A challenge to Senior Pastors and Church Leaders
John Thill
The conventional wisdom of the modern day church says, “The future of the church rests with the young.” Driven by that assumption, many churches have chosen to focus their ministry on children, youth and young families. Sometimes this assumption translates into the neglect or the outright rejection of ministry to people who are considered ‘old.’ Some would go so far as to say that ministry to older people is wasted and the resources we have should be spent on the young.
Has God played a cruel hoax on us by promising that we would “live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you if we obey his commandments” (Exodus 20:12)? Yet when we arrive at a stage of life where this becomes a reality, some churches see such a person as excess baggage. Perhaps it should be required of every senior pastor to consider at what age a person will no longer remain a key ingredient of ministry, and to explain the reason for such a decision.
The practice of segmenting congregations into age groups and, in some settings, limiting ministry to the ‘young’ often misses the purpose of building the Family of God. “Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s Household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:14-15). It appears that Paul in I Tim. 5:1-16 is speaking directly to how we should live together inter-generationally.
The theme for some seems to be “ministry to the whole person for part of your life.” Yet God calls us for the whole of life. The amazing thing is that we all share one thing – we are all aging. To the person who fears aging, who does not want to be with older people, who wants to stay young and die quick, the plan and purposes of aging and the high calling of fulfilling Scripture is missed.
One generation will commend your works to another, they will tell of your mighty acts. Psalm 145:1-7
O my people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter hidden things, things from of old – what we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done…so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands. Psalm 78
Remember the days of old, consider the generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders, and they will explain to you. Deut 32:7
We are in danger of repeating in the 21st century what happened in Israel. “…Joshua died at the age of 110. After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals” (Judges 2:6-14).
As we grow older, Psalm 71:17-18 must be our prayer: “Since my youth, O God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me O God, so that I can rest in my retirement for I have done my part.” Of course, the verse reads differently “….till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come.” To those who are “old and gray” – to what degree is this our desire? To the leaders of the Church – to what degree do we encourage and enable this ministry among those who are “old?”
For the Church to ignore, devalue or reject the ‘old,’ the absence of the ‘elder’ will mean that we refuse God’s call to honor those who have walked before us. We will have removed God’s means for reminding and encouraging us to trust him as we remember who he is and what he has done. We will have set up a pattern of demeaning the “old” that affects us as we grow older. We will have put away the very means God designed for ministry to the young to be effective – “…ask your elders and they will explain to you.”
Leviticus 19:14 makes the point: “Do not curse the deaf man or put a stumbling block in front of the blind…” Why not? The deaf can’t hear or be effected by our curse. The blind can’t see to bring a charge against us. Why not have fun at his expense? Leviticus gives the answer, “…but fear your God. I am the Lord.” The young, especially in our culture, will not honor this command unless someone is there to teach them the “fear of the Lord.” What does it mean to fear the Lord? What are the results of fearing the Lord? What are the results of not fearing the Lord? Why is fearing the Lord the beginning of wisdom (Psa. 11:10)? “…ask your elders and they will explain to you.”
Of course, this presupposes that the ‘elder’ knows how to answer the question – therefore the need for ministry to the ‘elder.’ Equipping, encouraging and challenging them to “declare God’s power to the next generation.” It also demands the church have at its core an intergenerational, Biblical understanding of the family of God, and create in its ministry an intentional, effective and practical means to bring the generations together.
For those who would minister to and through ‘elders,’ we must bring the message of Exodus 9:16. “I have raised you up for this very purpose – that I might show my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” If the Church does not have vital, credible, and radiant ‘elders,’ we have little evidence that our faith really works or any hope of finishing well. So we must ask, “What are we doing ‘to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ’” (Eph. 4:12-13). Ministry to the ‘mature’ is not entertainment, maintenance or appeasement. It is rather valuing, challenging and equipping as stated in these passages of Scripture. We must call the older person to declare and validate the power, promise and purpose of God to the younger generation; to people worthy of Deuteronomy 32:7, and create the means to do so.
Within the Church that would minister to the young, where in fact the future of the Church does reside, there must be a clear understanding of God’s plan that enables the generations to be together; learning, serving, correcting and encouraging one another. If we do not heed the instructions of the verses above and so many others that say the same, we will continue to see the “snare of the culture” (Exodus 34, Romans 12) rob the young of the “truth of God” and the future of the Church will be lost (See Josh McDowell – “The Last Christian Generation” Green Key Books 2006).
Within the Church that would minister to the whole person, there must also be ministry for the whole of life. What is the basis to say we only minister to the young – for that matter when does a person cease being young? When does old begin? Should we honestly declare in our mission statement, printed materials, and church programs that when you reach a certain age, be it 40, 50, 60, 70+, you no longer have a place in the family of God as represented in our local body? The Biblical insanity of such a position is obvious but too often ignored in the attempt to do what we think will make our church we grow numerically.
Admittedly, some people 50+ are a better example of what not to be than a model of trusting God and living vibrantly in his truth. That means part of our ministry must be to challenge, equip and call our ‘elders’ to be what God intended them to be. We need to have people in the second half of life who understand what Moses said in Exodus 33:15: “Then Moses said to him (God), ‘If your Presence does not go with us do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?’” It is my prayer that when the ‘elders’ we minister to and through enter any aspect of the church people will say: “When those people enter it is like Jesus comes into the room.” Exodus 34:29 says it all: “His face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.”
The ‘elders’ of the Church, and I’m not simply referring to the ‘office’ of the Elder, should be the builders of “God confidence” among the rest of the church. “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Cor. 4:7-12). “You have been my hope, O Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth” (Psalm 71:5). It is the ‘elder’ who can declare the truths of Proverbs 3 in a world that puts confidence in all the wrong things. It is the ‘elder’ who can declare with unique credibility and power the truth of Proverbs 3: 25-26, “Have no fear of sudden disaster or the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the Lord will be your confidence;” and “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit” (Jer. 17:5-18).
For the Church not to nurture this kind of ministry, there is a lack of depth to its life, a missing testimony of longevity, and frankly, a betrayal that God cares about us at every stage of life. Unthinkingly, we say to every person, whatever their age, there will come a time when you are no longer important to God or us. It reveals an ignorance of God’s Word, an immature understanding of what the church was created to be, and a diminishing message to every member as we each grow older. It is like a husband saying to an aging wife, I don’t want you anymore; I want a new “young” wife. I think we can be grateful that God deals with us as His bride so differently than we often treat each other, especially as we age. I wonder what God will say to the Church if we declare by our actions, “Lord, when your bride got old, we divorced her, moved her to a place of dishonor, neglected her, and silenced her?”
Am I being too strong? No! There are many churches these days that have remarkable ministries to and through maturing adults. There are lots of models as to how to have a ministry like this, but if a church’s mind set is “the future of the church belongs to the young and therefore we do not have and sometimes don’t even want a ministry to people in the second half of life,” this incomplete understanding of the Church needs to be challenged. It will result in a ministry whose people will be “infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Eph. 4:14-16).
Evaluate the practice of your church and the world view from which it comes. Is it possible we have listened far more to the world than the Word, to the devil than the Deliverer, to our flesh than the Fresh Wind of the Spirit?
John Thill is Pastor to Mature Adults and Intergenerational Ministries at Rolling Hills Covenant Church.