a vehicle through whom the world can be saved."
We will have to come out of denial and recognize the urgency of the need. One man I know was recruited to serve on a denominational committee as a representative for clergy under 30 years of age. He reminded the caller that he is over 30.
The response: "You're the closest we've got, so we are nominating you."
The first time I went to a conference at Willow Creek, long before I went to work there, I expected I would receive a few tips on church growth or program methods. What ambushed me was the intensity of the vision of the beauty and the vibrancy of the church.
Much of this began with the founding elder at the church, Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian. His passion for the well-being of the church, his vision of the church matched how C. S. Lewis described it, "spread out through all time and space, rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners."
This is a vision that has the power to waylay the human heart still, to cause us to ache and weep over how much the church matters, over what a noble thing it is to devote a life to the bride of Christ. But those of us who do that must remember to sing the song now and again for the next generation.
And what's needed is not merely a description of the significance of church leadership. Young leaders want and need a place at the table.
I know of one church where the leader (who is himself in his thirties) meets weekly with the church's key emerging leaders. They read books on church leadership to discuss, they engage in spiritual and theological reflection. But they don't stop there. He regularly offers them opportunities and assignments to do critical ministry projects and innovations. In some cases these have led to whole new ministry organizations being started, with young leaders at the helm. It happened because his leadership became a gateway and not a bottleneck.
Share Personal and Ministry Life
My wife is a master at blending the personal with the professional in a way that is both appropriate and life-giving and communicates a deep caring for the whole person. I remember a book title from a few years ago: Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti. I don't know how empirically true that is, but I do know that I can restrict communication to tasks or ideas while Nancy flows from ministry activity to relationship joy with lightning speed. It makes the people on her team feel cared for and developed.
One time a young single leader on her staff was having relationship/dating issues. So Nancy simply wrote a post-it note:
- Date
- Kiss
She took it in his office, put it on his desk, and said: "Just remember to keep these activities in this order." He is now happily married, so it worked out pretty well. He also has remained in close touch with Nancy even though separated by many miles; it's a kind of whole-life interest that makes a professional relationship transcend tasks and include the heart.
There is an energy that flows when multiple generations connect that is absent otherwise. One of our younger staffers had to perform a funeral service that involved a death that took place under horrific circumstances. One of our older staff members, who has performed hundreds of funerals under every condition imaginable, spent an hour walking his younger colleague through how he might conduct the funeral and counsel the family. After the funeral, the young staffer was pro-foundly grateful for the wisdom, and their collegial connection deepened.
There is an energy that flows when multiple generations connect that is absent otherwise.
When those of us who are older live with vibrant energy, it radiates an attraction to church life as a whole. This is not limited to pastors. We have a woman in our congregation named Florence who is 101 years old. She decided she needed a new challenge, so she went on Facebook. It turned out that out of the billion or so people on Facebook, Florence is the oldest. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg found out—invited Florence to go to Facebook's headquarters for a personal tour.
When the first TV interview went public, Florence got 7,000 friend requests in a single day. She said she's getting car-pel tunnel syndrome trying to respond to friend requests. The picture of her and Mark next to each other in the Facebook lobby is a little glimpse of the life that sparks when young and old are together.
Why It Matters
I sometimes reflect on two generational observations. One is that the church is always only one generation away from extinction. The other—which I only heard recently—is that grandchildren are the reward you get for not killing your own children when they were teenagers.
The juxtaposition of those two thoughts reflects both the urgency and the challenge of generational torch-passing. A refusal to let go of power, an inability to acknowledge aging, disappointment with how ministry has turned out, can all dilute the power of one generation to sound the trumpet for another.
But I shudder to wonder what my life would have looked like if no one had sounded that trumpet for me.
And as we get older, sounding that trumpet is one of the most important gifts we can give.
John Ortberg is pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in California and editor at large of Leadership Journal.
Copyright © 2013 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
