Leader's Insight: A Halftime Calling for Ordinary Folks

From my journal: Last Saturday I led a memorial service for Grace Dorothy Busky, 95 and one-half years old, who had died peacefully in her sleep. When Grace was born, the automobile and the airplane were experiments. There was no air conditioning, cell phones, or refrigerators. She faced two world wars, an influenza epidemic, an economic depression and recovery, and the onset of the knowledge society with its computers, internet, and spam-spreaders.

Grace crossed the line into conscious faith in Jesus in her mid-sixties when members of her family and people from a local church told her the old, old story in such a way that she finally got it. No TV evangelist, no spiffy CD-rom—just some plain folk sharing faith. From that point forward she organized her life around the love of Jesus.

When Grace Busky was born, life expectancy in America hovered around forty years. During her years, this number doubled to about eighty thanks to medicine, nutrition, and technology.

Question: what does one do with the gift of all those extra years?

Some people seem to have the answer; most don’t. A few years back Bob Buford stirred the pot with his call to social entrepreneurship for second-half people. It’s an admirable idea, but it seems to be designed exclusively for the rich, many of whom live a “gaited” Christian life flying from conference to conference at five-star resorts where they can enjoy worship and inspiration from the best musicians and speakers that money can buy. Plain folks not invited.

We may need another kind of Bob Buford who talks to the millions of un-rich “Graces” who once did the grunt-work of the church but suddenly found themselves spectating on the sidelines because the church was on to other generations with new music, ideas about worship(?), and notions about the true nature of the Christian life.

What do the “Graces” have to offer? Every older person has a life story which, if one had the time and the curiosity, is worth hearing. People who proudly sport gray hair can usually recount experiences about suffering, initiating and building relationships, principles of work, and the landmarks and landmines of a lifelong spiritual journey. The lack of such storytelling may be among a church’s greatest losses.

Older people have time (which often does not have to be paid for), and more than a few of them are ready to accept serious positions of responsibility in the staff life of a church. Older people can become grandparent-types and offer a church’s children the benefits of multi-generational relationship, which is too often in short supply today. Older people can pray. Older people just have to be challenged, acknowledged, and appreciated.

Every small group should adopt one older person or couple as a core part of its life together. Every pastor should sit regularly with a small group of seniors and invite their comments and questions. Every Christian should acquire an older mentor.

What brings this all to mind? Grace’s memorial service and how much I enjoyed being a part of it along with the people who came to celebrate her life. All she did over the years was be a faithful mother to six, a faithful worshipper, a faithful human being. Charisma, Christianity Today, and Decision will never put her on their front covers, but heaven might.

Thanks to all who wrote about changing the name of a church: The batch of e-mails ranged from serious essays by thoughtful people who have clearly wrestled with this matter to those who thought I was foolish, wasting time, or asking the wrong question. Others felt that name issues are merely a marketing problem, while some thought it a grave theological exercise. In what I suppose was a put down, as if I’d asked an impertinent question, one person wrote, “It’s Jesus’ church; ask him.” Fact is that I did ask Jesus, and he said to invite your opinions (he wrote smiling).

One person reviewing a bevy of names recommended, “Don’t try Hope anything.” But another said that using the word hope would be the best of all possible choices. Sigh.

Oh, did I tell you about my dear friend who is pastor of the 18th Street Baptist Church (which a long time ago was re-located to 16th street)? Name changing apparently didn’t go over big when the move was made, and his is a rather progressive congregation.

It is clear that many, many people are ready for renamings, but there is no consensus as to how or why one goes about this. The last time this many people wrote to me about something was when I said something nice about John Kerry.

Summer reading: Having just finished my annual teaching experience (Gordon Conwell Seminary’s D.Min. program), I am reminded of two titles (among many) I asked my class to read. We found Philip Jenkins’s The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2003) a humbling experience. Some discovered that we American evangelical Christians are being left behind (there’s a new use for a famous book title) when it comes to growth in worldwide Christianity.

And Harvey Cox’s Fire from Heaven (Da Capo Press, 2001) informed us that most of the growth—momentum is of a Pentecostal flavor.

My daily reflections are being enhanced by Parker Palmer’s new book: A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life (Jossey-Bass, 2004). Palmer quotes the poet, Rumi, who said, “If you are here unfaithfully with us / you’re causing terrible damage.” To which I say, “Whoa!”

Downsizing, my summer theme: My wife, Gail, and I have taken a vow to downsize our lives.

A lot of books (some anyway), clothes, furniture, stuff (once deemed important) are going. Soon we will say good-bye to our comparatively spacious home and move into something smaller. Thomas Merton pinpoints my mood rather well:

Some of us need to Discover that we will not Begin to live more Fully until we have the Courage to do and see And taste and experience Much less than usual.

Pastor and author Gordon MacDonald is chair of World Relief and editor at large of Leadership.

To respond to this newsletter, write to Newsletter@LeadershipJournal.net.