Only 1 in 7 Senior Pastors Is Under 40
“As clergy live longer and stay in ministry longer, the average age of Protestant senior pastors has risen to 54—a decade older than 25 years before, when the average age was 44.”
It’s almost like the Bible calls them “episcopos” or “elder”. Which is a facetious way of saying that as long as we have a structure in place where men are being adequately discipled so they can assume these positions, I’m not going to be terribly worked up about the fact that our elders are, well, our elders.
The article does, though, illustrate a number of our disfunctions as fundagelicals. I’ve seen inadequate retirement planning keep guys in the pulpit long after there are clear signs of dementia, and I’ve seen other guys (for the same reasons really) hold on to the pulpit when they should have been developing the gifts of younger men. It can be brutal on a church. So the issue in my view is not whether the elder is elder than others, but rather whether the elder is functioning as an elder and is making disciples capable of becoming….elders.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
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