Leader's Insight: Expanding Your Bandwidth

Soon, I will be 67. I once thought 67 to be old until I turned 65, at which point I recalibrated old to 90.

Unfortunately, the larger world hasn't followed my lead. Younger people often treat me as if I'm contributing to the overcrowding of the planet. Head-hunters, seeking organizational presidents, phone not to recruit me, but rather to seek prospects in their 30s and 40s. My grandchildren say they hope I don't die soon so we can have more fun together. They think I'm rich because I sometimes buy them things their parents won't.

An underlying assumption associated with the upper years is that we old guys are out of energy, out of ideas, out of innovative courage. And I can appreciate this generalization. I mean, I wouldn't have named a church Mosaic or written a book called The Gospel According to Tony Soprano or turned a sports arena into a "sanctuary." Apparently 67-year-olds do not do these things. OK, Oral Roberts might have, but he's the only one.

What is old anyway? I run more miles every day than almost any person I know. I think I work more hours each day, travel more, and undertake more projects than many I know of varying ages. So "old" is a disquieting term to me, and I own it only when it translates into senior discounts at the theater (before 5), social security checks, and first dibs at the buffet table.

I preach (twice) almost every Sunday to the same New England congregation, and I suppose that could quickly age a person (preaching to New Englanders, I mean). Actually, I enjoy this privilege very much. But then the other day, someone almost spoiled it for me when they told me that my bandwidth of preaching effectiveness and influence is only supposed to be with people who are ten years on either side of my age (do the math yourself!). Render judgment, oh God, on this researcher.

This bandwidth fallacy was heavy on my mind last week when the church secretary gave me a "connection card" from last week's offering. It came from a seven-year-old girl who sits through my sermons every week (long, long sermons). She is clearly gifted, mature beyond years, and probably pre-enrolled at both Harvard (not Wheaton) and my alma mater, the University of Colorado—hers to choose.

Her quick mind is revealed in her writing. "I really like you as a pastor," she wrote. "You're really good at it. You are really nice too. I like seeing you. I really like going to [this church]. You know a lot." There is almost no evidence that her mother coerced her to write this.

Oh, the insightfulness of this child.

Forgive me if I appear self-promoting. I've only just begun. Actually, I was tickled that a seven-year-old would write such, and I had to share my mirth with someone.

Quite honestly, I don't know that this child understood my sermon, but I'm betting that she's drawn to men/women of any age who try hard to be tender, who talk conversationally rather than in a shrill and arrogant manner, and who tell stories that illuminate Scriptural ideas and bounce the ideas up into today for implementation.

The Sunday morning the note was written, I was approached, after that sermon, by a 97-year-old man in our congregation who reminds me of Caleb in Joshua 14. He ticked off the points I'd just finished making and reflected on how they spoke to his spirit. And then he hugged me.

A note and a hug, all derived from one sermon. I believe the bandwidth (child to old man) was 90 years. Please pass this on to the researcher.

Books: One purchased. Have you picked up And the Shofar Blew (Tyndale, 2004), a novel by Francine Rivers? It's 400 pages of rather quick, worthwhile reading. A young man, impassioned to match his father's TV-evangelist accomplishments, builds a small, dying church to megachurch proportions. What happens to him, to his marriage, to his son, and to the people who were used (and I mean used) in the building of the empire is more than provocative. Rivers writes thoughtful novels. You get the feeling she reads other people's e-mail, but always with court approval.

Books: A gift. David Bentley Hart's The Doors of the Sea (Eerdmans, 2005): A thoughtful treatment of the problem of evil as seen in the light of the South Asian Tsunami. "Where was God in the Tsunami?" the subtitle asks. The answer, inside, forces the reader into a lot of disturbing thought.

A tad of culture:

Below the surface—stream, shallow and light
Of what we say we feel—below the stream
As light of what we think we feel—there flows
With noiseless current strong, obscure and deep
The central stream of what we are indeed.
(Matthew Arnold)

Watching TV: If you didn't see Oprah eviscerate the author of A Million Little Pieces and the head of Doubleday Publishing house, you missed one of television's greater moments. Find someone who Tivo'd it. Those who watched got a first-class tutorial on the difference between truth and truthiness (a new word destined to climb in everyday usage). They also saw how the self-deceived person spins words ("It's how I remember it."). It was Aaron to Moses revisited: "Well, we sort of threw this jewelry into the pot and then (golly, gee!) this golden calf came out." Truthiness is not new.

Author and pastor Gordon MacDonald is chair of World Relief and editor at large of Leadership.

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