Ten Years from Now

A Letter to an Older Congregation as they Welcome a Younger Pastor

Hi everyone, 

Right now you are preparing to welcome your next pastor. That’s exciting for everyone. 

You’re in that in-between season for both of you—for the church and the incoming pastor--everyone’s getting ready. You may have high hopes for this new pastor coming in, or maybe some fears and concerns about what might or might not happen. I would imagine your next pastor does as well. Those concerns are probably valid, for everyone.

The story is told from the early years of the Alaska highway, with its long stretches of dirt roads and deep ruts, there was a sign that said “Pick your rut carefully—you will be in it for a long time.” I feel like that encouragement kind of fits your situation here today.

You as a congregation are at a turning point in your story as you welcome your new pastor. It’s natural to think in terms of right now as you anticipate the beginning of your pastor’s tenure here. Your first impressions about their sermons, or conversations you might have, even their family. 

As an interested outsider close to your church I look at this a little differently. Suppose your next pastor were to stay here for ten years. That’s not that long. We all know how fast a decade can go by. 

To put that in perspective, a decade from now I’ll be almost 73. You can do the math for your own current age. We’ll all be a ten years older, including your next pastor. The kids among us will have probably finished school and gone off to their adult lives, wherever that might be. And honestly, there will continue to be funerals in this church, so some of us may be enjoying God’s presence in a much better setting ten years from now.

The question I want to ask is this: what will your church be like a decade from now? Who will be available to serve in Council or make coffee or head up amazing Christmas events? I see committed members of all ages here right now. They will continue to be important. But still...each person can only do so much!

Now, I know, I know...something in you wants to say that that’s exactly why we need to find the right pastor, to attract young families who can be part of our future!

I’ll be honest with you: it’s not realistic to expect that your next pastor or any other super-pastor is going to somehow magically pull newcomers out of nowhere like rabbits out of a hat. Good preaching and compassionate pastoring are important—I’ve spent my life pouring my best into both—but the days when those things alone could carry a church into its future are behind us. Nowadays it takes a whole church to be a whole church.

So what does your church need right now? This could be a great season to clarify just what you actually stand for as a church. Who are you? Who has God called you to be? 

There are two sides to that question.

One side means that you will need to understand just what you won’t do, or what you won’t be in the next decade. What forms of compromise or watering-down will you refuse to do, no matter what happens? Some of you naturally tend toward those kinds of convictions. I want to tell you that your voice and those concerns are important. Hang on to that.

But the other side is just as important: what you will do, and what you must become. Sometimes churches can fall into the trap of standing against stuff but never getting around to working out just what they’re actually for. What does God want you as a congregation to actually do in the next decade? What would be faithful? What would be realistic? Some of you naturally tend toward those kinds of questions. I can’t stress enough how much your voice will also be needed in the mix with everyone else. Don’t back down!

There are a lot of churches that never get around to figuring out what God wants them to do in his world, they only put their energy into what they’re against. Somehow both of those perspectives need to show up. Especially over your next ten years.

After all, the Lord doesn’t guarantee churches an unlimited number of decades any more than he promises any of us an endless stream of birthdays.

What he does promise is that he will use us to build his kingdom for every single week that he has us—or our churches—alive and able to make a difference for him. It’s been said that we’re immortal until that day comes.

God won’t take me home to him until the roles that he has had for me in his world are done. And the same it true for you for your church. The day will come, sooner or perhaps later, when God will have completed the work he had for your church to do, and he will ask you to give it back to him. That will happen at some point to every congregation.

That day will come. But not today. Today is a very different day, with a different kind of challenge.

Your challenge for today is to join together to determine just what it is that God wants your congregation to do between today and the day when he does ask you to give it back to him. Who does he want you to reach? And what will you need to do to be able to somehow connect with them? Could it be that he has a divinely arranged hand-off the he has been arranging where you might become spiritual parents or grandparents for a new church that God will raise up at some point in the future? And if so, what might you do today to prepare for that?

I realize that this is hard stuff to think about. My point is not to bring gloom and doom about tomorrow, but to influence how you all look at today. Because here’s the thing: it’s not tomorrow. It’s today, and that means that you as a church family have about ten years to prepare wisely for a decade from now. And, Lord willing, even more time for the years that might follow after that.

And that is what you most need your next pastor to bring: not to answer the questions for you, but to help you all together determine just what it is that God has for your future. We call that a vision. Your pastor’s job is to help you to together discover just what God wants for you as long as he has your doors open.

Well, this is sobering stuff to think about. I’d love to spin and polish this for you: “Don’t worry...it’s all going to be easy…”. But I can’t do that.

What I can do is invite you to join me in turning to the One Thing that will never, ever change: our God. The Psalms are great for that. Look, for example, at the reality check we find in Psalm 46.

God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
    and the mountains quake with their surging.

It can be daunting to peer into a constantly-changing future where it can seem like everything is quaking and surging. It can change everything to face that future while looking beyond it at a never-changing God.

Bonus feature: Psalm 46 finishes with a succinct reminder of what we can do when the pressures of change start to get to us. Verse 10 puts it well:   “Be still, and know that I am God…”

Maybe today’s a good day to simply do that: to be still, and know that he is God.

Today is a good day for that. And I’m pretty sure tomorrow will be, too.