A few years ago, I was midway through the candidacy process for a staff position at a bustling megachurch here in the South. As is standard with these processes, my weekend was packed with a series of formal and informal meetings, allowing me to meet a wide swath of the community in a short amount of time; pastoral staff, lay leaders, and pewsitters.
On my schedule that Saturday morning was a meeting with the Elder Board of the church. Many churches have such bodies, with various denominations and individual communities fleshing out their exact composition and function differently. I’d seen many configurations of such groups in my ministry travels.
This particular community’s Board of Elders consisted of the lead pastor and three other men, none of whom were much older than my then 44 years. They were all smart, well-read, highly functioning pastors who’d done a good deal of ministry—but were they fitting “elders” of a church of this size and influence? What did that title actually mean to them and to those in the community?
A very quick history: The Bible uses a form of the word elder frequently, both in the Old and New Testaments. The former examples tended to employ the term to reference the older members of one’s tribe, often consulted for their wisdom in matters concerning the people, while the latter began to refer more generally to those who oversaw leadership of specific spiritual communities and has since been appropriated in a variety of ways in practical church leadership.
Our more recent historical secular understanding of the word elder, speaks to age and wisdom; to someone whose life experience is respected and valued by its younger population as a source of knowledge.
My encounter with this megachurch’s Elder Board was telling, not just about this community but about the larger Church body. Its composition was indicative of something happening all too frequently in modern Christian leadership: we’re aging people out.
As churches have become slicker in their approach to ministry, and as their emphasis on brand strength, social media strategy, and big production values has ramped up, church staffs have continued to dramatically skew younger. In the Church, as in so many other spheres of life—youth rules. Whether it’s in prominent pastoral positions, behind the scenes governing bodies, or highly visible music ministries, there is less and less room for anyone with a little more wear on the tread or a bit more snow on the roof.
Ageism is trending in the Kingdom.
Sure, we might throw a bone to a few benevolent grandparent types to greet people at the door or hand out bulletins, but look closely at where the messages are crafted and delivered, the critical decisions made, the lion’s share of the responsibilities doled out—and you won’t find many people eligible for AARP. Modern Christian culture has placed an expiration date on its influencers.
It’s little wonder our modern church landscape is littered with stories of financial impropriety, ethical misconduct, and moral failure within its leadership. We’ve left a void of valuable real-time maturity. We’ve made middle age our most senior tier in Church leadership and expected that simply because they are charismatic, motivated, and talented, that pastors can overcome a lack of life experience and carry the tremendous weight of pastoral responsibility.
I served for a decade on the leadership team of a large church with a man named Brad. Brad was a good twenty years older than the rest of us. He was our Operations Manager (which, if older folks are employed by churches, is usually where they can be found—financial matters, facility oversight, etc.). Though his title didn’t account for it, Brad was a true pastor; a man whose love for God and for people was and is far greater than just the nuts and bolts of parking lot repairs and insurance claims. His presence on our team and in our lives so often was the wise voice and steady hand that we so needed as leaders and as human beings; continually offering us perspective and vision that we simply didn’t have access to. Brad shaped both our team and likewise our community into smarter, more thoughtful, more compassionate ones than they would have been without his daily influence.
The rather youthful, small (and homogenous) Elder Board of the church I visited that weekend wasn’t a bad group of guys. It was simply a very narrow expression of its people; one that made it prone to myopic thinking and vulnerable to in the face of great adversity. This church, like so many faith communities springing up every day in America, operated without seasoned leaders and without that specific wisdom that only comes with years. I’ve been doing this for nearly two decades and I still fill like a newbie. I relish the voices of those who seen more than I’ve seen, both in and out of the pulpit. I crave that perspective because it’s an unavoidable blind spot for me.
As our churches seek to court a younger demographic and to remain relevant in a youth-obsessed culture, we can’t afford to relegate our older folks simply to benign, insubstantial positions that give us a warm and fuzzy veneer of inclusion. Our desire for diversity in both leadership and in the seats, needs to extend to all areas of life (including our time logged on the planet).
We need to relentlessly pursue a truly multigenerational Church; one where those who’ve traveled more of the road are allowed to speak directly into its direction, and to do the work of ministering both visibly and behind the scenes.
The Church will be far better and wiser for it, and will better reflect all of God’s people.
We are after all, a community representing Eternity so age shouldn’t deter or intimidate us.
Yes, organized Christianity should greatly value and seek to speak through and to youth—but it needs to respect its elders too.
