Seven reasons why pastors can be reluctant to retire
Coming to the end of your career is tricky for anyone.
There’s a tendency to put off retirement as long as possible. This is especially true if we have enjoyed our jobs. Losing your life’s work is going to be like losing a loved one. It will be a bereavement. So we shy away from it. And the government, strapped for cash and trying to cope with the enormous baby-boomer cohort now moving into old age, is actually encouraging us to stay in work longer. As they enter their mid-60s, pastors can be reluctant to step down. This may lead to frustrations in a church eager to try something and someone new. So, one Sunday, a member’s voice might be heard quietly whispering to another church member: ‘Why doesn’t he just go?’ Friction and trouble are around the corner and it can all become a bit of a mess. I’m going to try to help you step into the pastor’s shoes for a moment. Here are seven reasons why a church leader might be reluctant to retire. is a sinful
1. Clinging to power. This reason. The man might have got so used to ‘being in charge’ (not a biblical way of viewing ministry, by the way) that he is addicted to it. Jesus warned his disciples not to find their joy primarily in their service, but rather in their salvation (Luke 10.20). However, these men have forgotten that. They hang on for dear life. When they eventually do resign they frequently go off in a sulk and become members of another church where they tend to cause trouble – criticising the young pastor there (who is, obviously, not as gifted as them). Now it is easy to caricature any reluctant ministerial retiree by ascribing to him this motive. But there are actually rather more virtuous arguments that can weigh with a man so that he stays on longer.
Practical reasons
Sometimes it comes down to simply being, for whatever reason, between a rock and a hard place.
2. Lack of younger men willing to take on the church. This pertains particularly to out-of-the-way churches and small congregations. The pastor would like to hang up his boots, but no one is willing to cross the white line onto the pitch in his place. My experience of young men training for the ministry is that, these days, they often have a long list of what they are looking for in a church before they will even consider it. The list usually includes the fact that they want to be part of a larger church, perhaps with a team ministry, and definitely with students. Sadly, there do not seem to be many seminary men on fire for the Lord and willing to go anywhere for him and take their family. It is all much more of a very careful calculation. So the pastor wants to step down, but no one will step up – so he feels he can’t just abandon his little flock.
3. Lack of provision. The old pastor and his wife have lived in the church manse. They have no home of their own and leaving the ministry will put them in a fix about housing. Further, the church has hardly provided a truly adequate pension (perhaps they wanted to, but could not). Understandably the couple hesitates over retiring. Others in the church may be urging them to ‘trust the Lord’! But it’s not they who face such an uncertain future.
Principled reasons
A pastor who takes the Bible seriously can look at the traditional approach to retirement found in conservative evangelical churches and scratch his head. It all seems so out of line with the New Testament’s teaching on the church and its leaders.
4. The traditional expectation in churches is that when a pastor retires he ought to move away, out of the area to leave the field clear for ‘the new man’. But how does that square with the church as the body of Christ? Does retirement mean that the body metaphor for a church no longer applies? The tradition seems more akin to ‘hiring and firing’ in business. Or how does it fit with the NT picture of the local church as ‘God’s family’ – made up of brothers and sisters? Do we send retiring members of the family into exile? And so a man may have a principled concern about simply perpetuating the traditional expectations.
5. It has often been pointed out that we can’t find the concept of retirement in Scripture in quite the way it is perceived by the contemporary church. The current idea is that youth is the future and so we want to invest in youth. There is, of course, some merit in that thought. But Scripture also teaches the value of experience and the wisdom of older age. Why didn’t God use Moses to lead Israel out of captivity in Egypt when he was 40? Why did he wait until he was 80? A pastor may not go along with the current ‘age-ism’ in evangelicalism. His ministry is still fruitful, so he stays at his post.
Personal reasons
We are all human beings with feelings. The emotional turbulence caused by laying down our career is huge. And how retirement from ministry is likely to touch his heart will affect a minister’s deliberations regarding his future.
6. The truth is that the evangelical church, by-and-large, does not know what to do with its retired pastors. Some churches don’t want them as active church members, coming along to church meetings and ‘sticking their noses in’. Others don’t want the former minister to have any kind of position in the church. They would be far happier if he left. They are only too glad when he’s out doing itinerant preaching. In effect it is the church saying to a gifted man: ‘We don’t need you’ (1 Corinthians 12.21). I know of one retired pastor in the West Country who has felt so rejected by the new leadership of the church he pastored and grew for over 30 years that he rarely, if ever, attends. It is simply too painful for him. You can understand that if an older pastor realizes that this is what awaits him when he retires, that he will think twice before biting the bullet. to move away on
7. Being expected retirement is pretty draconian. This is the town the pastor and his wife know. This is where their friends live. It might even also be the place where their children live. If the ministry has been for the long term, it is also asking the pastor and his wife to leave the congregation for which they have sacrificed the best years of their lives. It is asking them to leave the people they pray for every day and love. It is asking them to simply stop caring about those they have cared for, for years. Can that be right? Such thoughts might understandably cause a man to push the pause button on retirement. ‘If the majority of the church love me and I love them, then why am I walking away?’
Conclusion
All these considerations lead me to believe that retirement from local church pastoral ministry is something that evangelicalism needs to rethink biblically and honestly. Mishandled, servants of God can feel very mistreated. The often-mentioned ‘love of the church family’ sounds rather hollow and the Holy Spirit is grieved.
Outgoing and incoming pastors need to relate to each other as mutual supporters, not competitors. Don Carson may be right when he says that if a retiring minister stays in his congregation there should be a two-year moratorium on him saying anything publicly regarding the running of the church. But that needs to be handled in a kindly and brotherly way.
And perhaps we need to take heed of something I heard reported from a European Leaders Forum a few years ago. It was that pastors are most effective in their ministry between the ages of 65 and 75. Surely that can’t be right, can it? But that’s what the research said, it seems. Maybe the government’s concern for us to stay working for longer has its wisdom?
