Are They Resting on Their Oars?

Among its ministers the church numbers a group of problem preachers, those middle-aged and older men who are just biding their time until they can draw retirement checks from Pension Boards and Social Security. Meantime they contribute little to local congregations and to the overall work of the church.

Perhaps the church can learn from large secular corporations. Listen to Mr. Johnston, for example, the personnel vice-president of a corporation as he talks to Mr. Hill, consultant from an outside management firm: “Here’s my problem. We have four division managers—all from 50 to 57 years of age—who are one level below vice-presidential rank. Top management has decided these men aren’t qualified to handle vice-presidential assignments, so they won’t be promoted.”

“Perhaps,” Mr. Johnston continued, “it’s significant that the men themselves seem to have reached the same decision. On the way up to their present positions they were good performers. Until recently, they were effective division managers. But now they have begun to coast. We’ll have to make other promotions around these men. In doing this we anticipate some trouble and friction. We also see problems in letting these division managers stay just to coast along eight or more years to retirement. We don’t want to discharge them, because each man has given the company some 30 years of loyal and effective service. What can we do?”

“What do you pay these men?” Hill asked.

“An average of $25,000 a year.”

“Then if they stay with you until retirement, the company actually faces a bill of at least a million dollars for what you fear will be increasingly unsatisfactory performance.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” said Johnston, “but you’re right. And when you nail the figure down this way, the prospect is very disturbing.”

Every corporation head has several managers or even vice-presidents who present a similar problem. Every company of medium or larger size has its share of older executives who seem to have exhausted their potential. They have stopped growing. They are just resting on their oars, and waiting for retirement.

Likewise, every bishop, synod president, or executive secretary knows ministers who have sloughed off in the work both in local congregations and in the wider outreach of the church. While their congregations may meet benevolence goals, these men no longer manifest any buoyancy in their work for the Lord.

The problem is widespread and serious at a time when shortage of pastors is a critical threat to successful church work. Yet it has not received adequate attention. Most of the interest in developing and assisting pastors has centered on recently ordained men or on those assigned to mission churches. This concentration of attention on younger men is understandable, of course, in the effort to discover particularly promising ministers early in their careers. Enthusiasm for developing capable young pastors, however, should not blind the church to the tragic waste of experience and maturity that comes from allowing older men to just drift out their remaining years.

Besides this waste of valuable talent, moreover, the church faces an even greater danger. Everyone knows that usually the most powerful and potentially most constructive influence on a congregation is its pastor. A minister who has stopped growing is not likely to inspire his people very much, either personally or through his sermons. A corrosive weakening of the spirit of the people may penetrate the congregation. No congregation is so strong that it can afford to accept stultifying influences for even a few years.

What’S The Answer?

Those church executives who have begun to recognize the problem in its full dimensions have also begun to explore ways of meeting it. From their experience, as well as from research in the dynamics of human performance, some tentative answers are emerging.

The first point to remember, of course, is that one may be wrong in concluding that a pastor has reached his top potential. After marking a rise for many years, a pastor’s curve of development may level out for various reasons. He may be bored by lack of challenge. He may be resentful over policies of church advancement. He may be disturbed over his own aging. He may not properly appreciate his great value to the congregation as a prime influence for its constructive growth.

Thus an older pastor may allow himself to barely hold his own or even to deteriorate at a time when, with proper incentives and opportunities, he could still show further and important growth. And even if he seems to have reached his peak of pastoral effectiveness, he surely need not decline from that level.

The problem is to find the causes for apparent cessation of growth, and then to find the incentives that will release unused abilities. Solving the problem is well worth the effort on the part of church executives, for it can help the present older pastors, and also prevent younger men from developing troubles later on.

Discovering and developing superior pastoral talent in young ministers is neither easy, nor necessarily always successful. Mature pastors who have reached a plateau, on the evidence of previous performance, at least show above-average creativity, ability, and initiative. Their accumulated experience should not be wasted. The time spent refreshing older pastors will yield at least as good a return as time spent in training younger but untried men.

What is known about an older person’s capacity for development? Psychologists would probably say, “Not much.” But adding the tentative thinking of psychologists with the observations of executives in industry may still provide valuable help.

Psychology Of Pastoral Achievement

In younger pastors, the desire to achieve—for Christ, for the church, and for themselves—is a powerful motivation. This desire also reveals personal needs and wants and family responsibilities. The passage of time lessens those considerations. Pastors have realized at least some of their objectives, discharged some of their family commitments, and have come to accept their limitations or lack of personal capabilities. Some limitations they ascribe to misfortune. Psychologists tell us that when achievement falls short of aspiration people are likely to adjust their goals downward.

As one 59-year-old rector put it: “When I was a young man in the church, I had it firmly fixed in my mind that I was going to be a bishop. Well, you learn as you grow older. Somewhere along the line, I began to recognize that only one man could be bishop in our diocese at a time. Many outstanding men do not get to that level. I learned some other things, too, some about the church and some about myself. I discovered that it was not only ability that got you to a bishopric, but circumstances had a great deal to do with it—for instance, the circumstance that consists in being at the right place at the right time and properly visible.

“I also discovered that you pay a high price for advancement to the top. You take on tremendous responsibilities. You work under heavy tension. You are called upon to sacrifice your cherished family life to your work. You see little of your wife and children and have little energy left for them when you do see them.

“I also learned that there are other things in life besides position—things that I value highly, such as being with the children as they grow up. I do not know exactly when it happened, but along through the years, somewhere, I lost sight of the bishopric. I made a kind of easy agreement with myself to settle for the church where I was and still am. Even though I’m now more than satisfied with this parish, I surely do not have to be ashamed of my achievement.”

This is a good statement of what the psychologist means by “downward adjustment of the level of aspiration.” And as this rector expressed it, such adjustment often results from combining a clearer view of the facts with alternative goals.

Lessening of physical vigor may also contribute directly or indirectly to a weakened drive for achievement. For one thing the aging process often dictates a slower pace of work. Or a lower energy level may make it easier for a pastor to prefer less demanding objectives. Or the same aging process may see a man, in the interests of security, replace some of his risk-seeking and risk-taking attitudes with those that show greater conformity to usual procedures. Young pastors are eager to establish a reputation; older men show concern over losing it.

Along with the downward adjustment to objectives, ministers sometimes develop a sour attitude toward the church’s treatment of the pastor. One pastor near retirement said, for example, “I’m glad that I’m at the end of my ministry, instead of the beginning, in these days of instability, lack of respect for the ministry, and change.” Indeed, while this approach was realistic, it was also somewhat cynical.

Many church executives would have to echo what one pastor expressed: “You have to get used to some pretty inequitable treatment in the church. Even outstanding accomplishment in a congregation is not rewarded and recognized as it should be. The church lets you sit where you are while the fellow with connections, influence, and the right background gets the opportunities for the outstanding call.”

These foregoing observations give us clues for remedial action. For one thing, if a man’s personal and pastoral growth is to continue, the diminishing drive for achievement must be replaced by some other positive motivation. This substitute motivation must be one that fully recognizes an individual’s changing life circumstances and the attitudes that grow therefrom. Moreover, to be fully effective, this fresh motivation must relate to actual performance and must not issue from mere policy statements and exhortation.

A business organization was planning a comprehensive internal development program for a group of managers immediately below the vice-presidential level. Some doubt was expressed about the value or wisdom of permitting older managers to participate. In confidential interviews, some of these older men had already shown skepticism about the development program and little interest in participating. After considerable delay, the decision to participate was left to each man.

Only a few older executives elected to attend the first sessions. No pressure was applied to have them change their minds. As time passed and increasing numbers of managers took part in the course and reported favorably on their experiences, attendance by the older managers began to pick up. In the end, practically every one of the older managers had chosen to attend the course, even men within two or three years of retirement age. With rare exceptions, the reaction of the older executives was positive, often enthusiastic.

One man told his boss, “This is the finest thing that the company has ever done for its managers. I didn’t want to attend the course. I arrived with a chip on my shoulder. I really volunteered to go just so that I could criticize the show. But by the time I finished the three weeks, I was ready to tell anybody in my position that if he did not attend, he was missing the greatest experience of his life in this organization. I already see a dozen ways in which I can improve my influence on the fellows that I supervise and help them to build their abilities for the future. My only regret is that this didn’t happen to me 20 years ago.”

Another man said, “I have four years to go to retirement. My mind was fixed on that target and I was simply resting on my oars. Now I see at least three major problems that I want to tackle that will result in a big improvement in the performance of my department. What I’m worried about now is that the time left to me is so short that I don’t see how I can carry out what I want to do.”

Some of the younger managers in attendance had comments like this: “One of the real smart things done by those who organize this conference was to let the old boys attend. We young fellows have learned a lot from them. And many of us have solid proof that the company recognizes that even a man who isn’t going any higher and in nearing retirement has a lot to contribute and is worth investing in.”

These examples from business management suggest that certainly part of the secret for sustaining the spirit and drive of older pastors is found in how the church treats them. If a pastor always has before him a well-defined picture of his importance to the congregation, to the church-at-large, and in the end to the Lord himself; if he is aware that the church values these contributions, he will make renewed personal efforts to maintain continuing personal development. Church groups that do more than merely talk about the problem can allay the often erroneous impression of older pastors that their congregations have lost interest in them.

Even a new board or committee assignment may reactivate a pastor who is succumbing to the sporific effects of a too familiar parish routine.

Older pastors need to realize, and be assured that they are the single most powerful influence on their congregations, that their people look to them for constructive leadership. Beyond this, pastors need specific proof that their contribution is essential for the continuing health of the local congregation and for the church-at-large. This can come, at least in part, by entrusting older pastors with an active role in the church’s teaching program. While younger pastors may make better leaders in certain phases of activity such as summer camps, here, too, pastors have much to contribute of maturity and understanding.

The upshot of our discussion is simple and direct. Too many churches are guilty of bypassing the valuable resources represented by older pastors. This waste of talent and experience is not only unnecessary, but it may be eliminated with great benefit both to the Lord’s church and to his kingdom.

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